Track 17 (Traditional)

Here's another one that got the slowed down treatment. We really just started fooling around, and sort of jammed this one in the studio, while Alec had the tape rolling. After we finished playing it, Alec played it back to us, and I remember saying, 'oh…. that's nice' or words to that effect. I wasn't really thinking about it as an actual cd track.

Of course, that's exactly what he was thinking about. It surely took me by surprise, because I really thought that we were just playing around. Next thing you know Alec and Jerome are saying 'this HAS to go on the cd.'

Now I'm glad they saw something. It's definately a Brokenjoe track.

I tried to muscle some dynamics into the track in several places, and those guys were right with me every time, even though I'm pretty sure we all had our eyes closed throughout. Hell, Alec is a dynamic, and I think one could tell that Jerome and I have played together for quite a few years now…….

Track 16 (Toole)

When I was a kid, I saw this documentary on the CBC about the Springhill mining disaster out in Nova Scotia in 1958.

As a little kid, I had a hard time coming to grips with the horrors of being trapped in a mine, miles below the surface for 5 days. I remember the narrator talking about how some of the miners had to drink their own urine to survive the ordeal. Made me think about just how much some of us would do to survive.

I wrote this song in a kind of John Lee Hooker boogie style. I didn't bother trying to rhyme the couplets (as Hooker does) just relying on the groove and lyrics to get the message across.

Track 15 (Toole)

This is the first song I ever wrote on the banjo. When I first started playing, I was listening to a lot of old time guys, and was trying to emulate that mountain modal style. No chord changes. …..well, it ended up with a couple.

We played it in the studio a couple of times, and on a whim, I wanted to try it a lot slower than the tempo we were doing it at.  Bingo! It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. That's the way you hear it. For effect, I got real lazy with the vocals -even to the point of singing out of tune.

The title of the song comes from what happens when the old rail grinder goes over the tracks once a year or so.It makes the rails so smooth and even that for the next few weeks or so, they just 'sing' when a train goes over them.

Track 14 (Traditional)

Ever notice how much Jimmie Rodgers sounded like Blind Lemon Jefferson? Their guitar styles were very similar in my opinion -with the exception of how licks were phrased. Obviously, Jefferson had more of a bluesman's approach, where the notes are played ever so slightly behind the beat; wheras Rodgers tended to play right on top of it.

Of course, Jefferson was a much, much more advanced guitar player, but Rodgers certainly knew how to hold a song together, and keep it interesting

Vocally, Blind Lemon had a lot more range, and his emotional power came from his moaning and stretching out syllables for extra emphasis. Rodgers was a lot more plaintive, and seemed a little more sincere. You always get the feeling that he's addressing YOU.

Every time I listen to one, I can't help but think of the other. They were both playing the same type of music, the only difference being that they were singing it to different races. Pity.  

I like to think that there was a time when blacks and whites got along, hung out, and shared musical influences. I know that they influenced each other, but as naive as I try to be, I don't think that I can imagine they were sharing the same stages and barrel-houses. Seems to me, that the only thing that was shared by some white and black folks back then was grinding poverty. This is where a lot of the musical unions that I love came from.

Of course, once somebody decided to record and sell records by these musicians, they had to come up with a marketing angle. Voila! 'Country and Western', or 'Race' music, or 'Blues', or whatever……….. The dreaded 'label.'

Apparently, we need labels so we can decide whether we're gonna like something or not. Somebody says 'hey, lemme play you my new jazz cd.' We migh say 'sorry, I don't like jazz.' Does that mean that you don't like Duke Ellington? Or do you really only mean 'all that weird shit, like Ornette Coleman, and Dizzie Gillespie.'

Think about it. I guess we're sorta cheating the Egyptians when we don't consider them Africans…..

Alright, alright…. this post is getting a little bit outta hand. I first heard 'See that My Grave's Kept Clean' from Blind Lemon Jefferson. I have since come to realize that he didn't write it, and that it has been done by both black and white artists, each adding their own particular flavorings to it. We did it as a sort of pentatonic bluegrass thing. Added some urgency. I didn't want it to be too dirge-y.

I approached it from the point of view of somebody who wanted to live forever, and wanted to make damn sure that if his body wasn't around to remind you that he was still here, his memory would be.

Track 13 (Fraser)

Here's Alec:

'Have You Seen My Guardian Angel?'

This one had been haunting me for a while. I didn`t write it until the nineties but it was inspired by an incident I had back in Glasgow, Scotland on New Years Eve 1971.

My cousin and I were out having a few drinks celebrating Hogmanay when we witnessed this tiny old hobo with long tattered hair walk in front of a double decker bus and get trapped under it`s wheels. I ran up to him and caught the last bit of life in his eyes. I thought, what a way to go. All these strange faces looking at you, nobody knows your name. This thread bared little man, all soaking wet with a bus on top of him stuck in my mind for a long time.

