Tres Pescadores Records

Stories Behind the Songs

A Week In Winnemucca
A few years back I took a gig in northern Nevada at a small casino in Winnemucca. It was the sort of gig I usually avoided in my working musician days, not very musically redeeming. But this one seemed ok, good band, we all knew each other, decent money, separate rooms, the meals were covered, the hours weren’t too long and we could play whatever we wanted, no jukebox playlist was expected. So I headed up there after playing a show for ‘Sleepy’ John Sandidge in Santa Cruz and other than my truck blowing a gasket on the way home in the middle of the night in the middle of Nevada it was a good experience. The song pretty much explains itself, other than the line about ‘Loretta’s Girls Were There’ taking a little bigger role in the song than maybe in real life. They were there, Loretta’s twins, Peggy and Patsy. Patsy is married to Philp Russell who was writing songs in Nashville at the time and was good friends with Shawn Jones, whose gig it was. They all came out just to hang but we really didn’t see that much of them. Also Shawn is a lefty but as far as I know no one ever calls him that. 

Guardian Angel
I was kind of a wild kid when I was younger, and maybe for a while after that. I’d read a lot of Jack London, Mark Twain, Jack Kerouac, and at 17, just out of high school, I took off and hitchhiked across the country, just me and my dog Wesley, a little springer spaniel. I was looking for some hippie Xanadu, didn’t find it, but I did meet a lot of interesting and generous folks. Wesley was well behaved and helped getting rides; folks would say they stopped because she looked so cute. I hitched up into Canada and Quebec and in the next few years I hitchhiked across the country twice more and all over Southern California and the west coast. I continued to live kind of wildly in a lot of ways, seasonal and temporary jobs so I could collect unemployment, always looking for any opportunity to play music. By the time my wife Susie and I got together I was playing steady gigs and starting to settle down. We were wild together for a few years but then kids came along, we became a family together and I seemed to find what I’d been looking for, thanks to my Guardian Angel. 

An Irishman’s a Laborer at Heart
It’s said that the Irish built New York City and they certainly helped build the railroads. I was thinking about this phrase, ‘An Irishman’s a Laborer at Heart’ and when I started writing the song it all just fell into place like it was there waiting for me. That doesn’t happen very often. Of course I was thinking of my father but also of myself and my two boys, both hard workers. But most of us are, Irish or not, we all work, it gives us meaning and keeps us centered. The picture of the Irish being a quiet sort does fit my dad, my brother, my cousins and a lot of the people I’ve met when I’ve been to Ireland. Niall Williams describes it in his book he wrote with his wife Christine Breen ‘O Come Ye Back To Ireland’. “It’s a strange irony that the very same people who are near-legendary Carousers, dancers, musicians and storytellers are also the most bashful people anywhere in the world”.

Georgia Bride
This song started with the guitar riff, as many do. The lyric for a long time didn’t really have a story. It was just a collection of words and phrases that I liked the sound of, dated sounding language like in ‘True Grit’, the Charles Portis book and Coen Brothers film. At least that’s what I had in mind. Musically it had a Memphis or New Orleans feel and for a while I thought it needed a strong horn arrangement with two horns, like Allen Toussaint. I ran it by a few folks, Jeff Turmes came by a couple times and was trying to give me what he thought I was looking for and at some point, in all those tracks, he played this perfect, laid back tenor sax solo that fit perfectly. It just took me awhile to hear it. Danny McGough and Skip Edwards both shine on the keyboards. 

Midnight Shift
I played a lot in country bars, nightclubs, honky-tonks, truck stop dives, 9 - 2am six or seven nights a week, it was a good education and a way to make sort of a living. Most of those places are gone but I still play a monthly residency in Tarzana out in the west San Fernando Valley at a place called The Maui Sugar Mill Saloon. It’s a good music room but these places are not always the best for quieter acoustic songs and having a decent repertoire of barroom songs can be a good idea. This one has been a favorite of mine for a while, done by Buddy Holly and a few others. This also features the guys who’ve played most of these sort of gigs with me the last few years, Tony Gilkyson on guitar, Jeff Turmes on bass and Dale Daniel on drums, great guys, good friends and really excellent musicians and both Tony and Jeff are tremendous artists and songwriters themselves, I couldn’t be prouder to play music with them. 

