AKA The First Day.

Who would live in a castle ?

Who could afford it?

Well someone who liked to tell tales. Someone who bought the place and rebuilt it slowly to be liveable, lock stock and barrel.

He turned out to be someone who loved music and wasn't afraid of ghosts eh?

Well we met this other guy in Germany named Johnny but I digress ...

This is about the first day of our last tour in Ireland.

There's the agent and the promoter....ha it's more like Joyce and the tin whistle tale teller: Tom Stapleton and Sean Ryan.

Tom, the one who looked like James Joyce was serving us lunch (with his wife Lucy) by 3 that afternoon. Yeah I've heard some tales, but the talkin that day was of an epic proportion. This was a certified shillelagh from stem to stern. Hospitality, food and wine were the first thing, and then it was on to Leap castle, forbidding and gray.

We backed the van into his potted plants by the front door on the load-in, and well 24 hours ago we'd been at Logan.

Yes it was a classic castle keep (built in the 13 century), from the outside bleak and damp; and even inside the stones seem to seep but they were dry to the touch with a light coat of whitewash. And even if there might be ghosts in the upper rooms from deeds done long ago by the O'carroll clan, and there might be an Oubliette down below; folks came for the show. In fact it was cramped and crowded.

Tip your hat to the man who delivered enthusiasm to those who knew not a thing of us. It was a proper house concert (or castle concert), though it was a bit weird in the cramped center of that stone pile, the keep, claustrophobic and full. The booker knew what he was doing. Though we had to jerry rig the PA a bit, the sound went out fine.

It's Ireland.

Afterwards all the chairs were removed and a long dining table was placed before the 'stage' where we shared a delicious mutton stew and soon those two were hard at it, one vying to be more irish than the the other, but the tin whistle man, he who lived in a bloody castle, he had the gift and started with the tale of a man who just drank Guinness with a bit of brandy cake for seven years..."I don't take food." was what he said.

And then it was on to Francis O'neill, chief of police in Chicago; who around the turn of the last century compiled "O'neill's Music of Ireland '' a famous collection of hundreds of Irish tunes. As a young man in County Cork, he was press ganged by the British onto a ship that somehow sank in the south pacific. There he was marooned with another sailor, and finally rescued by a ship but, they were thrown below with the Chinese "slave rowers, who survived on one bowl of rice a day". One rower who had a one note flute, was so moved when Francis taught him an Irish tune on that flute, he shared his rice with Francis. Without sustenance the other castaway died, but Francis, he made it to California and on to Chicago (where he became the chief of police). Next thing you know Sean is playing that very tin whistle tune at the table. I tell you what, there were a lot of notes on there for a one note flute...It was beautiful.

And after that they were off again!

"King James lost the war for Ireland because he was swanning with the ladies in Dublin!"

Then Tom starts in on something about Queen Elizabeth and all the Irish oaks that were floated down the Blackwater river for the ships of the British navy or was it for one of her lovers?

Later that night as I drifted off to sleep in a proper irish bed awash in the art and history of the place. I wondered.

Then I heard "I don't take food". (echoing in my head).

Jim

The Good Gig

THE GOOD GIG

The ingredients are in equal measure: A room that suits the size of the audience, a good band, alcohol, and passion. Good gigs are sexy. The audience is all charged up at those shows and the band feeds off it and play better. Its not all about youth - a really good show will re-kindle the flame of an old couples passions as well as spark a new lustful pang. 

Rooms matter. Music is sound. The sound is the whole thing - it has to be pleasing for the band to be able to create the music and for the audience to be able to enjoy it. Somehow I’ve had good shows with lousy sound though - maybe the good part kind of overwhelms the mind and everything feels better. The space matters too. Its hard to have a good show if the venue is way under occupied. My favorite shows are kind of squished. I’ve been to and performed at big shows that are sexy, but its not as easy as smaller shows. 

