SONG BY SONG COMMENTS FOR "NOW THEN" BY JEB:

SOMETIMES SHOOTING STARS
I wrote this song years ago and never really knew what to do with it. It was the first track we recorded in Nashville, just me on acoustic guitar and the rhythm track. Paul Birch put some vibes on it and we brought it back to London so Wayne Nunes could play bass on it. Then we gave it to the great Dennis Bovell to mix and he put the BV`s on. For me it's got it all, a reggae bass line, a killer rhythm, an open ended story.

REALLY TOGETHER
This is an old reggae song by the legendary Bob Andy. He's always been one of my favorite singers and songwriters and this is an all time classic. On the original he dueted with Marcia Griffiths - I decided to slow it down and give it country flavour. Sheila Prospere came and sang it with me.

LELAH MAE
I wrote this song three days before I got to Nashville, sitting in my mother's house in Arkansas. I was thinking of songs like Widow Wimberly by Tony Joe White and I was reading the local paper and it all just fell into place. It was the second song we recorded, me stomping on the floor and playing an old gut string guitar my dad brought me back from Mexico.

PAINTED MY DREAMHOUSE BLUE
I wrote this one in Wales with my good buddy Joe Brack. Joe and I played in a country band together and shared a squat in London. He's not only a hellava writer but one of the best country bass players I've ever heard.

BAD FRUIT
We recorded this in one take, Tony Crow on keyboard and me on guitar. This is an answer to all those awful "I Love My Family" songs that Nashville churns out.

LET'S MAKE IT UP
This is one of two songs on the record that weren't recorded in Nashville by Mark. I did this one at home in Wales - I played all the instruments and pressured Loraine Morley to sing some BV's.

MORNING LOVE
This is another song I've had laying around for a while. We recorded a version five years ago for "Just What Time It Is" but it didn#t work. It started life as an incredibly slow 3/4 waltz - much sadder and lonely than the version we cut in Nashville.

BLACKWATER ROAD
This is the other song not recorded in Nashville. I recorded most of this at home on Wales and then drafted in Andy Hamill on bass, Rebecca Hollweg on BV's, and Jennifer Carr on piano. Like "Let's Make It Up", I wrote this after the record was recorded and thought I'd demo them - and then they seemed to find their way onto the finished CD.

DON'T DANCE WITH ME
I first recorded this song, in a radically different style, on The October EP. That was a stripped own, reggae driven affair - this version is completely different, we used strings, vibes, BV's, a full band and the kitchen sink.

EVER FEEL LIKE LEAVING
This song was inspired by a line from a song off my last CD "Easy Now". I wanted to do an Eddie Hinton/Bobby Womack kinda thing. When I played it to Dan Penn he said, "that's a hellava groove right there. Don't do anything to it. Keep it raw." I said, "Don't do anything?" and he said, "leave it alone." When I asked him to sing some BV's on it he smiled and said, "well, I guess some BV's wouldn't hurt."

WHEN DID YOU STOP LOVING ME
This was the first song we recorded with the full band. I was a little nervous as everyone worked their way though it and figured out the changes. Then I counted it off and halfway through the first verse Clayton Ivey came up with that incredible keyboard part and I new it was going to OK. This song was real special for me - we recorded it in something like twenty minutes - it just felt like magic.