Hound Dog Blues, inspired by my dog, "Star"
who is half blue tick and half red tick coonhound, and a real
friend, unlike some women I know. And hers is the song that
inspired the album title, "The Blues: Man's Best Friend". For
all the guitar players out there, this song is a curiosity
because it has only one chord. Try this: Get in the G chord, and
play the rhythm "WokA WokA WokA..."
Lyrics.
Listen In RealAudio®
Drunken Woman Blues. It's about the disappointments of living with a hard drinking woman. Enough said. "Lee Roy" plays 12-string and I play the resonator guitar and harmonica. A fun piece, inspired by my sense of humor. Lyrics.
King Snake. A macho, fun song about the animal nature of good lovin'. Lyrics.
Socially Awkward. A sweet little instrumental buried on side A, accidentally omitted from album and jacket due to typesetting error. Here I play the 12-string guitar, and Lee Roy plays the slide metal guitar. One of several instrumentals that we play. Lee Roy wrote the music. No Lyrics.
Mississippi River Blues. I borrowed some of the lyrics and the theme of this tune from Big Bill Broonzy, and we added our own guitar "licks". Lyrics.
Bang Bang! Thud Thud! This tune has some bluegrass-country influence. I got inspired after I passionately kissed a woman goodnight, but then got a message on my answering machine the next day saying we should never see each other again? My wife wants to thank her. Lyrics.
Creak'n Bedsprings. We use weird chords to imitate the sound of busy bedsprings. I was in a lonesome mood, and thought the sound of other people making love was the loneliest of all possible sounds. Lyrics.
Slick Willy Blues. I don't like the current
president of the United States. Though the same age, I'm a
Viet Nam veteran [ 199th Light Infantry,
"Redcatchers",
'66-'67], while our current leader was too "moral" to serve
there with us. Here I play the resonator guitar (Embellished the vamp of Robert
Johnson's "Steady Rollin' Man") while Lee Roy uses a wierd tuning on the
metal slide guitar.
Lyrics.
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Whiskey Headed Man. I borrowed some lyrics, and all the idea from Tommy McClennon (But not guitar licks!). A dear, but whiskey headed friend of mine recently passed on from liver disease. Hard, self-destructive drinking is neither the way to live, nor die. Lyrics.
Mister, Mister. The music was written by Lee Roy, and you can hear the jazz in these chord progressions. He said I should write the lyrics about hitch hiking, so I wrote, not only about hitch hiking, but leaving town, and the reasons why. Lee Roy plays slide, and I play the harmonica and 12-string guitar. Don't you know we argue over who has to play 12-string. If a guitarist played one for 80 years, he would have spent 60 years tuning the damn thing! Lyrics.
Le Machine. Here we incorporate a good friend of ours, Greg Fitch, on the string bass. Lee Roy plays accordion, and I play harmonica and resonator guitar. This has a fast '50s rock and roll sound and hopefully is not too risqué. Be careful who you play it for. It was inspired by my wife. Lyrics.
All the lyrics, in one pile.
All of our songs are recorded exactly as we play them. There's no overdubbing, no effects, no synthesized bullshit. We both have grown tired of over-produced music. We think acoustic blues ought to sound like it's being played inside a dumpster; it deserves a certain rawness.
Our philosophy is this: Although we use the traditional tools of the acoustic blues masters, we are not "Stuck in the '30s". We tap up the tempo, we go beyond 1-4-5 chord progressions, and are not scared to add modern lyrics to the medium. Any art confined to the same thing, the same way, is condemned. We are in another shade of blue, a newer shade that we hope will entertain.
Instruments:
