'Paint It All': Listen to KB's long-lost covers album here!

Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics has been opening some Sugarland shows lately, and having the honor of playing songs like "Would I Lie To You" on stage with him every night has put me in an '80s music kind of mood.

I know some of you are aware that long ago I recorded an album of my favorite '80s covers called Paint It All. I wanted to find it and share it. I dug through some boxes at home, but when I released it ten years ago, I only made maybe 50 copies... and apparently didn't save one for myself. So I called an old friend, who luckily had a copy for me to share with you.

You can listen to the album here, and read a little history to put the recording in time and space below. And if you like my interpretations of these songs, I would encourage you to find and buy the original versions by the original artists. I can honestly say that had I not heard every single one of them, I would not have ended up where I am today.

I was born on March the 14th, 1970, which makes me 3 years old when my brother was born, 7 years old when the first Star Wars came to theaters, and 10 years old when the Buggles made it big with "Video Killed the Radio Star" as MTV turned on the switch. I had a radio/cassette player that had detachable speakers that I positioned at the head of my bed on either side of my pillow. I can't count the nights I laid awake in bed listening to music as a way to hide from the world. I grew up to be a musician.

In 1985 the first consumer 4-track cassette recorder was sold in music stores around the country. Project recording was now available to the masses. My brother and I were some of the first in line. We had a Yamaha one. It had these little foil stickers that you had to stick on one side of the cassette you were using so that the cassette deck would work. I lived in my headphones and would get lost in each new song, each new world of sound. I never knew how much time had passed when I was recording. I grew up to be a recording artist.

On Thanksgiving Day 2000, my brother and I sat on the floor of my mom's house in Charleston crying in complete shock. We were crying because our mother had died suddenly that day. She was 55 years old. The following days, weeks and months were compressed into some strange timeless sleepwalk.

On the Monday before Christmas 2000, three weeks after Mom died, my brother and I stood outside of Nickel and Dime studio where we kept all of our gear and watched DeKalb County firemen pick through what remained of our instruments and recording equipment. You would think we would have fallen apart at the seams, but we were just relieved that no one died.

Sometime in March 2001, I found myself sitting in front of what we could recover of our project studio, staring at the dials, and eyeing my busted guitars afraid that playing them would hurt more than help. I tried to write a song, just a verse, maybe a little riff, or a neat chord, anything. Nothing came. Bone dry. This lasted for weeks.

One Saturday morning I found an old cassette in my attic. It was Yaz, Upstairs at Eric's. I laughed remembering how much I loved listening to that album in high school. I ended up about an hour later in the studio learning "Only You" and recording it, singing it to a picture of my mom. I couldn't believe I was working so I kept going, remembering, learning, laughing, remembering, recording, searching and singing.

A great number of the songs that I thought I remembered as "great songs in history" were really great recordings of not so great songs. I would learn each one on an acoustic guitar without all of the '80s buzzers and synths, and some songs just fell into nonsense, while others sounded almost surreal. So here is my tribute to the '80s, a project record of me singing and playing my favorite songs. All the songs on this CD were written and released between 1980 and 1990 by some pretty incredible artists. I recorded all of these songs alone, lost in my headphones, with no concept of time, insulated from the world, crying because I miss my mom, and waiting for a fire insurance settlement so I could get a new guitar. I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed recording.

-kb