Remember those days when we joined our pals for a night on the town and took those simpler, better times for granted?
With his band String Bone, Americana/Canadiana singer-songwriter Barry James Payne kicks off 2021 with a positive approach looking to the future. The song harkens back to easier times and continuing efforts toward better days ahead. ‘A Lot More Better’ has an upbeat country feel with a nod to early rock and roll and blues as listeners dance into a new and better year. With a ‘Tulsa Time’, ‘Mercury Blues’, Rodney Crowell vibe going on, this is Payne’s ode to what he hopes will be a much better year ahead.
The inspiration for “A Lot More Better” was sparked in 2017 at a favourite, local drinking hole, Foster’s Inn, a small pub in small-town Stratford, Ontario, Canada where Payne was having a drink with friends. The conversation turned to the National Hockey League playoffs. Knowing his friend’s favourite team had fallen behind, Payne in true friend-form, goaded him by asking how his Penguins were doing – to which his friend blurted out “they gotta do a lot more better!”. Friends laughed and Payne snickered knowingly, sneaking the lyrical nugget into his list of ideas. A few weeks later he wrote the main lyrics to the song, but never finished it until a writing session with Stratford, Ontario musician Jay Riehl in early November 2020.
Payne flipped through his notebook of lyrics at the session and laughed discovering the almost-finished lyrics from three years earlier. Riehl and Payne were in hysterics while crafting the song, which took shape in less than three hours. Guitarist Carey Blackwell joined in the fun, adding the classic rock and roll/blues sounds, and then it was off to Utopia Parkway Studios in Las Vegas and engineer George Leger III for mastering.
HAPPY NEW YEAR! We hope it will be…
A LOT MORE BETTER!