[can D/L remastered version at: https://soundcloud.com/kat330repost/i-shall-be-released ]
(Sisters and brothers, saints and sinners in the congregation of the Everlasting Light of Hope, please open your hymnals to p. 330 and join me in making a joyful, hopeful noise! :) 

First time I heard this song as rendered by The Band on "Music from Big Pink," it hit me like a hymn, and that's how I've always interpreted it. Here I've changed up the rhythm and added several keyboard and melodica tracks instead of my original guitar-picking version, but I've kept in my ending "A-men" chords.

When I realized how it was shaping up with this altered rhythm, I quickly caught the haunt of "Stand By Me." For a while I toyed then with the notion of mashing the two together in some fashion, but the project was already becoming overwrought with tracks. (Maybe someone else would like to tackle that?)

The end result here is sort of sloppy—my "ensemble" could be tighter and the harmonies could be truer—but JT convinced me that leaving as is rings more authentic and interesting. (Hope you're right, hunaja! :)

I Shall Be Released

In Rapture we praise, im a young outlaw 
 but im Blue Ribbon raised

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqE2CBEwglLgDDunEMlpokA

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqE2CBEwglLgDDunEMlpokA

FMA Blog features Kat tracks: https://freemusicarchive.org/blog/kathleen-martins-new-tracks  This site is for music fans who think outside the boxy confines of genre labels. Find here and at SCannex my originals and covers on anything from felons to lovers, arranged for and performed on a variety of instruments, for sounds ranging from sweet to sassy and reedy to brassy; from lofty to lowdown and soulful to hoedown; from serious to silly and urban to hillbilly.

I am so grateful you are taking the time to listen to these self-recordings, many of which required an enormous amount of my time and effort to produce. If I also introduce you to a singer-songwriter you never knew, or if something I wrote or recorded brings a smile to your day, well, that's just the sweet icing on my aim-cake!

Hope you will seek out the original artists' versions of cover tunes unfamiliar to you and, please, share my sounds with any like-minded listeners. I also urge you to click on individual track titles to read my production notes and lyrics before or as you push play. Some notes are informative, some are entertaining and some may be neither or both. ☼:) Kathleen xxxooo