FATE IS A LONELY HUNTER

Mick & the Shambles

 

1. FATE IS A LONELY HUNTER

2. TAKE ME BACK HOME AND LOVE ME

3. GATHER AT THE (ST. LAWRENCE) RIVER

4. WHATEVER YOU GOT

5. RIVER CALLING

6. LONELY NIGHTS AGAIN (2018)

 

Producer: Michael Joyce | Fort Lauderdale, FL

Arranger: Andy Rudy | Syracuse, NY

BACKGROUND ON THE SONGS FROM ARTIST/PRODUCER MIKE JOYCE:

 

FATE IS A LONELY HUNTER

This song was always one of my favorites, and actually, I started writing it a few months after MGM released Lonely Nights Again on the Verve Folkways label. I had kind of a Phil Spector arrangement worked out in my head with horns and a big building finish. It was really fun to hear this come together and I decided to make this the title track for the project.

 

TAKE ME BACK HOME AND LOVE ME

This song was written on a piano, and my “piano” songs were always different than the songs I wrote on a guitar. Nikki Sixx from Motley Crue hit the nail on the head when he was endorsing Taylor Guitars and said, “Every guitar has a couple of songs built-in” and I know that’s true for pianos too. If you’re playing a concert grand you’ll write one type of song but if it’s a ragtime upright piano in a bar you’ll write a totally different song. I wrote several different verses but I just kept coming back to the original verse so I just stayed with that.

 

 

GATHER AT THE (ST. LAWRENCE) RIVER

Bob Young, who was the lead guitarist in my original Mick & the Shambles band, took me to visit his summer home in the 1000 Islands in Upstate New York along the Canadian border back in 1965. I fell in love with the area and have gone back every summer since then.  At every church service, and at every funeral, the tearjerker song is always “Shall We Gather at the River” and after awhile, I started humming my own “local” lyrics. I told my wife several years ago I would like them to play my version of the song when my time comes and she said, “If that’s what you want them to play you’d better record it before you go!”

 

WHATEVER YOU GOT

I wrote this song for Taylor Swift, and when I recorded it, I changed the lyrics around for a guy. Taylor reminds me of Elizabeth Taylor in that she is young, beautiful, talented, and smart, and it’s really hard to find any guy who can fit into those dynamics, and yet no woman wants to be alone on their journey.  I am a huge fan of Taylor’s and believe she has had an enormous impact on young people, and she is always so positive and caring in how she treats her fans and admirers. I’m impressed!

 

RIVER CALLING

I’ve had the opportunity to travel all over the world and see some of the most beautiful places on the planet. That being said if you asked me where my heart is, no question about it, its smack dab in the middle of the 1000 Islands on the New York/Canadian border. I wrote this song is about my love affair with my special place in the world and how it always called me back.

 

LONELY NIGHTS AGAIN

When we recorded the song originally in 1966 I got two offers, one from Decca Records and the other from MGM Records. I signed with MGM because they had so many of my favorite artists like Eric Burdon & the Animals on the label. Lenny Scherer was the national sales manager for MGM and he worked hard to get on the charts in the Philadelphia market. MGM put us on the Verve Folkways label which they just formed to handle the new type of emerging artists like the Blues Project, Richie Havens and Odetta that were coming on the scene. Over the years, “Lonely Nights Again” was included on over 30 different compilation albums documenting the 1960’s music scene and music historians recognized us as early pioneers of the “garage band sound”.