The Songs
Notes on the Songs:
Number on the Door - Written a couple of years ago but set aside because the words and music didn't fit each other. Looking for material for this album, I took it and recast it in a minor key and it finally had the "modern mountain ballad" feel I wanted. A melodica is a very handy instrument to have around... sometimes it's the perfect sound.
The Buzzard - Back when I played with Dry Bones in the early '90s I took two Robert Johnson songs we were playing, "Hellhound on My Trail" and "Sweet Home Chicago," and knocked them together until this came out. I borrowed the title from an old Tex Ritter 78 of a Terry Gilkyson song.
Luau Time - This one had to be the title song because its completion on the 4th of July triggered the project. The first verse sat around for a long time written on a web-page printout of a Hawaiian shirt called Luau Time. I made up the other verses and then found the chorus idea was already printed on the paper.
Hell-Bound Train - The traditional melody for this isn't much but I liked the story and the pictures it evokes. I tried to spice it up without taking it too far from a traditional feel. It's all recorded live except for the vocal.
Dream of Me - Another song with a failed previous arrangement. It needed to be straightened out and John and Frank helped me do that.
Old What's His Name - I wrote "In a sleepy midwest town/in 1917/he was a total stranger/someone they'd never seen" but for years I had no idea what happened next. One night I found those lines and I just knew the the rest of the story. This recording started as a demo some months before the album sessions. I kept the vocal, rhythm guitar, and bass, and we re-did or added the drums, keyboards, and the second guitar.
Whitehouse Blues -This is a song that's been recorded scores of times under several titles ("Cannonball Blues" is the other most common version). I collected about 25 verses then edited it down to just the ones that refer to the McKinley assasination in Buffalo in 1901. Then I slowed it down so it sounded like it might be about somebody dying.
Shallow Grave - Kind of a Richard Thompson song with lots of bleak imagery and a folky delivery. Frank's bass gives it a propulsive swing that I like a lot.
Comrades, Fill No Glass for Me - Not one of Stephen Foster's best known tunes but it has all of his ability to set a scene and fill in the actors.
The Other Shoe - A small momentary expression that needed the right moment (and arrangement) to flower. It was going nowhere until I picked up the baritone guitar - then everything fell into place.