LINER NOTES AND CREDITS TO HARVEY REID's "Blues & Branches" ALBUM

1 The Pork Chop Slap (H. Reid)(3:24) slide guitar
2 Raleigh & Spencer (Trad.)(5:00) 12-string guitar, vocal
3 Let Your Light Shine (Trad.)(3:09) slide guitar, fiddle, 2 vocals
4 One Kind Favor (Trad.)(5:24) slide guitar, vocal
5 From Where I Stand (H. Reid)(5:22) guitar, 2 vocals
6 Sly Damsel Serenade (H. Reid)(4:00) slide guitar
7 Fishing Pond Blues (H. Reid)(3:44) autoharp, vocal
8 Fool Me Twice Blues (H. Reid)(6:40) 6-string banjo
9 St. James Infirmary (Trad.)(5:49) guitar, vocal
10 Cryderville Jail (Trad.)(4:32) slide guitar, vocal
11 The Year That Clayton Delaney Died (T. Hall)(3:08) guitar, dobro, vocal
12 Walk Through A Graveyard (H. Reid)(3:05) guitar, vocal
13 The Train That Carried My Girl From Town (Trad.)(2:52) autoharp, vocal
14 Paddy’s Green Shamrock Shore (Trad.)(6:15) guitar, vocal
15 Try Mine (R. Goldman)(3:55) slide guitar, vocal
16 Hollywood (H. Reid)(4:21) 12-string guitar, lap steel, vocal

CREDITS
Harvey Reid vocals, guitars, autoharp, dobro, lap steel, 6-string banjo
Joyce Andersen vocals, violin
Arrangements, Production, Engineering Harvey Reid
Recording Woodpecker Studio, York Maine Mastering Thomas Eaton
Guitars 1984 Taylor rosewood model 810 #3086 (T6), 1987 Taylor maple jumbo 12-string #5460 (T12), 2004 Bourgeois coco-bolo JOMC #003311 (DB), 1975 Bozo rosewood model B-809 #1048 75 (B), 2000 Chrysalis graphite “Damsel” #003 (C), 2008 graphite CA Series 8 #8S008079-2 (CA), 2002 Richie Owens Bayou Special #0059 (O) 1997 Dobro DW27DLX #D2-002-97-2 (D), 1961 6-string lap steel by Supro #T62886 (L)
Autoharp 1973 Oscar Schmidt 21-chord Appalachian (A)
Banjo 1988 6-string maple Deering MB-6 #0200 (6SB)
Design & Graphics Aphro-Graphics Cover photos Dixie Baxter
Special Thanks Joyce Andersen, Rex Holmes, the boys
(^) Partial capo used on tracks: 2 (Esus), 4 (Drop C), 5 (E minus), 7 (Open A), 8, 13 (Csus plus) http://www.partialcapo.com

All selections ©P2009 by Harvey Reid (Quahog Music BMI) except “Try Mine” which is ©1980 by Richard Goldman (Drag Bunt Music BMI) and “Clayton Delaney” © 1971 by Tom T. Hall (Unichappell Music) used by permission.
Recorded using MOTU Digital Performer, Audio-Technica 4047 mikes, API 3124 pre-amps, Apogee 8000 converter, Fishman Aura used on direct tracks, and for Chrysalis guitar. Strings by Elixir on all guitars except dobro, lap steel.

About The Songs...
1- The Pork Chop Slap (H. Reid) Sort of in the tradition of the open-tuned slide guitar train songs, though this one reminds me more of Southern food than railroads. The groove is more about greasy meat than greasy motor parts. My brother always says “The best fish is a good pork chop.” Open Eb tuning. (O) [2/14/09]

2- Raleigh & Spencer (Trad.) Raleigh and Spencer are towns in at least 3 southern states: North Carolina, West Virginia, & Tennessee. Many areas of the South are still “dry,” and people make their own spirits, travel to get them, or do without. The song seems to have “emerged” when Virginia old-time fiddle legend Tommy Jarrell learned it from an African-American blues guitarist neighbor. A number of musicians seem to be inferring its origin and reworking it on blues guitar rather than with a string band. (T12) (^) [1/30/09]

3- Let Your Light Shine On Me (Trad.) An old gospel song I have heard a lot over the years. Though I think Leadbelly did a version, the rather fierce 1929 Blind Willie Johnson (1897-1945) recording with his odd false-bass singing seems to be the headwaters of the song. The song has extra meaning because the most prominent landmark in our town in Maine is a lighthouse. Joyce and I share the lead and harmony vocals, and flip the harmony over twice, because we both like the song and both want to sing it. (O) Open Eb tuning, metal slide [2/3/09]

4- One Kind Favor (Trad.) This one dates to Blind Lemon Jefferson, and can be found in a dizzying number of variations. This version echoes a lot of ways I have heard it over the years, which is what I think you are supposed to do with folk songs. I remember hearing that somebody actually endowed a fund to make sure that Lemon’s grave was indeed kept clean. (B) Open D tuning, ceramic slide. [1/17/09]

