Compact Discs
My Fifth CD
My Fourth CD
My Third CD
This album is dedicated to my two traditional music fathers and gurus, now both departed, Stu Jamieson and Sam Hinton. Even more than my first two efforts, it is a tribute to the folk process and my small part in it. In the world of traditional music it is not just a poetic truth that “no man is an island.” The creation, shaping, and ultimate acceptance of any tune is the responsibility of families, villages, and nations of listeners and performers. This is a collection of favorite songs transmitted and inspired by some of the wonderful people I have met over the past half century. Many of them were learned in oral fashion from these great singers and players while others were created “under the influence.” In all cases I owe a great debt to them and hope my efforts help keep both their memories and the traditions of these songs alive.
“Gold Watch and Chain Waltz” ist einer jener Songs, die mir aus dem Herzen sprechen. Für mich gemacht. Sentimental bis zum geht nicht mehr, ehrlich, verletzt, direkt. Manche Musiker verstehen es, den ganzen Weltschmerz in ein Stück zu legen. Wie Curt Bouterse mittels Dulcimer, Autoharp, Löffeln, Schlagzeug, Banjos und noch viel primitiveren Instrumenten bzw. Perkussionsmitteln.
Erstaunlicherweise kommt diese Old-Time CD aus Kalifornien. Ich hätte gewettet, sie kommt aus den Appalachen, so ursprünglich klingt sie (Anspieltipp: “Oh, Death”). Gesanglich bewegt sich der Tonträger im Mittelfeld. Dabei muss man aber die gewählten Stücke in Betracht ziehen, die allemal sehr viel vom Sänger verlangen. Einen Höhepunkt macht Patsy’s “Life’s Railway to Heaven” (ich kenne das Stück nun mal vor allem von ihr). Wunderschön und sehr, sehr religiös (für mich ist DAS Religion nicht das Tragen von Hemden mit Kreuzen und dem zeigen darauf, wenn man fotografiert wird. Für mich muss man den Glauben leben).
Hier scheint alles ehrlich und aufrichtig zu sein. Und gleichsam wichtig. Eine angenehme Arbeit, vor der man sich verbeugen muss.
My Translation (compilation of not-very-sensical translations). I welcome corrections.
“Gold Watch and Chain Waltz” is one of those songs that speaks to me from the heart. Made for me. It doesn’t get any more sentimental: honest, vulnerable, direct. Some musicians know how to put the pain of the world into one piece. Like Curt Bouterse with dulcimer, autoharp, spoons, drums, and many more primitive instruments and percussion. Surprisingly, this Old-Time CD comes from California. I would have bet it was from the Appalachian Mountains, it sounds so natural/original/primordial (e.g., “Oh Death”). Vocally, it moves in the middle ranges.[?] However, here one must take into consideration the selected pieces, which always require a lot from singers. A high point is Patsy’s “Life’s Railway to Heaven” (I know the piece above all from her). Beautiful and very, very religious (for me [true] religion isn’t wearing shirts with crosses and pointing to it, if you are photographed; for me, one must live the faith). Here everything seems to be honest and sincere. And, as it were, important. A pleasant work, before which one must bow.
This album is dedicated to my two traditional music fathers and gurus, now both departed, Stu Jamieson and Sam Hinton. Even more than my first two efforts, it is a tribute to the folk process and my small part in it. In the world of traditional music it is not just a poetic truth that “no man is an island.” The creation, shaping, and ultimate acceptance of any tune is the responsibility of families, villages, and nations of listeners and performers. This is a collection of favorite songs transmitted and inspired by some of the wonderful people I have met over the past half century. Many of them were learned in oral fashion from these great singers and players while others were created “under the influence.” In all cases I owe a great debt to them and hope my efforts help keep both their memories and the traditions of these songs alive.
Once again I am joined by my sister and favorite singing partner, L. Lee Davis. I am also proud to be able to work with my old friend, Ray Bierl, who has become a fantastic fiddler since I first knew him some 40 years ago, along with the fine guitarist, all-around nice guy, and best traditional bass voice in the nation, Larry Hanks.
There is, perhaps, a greater variety of music in this selection: sad and joyful, private and public, religious and secular, quiet as well as boisterous. Not everyone will be equally attracted to every piece but these are all songs and melodies which move me in the many moods and facets of my life. For that I make no apologies.
1.Gold Watch and Chain Waltz. [Trad. arr., CCB] 2:55. CB, voice and autoharp; Lee, voice; Ray, fiddle; Larry, voice and guitar. Even after singing it for 50 years this Carter Family classic doesn’t pale but, recently, treating it as a waltz, it has taken on an entirely new character. I gave a gold watch and chain to my first love; we are still good friends.
