In the two years since Salvation In Lights, Farris' live performances across the country, including Bonnaroo, SXSW, Austin City Limits Festival, and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, have left music novices, fans and seasoned artists with the same awe-struck response. His live shows, in no small part, led to this music veteran taking home the Americana Music Award in 2008 "New/Emerging Artist of the Year." Peter Frampton, Buddy Miller, Patty Griffin, Ricky Skaggs, Bruce Hornsby, Jackson Browne, Marty Stuart and many other artists have taken note of Farris' incomparable vocal performance. The Night the Cumberland Came Alive EP was recorded May 27, 2010 and Downtown Presbyterian Church in Nashville Tennessee as a charity reocrd for the victims of the Nashville flood. The song responsible for the inspiration for this particular song was written and performed by Curley Weaver called You Was Born to Die, sometime in the 1930's. Curley was a friend of the great Blind Willie McTell, who may be providing the second vocal on You Was Born to Die. I came across it while looking through Blind Willie songs and was struck by the chorus. The next morning I wrote new words around the phrase “you were born to die”. The recent floods here in Nashville were deep on my heart and mind and that's what came out when I began to write. Wrapped Up, Tangled Up Before the flood came, my idea for this EP was simply to gather up a bunch of great pre-war songs, with maybe a few newly written songs, and record them. I knew the one person I needed to get involved with this project was Ketch Secor. Ketch knows more about pre-war street music than anyone I know. He had given me some old vinyl records once and one song had absolutely rocked me to the core. That song was Wrapped Up and Tangled Up In Jesus, performed by the late Reverend Charlie Jackson, sometime in the 1970's maybe. The record I have sounds like a field recording and the performance is mesmerizing. Reverend Jackson delivers the vocal and guitar with brute power and conviction. I was afraid of doing this song because his rendition was so perfect. For some reason I decided I wanted to try it anyway and I think the band put down a brilliant take. The rhythm section, being Byron House, Derrek Phillips and Kenny Vaughan, on this take really shines. As well, Kenny Vaughan and Sam Bush delivered stellar solos. Dear Lazarus Ketch Secor and I wrote this song one day over at his studio. We had been listening to songs and going over some ideas and I remembered an idea that I had recently came up with. All I had was the chorus. Ketch grabbed an old Bible and we took the story of Lazarus right out of the Bible, basically. I had been thinking about how so many of us are “walking dead” in spirit, and also the thought of why we suffer in this world at all. My son, Christian, and I had talked about this recently and it was on my mind. Subconsciously the idea developed, I suppose, and then this chorus surfaced into the conscious and eventually became a song, which is one of my favorites on the EP. Dear Lazarus has one of the two overdubs on the record. We desperately needed an intro for the song, and so I asked Sam Bush if he would join us back down at the Downtown Presbyterian Church to record a fiddle part, to which he obliged. Sam is unbelievably talented and we spent a total of ten minutes with the red button engaged and captured a great intro inside a great room. Don't Let the Sun Go Down I've had this song for a long time, but I don't know where exactly it came from. It's just been lying around in my collection forever. The version I have is definitely a field recording. It takes place in a church, no doubt. The rhythm of the song hooked me. The words are mostly unintelligible, so I wrote new words, except for “don't let the sun go down”. Sometimes, words aren't necessary though. With a lot of the old songs, it's more of the human spirit singing out, and whether it's a sad song or one that's meant to lift you up, the emotions are conveyed. Don't Let the Sun Go Down is a cheerful reminder that there is a lot to do in this world and there are many great things to accomplish within every day of life that we get to live