composed by PETER STAMPFEL
(except for #9, which comes from WALKER SHEPARD, with a closing flourish from Peter)
1. CRAZY ARMS
This was number one on the Country charts for Ray Price for about six months in 1956. It was first published by legendary steel guitar player Ralph Mooney in 1949, but recent research suggests the song was likely written by Paul Gilley, who was known for selling his work for flat fees, rights, credits and all. Gilley’s other uncredited classics include “Cold, Cold Heart” and “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry”, two Hank Williams hits.
PETER STAMPFEL—fiddle, vox : WALKER SHEPARD—guitar : ELI SMITH—slide guitar
2. BONES ARE DRONES
Learned from Steve Weber. Written by Robin Remaily, of “Euphoria” fame. I heard he wrote “Euphoria” in 1958 (making it the earliest freak folk song) while chopping down a tree. I have since discovered he used a chain saw, not an ax. Antonia and I made up the Free-as-Air verse: “Free as air, free as air, free as air. Got a lot to share, but I don’t know where. So free as air”. Walker and Eli suggested I change the last line to “Do free as air”. This altered the meaning a bit, but I went with it. I just talked to Robin about the song, and he suggested changing the last line to “and I don’t care”, which I like best of all. I asked Robin just what bones are drones means, no answer yet. My take is bones = death and drones = ongoing time. Like we used to say in the Cheerful Charlies, at any given instant, we’re only a dying away from death.
PETER STAMPFEL—vox : WALKER SHEPARD—vox, guitar : ELI SMITH—vox, slide guitar
3. PEYOTE BLUES
Learned from Weber. Written by Robin Remaily. New second verse by me.
PETER STAMPFEL—vox, fiddle : WALKER SHEPARD—vox, guitar : ELI SMITH—vox, guitar
DOK GREGORY—jaw harp
4. CLUCK OLD HEN
The refrain is traditional. The verses are mine. Harking back to my trad word altering days.
PETER STAMPFEL—vox, banjo : WALKER SHEPARD—banjo-mandolin : ELI SMITH—banjo
5. SWEETEST MOTHER
Lyrics by Grace Stoddard Dennstedt; music by William Morgan Ramsey. A hymnal standard. The way I came across this song is deeply strange. 1947. My folks are conned (we eventually discover) by this guy whose last name is Whelan, which is also the family name of close friends of my wife, Betsy, and I. The con: steel homes! All-steel construction to last forever! The public then was very susceptible to miracle postwar products of all kinds. Mr. Whelan had a fancy brochure with all these different houses, basically ranch style with a big picture window and a garage attached via breezeway. He collected money from I don’t know how many people. We sold our home (the bottom half of a duplex in West Allis, Wisconsin) and were ready to move out based on when we were told the steel home would be ready, but it hadn’t even been started. My folks threatened to go to the District Attorney, and quickly a conventional non-steel home was, as it turned out, very sloppily built. We were the only people that eventually got a house from Mr. Whelan. I don’t know how many people gave him how much money they never got back. But in the meantime, we had no place to live. So, we moved in with the Zalars, right down the block. George and Margaret, and their kids, David, a little older than me, and Shirley, same age as my kid sister Leane. Also living there were Dolly, Margaret’s sister, her daughter Carol, who was David’s age, and our little brother Perry, age 3. That makes 11 people. And their dog, Timmy, who hated me. David once attempted to get us to be friends, but Timmy bit my face. Just nicked me fortunately. It was a little one-bathroom house. I didn’t know anyone with a two-bathroom house in the ’40s.
I went to Luthor Burbank School, a five-minute walk away. When I came home for lunch, the radio was always on to a station that alternated mainly Country and Polka music. The big Polka DJ was Fritz the Plumber. Fritz the Plumber promoted polka performances in which he would pretend-conduct the bands, using a toilet plunger as a conductor’s baton. The Country music program always played during lunch, playing the Hank Williams show, which was syndicated. Hank Williams made no impression on me, but I fell in love with his theme song, “Happy Rolling Cowboy”. Back then, and into the ’50s, it was common for DJs to play the same songs in the same order at the same time, often for weeks on end. So every day at lunch time, I heard “Sweetest Mother”, with which I also fell in love. The line “She smoothed out my pillow for many a year” especially gets me. It’s worth noting that it was possible, in 1947, to buy a house with my dad making $60 a week.
