This is one Herb and I worked on. If you ever get the chance to work with Herb, don't miss it. He is a great guy to work with and has a good ear. We both put this together and actually have several mixes of the same song. Right now we are narrowing down the best mixes. This is one we worked on recently and I would be interested to see what you guys think.
 
The drums are Addictive Drums...Herb played the lead Tele parts ,sang the harmonies and did a lot of other stuff.
 
https://soundcloud.com/starise/hardway
 
 

Hi Tim, nice tune, vocals could be a bit clearer, seem a bit buried in the mix. For my taste the guitar licks sound a bit grating. The guitar solo seems to be having intonation and timing issues,imho.
 
Rik

Rik- I think some of the guitar is a clash with the tails of the acoustic at some endings. I like the more aggressive sound of the guitar, just a preference I guess. At one point I had a filter on the guitar, but removed it. Maybe I'll revisit that based on comments we get here.I might bring up the vox some as well. Thanks!

sounds like a good song just needs a few edges taken off here end there, bit of subtle smoothing.
 
Thanks for sharing.

Tim, this is a good song that is just a tweak away from being a gem.  You've already gotten good advice on how to achieve that.  You and Herb work well together.

Nice song!
 
I like the overall instrument mix, though as mentioned above the lead guitar does come across as a bit edgy for the rest of the song; for me it seems similar to the amp sim "grittiness" that Craig Anderton had recently mentioned in the SONAR forum.  The playing is there though!   The drums also seem to get a little lost among everything else - since you were using AD I was really listening to how they blended (justifying my own upgrade purchase I guess ).
 
I like the organ parts, the lead vocals and harmonies sound very good, and I really liked the occasional steel guitar flourishes - nice touch!
 

I liked it and it has a great message. Like Lynn said, a tweak away from a gem. Very nice song with some nice instrumentation and vocals. Really enjoyed!! A+
 
Peace and Blessings, John

I really like this song. It is definitely one worth getting right. You have some good advice up above, so keep after it and like has been said, you will have a gem!

OK... thought I'd chime in a say a few things.  Tim approached me with the song almost written. I helped smooth out a few lines in the lyrics but not enough to really say I co-wrote this with Tim... it's Tim's song through and through. 
 
I jumped in and worked up a few guitar tracks, to try to determine a direction,  scrapped them did some new ones, and put the steel and B3 together.  Tim worked on guitars and sang it. I think I literally threw a few harmony tracks together for Tim more as a "we could do this" sort of thing. We went back and forth over the direction, should it be rock, or country and what direction? I was hearing a Waylon sort of 4 on the floor country outlaw thing. Tim was more of a rock persuasion.  Since it was his song, hey... whatever he wanted to do is fine with me....
 
I think we did the drums several times. I kinda like the AD track.... I think it was the second or third one Tim came up with. Bass was even worse. Tim offered a bass track, I countered, Tim did another bass track, I countered with a bass I played on the keys but it sounded to.... boring. Time did yet another and I countered yet again with a track I thought really had a sweet groove. But hey, it's Tim's song, and while I was working up my own 2 versions of the song...... I didn't really want to do the mixing and production on this, I wanted to see what Tim would end up doing.
 
There was a week there we lost touch with each other.... he was waiting on me and I was waiting on him.... So, this is the version Tim decided to go with. Nowhere in the run up to the final version did we have a piano in the earlier versions.  That is new to this version, and it's Tim on the keys.
 
My comments on this mix:  Vocals and harmonies are sounding good.
 
I don't like the tele. It just doesn't sound like I would like it to. But that's not an issue related to the production. I'm seriously considering selling it and buying a Gibson or something else similar.  The lick was "borrowed" from little MJ.
 
The drums are still an issue IMHO. The beat at the beginning almost has a swing to it....  having that swing feel and at other times not so much, it really leaves the groove of the song in a kind of limbo, in that, it never establishes itself rhythmically into a definable groove. The drums also are a bit low. As such, I don't think there is a firm groove yet in the song. It feels kinda loose.  To me, this is the biggest issue with the song.
 
I don't know that I would have used the steel in this version. And I'd probably limit the tele a bit and perhaps back it off a few db.
 
All in all, headed in the right direction but still some work (IMHO) left to do.
 
 
NOTE: We've probably spent more time on this song than almost any other collaborative effort I've worked on. Not a bad thing... just trying to find that sweet spot for this song to live in.
 
 
 

Good country song Tim. Sorry I can't comment on the mix. I'm at work listening over crappie computer speakers. I did enjoy the song though... Nice collab.