New tune: "Eviction Notice Blues"

[dhanners623]

When a song is broken, you can either fix it or strip it of parts and put the parts on a shelf for use later. "Eviction Notice Blues" is made up of parts of two or three broken songs, with some new material. It was inspired, in part, by Matthew Desmond's 2016 book, "Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City," about the eviction epidemic in Milwaukee and other American cities. I moved the action, such as it is, from Milwaukee to West Terre Haute, IN. If you've ever been to West Terre Haute, you know why.

This is a song that just came out of the J-35 after spending two and a half months with my Farida OT-22 in England. Not knowing what might happen there (it was a last-minute trip for a family emergency) I left the J-35 behind. I'm glad I did; British Airways' policy regarding guitars is all over the map and depends on who is at the ticket counter.

I took three different BA flights. On the first one, they said I had to buy a ticket for a seat for the guitar. For the second flight, the cabin crew let me bring it on as a carry-on and nobody said a word. On the third flight, they made me gate-check the guitar. It was in a polyfoam case, so I wasn't crazy about that. (In fact, the first ticket agent looked at the case and said that since it wasn't a hardshell, they couldn't check it as luggage. She told me if I wanted to take the guitar, I HAD to buy a seat for it.)

Needless to say, if I'd been forced to gate-check my J-35 in its Gator polyfoam case, I would NOT have been happy....

On a totally unrelated note, I emailed the Gibson service and repair shop to find out if they could refinish my headstock to get rid of the banner and gold script logo and replace it with just the white silkscreened script logo as on the original J-35s. They said they can, and that they'll get back to me with a price. I'm guessing it might be astronomical, but we'll see.

Anyway, here is "Eviction Notice Blues": 

 

[fortyearspickn]

Good Job.  Nothing I could suggest could possibly make it any better.  Liked the imagery - her brown eyes were as blank as fresh hung drywall.   

[kelly campbell]

Another well crafted song DH...I love that  35 if you ever want to get rid of it hit me up.  Tanks for sharing it.

[kelly campbell]

Wit a minute I just remembered your a lefty...Hell I cant play much right handed.  LOL

 

[dhanners623]

2 hours ago, kelly campbell said:

Wit a minute I just remembered your a lefty...Hell I cant play much right handed.  LOL

 

Thanks for the kind words. You could still play the guitar. It is strung right-handed. Just the way I learned to play. The only thing left-handed about it is the pickguard. And that's the original righty pickguard. The talented folks at St. Paul Guitar Repair (in St. Paul, MN) were able to remove the original guard, clean it up, recontour the edge and put it back on on the left side of the soundhole.

[Lars68]

That's pretty darn good for a “leftover song” 😀

We already knew you write good lyrics, and this one is no different, but your blend of rythmic and melodic playing is extra good here.

Lars

[rbpicker]

Wowser.....really .well done.  Good tune and great groove.  I’d say the rescue was a success.
 

thanks for sharing this tune with us.

roger

[QuestionMark]

Quite a good original song and quite a good rendition of it, including its lyrics and music, its vocals, instrumentation, and beat. 

 

QM aka "Jazzman" Jeff

[Twang Gang]

Good job - I think this is one of the best you've shared with us here!

I'd love to see in your next video what your right hand is doing playing chords with the strings upside down.  Like Kelly said I have a hard enough time playing the conventional set up!!

[dhanners623]

13 hours ago, Twang Gang said:

Good job - I think this is one of the best you've shared with us here!

I'd love to see in your next video what your right hand is doing playing chords with the strings upside down.  Like Kelly said I have a hard enough time playing the conventional set up!!

Thanks. I'll try that in a video.

When I thug myself to play guitar decades ago, I actually didn't know I had the guitar upside down. I learned on my late brother's old Stella, which lacked a pickguard. (Wish I still had that guitar....) I just held it the way that felt natural to me. I got a book -- something like, "The Glen Campbell Guitar Method" or something -- and it had chord diagrams, so I just put my fingers where the dots were. When I first started playing with others, I realized things were awry, but it was too late to change. Besides, the guitar doesn't care how we hold it.