Album Notes

I have always harbored a secret desire to be the love child of Randy Newman and Leon Redbone. This CD
might be as close as I'm going to get. It was recorded over 3 days in August 2011 with fine musicians who are also long-
time friends. For those few days we became the band I would love to tour with if a million dollars ever falls out of the sky in
front of my house: David Surette on mandolin, guitar and cittern; Kent Allyn on bass and piano; TR Ritchie doing some
laid back percussion on a box, and Penny Nichols with herterrific harmonies.
And then, of course, there's me: lead vocal and guitar. It has taken me 25 years in the business to realize that I might
call myself a singer/songwriter, but I'm really a guitarist who writes songs and sings them.

Description of some of the Tracks:

Higher Financial Reform (2:42)
This song was born in September 2008 when the stock
market - and the economy - crashed so precipitously. I would
like to thank Michael Lewis for his book, The Big Short - which
taught me so much. The chorus sums up what most of us learned
from the whole event: "Boys and Girls pay attention/Don't trust
your pension/ to someone younger than you."

Keep Your Overhead Low (2:32)
Upbeat string band blues. My opinion on how to make a living
in the arts. A jug band feel with a happy chorus that sums up
what people tell me when they say they'd like to do what they
love for a living. Check out the retro-harmonies - I never knew
I would love "na na na na na."

Air Guitar (2:49)
Upbeat acoustic blues, written after the fashion of Deep River
Blues with a nod to how much I love Doc Watson, and with a
great lead guitar part by David Surette. My old mentor Harvey
Reid used to tell me that playing guitar has to be fun from the
first time you strum a G chord. I learned guitar when I was 9,
and for me it has been. "Air guitar might have it's charm; to me
it's a waste of the hand and the arm; what feels good is the wood
with the string."And really, why not learn to play the real thing?”

The Horse King (3:27)
Guitar, cittern, bass and one voice. A lament for everything that
was once young and strong. " All the flags would fly; all the bells
would ring; the sun would always rise for The Horse King." For
me, my father was the horse king when I was a child. This melody
was inspired by listening to a lot of Niamh Parsons and
Dolores Keane CDs.

Icarus (3:19)
Folk-rock with a power chorus. Written for a friend who fought a
valiant battle with cancer, A tribute to a heroic journey. Icarus'
wings do melt, but before they do, he flies as long as he is able. In a
poem, Jack Gilbert writes that Icarus was not falling but "only
coming to the end of his triumph." We all must, eventually, come to
the end of our triumph. May we all be as brave as Icarus.

The Angels In Rome (3:02)
Acoustic guitar and a quiet bass behind one voice. I promised
myself that TR and I would go back to Rome when I finished the
CD (and we did). I prefer my angels "gravity bound, a little
run-down like any true and lasting thing."