Description
As someone who came to Austin in 1973 to write about music, Armadillo World Headquarters was graduate school, exposing me to more different sounds than I knew existed, from Mance Lipscomb, Greezy Wheels, Joe Ely, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Doug Sahm, Freddy Fender, and Roky Erickson to the Clash, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, the Ramones, AC-DC, Parliament-Funkadelic, Old and New Dreams (the quartet that backed Ornette Coleman on the groundbreaking album “Shapes of Jazz to Come”), Phil Woods, Herb Ellis and Barney Kessel.
Years after the Armadillo closed its doors on New Year’s Eve, 1980, I learned its back story – how it operated as a collective, how each person who worked there had a role, how it was always hanging by a thread financially over its 10 years of existence, and how the people who ran the place were really in it for the music. A key figure was Hank Alrich, who found money to keep the institution running more than once and who captained the ship over its final five years. Above all, Hank was the music guy, the one who built a recording studio on premises and ran the Armadillo Records label while playing in an array of musical ensembles.
When the Dillo closed, Hank retreated to a remote cabin in the mountains of northern California and continued to make music with his family and friends. For Hank’s daughter, Shaidri, making music was second nature, since she grew up singing and playing guitar and fiddle. She and her father played as a duo around Plumas County during her teenage years and developed a fervent following until she struck out on her own at the age of 17 – her own graduate school of music, such as it was.
Whenever she returned home, Hank and Shaidri would play music together. After performing at an open mic night sponsored by the Plumas Arts organization, people asked if they had a CD recording to buy.
“She came through in the spring of 2007 and obviously she had been singing a lot and getting back into her fiddle,” Hank said. “We did some casual recording just for fun, and I gave her a couple of new-old songs, including ‘Darlin,’ Don’t Wait Up for Me Tonight’ and one of mine that I wrote ages ago but had forgotten about, ‘Davis Brown,’ a tragic faux-folk ballad.
“She came through again in April of 2008, having decided to move from Lexington, Kentucky,” Hank said. “She thought of heading back to Juneau Alaska, but also began to think about coming to Austin, where she was born.”
Shaidri moved to Austin that May. When Hank showed up, they started playing gigs at the storied Threadgill’s Old #1, the spiritual heir to the Armadillo where Janis Joplin came of age as a singer. Audience requests led to more talk of recording and finally, talk turned to reality when Fletcher Clark (another Armadillo vet who was leader of the Dillo’s most storied house band, Balcones Fault) stepped in to oversee the project. Cellist Doug Harman was brought in to anchor the bottom.
Over the course of three days in November 2009, this album happened (head-on, no headphones, no overdubs). It marks not only the rebirth of Armadillo Records and its sibling publishing company, Armadillo Music, but the debut recording of a daughter-father duo whose dedication and determination to make music on their own terms – music for music’s sake – shines through.
It’s about time. But the wait, as you will hear, was well-worth it. Graduate school never sounded this good.
JOE NICK PATOSKI
November 15, 2009
The Songs:
Austin City Limits
I left Austin in 1983, and while I have since been living about as close to real paradise as one can get in the US, there is no denying that the music scene in Austin is another kind of paradise for many of us. A few years later, while driving somewhere I can’t recall, the chorus for this song started rolling around in my mind’s ear, and pretty soon the first verse showed up. I hadn’t a portable recorder with me, and I didn’t stop to write it all down, and in short order the whole thing slipped my mind.
In early 2002 I was loading the van for a trip to Austin, Texas, to handle sound reinforcement for a Go Dance! showcase. I had been back to Austin only twice since leaving my old home on Comanche Trail near Lake Travis , and I was excited about the opportunity to see old friends. My daughter Mylie owns and operates Go Dance! and she had asked me to improve sound delivery at the showcase, as she’d not been happy with it at the previous events. For years while still at home Mylie had been part of my sound reinforcement road crew and she had learned that live sound can actually be good.
While I was carting stuff to the van, which took the better part of an afternoon, this song began its own journey home. Little by little, lines began to return as fragments of the nascent song looped in my brain, and by the time I’d finished loading, I had the whole first chorus back, and parts of the first verse, too.
I pulled out from the home place about 5 PM, planning to drive into the night after leaving with the sun at my back. I stopped in Reno, Nevada, to grab some stellar Mexican food at Beto’s (575 W. 5th St, if you’re ever in Reno and want some real, down-to-earth Mexican food). A good dose of hot stuff was just the ticket for the beginning of a long drive, and I headed out of Reno on 395 intending to take Highway 50 at Carson City over to 95 heading south.