I think you could have a good show anywhere, though. You don’t need to be jostled and uncomfortable. I’ll bet people got pretty flushed at Rachmaninoff concerts. I saw Prince at a basketball arena, and he brought enough sex on stage to overcome the inevitable dilution of pheromones in a huge space. 

The availability of a boozy beverage or even an occasional one-skinner do seem to help shows along. There is a fine line between less-inhibited and annoying, which I have both witnessed and thread myself on occasion. Hopefully you’re not at the show just to drink, but to participate in a convivial, artful, joyful event. 

I like it when a good gig kind of sneaks up on me. I remember loading into the venue in the video attached here, and it didn’t look good. It was a real “bar gig” - not super friendly, stand-offish staff used to the nightly grind who had no idea what we were up to. There was no dressing room, so after setting our gear up, I went to a public sauna around the corner - I’m not usually looking for the sauna, but I do need some privacy to get warmed up and cleaned up for the show. I can’t remember all the details, but I remember being pleased that there were enough fans of the band to give us a chance to overcome the bar crowd and it turned into a really special night. Bar gigs can definitely be great and when the band and the punters get on the same page, it can be sexy as hell. No offense to this video, but you can’t even get near that feeling watching TV. Being at a good gig like this one is kind of racy and a little dangerous. We are all part of something that appeared and ignited and went somewhere and disappeared in the night. And I would wager that someone kissed someone else passionately afterward.

https://youtu.be/YLklexPUbjA

Guitars 2: Dad's D-35

In 1970 my parents were on a ferry in the Irish Sea when a passenger fell on and crushed  the LG-2 Gibson that my father was carrying around Europe. On their return to New York, my father blamed the airline for the damage and settled for $500 compensation. That was a lot of money to my parents, probably all they had. My mom was pregnant with me at the time and they were more or less adrift in the world, staying with friends and family wherever they found a welcome. In spite of their financial situation, my dad did the sensible thing and played the long game: He went to Mandolin Brothers on Staten Island and bought a new Martin Guitar for $500 in cash. He claims he tried all the guitars in the shop and settled on the D-35. I find that hard to believe since a 1970 D-35 was not a good sounding or playing guitar. It was made out of scraps of the cheapest wood they could find in the shop, held together by massive tone-killing timbers and gobs of glue, assembled by scabs hired from the local high school (so goes the myth anyway). They even put the bridge in the wrong place, so it never intonated correctly. I hate to think what he could have bought for $500 in Mandolin Brothers in 1970, some would be priceless instruments today.

Regardless of its quality, that was the guitar I grew up hearing, the guitar he wrote all his songs on, and the guitar I wrote most of my songs on. He must have played hundreds of gigs with it and I know I played hundreds more. Its been a part of my life fort as long as I can remember and its the only instrument I own that I would never sell. 

Happily, the D-35 found its way to TJ Thompson’s work bench in the late 90s. Jennifer and I were just starting our relationship when she got the call up to the “majors” and signed a contract with Polygram Records to make a Jennifer Kimball album. There was a little money sloshing around and she thought the D-35 might be useful in the studio but wanted to see what could be done about the intonation, so she brought it to TJ who is a wizard and the an expert on pre world war two Martin Guitars, but was willing to help. He put the bridge where it should have been in the first place and made a few little tweaks under the top. I remember when Jennifer brought the guitar back to my little basement apartment in Central Square, I was steaming mad! What happened to my guitar? It didn’t sound anything like the instrument I grew up with. You know that feeling when you’re reading in the fading light and someone turns the light on for you? There’s a moment of surprise and annoyance that gives way to thankfulness and comfort. It took me a while, but it was a better instrument and I fell in love with it. It did get some good use on Jenn’s record too.

One of my inspirations starting Session Americana was to get out from behind the pick-ups we had all been putting on our instruments. I remember when we were putting the early sessions together, how much I looked forward to playing that guitar and being able to hear its real actual sound. What a great feeling to give that guitar some use, playing it and passing it around the table like a totem, carrying the joy and creativity of countless hands and voices expressing themselves.

