Al-Vis w/ Spring Lovelle



This page showcases my work with Spring, AKA Spring Libutti, Spring Lovelle. We performed together for over 10 years, ending with a nasty splitup in 2007. Click here for a public statement about her recent actions against me- and pls enjoy the music!



   
         
Free Flowing      Let It Snow*  
Miracle   O Holy Night
  
Spring Of Joy    
Thank You   *For a great new version of this click here!!!
Just click to download the full, unedited versions of some of the recordings Spring Lovelle and I did together. Her website is SpringLovelle.com and you can email her here.

Transforming represents the culmination of several years of planning and achieving.

Spring had made quite a name for herself in NJ and on Florida's Fort Myers area, and had been trying without success to come up with a follow-up to her 1995 CD The Spring Thing.

The first attempt, With The Suns Love, fell a bit short, not because of the material but because she was having trouble programming the songs together into a coherent statement. She was undecided even on the statement she wanted to make. So the work would remain unfinished, with just a few of the cuts making it onto later works.

My Little Artist was a single coherent statement, but again her indecisiveness played a factor in its marketing. She wasn't sure that it was up to the quality of The Spring Thing, for one, and though the performances were top notch, it contained a few songs that had already been released, so she didn't consider it much of a step forwards.

So it was released, but withdrawn after a while due to these concerns.

By the time 2003-2004 came along Spring and I already had several studio sessions behind us, but nothing had been released. She met with me for some pre-planning sessions, where she laid out the concept: equal parts religious themed and pop. Stylistically it would be much more polished than The Spring Thing, with a real drummer (David Ross) brought in, and me on guitars and bass.

By this time I was using my Gibson ES 335 reissue, and I was eager to make use of its wide range of sounds, from the hot metal of its humbucking pickups to the full, clean sound of its semi-hollow body.

So we met over several sessions, some lasting as long as 7 or 8 hours as I remember. I would lay down the bass and whatever rhythms first, then finally the leads. Some of the leads took several takes, and I did have to punch in a few times (which means rolling back the tape to do a brief correction).

After that, David laid down his drums and Spring put in all of the vocals.

Although I played bass on nearly all of the songs, we discussed me doing leads on some of the others. I was against putting leads or guitar onto the other songs because I didn't think they needed them.

The CD was released in 2004, and Spring booked a show at the Unitarian Meetinghouse in Lincroft to debut it. I remember that show clearly, and even wrote about it on my web site, which was brand new at the time. She did a moving version of Bob Dylans "To Make You Feel My Love" at this show, which almost made it onto a later CD, another work that was never issued called Dancing On The Bridge.



- Free Flowing


The one song here that didn't have much of my involvement, but the bass is mine, and the arrangement is partly mine.

The original tracks for this went back several years, past With The Sun's Love , so when we did the Transforming sessions the only parts left for me to do was to add lead guitars and bass.

Spring suggested that we record a few takes of the leads, and then pick the best. But what ended up happening instead was the she kept all of the tracks, pretty much, and that is why there are multiple leads.

It was my suggestion to have the bass "walk" (go up and down the scale) during the chorus, and have it stick to the rhythm during the verse.

After I put my tracks down Spring recorded the backup and lead vocals. I have the original demo version, and the difference between it and this finished product is striking.

- Miracle

When we first went into pre-production on Transforming, Spring gave me several demos to listen to, many of which had a decidedly religious theme. Since she was relying more and more on her church performances to build her career on, this made sense.

When it came time to choose the final tracks for the CD, she decided to strike a balance between the secular and religious-themed works. There are a few other demos that didn't make it onto the CD, for example.

This is one of those with a religious theme, and the idea here was to add some forceful, crunching metal guitar to what was otherwise a texture mostly of synthesizers and percussion. We also decide to add some leads throughout, as accents, which you can hear in some of the stops.

The main guitar lead riff was composed by me, based on some notes Spring started humming to me as we were preparing to record. I took those notes and built pretty much all of my leads around them.

- Spring Of Joy

This is another song that had existed in demo form for several years before this version. I wrote all of the guitar parts (including the double-string intros and the middle lead) at the time of the 1999 Clearwater Festival. So when it came time to record it it was just a matter of putting down what I had been playing at the gigs.

In listening to this song and Miracle together you can probably see why I consider these as collaborations. I was NOT just playing guitar on these songs- my guitar parts we major add-ons to the songs.

There is a live version of this on my YouTube site, from the 2000 Clearwater Festival.

- Thank You

Spring never really seemed to like this song, but the band loved it, and we wanted to do it at the 2007 Clearwater Festival but she nixed it.

What I like about it is the simplicity of its message, and its catchy tune.

I had been learning a lot of Chet Atkins at the time, so the lead here is reminiscent of Chet's cross picking style, where the notes on the upper fret board are plucking in succession to go up and down the scale. It is played on her Martin acoustic.


Spring's Acoustic Christmas CD was next. She had already recorded a few Christmas songs, and some had even been released. We met in September of 2004 to record my contributions, O Holy Night and Let It Snow.

She originally had wanted it to be a larger project, but once again, indecision caused her to abort the remainder. For example, it was supposed to be called Spring's Christmas CD. She ended up calling it Spring's Acoustic Christmas CD because she didn't think she would put the other parts on it.

- O Holy Night

When Spring asked me what Christmas song I wanted to do with her, I suggested this song. It was also my idea to use open D tuning, to get that deep bass drone you hear.

Again, separate guitar parts were recorded but both were again kept, which is why there is that synchronization error between verses, where one of the guitar parts does the turnaround a bit later than the other.

- Let It Snow

My goal with this was to add to the playfulness of the song by giving the guitar parts a Les Paul-Mary Ford feel. The parts are double and even triple tracked.

I planned the middle solo out quite carefully, trying to build up tension by making it busier as it went along.

And that was Springs idea to do the two unison bends after the 2nd bridge ("All the way home we'll be warm".. twang! twang!).
Here are brand new YouTube versions of the "lost" Christmas Spring Libutti/Al-Vis songs:

     
     



Spring has removed all of my performances from her CDs, and has taken Transforming off of the market completely. You can contact her at her web site below to ask her why.

    
Click here for some clips of me with Spring Lovelle (she was know as Spring Libutti or just Spring back then) at the Clearwater Festival at Sandy Hook.
     
     

Spring's Web Site:

 http://SpringLovelle.Com                 


   
    Back to www.AlvisRocks.com