Biography

Contact: Geoff Hansplant / 215-852-1570
geoff@geoffhansplant.com
Artist Website

Dirt Track Racer
Album: Something’s Gotta Give
Release Date: December 2, 2019
FCC Safe: No Explicit Language

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Click Here for Dirt Track Racer - Better Days

Dirt Track Racer returns with their sophomore album, Something’s Gotta Give, a twelve song set of rootsy Americana, country blues, folk, latin and Celtic tunage. This is DTR’s first album since its 2014 debut, Kick Off Your Muddy Boots, which climbed to number 4 on the Roots Charts and spawned a number 2 single, “Bucket Full of Rain.”

On Something’s Gotta Give, DTR stretches its wings in a number of new directions. Geoff Hansplant and Julie Myers split the lead vocals, more electric guitar and bass is evident, and the band provides its take on four classics of the folk and country blues traditions. Geoff Hansplant handles the guitars and vocals, Julie Myers brings violin, piano and vocals, Paul Deck covers all things percussion, and Nick Terramani lays down the bass grooves.

Of the 12 songs, eight are Geoff Hansplant’s originals (“What The Heart Wants” with Julie Myers), and four are covers, including “The Water Is Wide” (traditional), “He’s In The Jailhouse Now” (Eddie & Nellie Stafford), “Police Dog Blues” (Blind Blake), and “Alabama Bound” (Leadbelly).

As always, there is a tremendous variety to DTR’s songs. The title track, “Something’s Gotta Give,” is a driving piece of Americana, featuring a seven part harmony vocal by Julie, and Geoff’s electric lead guitar. “I Won’t Be Here When You Get Home” and “One To Tango,” both sung by Julie, feature a distinctive Latin groove, while “The Name She Gave” would sit well in a James Taylor set. “He’s In The Jailhouse Now” and “Police Dog Blues” feature the full band in Blind Blake inspired renditions of two Country Blues standards. “Things I Should Have Said” and “What The Heart Wants” take the band in more of a classic rock direction, the latter featuring Julie’s piano. And “All In Green Went My Love Riding” lets the band stretch out in an original Celtic piece.

If there is an identifiable theme to the album, it might best be described as that of loss, or the imminence of loss.

Something’s Gotta Give is a restless form of Americana, pushing familiar envelopes to strengthen the genre. DTR are real musicians, playing real music for a real audience. The grooves are infectious and the lyrics thought provoking. We are certain that your audience will come to cherish these songs, as we did recording them.

Track Order on Something's Gotta Give

1-Something’s Gotta Give (5:21) (Featured Track)
Contact: Geoff Hansplant / 215-852-1570
Email: geoff@geoffhansplant.com
Songwriter: Geoff Hansplant
Publisher / PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP
Produced by: Geoff Hansplant, Paul Deck, John Fachet
Release Date: 12/2/2019

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant - guitars and vocals
Paul Deck - drums and percussion
Julie Myers - vocals
Nick Terramani - bass

Something’s Gotta Give is what happens when you listen to Martha Reeves and the Vandellas singing “Dancing In The Street” while watching Robert Mitchum in “Out Of The Past.” It is a variant on the classic outlaw on the run song, set in a black and white 1950’s noir movie and name-checking cities and towns in the American mid-west. The album had the original working title of “Ghosts In Blue,” but as we got further into rehearsals, we found that we would always open with this tune, as we enjoyed playing it so much. In time, it dictated the flow of the whole album and became the new title track. For me (Geoff), the highlights were cutting the lead guitar track and sitting in the studio while Julie cut all of the backing vocals, in seven part harmony!

