They were raised on the East Coast of America. Met in the Midwest. Half a century ago. The Great Folksong Revival was on. They met and learned from real originals and fine interpreters. Built up a broad repertoire. Acquired social conscience. Performed in bars and clubs, concerts and festivals. Attracted beautiful women, other followers, musicians. Started writing own songs. Jack moved to England. Separated by the Vietnam War, they didn’t meet again for 12 years. Meanwhile, both worked at other jobs. Raised families. The Great Folksong Revival died. Jack’s UK mystique lived. Stuart’s US mystique did the same. That was then. This is now. Several reunions later, they performed together in Texas. In 2010 they did a UK club and concert tour. Audiences came. Tumultuous receptions. The live album that emerged bears the learning, energy, passion, fun, and musicianship that comes only with live performance, warts and all. Two guys who never gave up. Songs from the American grass roots. They have the Ring of Truth. They don’t pull punches. They will be remembered. Song notes by Jack and Stuart Hello Stranger - Few Americans can be unfamiliar with the Carter Family’s collected and original songs. Maybelle and Sarah alternated lines on this one. Jack and Stuart work up a similar approach with a few harmonies, paying homage but making it their own too. Erika - comes closest to my definition of a proper folk song ~ about the travails of real working people written while they are still alive. I haven’t been back to that bar in years but imagine Erika still hustling beers. The decline of the shrimp industry was the sad consequence of good intentions: we saved the green sea turtles but lost whole Gulf Coast communities. Last Payday at Coal Creek - I sat at the feet of Pete Steele, then of Hamilton Ohio in 1960 and watched him play this, his most famous piece together with the instrumental Coal Creek March. The following year I invited Pete and his wife Lillie to play at the university folk festival which I had organized. The audience wouldn’t let them off the stage after their set. I think Pete Seeger, working at the Library of Congress heard it and played it for many thousands. Got my own Rainbow - I love this optimistic song from Dave Botting, a young(ish) singer songwriter from nearby. We met at a club called Backporch, organized by Martin Wood. Road Song - When the price of gasoline went over a dollar we who were the stuff of the Great American Road Trip thought it was all over. Well maybe not quite yet after all, but what about the next generation? Junk Food Junkie - I guess this is all you can expect from a sell out, sell off, sell out, care for no one, junk pile government. Almost as soon as they took office they began to speak with forked tongue- preaching to the masses about how obese they’re getting, at the same time as giving their junk food industry pals free reign. The chorus is inspired by a kids street rhyme that I first heard from my daughter. Bee Cave - The little settlement near Austin was made into the most hideous shopping mall imaginable. Traffic is always jammed. Somebody made a fortune out of raping the place. Isaiah 40:4: “Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain” inspires that ironic verse. What price jobs? Couldn’t we just fix the old roads and bridges? Freight Train Blues - Who could have predicted that a Black teenager’s song would be known over the world and that its author would rise to fame in her seventh decade? Jack learned it almost 50 years ago and saw Elizabeth Cotton play it. A tribute to her and to Mike and Peggy Seeger who discovered and got it out there. Peggy would slip Wilson Rag into it too, which I think works great Tijuana Groove - Martin Wood and his Rag and Moan Man are regular performers around my neck of the woods. Martin is a consummate slide guitar man, loves Delta Blues and Mississippi John Hurt in equal measure, and occasionally writes one. He explains that Tijuana was never like this Pancho and Lefty - Sitting on Rolf Cahn’s front porch in Berkeley one day in the mid 70s when an MGB pulled up carrying a skinny girl from Oklahoma. She sang the song. I knew I’d have to go to Austin and meet the writer. Townes Van Zandt’s songs, loved in Texas now gain fans eveywhere. First Unto This Country - Originally collected in Texas, then refined and performed by the Seegers, to whom it can be traced back from all modern recordings. Mike and Peggy sang it together, more or less the way we do, but it’s pretty good as a solo too. I only changed Jacob’s coat of many colors to Joseph’s for Biblical accuracy. Long Time Gone - I wrote this within days of my homecoming search to find Stuart and his family and have tinkered with a few words since. A story common to many separated by The War. Who knows what might have happened had it been different? Chardonnay Honey - If you could smell the air in spring in the Hill Country, you might believe that there is actually something called by that name. Frankie was a Good Girl - No one who was at Newport in 1963, including Stuart and me could forget Mississippi John Hurt’s performance. Next morning I spotted him and had to pay my respects. He smiled and shook my hand. Ever since, I’ve been trying to do justice to him. This Land is Your Land - Possibly the greatest song by the greatest songmaker, introduced by one of his many impassioned speeches. A fitting ending to an uplifting evening. An antidote to “God Bless America” and commentary on the state of the nation. It’s nice to do all Woody’s verses.