Eddie Watches Flo a David Luck mystery
p1 Landscapes and Parodies series, guitar solos and instrumentals
Eddie watches through a broken pane as workers bulldoze the trailer park kitty corner from his cold-water walkup. The portal to everything Flo was going, going, gone. No longer could Eddie deny she was lost to him forever. His nicotine-stained fingers tremble on the sill…afternoon sun never felt so cold. Startled by a buzz from the pay phone downstairs, Eddie bolts for the door.
Place and time:
San Diego, 1949
Personae:
Eddie — hardnosed gumshoe with long standing obsession for a waitress named Flo
Flo — sometime waitress and one-time party girl with no obvious means of support
Frankie and Johnnie — ill-fated lovers of undetermined gender in a forgotten time
John Fahey — genius guitar master and sometime painter
Colleen Murphy — a wee house cat from Dublin
Royal Bastard — the public knows who you are… Eddie knows where you live
Lady James — Victorian dandy who doesn’t show up until p2 Landscapes and
Parodies, Burnin’ Stove, songs, due for release soon.
WHODUNNIT:
All performances are Luck solo acoustic steel string guitar, except:
Too Loose in Paris, Luck solo guitar and MIDI instruments
White Light, Luck solo 6-string with overdubbed six
Lap Dancing, Luck guitar, Chico Welch slide guitar and violin, Stuart Leitch keyboard bass
Blue Fawn, Luck solo guitar, James McNeely grand and Fender Rhodes pianos
All songs by David Luck except Frankie and Johnny (trad. arr. Luck).
Cover Art: Heather Hautman
Graphics designer: Heather Hautman
Concept and text: David Luck
About David Luck
Luck is an acoustic steel-string guitarist’s guitarist. His ballistic right-hand finger style and use of open tunings produces complex orchestrations and a massive sound from the solo instrument. He has been a professional songwriter/guitarist on and off for over 40 years.
Much of his output has been instrumentals that his friends like to call “emotional landscapes.” Often short, they are always completely expressed musical ideas. The compilation “Eddie Watches Flo” contains 25 instrumentals (10 new recordings) representing 35 years. Boiled down from over sixty compositions, many are new and newly recorded pieces. Twenty-one are solo guitar pieces. All have been mastered together for the first time.
In the 60s, Luck had a weekly live radio show (while still in high school), performed in support of the Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, was a member of a number of music insider bands (including the Coney Island Whitefish), played everything from bluegrass to rock.
Luck also produced a series of film soundtracks and won a Golden Cine Award for best use of sound. He produced a 3-minute band film for The Coney Island Whitefish, a precursor of music videos. In the summer of ‘67, Luck met Bert Jansch in London. Over the next five years, he recorded exclusively with audio engineering genius Tom Holman, inventor of THX and recently 10.2 sound. An original music track for a multimedia exhibition, which he recorded with Holman in ’69, ran publicly four times an hour for over twenty years.
His early 70s band, The Ensemble, opened for many performers at Chicago’s Earl of Old Town, including Steve Goodman, Bonnie Kolac, Segal-Schwall Band, Jerry Jeff Walker and John Fahey. Luck’s Sweet Lady James helped launch the career of Danny Fogelberg and was a favorite of WLS DJ Larry Lujack. He studied songwriting in LA, attending lectures by one of his personal heroes, Henry Mancini. Luck opened solo for a John Fahey concert and performed occasionally at the University of Illinois, Urbana.
But, his career in marketing, plus a growing family became his primary focus. Although Luck continued to write and record commercial work throughout the decade, his public performances dwindled to annual events by the early 80s.
He never stopped composing, however. In 1997, Luck released his first CD, White Light, featuring many songs written in the ‘80s. White Light is self-recorded acoustic guitar and vocals, enhanced by MIDI orchestration. His next CD, Third Rail, released in 2002, includes vocals and instrumentals that contain some elements over twenty-years old. “I just make up riffs that feel good and save them until I find their brothers,” he says.
Eddie Watches Flo is part one of the Landscapes and Parodies series and focuses on Luck’s solo guitar work. Part two, Burnin’ Stove is planned for release in late summer 2007. It features Luck’s music and lyrics.
All songs copyright © 1967-2007 David Luck. Compilation copyright © 2007 by David Luck.
The copyright in these compositions and recordings is owned by David Luck. All rights reserved.
Produced by David Luck for I Like Toast! Incorporated
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