2.Rocky Hill. [Trad.] 3:00. William Sidney Mount banjer, spoons. Another great tune learned from my mentor, Stu Jamieson. I don’t know anyone else who plays it. The phrase, “got my rations on my back, musket on my shoulder,” is derived from an oral formula common in the 18th and 19th century. (Just Google “musket on my shoulder.”) Stu was also influenced by Uncle Dave Macon and often played in his style. I include an Uncle Dave intro as a tribute to him. Impromptu percussion accompaniment is a tradition which is ancient and widespread but underrecorded.
3.Jennie Jenkins. [Trad.] 3:25. Jethro Amburgey Kentucky dulcimer, tuned 1-1-5; Curt and Lee, voices. I learned this from a recording of Estil and Orna Ball back in the 1960s and Lee is the perfect vehicle for this old-time flirting song.
4.Early in the Morning. [Trad.] :55. hammered dulcimer. This was the first hammered dulcimer tune I ever remember hearing. I taped it from the radio, as I recall, by “an anonymous player from West Virginia” recorded by the Library of Congress. Its characteristic “crooked” tune is typical of an old style of solo performers, fiddlers and others, when they were not playing for dancing but just for themselves. The meter is 5,5,7,4+2,4,4. As I recall it was titled “Drunken Sailor” but I always thought it more closely resembled “Going to Boston.” When I realized they both used the last line, “early in the morning,” I supposed they might have interacted around this shared phrase and chose it for my title.
5.Life’s Railway to Heaven. [ca. 1900. See the info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C
6.Froggy Went a-Courtin’. [Trad., arr., CCB] 4:10. This is dedicated to my mother. She used to sing it around the house when I was very young and I always enjoyed the asymmetrical phrasing. Unfortunately, I never paid much attention to the verses past the beginning few – or maybe she didn’t sing very many. Anyway, I have gathered some favorites I know she would have enjoyed. I know I do.
7.Hey, Ben! [CCB] 3:10. CB, voice and Wm. S. Mt. banjer, open C tuning; Ray, fiddle, GDAE. I wrote this song when my old friends, Lou and Virginia Curtiss had their son, Ben, back in 1976. I imagined him growing up in the midst of Old-Time parties and becoming a musician. He turned out to be a Byzantine scholar and we all couldn’t be prouder.
8.Hills of Mexico. [Trad., arr. CCB] 3:45. Notched gourd banjer. This was inspired by Roscoe Holcomb’s version from his old album with Wade Ward. Unfortunately, only some of the words were intelligible but I was enchanted by the possibilities of the story, a version of “The Buffalo Skinners,” with unique touches like the “Mexican cowboy.” In particular I was haunted by the line, “the bells they did ring and the whistles they did blow,” so I had to compile a more complete account.
9.Good Old Chicken Pie. [?Perhaps “Bake That Chicken Pie,” variously attributed to Collins and Harlan (ca. 1907), Frank Dumont (1906), and J E Ditson & Co., 1886.] 2:10. autoharp; Ray Bierl, fiddle; Larry Hanks, guitar. I asked Ray to provide some “chicken music” on the fiddle: he succeeded beyond my expectations. This was one of my paternal grandfather’s favorite songs he used to accompany on the old Jumbo Gibson he bought in the late 1920s. He was a complex and difficult man in many ways but when he sang this song (and “Ticklish Reuben”) he became the jovial, entertaining raconteur we all admired and loved.
10.Oh Death. [Trad.] 3:50. Kubing (Philippine bamboo Jew’s harp), voice. Doc Boggs has been one of my favorite players since I first heard his recordings in the early 1960s. This is perhaps his most dramatic and moving song.
11.Gold Rush Medley: Camptown Races/Oh, Susanna/Buffalo Gals. [Trad.] 5:30. Gourd bonja, tuned (8)-1-5-5; Kentucky dulcimer (made by CCB), tuned 1-1-8, fife and drum. I was delighted to find that there are many traditional tunes that can be played on two strings tuned a fifth apart. In this case these three melodies are so closely related I have to concentrate not to accidentally change from one to the other in mid-song. I added more percussion on these pieces, including the fife and drum, which tradition was probably more widespread in the 19th century than it is now. I will be disappointed if you, or your children, aren’t dancing by the end of these familiar tunes.
