Album Notes

THE FRINGE is a four-man folk-rock band whose members are now dispersed around the world. "Never Lose a Dream" is the only recording the band has ever made. Richard Hayes Phillips and John Mark Ramsey II wrote all the songs on the CD, nine of them as a team, and six of them as individuals. Both wrote lyrics, and both wrote music.

The band was born in August 1996 when Richard and John Mark wrote "Bidding Farewell" at the Foote Rest Café in Saranac Lake, NY. The next day John Mark returned to his boyhood home of Antlers, OK, but the partnership continued. Most of the songs were written during the spring and summer of 1997, and in October the two of them rescued a 1977 Dodge van from an overgrown field and traveled to San Diego, where John Katchur had a recording studio.

John is a brilliant guitarist and singer/songwriter in his own right and is legendary in San Diego, where he was a regular at Mikey's and Java Joe's. Richard had met him at the now-defunct Inner Change Coffeehouse in San Diego in February 1995. Two months later Richard recorded at John's studio ten songs that now appear on his solo CD called "Songs from the Sage," available at cdbaby.com. John was the infinitely patient recording engineer for "Never Lose a Dream," and plays a fretted Rickenbacker bass on the recording. He recruited Jeff Berkley, an experienced session musician, to play percussion on nine tracks.

The instrumentation varies from song to song. Some are gentle love songs with one or two guitars and voices; some are full-fledged rock songs with bass and drums. Richard also plays mandolin, kalimba and harmonica on some tracks. All instruments except the bass are acoustic.

Richard and John Mark performed as a duo in San Diego, CA, Flagstaff, AZ, Tahlequah, OK, and at the Beavers Bend Folk Festival. The band broke up before the CD was released, never having performed east of the Mississippi River. John Katchur has moved to New Zealand, and the whereabouts of John Mark Ramsey II and Jeff Berkley are unknown.

Visit Richard Hayes Phillips' website at www.northnet.org/minstrel, where his concert information and all of his lyrics are on display. Contact: 4 Fisher Street, Canton, NY 13617, (315) 379-0820. E-mail: richardhayesphillips@yahoo.com