Dad gave me the D-35 on my 18th birthday. He was dead three years later. It is not much of an exaggeration to say thats all he left me. There were a few records, a couple of almost-finished novels, and some songs. The Martin was the only thing of value. You cant make a very long list of things you could buy, use hard for a long time, and pass on in better condition than you found it, but good musical instruments do just that. They are a good investment in pure economic sense as they hold or increase in value, but they also get more useful and more desirable as they age. They also occasionally carry our stories, our hopes, our sorrows, and our songs. My mom is still a little sore that he spent the whole $500, but for once a little recklessness paid off. The long game.

-Ry Cavanaugh

Harmonica

Yeah, so it's just a 4 inch bit of wood and tin, metal reed plates and a bunch of tacks that hold the 20 reeds in place. Because those reeds were made of a particularly resilient metal alloy, the Hohner Marine Band became the instrument of choice for players from De Ford Bailey to Howling Wolf. These guys, they played hard, and that alloy could take it. You can hear all that air moving across the reeds in their recordings that have come down to us today. There is a rich fat tone that conveys something from another time.

In 1971 Chess started putting out their "AKA" album series, and that's when my brother and I stumbled into Mckinley Morganfield AKA guess who. With 4 sides of vinyl there's a lot in there. On the earliest recordings from this LP there is a braid of three: Little Walter's harmonica, Muddy's slide guitar and his voice. The hypnotic weave of Louisiana Blues was like a light switch, a blueprint even, after all our time listening to the Stones, Led Zeppelin and all that. Tom grabbed a bottleneck slide, and I picked the Hohner up. I was just looking to find the right notes and trying to hang on as we started recreating, building up our little ghosts of those tunes.

It's the bending of those little reeds that makes them sound like a voice. You have to torture and tease them to get all those notes that are in there. Did you know that you can get 4 notes out of the 3 hole draw? Just sayin...

But yeah I have to talk about Little Walter Jacobs, because. When you listen to that Chess LP in its entirety, there is a sort of map of the journey they made. It starts with the acoustic Long Distance Call and becomes the electrified sound of I'm Ready or Trouble No More. Got a turntable handy? My internet is a little spotty. Anyway, we were spinning a whole lot of Chess vinyl, and when we started learning to play those songs it was as if we were headed up Highway 61 to Chicago.

Phil Chess, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Bo Diddley

Tom found me my first Astatic JT-30 at a flea market in Richmond Ca. Thanks Bro! The JT-30 was Walter's mike: "I snuggle up to that mike see,'cause I can keep a whole lot of wind in that harp. I don't do nothin' but navigate with it then." I spent the last 500 years trying to catch up with that quote. Oh. Man.

The first amp that almost had the sound was a Fender Deluxe 'black face' that got stolen out of our Econoline van And for it I grieved, because the sound of the right mike through the right tube amp can be very elusive. There's the papery thin, but full sound of a high draw chord coming through a pair of those blue Jensen speakers, or that icy crunch like 3 day old snow in the woods. And you can bet, I spent a good deal of time chasing that sound.

Not so long ago, when we were playing gigs regularly, you might hear it one night, but not every night. With luck there on a beautiful old wooden stage in a grand old high ceilinged second floor music hall in downtown Prague the tone might start cutting just right. Of course that's the moment when someone in the band turns and says can you turn down? Or it might be in a gone to seed "rock" club in Manchester NH with a railing right across the front. You never know. What are you gonna do? It's an unforgettable and elusive dance. Lord have mercy!

“Making Hay” Film by Jason Goodman

Addendum

An inevitable question that I've always dreaded is about Bob Dylan. Because I love Dylan but I'm not so hot on his harmonica playing. Of course just this last week I watched the Rolling Thunder Review film by Scorsese and he's playing these great licks like he's Doc Watson or something . But most of the time Dylan is playing harmonica on a rack in this very aggressive style he's developed. Once we opened for him at the Beacon Theater in New York, and his playing that night was particularly egregious. On this one song he played this 3 note phrase on the harmonica over and over and over and over. I was like what the hell? And as I reflect on it, I realize maybe he uses it like a spice, it's a break, a contrast, like a dash of musical horseradish. Of course not everybody likes horseradish.

