March Bustles In On Windy Feet …
…
"And sweeps my doorstep and my street.
She washes and cleans with pounding rains,
Scrubbing the earth of winter stains.
She shakes the grime from carpet green
Till naught but fresh new blades are seen.
Then, house in order, all neat as a pin,
She ushers gentle springtime in." - Susan Reiner, Spring Cleaning
She washes and cleans with pounding rains,
Scrubbing the earth of winter stains.
She shakes the grime from carpet green
Till naught but fresh new blades are seen.
Then, house in order, all neat as a pin,
She ushers gentle springtime in." - Susan Reiner, Spring Cleaning
Sun’s gonna shine in my back
door some day,
March wind’s gonna blow my
blues all away.
(The Carter Family—1934; Jody Stecher/Kate Brislin--1999)
On
the last day of February, as we watched the rain clouds sweep across San Pablo Bay,
we spent most of the day in the recording studio. We worked on the first tracks
for the great song, "A Satisfied Mind" by Joe “Red” Hays and
Jack Rhodes. Hayes explained the origin of the lyric this way: "The song came
from my mother. Everything in the song are things I heard her say over the years.”
The
first version by Porter Wagoner, went to #1 on the country
chart in 1955. Many others have covered the tune since, including Johnny Cash who
recorded it in 2004 on the Kill Bill soundtrack, and Willie Nelson in 2010. Our
version is a composite arrangement built on one created by Mayne Smith and Mitch Greenhill of the 70’s group Frontier (I
played piano with them in those days.) They created a gospel sound with changes
moving from the tonic chord through the dominant of the relative minor to the minor.
Chappell added
another minor chord to it when we arranged the song for our live performances. All in all, it’s journeyed pretty far
from Porter Wagoner’s three chord version at the Grand Ole Opry. We think
you all will like our version as much as our local audiences do!
John Roy Zat dropped by and added some wonderful fiddling. It’s sounding great but we still have some vocals, a banjo track and a bass track to add, then full time mixing. Mastering and manufacture is the next stage, with a product just around the corner!
This month, we are preparing for a short junket down to Southern California with
On Saturday morning, March 15th, we'll attend a meet and greet in Canoga Park for the southern California musicians who are looked after by Mother Hen Promotions. That afternoon, we’re off to help Mitch Greenhill of Folklore Productions celebrate his birthday in Santa Monica. It’s going to be a fun time, another adventure.
Dave will be reading Irish poetry for the event created by local publisher/teacher Jannie Dresser, Alta Solano LIT OUT LOUD, Folk & Fine Art Gallery at 1861-A Solano Ave., Berkeley, [in the small alleyway just above Pegasus Books]. Come by on Saturday, 7:30 p.m., March 22, 2014: Judy Wells is launching her book The Glass Ship (inspired by ancient Irish island-voyager tales), and we’ll feature readings of great Irish poets from Yeats to Heaney. Solano Avenue is a great main street, a place to meet and hang out. Hope to see you there!
And we also hope to see you at Dave’s poetry reading at Sacred
Grounds Café in San Francisco on Wed., March 26.
