“He says I’m telling you, I’m burning the river”
So They Say
Pete Francis
1. Burning The River
2. Father Rose
3. During The Storm
4. If I May
5. Train Window
6. I Don’t Wanna Fight
7. Auburndale
8. Carry You
9. Go Ridin’
10. So They Say
Year: 2001
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"So They Say is my first solo record. I recorded it in the Summer of 2000 with Jack Gauthier at Lakewest Recording Studio in Rhode Island. Lakewest is a cool studio. Totally unassuming - it could be mistaken for a military barracks. Inside those cinder block walls and windowless rooms is a magical temple of sound. Jack is the studio owner and musical guru. Many of the amazing blues recordings by Duke Robillard were done at Lakewest. He's recorded countless bands - Dispatch's Bang Bang and Four-Day Trials were recorded there. Jack recruited Marty Ballou on bass and Marty Richards on drums. They were a superlative rhythm section. I wanted this recording to be sparse like a John Lee Hooker album.
So many of the lyrics came out of my poetry notebooks. At the time, I was very influenced by the poetry of Seamus Heaney, Wallace Stevens, EE Cummings, William Carlos Williams, and Emily Dickinson to name a few.
To me, artists like Charles Mingus and Miles Davis captured the musical aura I felt most aligned with at the time. In many ways, I wanted the instrumentation to sound similar to a Rudy Van Gelder record - dry and pure- while my voice could be upfront in the mix playing the role of what a Coltrane horn might sound like. I was interested in my form of expressionism both lyrically and instrumentally.
I worked with artist William Quigley on the album art. Quigley painted a portrait of me for the cover. My brother, Eric Heimbold, took the photo out of the train window that is on the back of the album." – Pete Francis