purchase this album tour official site join mailing list Download full-length MP3 Sample: When Johnny Comes Marching Home (3.7 mb) Contemporary Arrangements for Guitar: The songs and rhymes we learned as kids seemed to be everywhere. We learned them from books, parents, playmates, and in schoolrooms. I eventually came to think of them as traditional folk music with set lyrics, melodies, and rhythms. In rediscovering these songs years later, I have come to appreciate the maxim that folk music is a "living" tradition and that each generation will find relevance and a way to reinterpret these songs. In that spirit, I have arranged traditional melodies to reflect the musical idioms and social climate of today's multi-cultural landscape. Many of these melodies have their origins in the British Isles or in the African-American heritage. My intention was to find genuine American melodies, but it became apparent that aside from Native American traditions, much of our music came with the people who arrived here from around the world. Technical Notes: This is the first album I've recorded in my home studio – a detached and converted garage. I worked closely with engineer Neal Harris to set it up with the best combination of microphones, vintage microphone pre-amps, and A/D converters to capture the sound of my two custom guitars in a 24-bit digital recording. I played a Lowden F-35C Maple with a European spruce top that was built to my specifications. I also played a Traugott R-model with Brazilian rosewood and a German spruce top, also built to my specifications. I feel these two guitars represent a state-of-the-art design for contemporary fingerstyle guitar. We did the post-production and mastering at Neal's Affinity Music studio. I found that there were challenges to recording in my own home studio; nevertheless, I think we have made a recording of the highest sonic quality. Single Girl This song is a woman's lament about 19th century frontier life: "Once I was single, dressed so fine, now I'm married, go ragged all the time. Oh, I wish I was a single girl again." I heard this as an R&B song with a big horn section. I wrote a chorus with that in mind, and then began an improvisation in double time. In doing so, fragments of the national anthem emerged from my subconscious, interspersed with some distinctly non-western scales. Swing Low Sweet Chariot This is the first of two spirituals on the recording. I've played it up-tempo with syncopation. After a few variations on the verse, development comes in the form of a speeded up reggae groove. Sweet William An old English song in which a mother mourns the loss of her son who died while serving in the king's army. The song took hold among colonials during revolutionary times, and its relevance continues today as young people continue to be sent into battle to serve the agenda of powerful leaders. After stating the melody as I imagined it might be sung centuries ago, the rhythm takes on a contemporary urban groove backed by jazz harmony. Like many arrangements on this recording I quote another melody, in this case the children's rhyme, "It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring." Saint James Infirmary I think of this as the essence of blues and the New Orleans sound. I stayed pretty close to the theme taking a few minor detours along the way. Bury Me Not I imagined a lonesome cowboy, whether on the plains of Nebraska or on the streets of New York City, contemplating his ultimate fate. After some displaced harmonies and morphing time signatures, the song lands squarely on a reggae beat and rides off into the sunset. When Johnny Comes Marching Home A classic Irish and American anti-war song. I've tried to keep the Celtic 12/8 feel within the march. Non-western scales and meters find their way into the piece as the song unravels towards the end. Shortnin’ Bread I always think of this song as a children's song: pure fun; theme and variations; a continuous spray of notes. Streets of Laredo I transformed the original from a waltz to 4/4 time with a hip-hop feel. I wanted to give the melody a more modern, fragmented quality interspersed by forays into jazz harmony and improvisation, while maintaining some of the Tex-Mex flavor of the original song. Hushabye By giving it a bossa nova feel with some light percussion, I've created space in this lullaby for the melody to unfold – space for "… All the pretty little horses" to run free. Like many lullabies, this one is in a minor key and I've tried to keep the tone shadowy and mysterious like sleep itself. Joe Craven joined me, playing percussion on this piece. Lay this Body Down Noted around the Civil War era, it was sung in the southeast as both a boating song and a funeral dirge. Its simple but weighty lyric tolls, "Oh graveyard, oh graveyard, I'm walking through this graveyard, lay this body down." The slow tempo, the drumming on the guitar, and the close minor harmonies attempt to capture that spirit. Polyrhythmic and pizzicato passages hint at its African roots and traditional African instruments. Oh Susanna This song takes on a slightly demented samba rhythm with the guitar going back and forth between typical Brazilian chord voicings and the traditional 3-3-2 banjo picking pattern. Along the way, I discovered that banjo pattern is also typical of some Brazilian music allowing me to weave the two rhythms together. Michael Manring gives heartfelt counterpoint on bass while Joe Craven adds full-body percussion.