12.Little Birdie/Glory in the Meeting House. [Trad.] 5:52. Notched gourd banjer. I learned this song from Rossie Holcomb and it was Joanne and Lisa’s favorite. Glory was one of the wonderful, haunting tunes by the great Kentucky fiddler, Luther Strong. For this tune alone I could say, paraphrasing King Agrippa, “Almost thou persuadest me to become a fiddler.”
13.Brother Green. [Trad. Richard Dorson has a woman from Illinois relating it was composed by Rev. L J Simpson, an Army Chaplain, on the death of a brother, killed at Fort Donelson, Tennessee, in February, 1862. I spent my Junior High School days in Clarksville, 30 miles from there, and visited the beautiful, somber site.] 5:10. Ky. dulcimer (made by my Mother, Virginia Lee Hargis Bouterse, Hindman, Ky., 1982.), tuned 1-1-8. Stu Jamieson learned this from Margot Mayo’s family in Kentucky. Most version have the dying soldier from the Union side. The “brother” refers to male nurses, usually from conscientious objector backgrounds, like the Shakers and Quakers (and Walt Whitman), who offered palliative care to those who were seldom saved by the primitive medical establishment.
14.Felicita. [CCB] 2:28. Fairbanks & Cole fretless banjo, “sawmill” tuning; and Ray Bierl, fiddle, ADAE. Another of my tunes, composed in the 1970s, dedicated to a wonderful woman and the times we spent in Felicita Park in Escondido, just north of San Diego. This is one of Ray’s favorites.
15.Yonder’s Gallows Tree. [Trad., arr. CCB] 4:05. I learned this from my favorite Traditional American musician, Frank Proffitt. I had never been fond of the “Hangman” stories but Frank’s version was not only the most beautiful and simple but resolved a couple of issues for me. In most examples there is no indication of the crime, but here she has “stole a silvery cup” and seems to accept her fate. His gentle rendition also somehow shed a new light on the most vexing issue: her family’s seeming indifference and even voyeurism about the hanging. We didn’t bring a ransom, we just came to watch, always offended me. But Frank’s matter-of-fact singing suggested (at least to me) that, though the family may be poor and powerless, we can at least be with you in your final hours. And public hangings were communal events, with a host of social implications, until fairly recently. So, I decided this was, at last, a version I could sing. But there was one last hurdle: I had always been left unfulfilled by the truncated nature of the mini-ballad. It seemed like a gimmick: no money, no money, no money, Money. The end. So I exercised my oral transmission rights and composed some finishing verses.
16.Ducks on the Pond. [Trad.] 4:00. I learned this tune from Larry Hanks back in the 1970s while working on a movie soundtrack with him, Holly Tannen, and a host of high powered musicians, including Byron Berline. While the big band members were inside recording, he and I were sitting on the street in the middle of the San Fernando Valley, at 2 am, with only his mandolin for company. Among the tunes he played, this one mesmerized me. Even though I didn’t play the instrument, I learned to pick the melody on it and determined to remember it. When I got home to San Diego, I pulled my “tater bug” Washburn out of the closet and relearned it, transferring it to the hammered dulcimer. For 30 years it has been one of my favorite tunes to play. A couple of years ago Larry was at the (San Diego) Adams Avenue Roots Festival on a workshop with me and I played it, crediting him. His response: “I didn’t know I knew that tune.”
17.Lone Prairie. [Trad., arr. CCB] 2:40. CB, Ray, Larry. The shape note hymn, “Devotion,” from the Southern Harmony is in the same tune family as “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie,” “The Young Man Who Wouldn’t Hoe Corn,” and “The Leatherwinged Bat.” The harmony parts are from the hymn.
18.Promised Land. [Trad.] 5:30. Jethro Amburgey Kentucky dulcimer, tuned 1-1-8. This is a song from my childhood but the minor tune is from the Southern Harmony shape note hymnal. I also have worked in another, similar, hymn from the same source, “Parting Friends.” All my Kentucky dulcimer playing is indebted to Jean Ritchie, who was a charming friend to both my parents and me.
My Second CD: Curt Bouterse & Bob Webb
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Old-Time Country Duets.
Curt Bouterse and Bob Webb
Curt Bouterse and Bob Webb met in 1968. Both started out as musicians in the West Coast folk revival, but their diverse musical interests, and Bob’s eventual move East, resulted in their musical partnership being only a sometime thing. “Diverse” is almost too pale a word for the paths each has taken. Curt formed a medieval music ensemble, traveled to Bali to explore musical traditions there, and got a doctorate in world music. Bob went on the road as Tom Waits’ bassist, managed a string band in Los Angeles, and after moving to Massachusetts developed a seminal banjo exhibition for the MIT Museum.
