Hickory Run Backstory
John Nanni of THREE CREEKS MUSIC pays close attention whenever his creative muse starts to whisper. Luckily for us, he does. HICKORY RUN, his second album of instrumental jazz, is the exciting result for this talented songwriter, musician, and producer. Released on John’s birthday, it follows his prior, well-received collection, DRESSED IN THE MOONLIGHT.
“As with all my albums, I usually have a theme that ties to the title. In this case, HICKORY RUN came to mind. After a 20+ years living in Franklin, TN, my family moved to Hendersonville on the northeast side of Nashville near Old Hickory Lake. As an avid bass fisherman, it’s been awesome to get to the lake in just minutes and fish at will. While my wife and I were having a house built, we lived in a fully-furnished rental at Hickory Run Apartments. While there, I hooked up Pro Tools, bought new headphones, pulled out my trusty, tobacco-sunburst, hollow body, Ibanez jazz guitar, and the Hickory Run Sessions began.”
This project had a different origin in John’s approach to writing the music. He created all ten arrangements as structured drum and percussion tracks before writing a single chord or melody. “I guess you could say it was a grand, out of the box experiment,” he said with a big smile. Clearly, it proved to be one of his most satisfying.
Using Acid Loops, John set his tempos, beats, and grooves with different professional drum patterns for each section of the songs. Once he had laid out Intros, Verses, Choruses, Bridges, Solos, and Outros, they were locked down. He didn’t change a thing afterwards. Once that was completed, John composed chord structures and melodies. Eyes twinkling, he added, “It turned out to be a lot of fun to write that way. I’m sure others have done this, but it was my first attempt, and I really enjoyed it.”
While still living at Hickory Run Apartments, John composed and recorded rhythm and lead guitar tracks, and bass guitar. After moving into their new home, he set up his project studio and brought in an amazing cast of Nashville session players. Their unique skills performing many intricate parts of each composition helped lift HICKORY RUN up to the highest level.
“It has been my total honor to have John Heinrich on Saxophone and Flute, Jimmy Butler on keyboards, and Tim Thompson on embellishments such as slide, 12-string acoustic, and other rhythm guitars. To top things off, my grandsons, Wyler and Warren, provided timely percussion accents with hand claps and finger snaps.”
John hopes his fans, both new and old, will take time to sit back, relax, and listen to this album in one sitting—the old-fashioned way—as a complete project, a body of work with a theme that carries throughout. Just enjoy and let his music lift you out of your everyday routine into the world of HICKORY RUN. Everyone is welcome!