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Photo: Laura Crosta

Roger Street Friedman – “Everyday” (video) (premiere)

The Long Island Americana artist continues our Cellar Sessions premiere series with a live performance of the rollicking "Everyday".

PopMatters first covered Roger Street Friedman‘s story in what was the first in a series of premieres with “Puffs of Smoke”. At 54 years old, the Long Island Americana artist proved that finding success in doing what you love doesn’t have a due date.

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of his sophomore album’s release on 13 January, Friedman is teaming up with PopMatters once more to showcase the next installment in his Cellar Sessions performances. Shot at New York’s iconic City Winery, Friedman teams up with Jim Toscano (drums), Frank Ferrera (guitar/background vocals), Matt Schneider (bass/background vocals), and Steve Uh (keyboard) for a one-shot live take on his song, “Everyday”.

Whereas “Puffs of Smoke” featured a soulful funk that was a little bit irreverent, “Everyday” is a rollicking treat for fans of roots rock performances that you can still clap and groove along to. It exhibits Friedman’s innate ability to work his way around an earworm of a song. He has a clear sense of impeccable timing and a knack for leading a band of professionals while he’s at it. The result is another Cellar Sessions performance in the big for him, Toscano, Ferrera, Schneider, and Oh.

Friedman says of the song: “Like many of my songs, ‘Everyday’ came about as I was picking around on my guitar with that red cutaway capo placed on the fourth fret to produce a nice, open E sound. As I was strumming, the words ‘I’m alright … most of the time’ popped into my head, and I blocked out the chorus and came up with the chord pattern for the verses. It all stopped there for awhile until I was out riding my bicycle one morning, and the bridge popped into my head, so I pulled over and wrote it down on my iPhone.”

“When we were done recording the other 12 songs for Shoot the Moon, I taught the guys this song… Everyone was ready to wrap the whole recording session up as we’d been at it for about days, but I forced the issue, and as soon as we hit it I knew we had a great track! The verses for ‘Everyday’ came a bit later when I began working on vocals for my Shoot the Moon.”

And on the performance: “The shoot happened in the cellar at City Winery on Varick Street in Manhattan. We only did one take of each song. We had just gotten back from a little tour, so it was feeling good the whole time. The tracks seemed to groove well.”

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