The Songs of Native Soil

Native Soil is my fifth album in ten years, and my first full-length recording as a duo with Susan. I have always wanted to make a traditional album, and it is due to the enthusiasm Susan and I have playing together that really made Native Soil happen. We had been over to England and Scotland for tours in 2003 and 2004, and the audiences kept asking if we had a recording with our fiddle tunes and traditional songs.  So, anticipating our return in 2005 for two tours, audience demand and inner desire conspired to create this new recording.  The content of Native Soil is a blend of tunes I’ve known for years, and some that have just recently come to us.  Here’s a run-down of the songs.

Near everyone has heard The Cuckoo in some version or another.  Sue had been taking banjo lessons with John Herrmann, and brought this one home one day.  Hearing Sue practice it, slow and deliberate, I found potential for a deep groove. I discovered that if I mostly imitated her banjo part with my fiddle there would be more spaces left in-between the beats, creating a better foundation to build the song upon. In order to create some kind of story out of the many verses of lyric available, I chose the ones that in some way deal with the volatile nature of love and relationships. For the recording I had wanted to use the West African instruments kora and balaphon on The Cuckoo, but found that the Asheville musicians who would have played the parts were studying in Africa. On the eve of our session I picked up my electric guitar and discovered how well it synced right in with the groove and complemented the angst of the lyrics. Add to that River Guerguerian’s brilliant cajon box part and we had ourselves a track beyond my expectations!

A fiddler uses three things when learning a tune: the source (be it from printed music, a lesson, or a recording), memory, and the technical ability he possesses. All these things conspire to alter the tune in its transition from one player to another. This version of Lost Girl is the casualty of all three.  I learned this tune from no particular source (it probably stuck in my head after a session or a festival), and have adjusted my playing as I’ve heard other versions. As with Say Darlin’ Say, and Ernie Carpenter’s / Horney Ewe, this track was recorded live sitting in a circle with John Herrmann on banjo, Meredith McIntosh on bass, Sue on guitar and me on fiddle.

I’ve been a fan of Eliza Carthy for years, and my favorite recording of hers is her two CD set Red Rice. Her version of Miller & The Lass I played over and over, delighting in her huge energy and bawdy delivery. This song is meant for a woman’s voice and perfect for Sue to sing.  The arrangement was the product of much experimenting in rehearsal to find what sounded fun and interesting.  Pat Madsen with brushes on a snare drum and Mike Alexander on acoustic bass created the perfect backdrop for Sue’s voice, and it was refreshing to have a track without guitar on it for a change! Vern’s Reel follows Miller & the Lass and was named after Vern Crawford, a delight of a man who lives in Carbondale, Illinois. Vern runs Cousin Andy’s Coffeehouse, a concert venue for itinerant songwriters. Sue and I were sitting in his living room casually playing the morning after a show when I made up this reel on the mandolin. We would have forgotten it if Vern had not taken a one-minute video clip of us playing the tune. A few months later Sue played the video clips Vern had downloaded into her computer, and we both went, “hey, that’s good, we should play it!”

Originally a song from Texas, When First Unto This Country is an immigrant’s tale of unrequited love, horse thievery, jail time, and redemption. It caught my ear years ago when I heard it on a New Lost City Ramblers recording, but I really latched onto it after hearing Jerry Garcia sing it with David Grisman on their Not For Kids Only recording. This song was recorded simply with just guitar, vocals, and banjo. Sue’s understated banjo playing makes for the perfect accompaniment.

One night during my first UK tour in 2001, at the Davy Lamp Folk Club, I played East Virginia Blues near the end of my second set. To my surprise, everybody knew it and started singing along. It was one of those “ah-ha!” moments where I knew I had connected with something.  East Virginia Blues is one of those archetypal songs about unrequited love that transcends cultures and generations.  Pat Madsen and Mike Alexander provide a steady drive with their drum and bass parts here.