The most interesting of the instrumentals are the banjo duets. “Waiting for Nancy” and “Bear’s Leaving Town” (both written by Curt in 1978) are exciting listening. Two banjos back up Curt’s rendition of “Sweet Sunny South,” a perfect setting for Charlie Poole’s wistful song. The last track, a “Reuben’s Train”-esque version of “Nine Hundred Miles,” features both Curt and Bob singing, both playing Curt’s gourd banjos. This would be a really stunning finish to the album if it wasn’t a whopping seven and a half minutes long. The singing doesn’t start until five minutes or so into the track. There’s a saying I’ve seen on hats and T-shirts: “Old-Time Music – better than it sounds.” I believe this track to be a perfect example of that phenomenon. It must have been fun to play; Curt mentions in the liner notes that they played the tune for 20 minutes, probably inducing the tune trance that’s such a great feature of playing old-time tunes. Sometimes it doesn’t translate to listening, though.
The more familiar tunes “Seneca Square Dance” and “Mississippi Sawyers” are played as banjo/hammered dulcimer duets. These are less successful. The instruments are playing in the same pitch range for the most part and the dulcimer‘s sustain gives a muddy feeling to the mix, covering the banjo’s quicker attack and decay.
Some songs on this CD will be familiar to listeners. Others are less well known, of greater antiquity, with interesting arrangements. I found a couple of things distracting, though. Most of the vocals are way in front of the instruments, giving an auditory picture of voices a few inches away from your ears while the instruments are several feet away. The vocal harmonies, though precisely worked out in terms of pitch, don’t always match the phrasing of the lead vocals.
Special mention needs to be made of “Texas Rangers.: I remember listening to the New Lost City Ramblers’ version; the liner notes also cite Ian and Sylvia as a source. I have seldom had such vivid pictures in my mind from hearing a song as I had from listening to Bob and Curt’s arrangement, Curt freely echoing Bob’s meditative vocal phrases on the hammered dulcimer. This form of emotional punctuation is common in Indian classical and ghazal singing, which translates to this song with an eerie effectiveness.
Among the less-well-known songs are “A Long Time Ago,” a humorous capstan shanty with concertina accompaniment, “Ticklish Reuben,” an early-twentieth-century novelty “laughing” song, and “I Only Want a Buddy (Not a Sweetheart),” widely popular in the 1930s, recorded by Bradley Kincaid and Bing Crosby, among others.
The liner notes are a delight. Scholarly background information, instrument details, and general musings are imparted with a light touch and a solid sense of humor.
Hilary Dirlam
Old-Time Herald, October-November 2008
Click here for a review by Hilary Dirlam
Click here for extensive notes on the songs from Waiting for Nancy
The deciding factor, however, was not the fact that George was famous, nor that it was tremendously flattering to be asked to be recorded, but that I learned of George and Adam’s first (then current) project. The reason my recording had to be delayed for a year or more is that they were busy recording everything that Sam Hinton knew. For those of you who have never heard of him, I can only urge you to remedy that lacuna. For those of you who know and love his music, from “Old Man Atom,” to “Whoever Shall Have Some Good Peanuts,” to his amazing harmonica playing and his years of school assemblies and folk festival appearances, you know how I felt to be associated with him. He has been a great influence on my musical life, traditional and otherwise, for over forty years. Eagle’s Whistle Music’s first issue was of Sam’s harmonica music, their second is mine. I am honored.
Eventually, Adam and George and I spent wonderful, long hours in the recording studio of Dan de la Isla (another sympathetic, kindred spirit) and even managed to get some tracks laid down. I am greatly indebted to George’s continuing compassionate, supportive attitude as well as Adam’s insightful encouragement. Without the loving, creative synergy of all parties, these CDs would never have happened.
My first CD
I come from a long line of country preachers on both sides of my family. My mother’s people are Hargis’ and Lee’s from East Tennessee. My paternal grandfather came to America from Zeeland, and the Dutch know that Zeelanders are Really Country. Grandpa Bouterse was in the Salvation Army for many years, then a Methodist minister, founding several churches in South Florida. Becoming a Baptist minister, he started several more churches in the same area. My grandmother, a Rijskamp from Groningen, was a Salvation Army lassie on skid row in Chicago at the age of 16.
