Today’s post was written by Paul.
Holly Dunn released “Daddy’s Hands” in 1986. I was just 12 years old at the time. The song went all the way to number 7 and made Ms. Dunn very popular for a number of years.
I remember that my impression of Holly Dunn as a kid was that she didn’t seem flashy. She seemed down to earth, like a girl I might know from church.
A quick Google search shows that my young instincts were spot on: she is a preacher’s daughter, and she wrote this beautiful, moving song as a Father’s Day gift to him. I bet he cried like a baby when she first sang it for him, that is if she could keep from crying herself long enough to sing it.
Anyone who was blessed with a loving father or father figure can relate to this song.
A few years after the song came out, my first cousin, Maria Campbell (who has appeared on the Blind Pig & the Acorn YouTube channel several times) found and bought a karaoke tape of it, meaning the tape featured just the music and background vocals, with no lead vocal.
Around that time, she and I had recorded a couple of songs on my Tascam 4-track, and she brought me the karaoke cassette and asked me if I could record her singing the song. I was eager to do it, and it was very easy. I just copied the two-track karaoke recording onto the first two tracks of the Tascam, which left me two empty tracks for Maria’s voice. Maria was so good, even back then as a teen, that she only needed one track and one take. That meant I had one track left.
I remember we recorded it in Granny’s basement. After she recorded her part, I told Maria that I would mix it all down for her onto a standard 2-track cassette tape, then she left. Since I had an empty track left, I put on some headphones to see if I could sing harmony with her voice. That too was pretty easy, though I’m a tad off here and there. Then I wondered if I could add any instruments… My best friend at the time was a boy named Lee Tanner, and Lee’s dad, Junior, sometimes played around on a harmonica when I was over at Lee’s.
Junior gave me a Hohner Harmonica in the key of D. It was the only harmonica that I owned for many years. I was glad to get it and try to learn to play it, even though it was a little gross playing someone else’s harmonica, especially someone who dipped snuff! I rinsed it out the best I could, but I don’t think I ever got the insides very clean, and it always smelled like snuff. Let’s just say that I didn’t look forward to playing any “draw” notes (where you have to breathe in through the harmonica).
The upside to the harmonica was that it was well broken in over years of Junior playing it, which made it easier to get a good tone. When I started to add the harmonica, I immediately realized that it was not in tune with the karaoke track, though the track was also in the key of D. Of course, there’s no way to tune a harmonica, at least not a regular one. I was about to scrap the idea when I had a brainstorm. The Tascam had a pitch wheel. Rather than being a true pitch wheel, it could be turned to speed up or slow down the tape. I could tell that the harmonica was sharp in relation to the karaoke track, so I sped the tape up until it was in tune with the harmonica. Then I recorded the harmonica at that speed. When I mixed everything down to a regular 2-track cassette, I slowed everything back down to regular speed. Of course, the harmonica track and other tracks all slowed down (lowered in pitch) together, so everything was in tune, or at least pretty close. I panned the harmonica into the right speaker and the viola that plays in the karaoke track to the left speaker during the mix. I was surprised how well the harmonica blended with the viola.
To me, it almost sounded like the harmonica was part of the original music. I was really tickled by this because I knew the karaoke tracks were laid down by professional studio musicians. I was just a kid in a basement with a snuffy harmonica that I didn’t even really know how to play!
When I gave the final mix to Maria, she was surprised by the harmony vocal and the harmonica, though the two could never be heard at the same time (since they both had to go onto the same track on the Tascam and take turns).
The fathers that appear in the video are Pap, Uncle Ray (Maria’s dad), Uncle Henry (Pap’s youngest brother), Uncle Lucky (Granny’s brother), Matt’s father Tony, Matt, and Austin.
It took me days to find this cassette because I never wrote the song title on the outside of the tape. I was about to give up when I found it. I’m glad that I did because it’s absolutely perfect for Father’s Day. I thank God for my father, my father’s father, and all the wonderful fathers and father figures God created.
Paul
Original singles released on Spotify.
Shepherd of My Soul (Album released in 2016).
The Wilson Brothers Words of Life Album released in the 70s.