Album Notes

'Acoustic News!' is once again available to the public. Originally released in cassette form in 1992 it has been completely remastered from the original 8 track masters and digitized to CD.'Acoustic News!' is an album recorded in the studio by Dave Morehouse over a couple of years around 1990.

Acoustic folk music might best describe the 10 cut album. The entire disc is composed of songs in the modern folk tradition. The cast of characters are strictly traditional acoustic instruments. The ever present Martin guitar is the mainstay for accompaniment but is joined by banjo, mandolins, violin, wooden flutes, and upright bass. (The steam drill on John Henry actually was a hammer on a 140 pound anvil lugged into the studio especially for that effect!) All instruments and vocals are performed and recorded by Dave Morehouse.

The disc offers a mixed bag of tunes. Three traditional tunes are (Bury Me Not, John Henry, Wade in the Water) served up with unique arrangements which separate them from previous recordings the listener may have heard. Bury Me Not is typically a three chord cowboy song which is dramatically arranged in a Western Swing style. Very Blue Moon (Black) and River (Staines) are two songs which were very popular in the mid 80s and are frequently requested across the bandstand even to this day.

Five original tunes written by Morehouse round out the lineup. I Fell Hard, his personal favorite, was written for his wife while she was doing the laundry down in the basement. She came upstairs just as he finished the last verse and he was excited to play it for her. His new song was greeted with,"All you ever do is play that darn guitar!!!" Evidently, the laundry hadn't gone well on that day. Tom's Farewell was written when a best friend/musician moved away (The real Tom is living in California now.) and Maggie was written between sets at the Shawano, WI folk festival. All five songs were acid tested in front of countless live audiences before bringing them into the studio.