Album Notes

This is a partially remastered, limited re-release on CD.

"Fireline" was originally released in 1991 by Cornerpoint Recordings, part of a successful grassroots effort to change the Arizona Dept of Corrections' policy on medical treatment for injured convict firefighters. Jim Pipkin in those days was known as "Arizona's Trooper", but in the intervening years he has returned to using his family name.

Before "Fireline", convict laborers injured while fighting Arizona forest fires were released without follow-up treatment when their sentence was up, regardless of how seriously they were burned, or how much further treatment was needed. This is no longer the case.

The late W. Michael Hyde, founder of Oklahoma's Northington & Hyde and a fixture at the San Antonio Folklife Festival for many years, flew out to Arizona from his home in Oklahoma to work on this project, and laid down "first-taker" harmonica tracks like the road warrior he was. RIP Mike, you were one of a kind!

Haris Blackwood, now a well-known member of the Portland acoustic music scene, provided some incredible harmony vocals, and a lot of laughs in the studio. The mysterious Don Tabler sat in on bodhran, was videotaped in one performance, then disappeared.