As I drove through Washoe Valley the song took me over. I completely overlooked my left turn, and hours later found myself still on Highway 395 and almost to Bishop CA! I studied the map, backtracked to the first available route east, and eventually hit my intended route. I would’ve been seriously irritated except for being so grateful that this song I’d left somewhere along the road had found its way back to me.
Over the next few years I’d get an idea for another verse, but none that really worked to my satisfaction. I sang the song anyway, having come up with a second chorus, and people seemed to like it, especially people who had traveled to Austin to sample the live music scene. Late last year the second verse showed up for real, and then a third chorus. Early this year I declared it finished.
Usually I can’t stand songs like this, written as if for the Chamber of Commerce, save one word. In this case it came from somewhere deep within me, and turns out to be an apt and positive expression of longing for music and friends I used to hear and see on a daily basis. And thereby the perfect song to open this recorded collection.
The Great Baltimore Fire
Hank’s Notes
I first learned this song from a Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers LP in the 1960’s. Playing with San Antonio band Tiger Balm back then, I more closely followed that version, with our fiddler Tommy Cullpepper recreating Posey Rorrer’s wonderful fiddle part, originally recorded in 1929. I mostly forgot about the song for almost two decades, recalling it occasionally for a song circle or jam.
Then, Shaidri and I started doing it some years ago, and as is usually the case, in the interim my combination of fluctuating memory cells and wandering musical attention span pulled the song into the version offered, with minor changes in melody and lyrics.
Shaidri’s harmony just knocks me out. At her suggestion this became a duet with both of us singing all the way through. I know cello is not traditionally a string band instrument, but I think Doug’s part fits beautifully here. Think of it as “church bass”, a context in which cello was often played.
The Death of Ellenton
The Town of Ellenton, SC was incorporated in 1880. Nearly all its life, it was an agricultural, trading, and sawmill town. It declined through the downturn of cotton prices after World War I and the Depression of the 1930s. By the early 1950s, Ellenton had a population of about 760, about 190 residences, about 30 commercial buildings, five churches, two schools including Ellenton High School, one cotton gin, a city hall and jail, and the railroad station. Ellenton had the first automatic telephone dialing system in South Carolina. After the bank failures in the Great Depression, Ellenton had the first cash depository in South Carolina.
On November 28, 1950, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and the E. I. du Pont de Nemours Company announced that the Savannah River Plant would be built on about 300 sq. mi. of Aiken County, Barnwell County, and Allendale County in South Carolina. The Savannah River Plant was built for the production of plutonium and tritium for the H-bomb. About 6,000 people and 6,000 graves were to be relocated. This included the incorporated communities of Ellenton and Dunbarton and the unincorporated communities of Hawthorne, Meyers Mill, Robbins, and Leigh. A significant fraction of those removed were African-American farmers and sharecroppers. The government purchased their land at ten dollars an acre or less, or simply condemned the property. Many of the residents moved themselves, and in some cases, their homes to the new town of New Ellenton, South Carolina on U.S. Highway 278, which was eight miles north, and nearby Jackson, Beech Island, Aiken, North Augusta, and Augusta, Georgia. Some moved out of state. Eventually, nearly all that was left behind were the streets, curbs, driveways, and walkways.
The Death of Ellenton was written by Jesse “Papa” Johnson & Dixie Smith. I first heard it from Rosalie Sorrel’s Somewhere Between LP, released in 1964, and it struck me powerfully. Our nation was engaged in repressive conflict in Vietnam, and the picture this song paints of the dismissal of a rural town in order to build a plant to produce H-bomb fodder stood as a stark reminder of government power. Ellenton was but one of several little towns taken to make space for the Savannah River Plant. Decades later we find ourselves continually at war for reasons that many of us are unable to rationalize without invoking tremendous cynicism.
Stillwater
Gerry Barnett’s Notes
This song came to me when I was about 17 years old and sitting, bored as usual, in home room class at Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio. The “inspiration” came from a comic strip called Snuffy Smith which I had become accustomed to checking out in the Sunday papers as an accurate study of the human condition.
I wrote the words down and sang them in my head for a number of years, but don’t remember singing them for anybody else until around 1971, when, on a trip home from Houston with my old friend Ed Vizard it surfaced again. As I recall, Ed had been sitting in the front passenger seat playing his guitar and singing, when I said, “I have a song for you.” I sang it and Ed figured out the chords in short order and by the time we got to Austin, there it was, in the key of A.
Through the years I sang it with various bands, but looking back, and listening to how beautifully Hank, Shaidri, and Doug have rendered it on this CD, I realize that it was never a “band” song and I was never a singer.
Before The Streets Were Paved
Hank’s Notes
Shaidri brought me this wonderful Peter Rowan song a couple of years ago. I took to it right away. Before the Streets Were Paved, a conversation between a youngster and a grandfather, takes us directly into the heart and nexus of family, culture, past, and future.