Monterotondo marIttimo

Sometimes, the early wakeup call is worth it. The scratchy jostling stumble into the van after a not so unexpected night (of karaoke and exuberance ) around the corner from the gig at some tiny bar full of characters..

The morning hours on the autostrada becomes a two lane road through rugged Tuscan hills and we are winding, and wondering if we've been too long in the van when we start dissecting Frank Zappa lyrics. Are we a bit late arriving in Monte Rotundo? Of course not, we are right on time! The view from our assigned parking spot in the municipal lot on the edge of a small cliff quickens our flagging hearts; where on a clear day you might see the Medditerranean. And soon a three wheeled motorcycle contraption arrives to carry our bulky gear up a stone paved street lined with vendors artists to a square before a small stone church at the top of the hill. As we strode up, smiling to see our name on posters for the "Festa della Castagna" with Bobo Randelli and others.

There was no stage there before the church steps, just a pile of cables waiting and a scattering of random sound gear. I started looking for something to sit on and tried to ask to borrow a chair from a woman with a couple in front of her house, but she just shook her head and looked down at my feet as if to say what's wrong with them there? Soon enough the cheerful and helpful sound engineer arrived to help us set up, with the street stretching down before us. This could be interesting. We organized ourselves there before the church. Folks watched skeptically, as we conjured up some, antique looking microphones and a table with three chairs arranged before a black box of an Estey field organ on one side and bass and drums on the other .By the time we were ready to play, the crowd had arrived. Expectant kids and mothers, couples and old men. a variety of people there who we mystified by us as we were by them began to gather.

For a moment I must digress! Solo singer songwriters, tasteful duos, loops tracks are fine but they can't beat the sound of a 6 piece live band...so at that moment we delivered something fuller and richer than they might expect.

Well it was a pleasant surprise for these folks as the set unspooled across the warm afternoon. We were enjoying it there, placed at the apex of some Tuscan hill town playing songs. And as the set drew near the end, we started the song Pop Life. And soon the sound of horns could be heard from the back of the crowd, and after a moment or two a trumpet and a valve trombone emerged played by two men dressed in black. The horns merged with the song and gave us a little more sway and lightness, as if we had found a giant soap bubble to drift us above the houses and over the hill and would pop as the song reached its climax! Well that's how the set ended. They clapped, we laughed, and sold Cds from the steps of the chapel... the end of another gig but with Andrea our trusty Italian booking agent we well suspected that our day's journey had just begun. Yeah this is about Andrea, we've never had any other italian booking agent but...

It might also be just about the food: we played a show in In Savona where the sound man served us after soundcheck what must have been the best pesto most of us have ever had on a fresh pasta made by the bartender. Maybe it was the fresh air coming from the ligurian sea on the 4th floor open patio, where you could see the trucks and cars lining up for the ferry to North Africa, or maybe it was the time of year, but that something made for an unforgettable meal. It just goes to show you never know, and with Andrea you really never know.

Of course that's what we were thinking that fall afternoon when we rolled down to the big square at the bottom of the hill where the main "highway" met the town cross roads. By sunset the festival was going full blast, with excitement building for the upcoming Bobo Randelli show. After about 3 minutes of waiting, who wouldn't want to try a delicious roast pork sandwich which dripped grease into a fresh bun. We stood next to an intricate spinning cylinder cage, roasting chestnuts over open flames. I took a picture and the spinner soon came up to me and tried to act offended that I snapped a photo at his contraption...but my lack of italian was so profound that I knew surprisingly quickly that he was trying to yank my yankee chain. Bobo made everyone laugh at jokes we couldn't catch, along with the two horn players from before: "The Slide Pistons". They hammed it up right along, with Raffaele blowing smoke through his trumpet and other tricks. Jeff even joined in with hilarity with a version of "Your Daddy Ain't Your Daddy and Your Daddy Don't Know" We were just waiting and waiting for the moment when we finally all sat down all together for some Cacio Pepe and Tortelli Marmani at a dinner presided over by Andrea and Bobo (who is never really off stage) and even more music in the in the wee hours at the wine bar next door. We finally loaded up for a ride into the Tuscan night down the hill to the Agroturismo where we were staying. My last memory was of Bobo and his girlfriend standing/ dancing and singing in the back of a pickup winding down the road. Goodnight. And yes it was worth it.

