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Random Factors
3754 W 170th St
Torrance, CA, USA
90504-1204
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as has become my customary practice, if you check back in to this page from time to time you will be able to watch how a CD evolves and develops. This one is not out yet, but we're working on it!
As always, liner notes and the songs themselves are still in a state of flux .... even the name is only a working name.
I noticed that this turned out to be something of a showcase for Arizona songwriters, too. Myself, Jim Pipkin, Andy Hurlbut, Leslie Fish and Lon Austin
all live here and love it, and Stan Jones was born way down in Douglas. Charles Badger Clark was born in South Dakota but that's OK too.
Dedicated to the wonderful people of Arizona, and especially to all my friends here. Thanks for being (mostly!) real!
For me, writing songs is like pulling teeth. It's difficult and painful. I worked on this one for several years,
starting with one line. I wanted it to be spare, simple and a bit scary. I hope I succeeded.
Hubris ain't hubris when you can back it up. But the Law of Unintended Consequences is always in play, and Murphy will get you if you give him half a chance.
This is one of the more famous and best-loved examples of Arizona cowboy poetry.
Yeah, it's an old chestnut of a song, and for that reason I avoided doing it for many years even though I really like it. I had an "AHA!" moment not long ago, however,
and tried it as a modal-based scale (not the usual minor scale) and dern if it didn't work and give the song the hard and scary edge I felt it needed.
It's a brilliant variant on the old folk theme of the "Wild Hunt,". so we tried to give it that sort of feel.
I got a little off-the-wall one night and came up with this idea. This is usually played as a pretty sprightly
sort of tune, but as a waltz it is absolutely beautiful. I'm doing it here as it might have been heard in the 1880s,
on banjos set up for gut strings and an 1880s gut-strung Washburn parlor guitar.
This is also known as "Kingdom Coming." It's very likely that you would have heard this from the troopers of the 9th Cavalry (Buffalo Soldiers) while they were at Ft. Huachuca near Tombstone AZ. The author is also
noted for naming a common thing found in the parlors of the era - the "grandfather clock." He wrote the popular song "My Grandfather's Clock," and that became
such a hit that those sorts of clocks began to be commonly called that.
I don't sing it in the pseudo-slave dialect he wrote it in. It's more universal than that.
Go look him up. You'll be amazed at how many famous songs he wrote.
There really was a "Little Egypt" that danced at the Palace Bar in Prescott.
Her name was Grace Bartell, and she caused quite a sensation on Whiskey Row back in 1910.
There was also another "Little Egypt" that performed at the Birdcage Theatre in the heyday of Tombstone back in 1881. A painting of her still hangs at the
Birdcage, along with a whole bunch of other interesting memorablia of the Old West in Arizona.
I'd sure like to see this sort of thing revived at the various Wild West shows we have around here .....
BTW, the "Little Egypt" that danced at the World's Fair around that time (yes, a third "Little Egypt!") danced to "The Streets Of Cairo" (James Thornton, Original tune author unknown - 1895) composed for the occasion. If you listen to it, you might recognize it!
Red Wing (Tune: Kerry Mills, Lyrics: Thurland Chattaway 1907 PD)
Quite a fun little tune. I don't sing the original words 'cause they are just too dumb. I can't record the set of lyrics my father taught me because they graphically describe a series of highly improbable sexual situations involving
a randy young cowboy and a wily Amerindian girl. Quite funny, but not for mixed company, or this CD. So I just do it as an instrumental and have a good time anyway. Here's to ya, O Saintly Grey-Haired Father! You taught me a lot of good songs!
The "Fastest On The Draw" shootout myth as popularized in the old Western movies is just that: a fable. You see a pretty chivalrous man-to-man fight in the movies, but the reality was very different. The only rule of a gunfight is
to win it. To paraphrase Wyatt Earp: "Take your time, but do it quickly."
Jim Pipkin writes some of the best songs I have ever heard. Turned out we were both raised in the same neck of the woods, but didn't meet until he settled here.
Both of us being the way we are, we instantly became good friends. This one talks about both of our childhoods.
Barbara Allen (Traditional)
This is probably the most well-known song in the English speaking world, and dates back hundreds of years. You would have heard it around many a campfire in Old Arizona.
I love it.
IN RECORDING
