Rollin On, Live version by the Strummers guitar group

Hope you enjoy this version of Rollin On which is from a live studio session of the guitar and vocal group called Strummers. Thanks to Molly Mathieson, the CEO of the New Note charity, for permission to use the track, which appears on the Strummers CD, a live studio recording of 11 songs called 'Shabby Road' (geddit!), recorded at Brighton Electric studios and engineered by Phoebe.

There are some changes to the song structure and melody of this version of Rollin On, compared with the original (Adeniyi, Dugan, Hutchison, McNaught) . The main changes are in the  breakdown section, a Strummers group effort, which has a repeating refrain of 'Rollin on', sung by Roger and a great local choir, including Strummers' own Hannah Raftery. It is pretty cool, I reckon!

Sunflies and rainbows, all along the roadside

The lead vocal on this version was sung Roger, who does a great job, and who changed the melody and phrasing from the original version. He also contributed the cool bluesy harmonica solos, which were overdubbed. Matt (pictured) was effortlessly accomplished on bass. Me, Crispin Gair and Luke Keeping played the electric guitars, while Steve Cooke and Markus Kingston played acoustics on the session, though these can't be easily heard in the mix for this song. Peter Campbell played the excellent drums - especially dig the powerful cymbal work.  Jon Rattenbury conducted the live session with great enthusiasm and expertise, and also produced the Strummers CD(s).

On a personal note, I would have liked to remix the song to emphasise various musical performances, but was unable to access the original recording seps, which was a pity. As it is I ripped a wav file from the published CD and processed the track quite a bit for the mp3 available here, like using a de-esser to tame the (powerful) cymbals and adding various reverbs. The eq balance is somewhat different to the CD version, for better or not!

Rollin' On - lyrics by Tracy Hutchison

vocal ad-libs to start

Sunshine and scarecrows
All along the roadside
Feel fine here we go
Forget about the road signs

Cause we're Rollin', Rollin' On
Rollin', Rollin' On

Incense burnin’
Wheels keep turnin’
Tread marks churnin’ 
Down the road
Incense burnin' 
Wheels keep turnin’
Tread marks churnin’
Here we go

Sunflies and rainbows
All along the roadside
Feel tight here we go
Forget about the road signs

Cause we're Rollin', Rollin' On
Rollin', Rollin' On

 
Incense burnin’
Wheels keep turnin’
Tread marks churnin’
Down the road
Incense burnin’
Wheels keep turnin’
Tread marks churnin’
Here we go
Here we go... 

Guitar break

Rollin, Rollin' on
Rollin, Rollin' on
Rollin, Rollin' on
Rollin, Rollin' on
Rollin, Rollin' on
Rollin, Rollin' on

Yeah-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay, we keep Rollin' On!