-Jim Fitting

GUITARS, 1

I’ve been through a few guitars in my life: heirlooms, sweethearts, cheap throw aways, road beaters, quirky gifts, and rum squall regrets.  Most of my guitars just kinda showed up. Most good guitars have a story - maybe thats what makes them good. I’m not sentimental and I don’t hang onto things I don’t use, but I find it difficult to judge an instrument on its own merits, at least beyond obvious flaws, so a good story goes a long way in deciding what I’m going to pick up and play. 

I primarily play acoustic guitar, but I learned to play on a Telecaster. My dad was a working musician and there were always instruments around the house, mostly guitars. He pretty much stole his brother’s Telecaster. Im not sure how the deal was done; could have been a straight up older brother I’m-taking-this, but more likely he put a little blue bottle full of cocaine on the table and said “I’m taking this”. I was very reluctant to play any music as a child. There are a couple of hazy memories. I know I played harmonica on stage with my dad’s band when I was really young. I remember learning a D and an A chord on my dad’s acoustic (more on that later) when I was around 8, because I wrote a song for my baby brother who was born then. I have no recollection of the tune but I wrote a few songs with those two chords around then - handy chords, being both one and five as well as one and four*. Pretty soon after that, my dad lost his mind (for another time) and I avoided everything that might attract his attention. 

The telecaster was always on its stand in the living room / practice room and I found it irresistible, plus with the amp off it was quiet  and I could put it back quicker than tucking a swimsuit catalog under my mattress. Once in a while my dad would catch me, and if he was sober he would help me out with chords which I resented but also appreciated. In my early teens I was obsessed with Andy Summers,  which was a bad place to start learning guitar. I never learned to play any of those Police songs properly but I stood with the tele sounding out the notes of chords I still can’t name, and I still knew D and A. When I was 15, the only good musician I knew my age was a drummer name Dave. He was one of those guys who was so good he didn’t really need a band, but he started one and asked me to join because I had a microphone and an electric guitar and wasn’t afraid to sing. I had pretty much ever even turned the amp on at that point so I had no technique at all. It makes me shudder to think how awful I must have sounded but I guess I must have played well enough to keep up. I remember plugging that Tele into a 1978 Princeton reverb amp with the high boost volume knob pulled out in the basement of a preppy bar with loads of old people dancing to Doors, Stones type songs we played. 

Ry’s dad holding his brother’s Telecaster

I haven’t seen that guitar in 25 years, since after my dad died my uncle took it back to Seattle. What I remember is that the body was roughly stripped of paint, the first two frets were barely above the fingerboard, and the pickup switch was missing its knob and made a scratchy sound so I just left it on the bridge pickup all the time. If it was here now, I would weep for the memories though. Its hard to say what might come back to me, probably a barre Am7**.  -Ry Cavanaugh

*In the so called Nashville chart system, the chords are written with numbers so the musician can play in any key. 1 is dominant obviously. So with A and D, you can play in both keys but in the key of A you only have a 4 chord and in D you only have a 5 chord. Bye Bye Rosyanne is a two chord 1 and 5. BAD by U2 is a 1 and 4.

**Andy Summers is a renowned minor 7 chord specialist.

Microphones

If you went to see Duke Ellington Orchestra with Ella Fitzgerald singing, what the hell was that like? I assume she must have had a huge voice and I’ll bet those trumpets could play real quiet. What about if you went to see Django Rhinehart’s show at a nightclub? Acoustic guitar just playing in the room? Could you hear it? I asked a luthier friend about that once and he answered “He played a big guitar and he hit the strings really hard with a big thick pick.” 

