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What songs are you working on lately??? (version ii)


onewilyfool

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I am trying to write a cowboy song. Don't like horses, own a couple of cowboy hats, and even a pair of boots, and do not know any cowboys, so the lyrics are coming hard. I think it will have an Am in it though. Last two songs I learned were cowboy songs by a Montana performer, John Reedy.

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I've got two projects on the table this week.

 

A musical contractor I work for has asked me for a solo jazz guitar demo, so I plan to send him:

 

Smile

Misty

Sunny

Shadow of Your Smile

Satin Doll

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

 

This weekend I start a string of "Independence Day" celebration park concerts. These will include all the "rah, rah" classics such as:

 

The Armed Forces Medley

God Bless America

America The Beautiful

Stars and Stripes Forever

Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, etc. etc, etc.

 

It's actually kind of fun to pull these songs out once a year, especially knowing they'll get put away again in short order.

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Johnny Cash - Folsom Prison Blues (I backed up a friend at Kaufman Kamp on Open Mic, having never tried it before, & absolutely loved it)

Kathy Mattea - Eighteen Wheels & a Dozen Roses (just a nice, classic Country song)

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Since Phil Everly died early this year I've discovered the Everly Brothers.

 

I like the sad ones so have recorded Don Everlys 'So Sad',not well known but a nice song.

 

 

What is cool is that the Everly Brothers were probably the first rockers to use open G tuning. One of the things that gave them such a distinct sound.

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It's rodeo season here so... the guitars sit in their cases for around a month to six weeks depending on the year.

 

Duluth... for Northern Plains cowboy stuff anyway...

 

...look up Chris Ledoux on Youtube. Some's pretty old style, some's rodeo kid rider stuff on the edge of rock and country but... he's the real thing. Some Ian Tyson stuff too.

 

Then go out on your eastern Colorado plains where there ain't anything but buckskin below and blue above and know you've gotta find, in metaphor at least, missing cattle to gather, to doctor or whatever.

 

Neat thing about "real" cowboy material to me is that in ways it's always a matter of some of the best metaphor in any kind of music; it tells a story but the story could be business suits 'stedda cowboy boots - but the boots make it easier to tell.

 

Rodeo season... I always tell the kids in rodeo that it's the best sport to learn life. Other sports it's you or you and the team against another or another team. The variables affect all equally. In rodeo, the draw of a critter, be it a calf to rope, bronc or bull to ride, is a variable unique to the individual. In short, as in life, "stuff happens." A bulldogging steer may decide to stop just outside the gate, a bronc may buck differently today than usual.

 

"Stuff happens." Thanks kinda "cowboy life" just as it is anywhere else. It's just easier to write from the cowboy/cowgirl experience. A barrel horse that pulls up lame early in the season... the pickup that gives up headed to a rodeo where there's a good draw on a bronc...

 

m

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Two Kinks songs...'Sunny Afternoon' and 'Holiday', Grateful Dead's 'US Blues', and 'Do It Again' by The Beachboys. Memorization is my weakness. I can play and sing around 170 songs but can only get through a handful without the lyric/music sheets in front of me. I'm sure that'll get worse.

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Jed...

 

I know some figure it's a horrid thing to do, but in my "country house band" days in the '70s, we had a huge book, and could do the tunes pretty easily, but ... the words were on cards and we were young enough to be able to read 'em. Nowadays... I wish I had a laptop set up more or less the same way for the same reason.

 

m

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Jed...

 

I know some figure it's a horrid thing to do, but in my "country house band" days in the '70s, we had a huge book, and could do the tunes pretty easily, but ... the words were on cards and we were young enough to be able to read 'em. Nowadays... I wish I had a laptop set up more or less the same way for the same reason.

 

m

 

There's something comforting in knowing that. I haven't played for strangers since the early 70's, so I don't have to worry about cue cards, but I'd like to just have 10 or 20 songs that I can rattle off without sitting at my desk. I guess music stands were made for guys like us.

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Jed...

 

I know some figure it's a horrid thing to do, but in my "country house band" days in the '70s, we had a huge book, and could do the tunes pretty easily, but ... the words were on cards and we were young enough to be able to read 'em. Nowadays... I wish I had a laptop set up more or less the same way for the same reason.

 

m

Milod….you need a book for three chord songs???…lol

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That and more for the music stands...

 

If absolutely nothing more than a place to put a set list and hang a drink bottle of some sort...

 

For that house band those years ago, we used what looked like an old "swing" music stand. It held the PA amp, before we got our drummer, a univox drum machine that worked quite well (I still have the thing!), drinks, cue cards, extra strings, my capo, a harmonica used on one or two things, it could hold the little bits of paper with requests, etc... all "hidden." Mike stands were left and right to the rear.

 

I think a band doing concerts, maybe even big dance gigs and has a "singer," may not wish to go that route, and heaven knows a show band can mess with a tune a long time. But for a house band type of gig out in the boonies where I live - perhaps even in a "neighborhood bar" in a city, it has a lot of advantages.

 

m

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1 Dylan…"To make you feel my love"

2 Dylan…."It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry"

3 Gram Parsons…..Hickory Wind

4 Gordon Lightfoot…"Sundown"

 

 

Almost finished with 1 &2& 3

 

Just starting with 4

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Hardly could call it "working on" since it is so easy, but lately, but

I have been having fun playing the Beatles "Any time at all".

 

It's fun sometimes just to strum some open chords and enjoy singing along..

 

Guess you can say I'm a old Beatles fan.

 

Bob

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