Soon after moving to Massachusetts in 1984 I befriended a trio of old-time musicians, Karen Simon, Carolyn Hooks, and Bob Lovell, and began learning their repertoire. Karen, the fiddle player, insisted that I accompany them on their annual trips to Mt. Airy, North Carolina for the fiddler’s convention. On the way down and sometimes on the way back up, we’d stop in at the home of the Hammonds family outside of Marlinton, West Virginia. By that time Maggie and Sherman had passed on, yet I had the honor of meeting Alene who would fix us all wild greens and beans for supper outside her shack. We would camp in a rickety cabin down the road, and there we’d learn tunes from tapes we had made at the festival. Red Rocking Chair was one of those tunes, and I’m transported to that time and place most times I sing this song.

Sue made up Cider’s Dream while sitting at her office desk with our dog Cider lying by her feet. Old Cider was twitching in his sleep, dreaming like he was chasing something. Sue suggested calling it “Chasing Squirrels.” The tune as she wrote it was in the key of G, and with its laid back tempo I thought it sounded more like going for a walk somewhere, perhaps to our favorite pub in town, Jack of the Wood. So for awhile we called it “A Short Walk to the Pub…and Back.” It seemed to fit, and we played it out at concerts like that for awhile. When it came time to record “Short Walk” we found we had too many tunes in the key of G, and wondered what this one would sound like in A.  We moved it up to A and experimented with putting masking tape across the strings by the bridge to give the banjo and guitar a muted sound. We sped the tempo up a bit, and when it was finished we found that it had come full circle: it now actually sounded like “Cider’s Dream (Chasing Squirrels).”

I was introduced to Dirk Powell’s music several years ago, and am always on the lookout for new recordings of his. Dirk is, in a word, brilliant. He is master of many instruments, has a deep understanding of America’s musical heritage, and is a vital force in keeping traditional music relevant in today’s music scene.  His original song Waterbound from his 2004 CD Time Again is a perfect example of how traditional motifs and timeless images are reinvented into something wholly new.  Sue fell so in love with the song that she couldn’t listen to the rest of the CD until she learned the song for herself.

Say Darlin’ Say I learned from the repertoire of Tommy Jarrell, and has been a standard in my concert sets for years. It’s a wonderful song that takes the “Hush Little Darling” song out of the nursery and into everyday, family life. This song also taught me how to sing and fiddle at the same time!

Some folks might recognize Ain’t No Cane from my 2002 Avenue of the Saints CD. Ain’t No Cane was reinvented from the prison work song, Ain’t No Cane On The Brazos, that was sung while cutting sugar cane along the Brazos River in Texas. The song has been done by many people through the years – Bob Dylan, The Band, The Limelighters. The definitive version of it is probably Huddie ‘Ledbelly’ Leadbetter’s, but I picked it up from Harvey Reid on his Steel Driving Man CD.  My own version is altered quite a bit from the original: different melody and some different lyrics. On Avenue Of The Saints, the track is an up-tempo fiddle tune with a full band, but for Native Soil we take a slow and stripped-down approach using only two guitars and two voices in a live take. “Hannah” is the name given to the sun; “go down Hannah, don’t you rise no more” for me sums up the desperation felt by the prisoners.

When I was first learning this music in the 80’s, Karen Simon, Carolyn Hooks, and Bob Lovell would play Ernie Carpenter’s Grandpappy’s Favorite and The Horney Ewe as medley. Going to the C chord in the B section of the Horney Ewe and singing those “Hey-Ho’s!” was always such a joyful thing to do that these tunes stuck with me through the years. I believe they are West Virginia tunes that Karen learned from the playing of Ron Mollineux. The Horney Ewe is ultimately Scottish in origin, and refers in fact to the making of whiskey, the “horney ewe” being none other than the whiskey still! The lyric goes, “plant your corn all in a row, and feed it all to the horney ewe. The horney ewe ain’t a very fine sheep, but the rest of the flock is hard to beat. Hey Ho John D. Hosey, Hey Ho!” All I can surmise is that somewhere along the line, this John D. Hosey is the chap who made the whiskey, and is forevermore the recipient of this toast!

Goin To Cary – This riff came to Sue as we were driving to a gig at the Six String Music Hall in Cary, North Carolina. She thought she’d make a real tune out of it, but the riff seemed to declare itself finished, and we couldn’t get it out of our heads.  This is kind of our jam-band piece and we play it with an attitude of fun and indulgence. In the event we get hired to play on some big festival stage with a band backing us, we’re going for this one and everybody’s gonna be dancing! See you there!