Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You

I was inspired to do this old Bob Dylan tune by hearing it done by Hit & Run, a band I was in back in the mid-70s in Farmington NM. I had found an old reel-to-reel tape of a night at Dizzyland Liquors (Dizzy's) and it brought back some wonderful memories. I asked Gavin O'Keefe to add a viola part, especially on the choruses, and our system of sharing files between Mississippi and Maine seems to be working.

TONIGHT I'LL BE STAYING HERE WITH YOU

Here's how it sounded back in 1974 at Dizzy's with Hit & Run playing it. Fender on guitar and vocals; Bill Smith on bass and vocals; Johnny Cunningham on drums.

TONIGHT I'LL BE STAYIN (HIT & RUN) 

You can hear the whole night at Dizzy's at this link:

www.ramblehouse.com/dizzyland1974.htm

 

 

 

Honks

I actually recorded these back in June of 2006 not long after I bought a new amp, a Fender G-Dec, that had drums and all kinds of effects built-in. Back then I was recording a song a night and calling them "Nightsongs". I used to have them up at the Ramble House web site but I phased them out when I started Knees Calhoon's Midnight Ramble.

It occurred to me that I rarely play any solos in the songs I've been covering, so here's some picking, the way I did it back in 2006.

HONK

Bill Jourdan, a great and wise steel guitar player I used to play with in 1966, and I were listening to a Dixieland song one time and I remarked that it sounded like everybody was taking a solo at the same time. "That's exactly right," Bill said. "Everybody solo, all the time. That's Dixieland." So, in that spirit, I recorded about a half dozen solos over the same bass-drums track and played them all at the same time. As usual they weren't listening to each other.

DIXIE HONK

Here are another two Nightsongs that are not technically Honks but I really liked the rhythm and the guitar tones the amplifier supplied.

MAUVEGRASS

BLUES HOUSE

BONUS COVER!

Here to temper the jangliness of the Honks is a comforting country tune by Buffalo Springfield.

KIND WOMAN

by Buffalo Springfield

Holy Man - The Sequel

Our previous song was written by Richard A. Lupoff back in the 60s and recently put to music by Knees Calhoon. But when Dick heard the tune he was inspired all over again and wrote three more verses for it, bringing it up to date. Doesn't a song that was written in two parts, 50 years apart, deserve to be considered a masterpiece and sequel? Yes. So here's how the night that began as a druggy ritual of exploration ended up, two generations later.

HOLY MAN - THE SEQUEL

Ommmmm Ommmmm

Holy man, Oh Holy man

Ommmmm Ommmmm

Get you high Oh yes he can

The years flew by, you’d think I’d hit the big fast-forward key

I look into the mirror and I say, this cannot be

My rocker friends no longer rock, I can’t believe they’re gone

But Bob and Nick have left this world, and Jerry too, and John

Old Mozart seems my meat these days, my energy is low

And weed no longer moves my soul, the time moves much too slow

The kids I see on TV now, I feel more like their father

And if they try to show me how I tell them not to bother

Ommmmm Ommmmm

Holy man, Oh Holy man

Ommmmm Ommmmm

Get you high Oh yes he can

The politics that once outraged, I called for revolution

Now I’ll leave it for somebody else to work out the solution

I’d rather drink a glass of wine and read a good whodunit

Than climb into a hotrod car and hit the gas and gunnit

But someone needs to raise his fist and smash the social order

And call upon the decent folks who wait there at the border

And so I’ll leave it up to you to keep the banner flying

And keep on living all your life and never think of dying

Ommmmm Ommmmm

Holy man, Oh Holy man

Ommmmm Ommmmm

Get you high Oh yes he can

It’s been a great and happy life, to start with Benny Goodman

Scarecrow, and Beast, and Toto too, and don’t forget the Tin Woodman

The lady that I met that night, her guru was a wizard

He got me high, he laid me low, my head was in a blizzard

She’s with me still, our life has been a long fantastic pleasure

Our kids are grown, they’re on their own, each one’s been a treasure

And so I leave you to your chores, do everything in style

So when at last you close your eyes you do it with a smile.

Ommmmm Ommmmm

Holy man, Oh Holy man

Ommmmm Ommmmm

Get you high Oh yes he can.

 

BONUS COVER!

Knees had never heard of Bruce Cockburn until he joined the Canadian group called the Cover Album Project Band, and found that Bruce was a fantastic songwriter, singer and guitar player. One of his songs, an instrumental, seemed like a candidate for Knees' first excursion into playing without a pick. He even made a video with a very lousy camera.

WHEN IT'S GONE, IT'S GONE