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2-I Won’t Be Here When You Get Home (3:46) (Featured Track)
Contact: Geoff Hansplant / 215-852-1570
Email: geoff@geoffhansplant.com
Songwriter: Geoff Hansplant
Publisher / PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP
Produced by: Geoff Hansplant, Paul Deck, John Fachet
Release Date: 12/2/2019

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant - guitar and bass
Paul Deck - drums and percussion
Julie Myers - vocals and afuche
Jamal Jones - flugelhorn

These days, the trend in popular music is toward a lot of “you done me wrong and I’m gonna fix your wagon, for it” songs, with a ton of vitriol but very little actual steam behind it. Just a lot of posing. To me, that’s boring, and it is inherently unrealistic, as it denies the participants a chance to actually grieve the relationship lost. So, for I Won’t Be Here When You Get Home, I wanted to write a break-up love song, which tries to express that feeling of two people, knowing that they are headed in two different directions, and choosing to call it a day, though they are leaving with a great deal of love and affection for each other. In doing so, I think it also became something of a women’s empowerment song, as Julie took on the lead vocal and became the person making the decision to move on with her life. As is often the case, I put the demo in front of Paul, and he heard a Bossa groove, which gives the song an insistent pulse. Nick was unavailable for these sessions, so Geoff played the guitar and bass parts. Julie played afuche in addition to providing the vocal, and we brought in our great friend Jamal Jones to lay down the perfect solo on flugelhorn. This may well be Geoff’s favorite cut on the album.
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3-He’s In The Jailhouse Now (4:48) (Featured Track)
Contact: Geoff Hansplant / 215-852-1570
Email: geoff@geoffhansplant.com
Songwriter: Eddie and Nellie Stafford
Publisher / PRO: Peer International Corporation / ASCAP
Produced by: Geoff Hansplant, Paul Deck, John Fachet
Release Date: 12/2/2019

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant - guitar and vocal
Paul Deck - drums and percussion
Julie Myers - violin
Nick Terramani - bass

He’s In The Jailhouse Now, is a very old song, from the vaudeville era. No one knows its real origins, but an Edison cylinder has been found of uncredited street musicians playing it in New Orleans, in around 1915. Then, in 1927, the song was released twice, with the famous yodeling version done by Jimmy Rodgers, a father of country music, and a somewhat lesser known, ragtime version performed by the great Blind Blake. Our take on it, owes more to the Blind Blake version, though one might argue that the guitar part is more Stride than Ragtime (splitting stylistic hairs?). What I haven’t heard before is a full band version of the song, as we have recorded it here. This one is both a challenge and a joy to play!
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4-Things I Should Have Said (4:40)
Contact: Geoff Hansplant / 215-852-1570
Email: geoff@geoffhansplant.com
Songwriter: Geoff Hansplant
Publisher / PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP
Produced by: Geoff Hansplant, Paul Deck, John Fachet
Release Date: 12/2/2019

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant - guitars and backing vocals
Paul Deck - drums and percussion
Julie Myers - piano and vocals
Nick Terramani - bass

Like many of the songs on the album, Things I Should Have Said has a distinct underpinning of loss. As a writer, I have reached an age where I have experienced many losses in life, and the people and my own actions in my relationships with them, continue to haunt me. This is a song about the weight of words that went unexpressed, and the opportunities that were lost as a result. To stage it, I set the song on the island of Ithaca, at the home of Odysseus and Penelope. Penelope, stranded on the island while she fends off the “suitors,” mourns for the loss of Odysseus, and is haunted by the words she didn’t say, the words that might have kept him home.

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5-The Name She Gave (3:56)
Contact: Geoff Hansplant / 215-852-1570
Email: geoff@geoffhansplant.com
Songwriter: Geoff Hansplant
Publisher / PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP
Produced by: Geoff Hansplant, Paul Deck, John Fachet
Release Date: 12/2/2019

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant - guitar and vocals
Paul Deck - drums and percussion
Julie Myers - violin, viola and vocals
Nick Terramani - bass
Adrienne Walsh - cello

