Cecil Ingram Bastardo sprinkles some magic dust over The Fulminators' version of "Train Leaves Here This Morning"

I know I’ve been MIA when it comes to the blog for most of this week, but I’ve been lost in music, caught in a trap, no turning back etc. (Waits for wild applause and cheering to die down, wipes tears from eyes, and, voice husky with emotion, somehow manages to carry on.) In other words, I’ve been having more fun than a barrel-load of monkeys, and then some.

Partly, this was brought on by the news that my occasional recording partner, Cecil Ingram Bastardo, was getting out of rehab (for the third time this year, by the way). I thought I’d better get back in the musical saddle and grab the opportunity to capture the old boy’s mercurial genius before his mind finally goes (or the long-suffering Raylene decides she’s had enough of the feckless sumbitch and blows his head off).

Anyhow, I suggested a few old numbers we could murder improve, and Cecil (or Gram, as he’s more commonly known) chose the great melancholic Gene Clark country classic, “Train Leaves Here This Morning”. The song first appeared on the 1968 album, The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark:

It was re-recorded for inclusion on Clark’s 1974 solo album, No Other, but, for some reason or other, that version (here) didn’t make the final cut. (The commercial failure of the album pretty much destroyed Clark, an unhappy bunny with a whole range of “issues”, including alcoholism and a chronic aversion of flying - ironic, given that he was a long-time member of The Byrds.)

The last number we recorded with Gram, "High Fashion Queen" (listen to it here) was an uptempo country number, so we decided to take a rockier, more beefed-up approach to this one. Gram did all the harmony singing, despite a cold coming on, and he used a top-of-the-range PRS to record his characteristically superb solo guitar and main rhythm guitar parts. (But he really had me drooling over his Gretsch White Falcon, which is quite possibly the most beautiful electric guitar ever made by anyone anywhere – with a tone to match.)

Anyhow, we hope you enjoy “Train Leaves Here This Morning” – we had a ball making it. And, honest, Raylene - the only "substance" Gram had all day was a lemsip! With any luck, what's left of his group, The Flying Bastardo Brothers, will be back in the recording studio before too long.