I live in the mountains a few miles outside of a small northeastern California town. A mile and a quarter of dirt road leads to my house, and nobody would call it “a driveway”. Mind you, I am not opposed to better roads, but so many of us now have never walked on dirt, have never seen a night sky filled with stars.
As a species we crash heedlessly into a future we refuse to anticipate clearly, leaving behind a past we fail to value. Sure, there are those among us who see some unfortunate and perhaps irreversible consequences to the pathways down which we allows ourselves to be led, as there are those among us who do greatly value the more cohesive aspects our history. We laud technology and religiously keep faith that it will save us from ourselves. Yet in the midst of our amazing material wealth we have people enough without homes to constitute whole cities, while throughout the US much housing remains vacant. We blame the homeless for their plight, failing to see their situation as a symptom of the failure of our economic systems as presently configured. We proclaim “family values” as if it were something to pick up at a discount center.
Peter Rowan has written many great songs, and I have sung several of them. Right now, this is my favorite Peter Rowan song, and I find Shaidri’s delivery wonderfully compelling.
Blarney’s Ghost Medley
Hank’s Notes
Over a decade ago Roxanne Valadao, Executive Director of Plumas Arts, asked Shaidri and me to join a lineup of acts for a St. Patrick’s Day concert, to be held at the lovely Town Hall Theater in Quincy, California. We accepted, electing to be the opening act for the concert, and decided on a brief, all-instrumental program of fiddle tunes, billing ourselves as Blarney’s Ghost. We put together a set that included a few fiddle tune medleys, including this one. I really enjoyed it then, and when Doug joined us to became a trio, we jumped at the opportunity to add his cello to this medley. I love this stuff, and look forward to having something similar on every recording we do. Here’s how we explained it to that audience:
Many are unaware of the biography of the legendary Celtic freedom fighter, Blarney Stone, whom, in his flight from persecution, was taken in wholeheartedly by the Irish, and in memory of whom we take our name. Blarney Stone is revered through history not only for his heroic battlefield escapades, but also for his evolution of a system for securely exchanging critical military information encrypted in the form of long and incomprehensible stories, now known as “tall tales”. These fables were so long and convoluted that anyone overhearing might justifiably and incredulously conclude that no useful information could possibly be gleaned even from the closest listening.
To this day people invoke the spirit and memory of the heroic and legendary Blarney Stone when, confronted with an outlandish story, a scarcely believable tale, they proclaim, “Oh, BS!”
Fletcher’s Notes
Hank first proposed this instrumental medley as an extension of fiddle tunes he and Shaidri were already performing. As I listened to them running through the tunes with Doug, the titles and moods provoked an epiphanous moment in which I imagined an unfolding saga. To be clear (at least as far as a prim musicologist is wont to be), the tunes are not from the same historical nor cultural context. The Rights of Man celebrates the 18th century Age of Enlightenment in Europe and America. Old French is a 20th century revival of an older, obscure fiddle tune (reputedly so named because New England and Canadian fiddlers in the ’30’s referred to it as that “old French reel”). And The Battle of Aughrim occurred in 1691 in Ireland, when the Jacobites were defeated by the Williamites. But, praise be, imagination is not bounded by time, space or historical correctness. Blessed ignorance left me unencumbered by facts, so here is what I heard:
Liberté, égalité, fraternité! Has there been a more succinct cry for revolution? History reminds us that conflict typically begins with fervent calls-to-arms intoned in noble words and lofty ideals. And so we have sent our young sons and our aging fathers into the fray – to unshackle (or enslave) a people, to protect the homeland (or conquer another’s), to defend the faith (or defeat the infidel), to insure (or control) the security of the people. Joyously trumpeted is the call-to-arms, which opens here with a modest statement from a lone minstrel’s guitar. As the march proceeds, the ranks are swelled first by the cello, then coming to fullness with the entrance of the violin. Ah, Johnny, we clearly knew ya! The women and children and men-too-old-for-war all watch with shining faces as the troop marches beyond the rise to whatever fate, noble or otherwise, awaits. For whatever the cost, the Rights of Man must be secured for all!
For those left behind, there is little but to wait. And in a tiny Irish cottage huddled by the hearth, a family honors the courage of their distant husband and sons. Surely there is sadness in their absence, and concern, too, for their safety. But is their cause not just? Are they not marching into battle to secure those sacred Rights of Man? For those who keep the home fires burning, this, then, must be a time of celebration! Mother says, “Play that old french tune!” Grandpa’s guitar and Uncle’s cello begin a happy jig. Sister joins in with her fiddle, and soon all are dancing as Celtic dervishes in the throes of their love and convictions. But the exuberant strings turn mournful as the distant rumblings of destruction intrude. The door is thrown back and the cold wind of death chills the family’s warmth.
