“How’s it sounding out there?”

“Uh, good.  It sounds really good,” I manage to say while choking back tears.

I’m in the studio with one of my favorite singers and guitar players in the world, Lauren Sheehan.  We’ve just embarked on the last step in what has been a moving, five year journey for me.  And, well, I’m a bit overcome not only by the beauty of what I’m hearing through the studio monitors, but by what this moment represents to me.

We’re putting together the CD companion to my just-completed book, Kalamazoo Gals: the Story of the Extraordinary Women (and a Few Men) Who Built Gibsons WWII “Banner” Guitars.  Through the eyes of twelve women who appeared in the Gibson Guitar Company’s 1944 workforce photo, the book tells the story of Gibson’s, the public’s, and the nation’s struggle through WWII.  Despite the challenges of the time, this untrained, nearly all-female workforce managed to produce extraordinary guitars, all of which bear the modest, silk-screened slogan on their headstocks, “Only a Gibson is Good Enough.”

“We” are Lauren, a songster extraordinaire and purveyor of musical Americana, Eric Tate, co-producer and engineer on the CD project, and the luckiest and least talented among our small crew, yours truly.  I’m nominally co-producer and in very short order, I’ve mastered what is my essential task in the studio:  asking, “Would like cream and sugar with that?”

OK, I did track down those women, record my interviews of them to DVD, and convince generous collectors around the globe to ship me over a dozen of those Banner-clad, WWII-era Gibsons.  But, in this state-of-the-art recording studio, I’m going to defer on every issue to the talented pros misguided enough to join me in this endeavor.

We’re simply moving around microphones (OK, Eric is moving around mics and I’m nodding and pretending to understand what he’s doing) and working out how best to capture the essence of these instruments.  But, last night, Lauren and I (OK, Lauren had the ideas and, doing what I do best, I nodded and pretended to understand) talked through the project, she played through the guitars, and we (yeah, you guessed it, Lauren) decided to open the sessions with her achingly beautiful rendition of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.”  We’ve selected a guitar whose simple, dry tone not only sounds perfect for this song, but it has lived the life that the song dramatizes.  After purchasing this Southerner Jumbo in 1943, the original owner took the guitar to the European front and the instruments bears the scars of its trying, early years.  And, if you listen really closely, you can hear the instrument’s story.  It helps that Lauren could bring tears to one’s eyes while playing any old instrument.   Here, she’s playing an old instrument that looks and sounds as though it spent the past seven decades battling to get to this one, special moment in history.

We’ll be here at the glorious Firehouse 12 studio in New Haven, Connecticut for the rest of the week.  And, after only a few moments, I’m confident that “Good Enough” is going to be way better than good enough.