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About New Long RoadThat guy in the picture is David Budin, which is my name. I used to be that guy. Now I'm the guy in the group photo of New Long Road. But I remember this guy really well. In fact, I still own that rainbow-colored paisley brocade Nehru jacket.
Why this picture? Because this is how I looked when I originally got the idea for New Long Road, which is just starting now. This picture is an outtake from one of the photo sessions for the cover of an album I recorded for Sire Records. And it's one of very few pictures I have of me from back then. I got the idea for what is now New Long Road soon after I quit high school in 1967. I was going to put a group just like this together. But then I suddenly left Cleveland for Boston, which was then the epicenter of the singer-songwriter movement. It was centered, really, in Cambridge, which where I actually went. |
It's a long story, but one thing led to another, and soon I was in New York City, in a loud rock band, part of which became part of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, while I signed with Sire Records. Anyway, one thing continued to lead to another, musically -- rock bands, folk duos, solo singer-songwriter stuff -- till I started the original Long Road, a '60s-style folk group, in 2007. We played for about 10 years.
But things happened, and we had to stop for a while, and then the pandemic hit, and we had to continue to stop (you know what I mean). And then, some of us wound up in other groups, some had medical issues, etc., but a couple of us decided to keep doing this. And that's when I figured out that I could finally create the group that I had envisioned in 1967. So, I got the best musicians I could find (and I can find good musicians). And I started writing the arrangements. And we started rehearsing. And now, here we are.