Maria
My mother-in-law, Jennie, wrote this song. She always wrote a lot - poetry, journals, family history - and I’ve recorded a few songs she’s written over the years. She told me this song was for her granddaughter, my niece, Maria. She also talked to me a few times about Maria Felix, a beautiful Mexican film star and singer in the 1940’s and 50’s. She was said to be “the most beautiful face in the history of Mexican cinema” and was said to have had many affairs and romances. Jennie told me that Maria Felix was married to the songwriter Agustín Lara for a time and that after she left him every song he wrote was for her or about her. I had this song for a while and always loved it, but this was a little more complicated than some others. It's up-tempo, it changes keys, I don’t speak Spanish, very little at least, and so it took some work. Many, many thanks to the wonderful Celia Chavez for singing this with me and helping bring this to life, and to everyone who played on it. My wife Susie cries when she hears it, she says her mom would have loved it. 

El Diablo Manda
The lyrics are of course a reaction to the madness we are all living through, especially for those who are taking the brunt of all this, all so a few people who have so much can have a little more. There’s a scene in the movie Cold Mountain where Jena Malone, the ‘Ferry Girl’ is taking Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jude Law across a river and the home guard is in pursuit. As they start across Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character, as a preacher, asks her if he‘s seen her in church and she says no and replies ‘I’d say these days the devil rules the roost’. The home guard suddenly reach the ferry landing and she’s shot dead and falls in the river. It’s a powerful scene and a powerful statement on what people were living through at that time, and not too far off from what we’re experiencing today. The phrase ‘the devil rules the roost’ stayed with me but sang better in Spanish. Again my deepest thanks to everyone who played and sang and helped bring this song to life; Tony Zamora who played bass, Cougar Estrada who played drums and percussion, Roberto Rodriguez lll’s brilliant accordion, Celia Chavez’s background vocals, Jon Crawford who recorded the basic tracks and Paul duGre’ for a brilliant mix.

Long Black Veil
I loved this song the first time I heard Lefty Frizzell sing it when I was a kid, the story, his voice. I started playing this revved up version in bars and honky-tonks years ago, it seemed to go over well. This is again all my regular guys, Tony Gilkyson guitar, Jeff Turmes bass and baritone Sax and Dale Daniel drums. I’ve called my band ‘The Losin End’ for a long time. In the days when I played a lot in bars a lot of bands had names like Cimarron and The Outfit that seemed kind of tame to me. I was looking for something a little tougher with a little mystery. Thanks to Paul duGre’ for the ghostly fade out. 

Delia
I had the guitar part for this song for a number of years and had tried different lyrical approaches but none worked. I’m drawn to older sounding names, especially those that have fallen out of use and when I hit on Delia it all fell into place. The story isn’t mine but I think a lot of us have been lost to someone we were close to, someone we loved and could no longer reach. Again my deep thanks to everyone who played and seemed to understand so perfectly what the song needed, especially Eleanor Whitmore’s beautiful and haunting fiddle playing. 

One More Night
I recorded this song on one of my first albums, my first CD in fact; my first album I released on cassette only. My friend and sometime songwriting buddy, Wyman Reese, was a real partner on this, I had the melody, he found the chords and started the refrain and I completed the lyrics. We were quite a bit younger at the time and I guess imagining the time of life that we are fully living in now. There’s a Freddy Powers song that Merle Haggard recorded called ‘Silver Eagle’ and it’s pretty clear that Freddy wrote the song for Merle. I remember them singing it together on ‘Nashville Now’ with Ralph Emery years ago and it floored me. I think that's what I had in mind when we wrote this song. 

Trailrider
My brother and I loved the western show Rawhide with Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates and Frankie Laine singing the theme song. I also loved Duane Eddy’s ‘Rebel Rouser’ and The Ramrods ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’. This is another partnership with Wyman Reese. When my boys were younger I was at home most days with them. Susie worked regular hours. She’d come home and I’d leave for whatever gig I was playing. When it was just me and my boys at home I used to make up songs for them, silly things, sometimes with their names in them. This song began with just the first two instrumental parts. My youngest son would get excited, run around, jumping on and off the couch and shouting to me to play it faster. Later when I was scheduled to go on Folkscene with Howard and Roz Larman it seemed like a good song to include and I asked Wyman if he could come up with a middle part, brilliant pedal steel solo from Doug Livingston here. 

Juniper Tree
This is just something I sing to my granddaughter. In the mornings when everyone’s busy getting ready for school and work I’ll take her outside, the desert's quiet except for the birds in the Juniper Tree, and the dogs of course. 
Including this was an afterthought and it was supposed to be a hidden track, but in the age of digital download and streaming everything has to be listed.