Mark Hannah has done everything from flying helicopters to building racing engines to rebuilding motorcycles. Mark is owner of Hannah Motor Sports in Muncie, Indiana with his shop in the back of his home. He works on Hogs in the day and plays music all night.
From Dane Clark:
This album project started with an excited phone call from Mark Hannah a year or so ago saying “It’s time for you to produce the blues project I’ve always wanted to do, so let’s get rolling!”. I had known Mark for a number of years and had produced a cool CD for him (Living In The Red) and almost enough tracks for another still unreleased project. He said he wanted his lifelong friend and musical sidekick, Carl Storie, to join him in a series of duets in the Sam and Dave vein, but more modern sounding. That was our template for this CD.
Mark and I picked almost 20 blues and rock tunes with a blues vibe to cover, and wrote 7 songs together. We cut 2 albums worth of material in 2 days at Mike Petrow’s studio in Indianapolis. The object of the exercise being, let’s not overthink anything, play by instinct, and go for tracks that feel natural and fun. After 2 days of recording 21 tracks were completed with only some keyboard overdubs left to do.
The band, myself on drums and percussion, Sandy Williams on guitars, Dave Roe on upright and electric bass and Troye Kinnett on keyboards had a blast playing these songs and to my ears it shows in the product. We completed Mark’s vocals at my home studio and a few weeks later Carl came into town and we recorded his vocals and harmonica.
To these ears the two of them together have that great “sandpaper and syrup” sound. Mark’s raw and raucous blues shouting is complemented perfectly with Carl’s smoother, mellower style.
I’m proud to be part of this project and I hope you all enjoy listening! (By the way, there’s another albums worth of gems in the can!)
Learn more about the collaboration between Carl Storie and Mark Hannah >>
Hannah and Storie: A generation of blues and rock