Album Liner Notes by Joe Brotherton
The Back Story to these recordings – I will try to be brief. Remember the pandemic? It sucked for all, but really for musicians. We had to cancel Doe Bay Fest 13. We decided artists and musicians needed a little extra help, so we started the Doe Bay Artist In Residence program (DBAIR). Many artists in residence ended up recording music during their Doe Bay residencies… in their cabins or in the Doe Bay Yoga Studio. I had long dreamed of building a recording studio at Doe Bay and was ready to move forward on that. (It would have been one of my notorious “Bad Ideas.”) Enter Kevin Colomby, an old friend from down the road who had also been a sound engineer for many large and small events at Doe Bay. Unknown to me, was that Kevin was a sound equipment design engineer for Burl Audio. Kevin had just completed construction of his recording studio, Hidden Valley, just down the street from Doe Bay. It took about one meeting for us to decide that the synergies were powerful and for us to form a joint venture. The plan was that we would invite a few of our Doe Bay Artists in Residence to record some music as part of their residency; no charge to the Artists… and see what happens.
Doe Bay’s Partnership with Hidden Valley Studios
Most everybody knows Doe Bay and the music scene. The biggest update for 2025 is the addition of a recording option as part of the DB-AIR experience. Rather than retell the recording story, CLICK HERE to fill in the blanks.
We continue to fine tune our artist residency program, DBAIR. It now includes writers, actors, painters and sculptors, but we started with musicians. In the first two years, dozens of songs were written and recorded at Doe Bay. But they were recorded in cabins (or the Doe Bay Yoga Studio). I decided that I should build a recording studio. (see previous newsletters for explanation of Joe’s good idea/bad idea conundrum.) That was a terrible idea that would likely have failed.
Fast forward to early August when my friend Kevin Colomby and I shook hands launching a collaboration between his studio (Hidden Valley (5 minutes from Doe Bay)) and the Doe Bay AIR program. We decided to do a pilot, but things happened incredibly fast because it worked SO well! Wait til you hear some of the recordings!