Many years later I had a dream that I was singing this song on a porch with some hillbilly band. I actually for the first and only time wrote the bulk of a song while I was sleeping, then woke up and scribbled it all down.

I got Jerome to record it on the "One Monkey" CD with some demented guitar sounds but this Brokenjoe version is closer to the original idea with a newly added verse and a little bit of blues whooping.

Track 11 (traditional)

I learned this from Ry Cooder's album 'Boomer's Story.' That album would have to be one of my top 5 desert island cds. A masterpiece from start to finish. Actually, as I type this, I can't even begin to think what the other 4 would be, but I am certain this one holds a spot.

I used to play this song on the guitar all the time. It's a real back porch kind of tune. I worked up an arrangement with nice little bottleneck fills throughout, but when I started playing it on the banjo, it really sprang to life, and caught the mood of the song.

I really like a lot of the old time-y imagery of the lyrics:

"Standing on a platform, smoking a cheap cigar."

and

"I pulled my hat down over my head, and walked across the track. I caught me the end of an old freight train, and I never did come back"

Jerome plays some really sweet and lonesome harp throughout

Track 10 (Toole)

I went down to Tennessee last fall -specifically Nashville, and Memphis- and really soaked up a lot of country music whilst there. It's impossible not to. What really impressed me was just how classy a lot of it was. Usually, when you think of country music you think of (at least I do) cheesy corn pone sentiments coupled with ten-years-outta-date-tacky-hair-dos-and-fashions. Well, I'm happy to say that that wasn't the case. At least not what I saw.

The Country Music Hall of Fame is done up in a very respectful and modern way. The dictum for the HOF is 'Honor Thy Music.', and honored it is. I really felt as though I was in some kind of hallowed shrine. Two things really grabbed me. The first, was Mother Maybelle Carter's old Gibson L-5 guitar. It's preserved there in a glass case in all of it's beauty. Looking closely, you can see that Maybelle loved this instrument, because it's still in excellent shape.  I remember looking at pictures of  this guitar on old Carter family albums that my dad had when I was a kid. Pops used to say that 'you can never have too many Carter Family records.'

The second, was seeing Hank Williams' famous 'musical notes' Nudie suit. Holy shit! I could feel my eyes watering….. HE REALLY EXISTED!!! And I'll tell you something: this larger than life character really wasn't that tall. I guess we just make our heros out to be bigger than they really are.

I am going somewhere with all of this, and I guess the point that I'm trying to make is how much I like country music. I wrote 'I don't Blame Her' right after getting back from that trip. It was one of those songs that just fell on me. I didn't even try. Took me about 2 minutes. Can you tell?

Funny…. I wrote this song with a kinda George Jones/Merle Haggard thing in mind, but it came out sounding more like Dave Dudley….,..

…………or who the hell knows?

TRACK 9 (Traditional)

Some murder ballads that I have known: 

"Banks of the Ohio"

Death by: drowning

Victims sex: female

Killer apprehended?: yes

"The Knoxville Girl"

Death by: chopped up and tossed into river

Victims sex: female

Killer apprehended?: Yes

"Pretty Polly"

Death by: unstated. Maybe buried alive

Victims sex: female

Killer apprehended?: no

"Omie Wise"

Death by: drowning

Victims sex: female

Killer apprehended?: yes

"Frankie and Johhnie"

Death by: shooting

Victims sex: male

Killer apprehended?: no

"Fatal Flower Garden"

Death by: cursed/witch's magic

Victims sex: young male

Killer apprehended?: no

"Bad, Bad Leroy Brown"

Death by: unstated "Leroy looked like a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone"

Victims sex: male.

"Bad, bad Leroy Brown

Baddest man in the whole damned town

Badder than old King Kong

And Meaner than a junkyard dog"

Killer apprehended?: unstated

TRACK 8 (traditional) 

'That sonofabitch been standin' over me all mornin'. He better watch his self, lest I put my foot in his ass. I ain't no slave. This ain't no workhouse detail. Goddamn. There ain't no kinda' harder work than swingin this here 9 pound hammer in the heat of a mean old summer sun.

Get that waterboy 'round here, we's all about to drop. Shit…… how long 'till lunch? Ast the bossman……..'

'Tillson got his hand all busted up when Jaxon hit 'em with the hammer. Jaxon says he was sober, but we all knowed different. Tillson sets in the shade with his hand wrapped in rags, and all swole up like a balloon. Better slather it in iodine, and clean it all up good when we get back to camp, lest it start festerin', and he gotta get it lopped off.

…….least he dont have tuh work though…..

I learned this song from an old Clarence Ashley version. It's in a tuning called 'mountain minor', or 'sawmill' tuning.