Pastime by Ross Durand

Pastime is a folk music song cycle telling the history of baseball.

I chose baseball as a the concept for this album after hearing an interview with Kadir Nelson on "All Things Considered." Kadir Nelson had recently published a children's book about the Negroe Leagues entitled We are the Ship. That sounded like a good idea for a song, and then I realized how rich the history of baseball as a whole is, and decided to theme the whole album around that.

For research I relied heavily on the book Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game by George Vecsey. I also consulted several web sources and ran a few drafts past a couple of friends of mine who love baseball, Ronan Murray and Toshi Chun.

This album was entirely written and recorded during the month of February 2008 as part of February Album Writing Month (FAWM.org).