A Ragged Old Man
Kate is a talented parodist. When the mood strikes her she can make a serious song silly with her word play.
The first verse of “A Ragged Old Man” begins
“ A bearded old bum, he…
A Ragged Old Man
Kate is a talented parodist. When the mood strikes her she can make a serious song silly with her word play.
The first verse of “A Ragged Old Man” begins
“ A bearded old bum, he…
Orphan Train
I had a problem creating a sequence of the 13 songs we had recorded . “Orphan Train” did not follow any of the other 12 songs well. It just sounded wrong. The solution was to put it first…
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“Heart Songs” was the 5th album we made for Rounder. The preparation, the origin, and the process of making the album was different from what we had done before.
Its origin was in dreams. Bruce “Utah” Phillips had a recurring…
Read moreLong Time Traveling
We’ve performed “Long Time Traveling” many times, always with 2 guitars. It’s one of my favorites in our repertoire. For some reason we recorded it with fretless banjo. I liked how it came out at the time…
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“Stay Awhile” was an expensive recording to make. We went over budget. We had four guest musicians to pay and four more inputs to edit and mix. Editing took longer than usual for another reason. I was wanting my instrumental…
Read moreThe Bramble and The Rose
There is plenty of information about the origins of “The Bramble and The Rose” in the liner notes to “Our Town” and the liner notes to “Rasa” which includes a recording we did of the…
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We were going to call our third duet album “In Between Dreams”. That was the title of one of its songs, recently written by Mark Simos, and musically a bit different than what we normally sang. One of Rounder’s staff…
Read moreElkhorn Ridge
Our banjo duets added sparkle to our shows and recordings. When we first started touring we tried traveling with 2 guitars, 2 banjos, a mandolin and a fiddle. It was hard enough in a car. But flying with…
Read moreBLUE LIGHTNING
Our second album had more of a bluegrass feel. We were joined on some tracks by Laurie Lewis on upright bass and Pete Wernick on banjo, including 2 banjo duets with Kate. No vocal trios or quartets on…
Read moreMy dad was a physics professor. As he got older he got interested in how teaching and learning takes place. One time he told me that while he was in the classroom he was a font of wisdom, able to…
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