专辑简介

This disc is the fourth in a series that is my attempt at a creating a recorded archive of songs I have written or co-written. These are the keepers that continue to find their way into set lists every 30 years later. Once again, these tracks are just the way the songs were written, just me and the guitar. In Volume 4 I have both the newest work to date (“The Irish Folk Singer’s Lament”) and a number of older works that go as far back at 1988 (“Crossroads”). Several of these tracks were co-written with friends and collaborators. The creative process is always a wonder but working together is particularly satisfying. Each song is a living memory of people, places and special times who have shared this adventure. Unique to this disc is the collection of attempts at humor. The Irish Folk Singer’s Lament” was 9 years in the writing. It came from the irony of 20 plus years of running into comments from some venues we were trying to play for. More than once we heard that we were too folk to be Irish or too Irish to be folk. “The Lizard, Bee and Troubadour” emphasizes that in folk music truth includes apocryphal. This one came while playing to a family of anole’s in the back yard on one of the darker afternoons of my life. “Crystal Lake” grew from a conversation/debate between my brother in law and father in law about the fate of the frogs at the family lake. I had mentioned that I had read an article about how frogs were an important environmental signal much like the old canary in the coal mine. “Kenny and the G String” grew from musings while playing a gig at “Food for Thought” restaurant on DuPont Circle in Washington DC. “Supplication #12” is an imagined bargaining session with the muse and of course if one is Irish that muse would have to be Brigid (the Irish Goddess of poetry, smith craft and healing). The rest each have a story but they can speak for themselves.