My father’s first pastorate was Carlisle, Kentucky, in the edge of the Bluegrass, and there I was born. Music was always a part of our family; Mom and Dad both had beautiful voices and played instruments. I probably would have remained a country boy, perhaps following my father’s footsteps into the family business, but the Japanese Imperial Navy bombed Pearl Harbor when I was seven months old and Everyone’s world was changed.
My father joined the Navy as a Chaplain and our family began to move. While my father was in the South Pacific during WWII, my mother went to be with family in East Tennessee when my sister, Lee, was born. Then we moved to Central Florida where my parents were originally from. When my father returned from the war, the Navy began shipping us all around the world: California, Florida, Italy, Tennessee, California again. I attended three different schools in 3rd grade: I learned to expect change if not embrace it.
In the early 1950’s, while we lived in Naples, Italy, I heard music on the radio from all over Europe and around the Mediterranean, and I was entranced. On returning to the States I went to junior high school in Clarksville, Tennessee, where I discovered rock and roll and, more importantly, old-time music. Between the farm reports, one of the local radio stations played country fiddlers and bluegrass bands. I listened every day.
After we ended up in California again, my father brought me a yang qin, a Chinese hammered dulcimer, from Hong Kong when I was 16. Though I had always considered myself a singer, I had trifled with instruments before but this was of a completely different order: to begin with there were 96 strings to tune. I can’t remember if I had actually ever heard one before but I knew they could play the kind of tunes that banjers and fiddles played and I began the long process of trying to figure out how to do it.
In just a few years, after I graduated from high school, the general public “discovered” folk music, the good and the bad. Hearing this oft-familiar music reinforced my love of American music and sharpened my perception of tradition and change. I think my mother was slightly amused by the sudden atention that was paid to the kind of music she had grown up with.
I met Sam Hinton and Stu Jamieson, who both lived locally, about 1962. Sam became my general Folk Guru, introducing me to Sacred Harp music and encouraging my playing. Stu opened up the world of the fretless banjo around the time I first began becoming interested in banjo. Thus, I started off fretless and never worried again. The next year I built my first fretless (a box banjer that fit into an old wooden fiddle case), along with an Appalachian dulcimer (taken from pictures, before I had ever seen one in person). Our family never had many material things, and what we had was divided among five children, so everyone was a do-it-yourselfer, and making musical instruments has been a joy for me ever since. I’ve made numerous medieval instruments to complement my studies of early music. And, recently, I’ve begun creating gourd fretless banjos, some of which are featured on this recording.
[I suppose I should say something about my banjer playing style. I don’t frail. I know how to do it, in theory. I even taught my brother, Mark, how to do it, but my hand just doesn’t want to go like that. Somehow, at the very beginning of my interest in banjers, I learned a two-finger (or, strictly, one finger and thumb) picking style. I remember hearing it called “up-picking,” and that it was a North Carolina style, but I have no idea from whom I learned it. I have recently asked all my friends who were around at the time and no one remembers anyone else playing like that. I am fairly certain I didn’t get it out of a book but, other than that, I’m stumped. I know it didn’t take me long to get the hang of it: my fingers really liked the motion and I’ve been picking ever since. For those who are unfamiliar with it, the rhythm is the same as in frailing: bum-diddy, boom-chicka, dum-takka. The index finger picks up, then strums up, and immediately the thumb picks downward. The complementary, melodic, figure is takka takka: the finger picks up followed by the thumb plucking down, alternating. The style which, in my case at least, doesn’t seem to want to go very fast, has determined much of my banjer style and even choice of tunes.]
I have also made a number of songs and tunes in traditional style, some of which have become popular in folk music and dance circles: the two most frequently played are “Waiting for Nancy” and “Nixon’s Farewell.” I have played on the soundtracks of several motion pictures, the most famous being “The Long Riders,” with music by Ry Cooder, as well as on David Lindley’s album, “El Rayo X.”
I have degrees in anthropology(archeology), history, art history, musicology, and ethnomusicology. My ethnomusicological work has included extensive studies of Balinese gamelans, African music and drumming, and Southwest American Indian singing, in addition to medieval Spanish music, the American shape-note tradition, and the effects of oral and literate societies on traditional musics.
I believe that intellectual curiosity is a virtue, not a cause for suspicion, repression, or accusation of heresy. I believe creating brings us closer to our fellows and to God, that knowledge is power, the truth will set us free, and love is the thing, without which, as Bernard de Ventadorn said almost 900 years ago, life is not worth living. I still haven’t given up on finding love or a job. One of my favorite quotations is from the Japanese writer Zeami, “Never lose the heart of the Beginner, not even occasionally, not even in old age.”
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