The Name She Gave revisits a theme from a song called “Rain In My Coffee,” from the Kick Off Your Muddy Boots album. As people, we want to hear the truth, and we want to find our own ways of speaking the truth, but it is often the case that we learn something deeper from the understanding of the lies others, or ourselves are forced to live. And so, when we catch someone in a lie, we have to ask “why” they choose to present that as reality and how clinging to that lie is in some way, a comfort or a necessity to their very survival. So, she gives her name as Angeline, and says she is from Santa Fe, in Arizona, and we know she is not telling us the truth. But the maintenance of the charade is critically important to her, so we don’t “set her straight, we accept her for what she professes to be, and we lend comfort in the moment. Originally, this was to be a solo vocal by Geoff, but Julie demanded to sing on it as well, because the lyric meant so much to her. With our good friend, Adrienne Walsh, Julie also arranged the string section which gives the song a delicate, emotionally rich texture.

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6-One to Tango (3:47) (Featured Track)
Contact: Geoff Hansplant / 215-852-1570
Email: geoff@geoffhansplant.com
Songwriter: Geoff Hansplant
Publisher / PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP
Produced by: Geoff Hansplant, Paul Deck, John Fachet
Release Date: 12/2/2019

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant - guitar
Paul Deck - congas and percussion
Julie Myers - violin and vocals
Nick Terramani - bass

One to Tango is another song about loss, and our refusal to let go. In one sense, as long as we keep the memories of others alive, and take those memories and all that those people have taught us, on our own life’s journey, they live on. When I write, I usually think in pictures and like to depict elements in the world in small details, because those details elicit emotional responses that can be deeper than narrative could ever really express. So, to me, the dripping faucet is the passage of time, and the iron stain on the porcelain, the memory of what was. The scarf is the physicalization of the departed, still wrapped around the bereaved. I like to think that there are many layers to this tune.

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7-Ghost In Midnight Blue (4:37)
Contact: Geoff Hansplant / 215-852-1570
Email: geoff@geoffhansplant.com
Songwriter: Geoff Hansplant
Publisher / PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP
Produced by: Geoff Hansplant, Paul Deck, John Fachet
Release Date: 12/2/2019

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant - guitar and vocals
Paul Deck - drums and percussion
Julie Myers - vocals
Nick Terramani - bass

The older we get, the more we are haunted by the ghosts of the past. Mine go with me, throughout the day, and sometimes work their way to the surface of my consciousness when the house has grown quiet (my mind never seems to quiet down) for the night. Some of those ghosts, over time, are just blips on the event horizon. Others take a seat right beside you and draw you back, Gatsby-like, ceaselessly into the past. They are the rocks on which we foundered, and the rocks to which we cling. Mine happens to be a Ghost In Midnight Blue.

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8-What The Heart Wants (4:04)
Contact: Geoff Hansplant / 215-852-1570
Email: geoff@geoffhansplant.com
Songwriter: Geoff Hansplant and Julie Myers
Publisher / PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP
Produced by: Geoff Hansplant, Paul Deck, John Fachet
Release Date: 12/2/2019

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant - guitar
Paul Deck - drums and percussion
Julie Myers - piano and vocals
Nick Terramani - bass

Years pass, and time takes its toll. But the heart is constant. There is, in all of us, a kind of disconnect between the mind and the heart. We can rationalize anything, but in that moment when we come face to face with our heart’s desire, what the heart wants, it wants. There is no point in challenging it; it is what it is. True, and achingly painful story. I wrote this one on piano, and truth be told, I really don’t play piano. So I gave the changes and melody to Julie and she put together a beautiful piano arrangement of What The Heart Wants. My only other contribution to the tune was the guitar solo.
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9-All In Green Went My Love Riding (4:43)
Contact: Geoff Hansplant / 215-852-1570
Email:geoff@geoffhansplant.com
Songwriter: Geoff Hansplant
Publisher / PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP
Produced by: Geoff Hansplant, Paul Deck, John Fachet
Release Date: 12/2/2019

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant - guitar
Paul Deck - congas and percussion
Julie Myers - violin and viola
Nick Terramani - bass

All In Green Went My Love Riding is a title taken from a poem by e.e. cummings, and I used it as a springboard for a Celtic inspired tune in DADGAD tuning. Paul contributed a haunting percussion groove and Julie doubled her parts on violin and viola.