5- From Where I Stand (H. Reid) Played with a flatpick and what I call “Drop C” partial capo, this one is obviously, unabashedly and even defiantly autobiographical. It is the first mention of my children in a song. (T6) (^) [1/29/09]

6- Sly Damsel Serenade (H. Reid) I don’t read or write music, so I have to remember things I am writing, or else record them. Before digital pocket recorders, I had boxes of unlabeled cassettes with fragments of songs. This one got lost for 9 years till I found it on a tape. The first cut on my first record in 1982 was a minor key slide piece called The Albatross that used a similar clever partial capo trick. I have performed it about 3 times in 27 years, and have been wanting for years to write a minor key slide piece in an open tuning I commonly use on stage. Better late than never. (C) (^) Open D tuning [1/20/09]

7- Fishing Pond Blues (H. Reid) My first blues song written on the autoharp, an instrument rarely used for this purpose. Joyce had a gig, I was up early with Baby Levi, and it wrote itself just before 3 year-old Otto got up. He walked in and said “Papa, why is someone picking your tomatoes?” Sort of an étude for chromatic autoharp, it just uses three seventh chords and no trickery. (A) [1/31/09]

8- Fool Me Twice Blues (H. Reid) A spontaneous jam, unorthodox in a number of ways, including the whole solo blues banjo sound. It feels almost psychedelic. I use a partial capo, 3 fingerpicks and bare thumb to generate pseudo-clawhammer banjo sounds on something that is not even “technically” a banjo. Tuned in standard guitar tuning. Quasi-frailing a quasi-banjo... (6SB)(^) [2/3/09]

9- St. James Infirmary (Trad.) I have been thinking about working up this song for a long time, and finally found a way to do it that feels right. Almost no versions I have heard are even remotely alike, and it is sometimes minor, major, fast, slow and everything else. I leaned hardest on an early Louis Armstrong version, where I got the F minor chord. Here I use a fascinating new configuration I just discovered, with a Woodie’s G-Band partial capo. The chord voicings are eerily satisfying. (DB) (^) Open C tuning [1/14/09]

10- Cryderville Jail (Trad.) An amalgam of original and traditional verses of this hypnotic old jailhouse song that Woody Guthrie called “one of the best jailhouse songs I know.” Though I do sing a few mild expletives, I removed some much saltier language and verses about bugs and varmints eating the walls. I hope the folks who really did time in those stinking southern jails forgive me for “sanitizing” the song a bit. Blame my kids. (C) Open D tuning [1/22/09]

11- The Year That Clayton Delaney Died (T. Hall) A minor country hit for author Tom T. Hall in 1971, and re-done a number of times by country artists. Hall says it is a true story, and I always liked it. My old Alabama buddy Jerry Shelfer used to sing it when we played street music in the 70’s, and it surfaces occasionally, usually at bar gigs. Dobro was overdubbed. (T6)(D) [1/29/09]

12- Walk Through A Graveyard (H. Reid) A fun, rockin’ bluesy song. Children’s books are usually about animals, and I guess I was “influenced” by them, or else playing to my audience. It is a challenge writing blues songs when you are happy and hanging around with little kids. (DB) [2/1/09]

13- The Train That Carried My Girl From Town (Trad.) This 2-chord song was on the bench for the Song Train project. It was first done in 1929 by Frank Hutchison, a West Virginia coal miner usually credited with being the 1st white man to record the blues. It’s the usual story of him learning songs and guitar techniques from his African-American neighbors. He did a fingerpicked bottleneck Open D version which seems to have inspired a number of great musicians to record it, usually either slide guitarists or hot bluegrass bands. I have always done it with C and G7 chords, though for some reason decided to use an F7. Didn’t know I could play this fast ‘til it was done. (A) [2/1/09]

14- Paddy’s Green Shamrock Shore (Trad.) A noble and very well-written old Irish emigration song I finally found a way to play solo. It uses the same tuning & partial capo set-up as St. James Infirmary. (CA) (^) Open C tuning [1/9/09]

15- Try Mine (R. Goldman) Another gem from the sort of twisted but marvelous pen of Richard Goldman, who was kind enough to send me a bunch of his unrecorded songs. I turned his 60’s-ish rock band version into a bluesy song I could perform solo. (B) Open D tuning, ceramic slide. [1/18/09]

16- Hollywood (H. Reid) Television and movies have been probably the largest cultural force in the history of the world, masquerading as just “entertainment.” This is a dark and poetic collage of observations, written in 1993 and rarely performed. I did sing it in Hollywood a couple times, getting no discernible reaction. Whether showbiz culture is shallow or deep depends on who you ask. I overdubbed the lap steel. (T12)(L) tuned low. [1/30/09]

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