Sound reinforcement technology was pretty limited back then, but people used microphones. There certainly wasn’t any stage monitoring, so the bands probably had to set up in a way that made sense and really control their dynamics. I’m just guessing, but I imagine in the big clubs, the audience would quiet down when the singer came out and they probably didn’t sing a very long set before the band took back over and played dance tunes and louder stuff. In smaller clubs, I think they put the quieter instrument nearer the single mic and the soloists stepped up too. 

But most importantly, I think the audiences were enthralled and they danced when it was swinging and they listened when it was tender and if they were at a concert hall they sat and listened and it probably sounded great, whatever it was. People didnt have music playing all day long everywhere on earth, so hearing melody and rhythm was sacred. People knew how to behave.

By the time I started performing well enough that anyone would want to listen, live music technology was getting pretty fancy. Every drum, horn, or mouth had to have its own microphone in front of it. We put electronics in acoustic instruments and covered up the sound holes. Everything had to be loud because the audience would be chatting away and then the venue would turn up the music and the people would just start shouting in each others ears. And the music suffered too - all the dynamics got lost in the shuffle. Even big shows in good venues had to play by these rules. It seems like people just forgot how to enjoy music. Even the listening venues like concert halls and folk clubs seemed to just get stuffy and dull. The 90s!

By the time the new century came along, I was wondering about trying to do shows in clubs and small venues that were quieter and more dynamic. I saw that Tommy McCarthy had one of his cafe tables in his pub wired up with an overhead microphone system to spread the sound of the Irish music sessions around the whole big venue, the Burren. I wondered if we could use something like that for a kind of song swap on an off night somewhere and see what happened. I asked Duke Levine if he could recommend a microphone that I could buy that would be able to catch the singers and make their voices a little louder than the rest of the ambient sound. He recommend an Audio Technica microphone that Del McCoury used, but thought that for our situation both sides of the mic should be able to catch the sound, so we went with a slightly different version of that type of mic - and it worked a treat. We had to fiddle with the graphic equalizer on the venue’s system, but once that was fixed we just set it the same way every show and it always worked. We added a second microphone for the back of the stage, but that one you really had to get close to for it to work, which was perfect back there. 

We found that most of the time, people who came in the club could really enjoy the dynamic and kind of quiet music. And the simple set-up gave us loads of flexibility for having people drop in and sing or play with us. 

That was all back in 2003. Back then, using studio microphones on stage was really not a thing except in Bluegrass, but these days a lot of acts have gotten hip the “ambient” mic idea. Basically, what we want to do is make the sound of the stage louder for the audience, and to use mic placement to make some parts of the stage louder than others. In a perfect situation, what you get is a very natural sounding music - you can do that with close-micing too, but it requires a different kind of approach and is just as difficult to achieve, depending on the venue of course. 

Enter Phillip Graham, the first person I ever heard of who builds ambient style microphones specifically for live music. Basically, he does a little bit of processing in the microphones themselves to reduce the likelihood of feedback. And he makes beautiful, visually appealing bodies for the microphones too. We use his stuff, as do Milk Carton Kids, Darlingside, Old Crow Medicine Show and loads of other artists. They really suit that “gather round the mic” vibe and while its still not easy to get a great sound in every venue, its just as easy as any other way of getting good sound and has the potential of really getting good fidelity, conviviality, and visual beauty out of a stage.

You can hear Phillip talking about stuff here: https://www.sounddesignlive.com/ear-trumpet-labs-philip-graham-condenser-microphone-vs-dynamic-microphone-live-sound/

Session Americana travels with / has travelled with:

Ear trumpet Labs Edwina matched pair - anything and everything

Audio Technica 4050 - ensemble/vocals

Shure KSM32 - ensemble/vocals

Shure KSM137 - acoustic instruments

CAD C195 - vocals

Shure beta 98 - field organ

But we will use whatever is around that gets the ambient sound.