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For this week's Teddy Tuesday, I'm featuring the song "When You Run" from my Lucky No. 7 album.

Most recently, I learned that folks had this song blasting in their headphones while running the 2013 Chicago Marathon and Boston Marathon earlier in 2013. As a tribute to these fearless athletes and in honor of those lost and injured during the tragedy in Boston, I send this song out to all of the runners! I am awed and honored to be a part of the soundtrack of your running journey.

"When You Run" is a big soaring guitar song but I wrote it with a slower groove on piano.
I can honestly say I don't know what the chorus is about. It just came to me and I loved how it sounded and it's really fun to sing. So I figured it was a match and kept it. I get a lot of messages about the triumphant 2nd verse and that makes me proud. While writing the song, I felt changes coming on in the world and in my music and I wanted to address them with confidence.

The recording process of this song was so much fun. I tracked basics at my home studio and brought it to Mad Dog Studios in Burbank, CA where Dave Raven added his awesome drumming. Eric Corne was behind the board for that session. The maestro Carl Byron then recorded his amazing piano parts and some Hammond B-3 Organ at Mad Dog as well. I wanted Carl to balance out the space of my original piano idea with some busy beautiful arpeggio playing and as always, Carl delivered with style and grace. We then wandered over to Fonogenic studios where Ted Russell Kamp recorded the big pumping bass line. At my request, Ted picked on one of his Gibson Thunderbirds through his Fender Bassman Head and we put that through a funky vintage Silvertone cabinet laying about at Fonogenic. Rockin'! It was time to replace my original guitars with the "real guitars."

I recorded my guitar parts at Sixteen Tons studios in Nashville with Davey Rieley behind the board. I used two Gibson Les Pauls going into early 1960s Fender Bandmasters as well as a Marshall plexi. One take on each Les Paul and the bed of the song was complete. It was time to add some candy.

Gary Morse (of Brooks & Dunn/Dwight Yoakam/Dierks Bentley/Chris Isaak fame) came over to Sixteen Tons to record pedal steel. Gary is a master of this instrument and he was really excited to play on "When You Run." I find this hard to believe, but he told us this was the first big rock tune he had tracked on in a long long time. The flavor he added really helps the tune sparkle and soar.

It was now time for the lead guitar. I recorded a lead guitar part on the demo and was very confident in the melody and playing style of it but I wanted a different set of hands and another brain to play the part. My good friends Stonehoney (Shawn Davis, Phil Hurley, Nick Randolph, Dave Phenicie) were on tour in Chicago and we did a show or two together. While there, we had a wonderfully fun recording session at Chicago Recording Company where the guys sang backing vocals on a ton of my songs. It was a day of laughter and joy. As the session was wrapping up, I asked the amazing Phil Hurley if he'd like to try a guitar part on a song. He agreed but he didn't have his rig with him. Luckily, I had brought my 1962 Fender Bandmaster, a Vox AC-30 cabinet that Doug Pettibone had sent me and my trusty Mad Professor Little Green Wonder. Trouble was....we didn't have an electric guitar. Assistant engineer Jon Zaks (2012 Grammy Winner) came to the rescue since he had brought his Gibson Les Paul for another session later in the day. A quick tune up and Phil was off to the races. I played and hummed him the melody and off he went. It was really magical watching him play such an amazing lead guitar part on the song. There is really great video footage of this session that will be featured in an upcoming documentary.

I recorded my lead vocals at Sixteen Tons through the "Faith Hill" Telefunken ELAM-251 on loan from Blackbird Studios in Nashville. Mark Cantwil recorded backing vocals at CRC in Chicago. I tried an experiment that I had always heard about on some of my favorite records and that is BACKING VOCAL STACKING OVERKILL. Mark and I sang 144 tracks worth of "AHHHs" during the outro section.

My favorite section of "When You Run" is during the outro solo when Carl, Phil and Gary all meet in the middle of passing runs and at this crossroads, there's something really magical. It reminds me of the middle section of "Monkey Man" by the Rolling Stones and a little bit of "Running Down A Dream" by Tom Petty. This outro chorus was so sexy and cool, we needed to keep it long because WHY NOT? It's fun, rockin' and beautiful.

Thank you to everyone who plays this song loud in the car, at the bar, in the club and while you're running. That's exactly what this song was made for and it's ALWAYS a highlight of a full band show!! 'Til next time.....enjoy "When You Run