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10-Police Dog Blues (4:30) (Featured Track)
Contact: Geoff Hansplant / 215-852-1570
Email: geoff@geoffhansplant.com
Songwriter: Blind Blake
Publisher / PRO: Boot House of Tunes / ASCAP
Produced by: Geoff Hansplant, Paul Deck, John Fachet
Release Date: 12/2/2019

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant - guitar and vocals
Paul Deck - drums and percussion
Julie Myers - violin
Nick Terramani - bass
Orion - backing vocals

Police Dog Blues is another great song from Blind Blake, and a personal favorite of mine. It is played in open D tuning (DADF#AD) and just really percolates along. I think I first heard this song on an album from the 1970’s by Jorma Kaukonen, called Quah. Both Jorma and I play the song in a manner very similar to the original, though we each have our own quirks and embellishments. Blind Blake is a great story, the king of the ragtime guitar players. He appeared in the Florida panhandle in the mid 1920’s and tore it up on the guitar. Still, no one knew his real name or where he came from. He recorded thirty some “sides” (78’s) for the Paramount label and, when it folded after the 1929 stock market crash, Blake disappeared and was never seen again. Reverend Gary Davis said that he had heard that Blake was run down by a trolley in New York, but in recent years, musical historians have postulated that he died in Milwaukee, in 1934, from tuberculosis. Those of us who are devotees of the Piedmont style of playing, do what we can to keep his music alive. We added a guest vocalist to the track, so you have to wait for his appearance on the fade-out. He is none other than Orion, my Anatolian Shepherd, and he has quite the basso profundo voice!

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11-The Water Is Wide (5:51)
Contact: Geoff Hansplant / 215-852-1570
Email: geoff@geoffhansplant.com
Songwriter: Traditional, Arranged by Dirt Track Racer
Publisher / PRO: Finger Candy Publishing / ASCAP
Produced by: Geoff Hansplant, Paul Deck, John Fachet
Release Date: 12/2/2019

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant - guitar
Paul Deck - drums and percussion
Julie Myers - violin, viola and vocals
Nick Terramani - bass
Adrienne Walsh - cello

When we started rehearsals for the album, we decided to include a few classic covers and auditioned a small handful of them. Julie put her foot down and demanded that we include The Water Is Wide, as she has loved the song all of her life. We kept the arrangement rather spare and open, so that Julie’s beautiful voice could shine through. She doubled her violin and viola parts again, and Adrienne Walsh sat in to add another cello part for us. As part of our arrangement, we reworked the end tag of the song, to give it a sadder, heart aching quality.

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12-Alabama Bound (3:55)
Contact: Geoff Hansplant / 215-852-1570
Email: geoff@geoffhansplant.com
Songwriter: Huddle Ledbetter
Publisher / PRO: Folkways Music Publishing / ASCAP
Produced by: Geoff Hansplant, Paul Deck, John Fachet
Release Date: 12/2/2019

Musicians:
Geoff Hansplant - guitar and vocals
Paul Deck - drums and percussion
Julie Myers - violin
Nick Terramani - bass

Another favorite of ours, Alabama Bound is a Leadbelly classic with a driving groove and a rousing chorus. I think I learned this one listening to Arlo Guthrie (one of my all time musical heroes) but purloined the last verse from a recording by the late 1960’s San Francisco band, The Charlatans. The Charlatans have faded into memory, but one of their members, Dan Hicks, went on to much bigger things with the Hot Licks.


Dirt Track Racer records on Twilight Tango Records
Eclectic Music for the Mind and Body
Something’s Gotta Give
TT1005 / ©️2019