Standing at the threshold, the youngest boy has returned from the war without Father and his older brothers. Behind him is the aftermath of that terrible conflict. As he limps feebly into his home, Mother weeps – tears both of joy for his return and of deep sadness for her fine men lost. Boy no more, his face has been ravaged by the cruelties he has seen and inflicted, and much more of him than his wounded limbs will never heal from that damned old war. Johnny, we hardly knew ya! Yes, the cause was just and its soldiers noble. But the Battle was lost at a frightful cost. War will continue, and Aughrim will never be the same. A dialectic – a medley – to be replayed again, …seemingly without end?
Ain’t gonna study war no more!
If I Don’t Get You
Hank’s Notes
A few months after first leaving Austin I realized I hadn’t written a song in quite a while, and the specter of writer’s block loomed. While I often go for considerable lengths of time without writing a song and don’t worry about it at all, other times terror strikes my songwriter’s heart. When I don’t worry about it everything works out eventually – when a song shows up. A few times panic has ensued and I’ve had a song burst forth almost immediately. Though I typically don’t write love songs, a few times this process has brought me a song fitting that description. This song is for Lanis, even though I did have her at the time (and still do), and I am way beyond grateful for her presence all these years.
More than any other song I’ve written, this song seems to get people singing on the chorus once they’ve heard it a few times, even friends of mine who rarely sing. I get a kick out of that.
Davis Brown
Hank’s Notes
Back in the 1960’s while living in Santa Barbara I read that Steve Gillette and Tom Campbell had written Darcy Farrow for an ethnomusicology class while at UCLA. As with many legends, that turns out not to be true. (Here’s a link to the real story about Darcy Farrow.) However, at the time I didn’t know the truth, and I got an urge to write something that might pass for an old folk ballad. Davis Brown is the result of that urge. I think the song comes fully to life with Shaidri’s rendition.
Daddy, What’s A Train?
Hank’s Notes
I got this song from my dear and departed friend Chuck Dockham, a man who brought lots of terrific music into my life, along with a very enlightened perspective on a whole lot of human being. Chuck was a wonderful singer, with a clear and emotionally gripping voice, and a powerful old-timey, cowboy style on his 1940’s Martin HD-28. Together his voice and that guitar made powerful statements.
This fine song from the late Utah Phillips, who lived in Nevada City, California for many years, grabbed me immediately. Chuck lived outside of Nevada City on the San Juan ridge, and had learned Daddy, What’s a Train? directly from Utah. He had his own handle on the song, and it was a big one.
Title
Hank’s Notes
I wrote this near the end of the 1970’s, while living in Austin, Texas, and managing Armadillo Word Headquarters. There is little I can say about it. It’s a different kind of song, and speaks for itself.
I’ve sung this song many times over the years. Hearing Shaidri sing it here is, for me, like hearing the song for the first time. It seems that way with every new song she embraces.
anonymous –
Over the course of three days in November 2009, this album happened. It marks … the debut recording of a daughter-father duo whose dedication and determination to make music on their own terms – music for music’s sake – shines through.
anonymous –
Gorgeous, egoless singing and subtle tuneful musicianship. This is something to prize from many angles.
anonymous –
Carry Me Home, indeed. I believe the brain is only able to think it knows, and that true knowing and oneness can only occur in the heart. Mine knows that I heard beautiful, tremendously meaningful music for the past half hour or so. The songs themselves are undeniable. The sound of father and daughter’s voices together here is as rich as any vocal pairing I’ve heard. The mix is exquisite.
anonymous –
I needed the space of the instrumental medley that followed to find a handkerchief and clean up.
anonymous –
Alrich, singing and playing guitar and mandolin provides the solid core, Harman’s gorgeous cello swirls while Shaidri, what can I say that adequately conveys the beauty of her leads and harmonies? She glows in the dark.
anonymous –
From the first draw of the bow on the cello to the last sweet harmony, it is delightfully engaging. Fabulously written and wonderfully performed songs – specific yet simple vocabulary, alluring alliteration, lovely melodies and gracious harmonies. The cello as bass is soothing and vivid at once. I cannot take it out of my CD player. I cannot bear the thought of being without for even one drive.
anonymous –
My favorite songs on the CD, by a lot, are If I Don’t Get You and title cut Carry Me Home — both written by Hank Alrich. And — far from being a ‘front-loaded’ CD — Carry Me Home is the last song! There are so many good ones they could afford to put one of the best at the end. The pickin’s are THICK here!
anonymous –
The clarity of these recordings is remarkable. The high resolution will be ear candy for any audiophile.