PETER STAMPFEL—vox, banjo : WALKER SHEPARD—vox, guitar : ELI SMITH—vox, banjo
6. WILDERNAUT RAG
A partly composed, partly improvised ragtime string band instrumental.
ELI SMITH—guitar : WALKER SHEPARD—guitar : PETER STAMPFEL—banjo
7. SLOW POISON
Written by John Parrott. Fans will recognize John as the guy who wrote “Screaming Industrial Breakdown”. He’s written a number of songs in the mid-20th century Country tradition, of which this excellent song is an excellent example. I’ve been meaning to ask him what the hell a twin screw is. We formed a duo in the late ’70s, and if anyone gets around to baking the reel-to-reel tapes there’ll be an album eventually.
PETER STAMPFEL—vox, fiddle, banjo, whistling : ELI SMITH—guitar, whistling
WALKER SHEPARD—whistling : DOK GREGORY—whistling
8. NEW TURKEY
Traditional. The only actual folk song I ever learned from my mom. The Mussolini verses were learned from Luke Faust, and obviously date from World War Two.
PETER STAMPFEL—fiddle, vox : WALKER SHEPARD—guitar : ELI SMITH—ektara
9. GIMME THAT OLD TIME RELIGION
WALKER: In 1873 this song, and Black Gospel music in general, was introduced to the world at large by the Fisk Jubilee Singers of Fisk University. The group is still active. The song is older than that and the melody, which is English, may be even older. This is a traditional song that I really wanted Peter to get his hands on. The juxtaposition of the song’s intrinsic devotional spirit and Peter’s unearthly harmonies seemed like a good pairing.
PETER: I think the song was originally a white gospel song, which became known as a Black Gospel song,
and is now mainly thought of as a White Gospel song again. It’s that old “Unbroken Circle” thing.
WALKER SHEPARD—vox, guitar : PETER STAMPFEL—vox, fiddle : ELI SMITH—slide guitar
10. SWEET SUE
From 1928. Music by Victor Young; lyrics by Will J Harris. This song was sung on three separate I Love Lucy episodes. This harks forward to my recent kick of adding new words to Great American Songbook era songs. I’ve enlisted Jeffrey Lewis in this endeavor, having asked him to add new words to Cole Porter’s “I Love You”, one of Porter’s finest and indeed loveliest musical constructions. Jeff’s three new verses blow the song out of the water. We also both added new words to the obscure 1941 song, “Blue Champagne”.
PETER STAMPFEL—fiddle, vox : WALKER SHEPARD—guitar : ELI SMITH—banjo-mandolin
11. LOWLANDS
Traditional. New words from me and Antonia. I learned the song from Tom Hobson in San Francisco in 1961. A day after I originally wrote this note, I got a Facebook message from Lewi Longmire, who wrote, “I just found reference to you in an interview that Jerry Garcia gave in the early ’70s. He said when he was starting out in 1961, you, Tom Hobson and people like that were playing the coffee houses in San Francisco.” Specifically, we played at the Fox and Hound in North Beach.
PETER STAMPFEL—banjo, fiddle, vox : ELI SMITH—vox : WALKER SHEPARD—vox
12. PICKING DANDELIONS
Eli wrote this song several years ago. It’s a song about maintaining day by day.
ELI SMITH—guitar, vox : PETER STAMPFEL—vox, fiddle, whistling : WALKER SHEPARD—banjo
13. THERE STANDS THE GLASS
A #1 hit on the Country charts for Webb Pierce in 1953. Written by Russ Hull, Mary Jean Shurtz, and Autry Greisham, and originally recorded by Blaine Smith in 1952. An epic mid-20th Century Country song I learned from Walter Gundee in 1959. Walter was the BF of Helen Mitchell, the girl who I followed to New York after meeting her in San Francisco the summer of that year. In 1961, Walter was the BF of Maria D’Amato until he took her to see Geoff Muldaur perform with the Kweskin Jug Band. The rest is history.
PETER STAMPFEL—vox, fiddle : WALKER SHEPARD—guitar : ELI SMITH—slide guitar
14. BANJO FROLIC
Three banjos, no waiting. The idea was we just play a single take. “Three banjos, no waiting” refers to signs they used to have in barber shops: three barbers, no waiting.
PETER STAMPFEL—banjo, vox : WALKER SHEPARD—banjo : ELI SMITH—banjo
