The DU Lounge

I had the chords worked out for "Company" but my voice just couldn't do it.

I tried real hard, but I just couldn't do it. I really wanted to do it because of my dumbass young guy's love sick blues at the time, but I couldn't.

I didn't need it over the long run, because life and love go on. Even though I'm an atheist, I like to say "I've lived to thank God all my prayers have not been answered."

I had a version of "Danny's All Star Joint" that I really liked to play. It was a sloppy one off thing in a dropped D major tuning. It was OK.

I did have a decent falsetto when I was young. I used it in Joni Mitchell's "Woman of Heart and Mind" for "flatter"

In the line, "Your criticize and your flatter..."

From Van Ronk I took a lot of stuff, arranged for my own style. The one I liked best was "Come Back Baby" - for which I couldn't possibly play his beautiful guitar riffs, so I did it with a slide.

Van Ronk's guitar, well, that was something from beyond the natural world, but I sure learned a lot about singing from him. I saw him live lots of times, and had all the records I could get my hands on.

I had a pretty good song shout/growl going in Come Back Baby for...

"If I could holler, like a mountain Jack
I'd climb that mountain, and call my baby back
I'd shout come back baby, let's talk it over one more time..."

I was pretty proud of the shout/growl for the words "holler" and "Mountain Jack."

I had the habit of putting a "Z" sound before "I'd." "ZI'd clime that mountain..."

A friend of mine told me he liked my version of Come Back Baby better than any he'd ever heard, but I really couldn't take that kind praise seriously.

I did have trouble with Van Ronk's version of God Bless the Child, his intonation of...

"Monday, Monday, you've got lots of friends, crowding 'round your door."

Wow. That was something, the broken tone of the word "crowding" as he sang it.

I failed to get that one down ever. A woman who wanted to sing in front of my guitar wanted me to do it, but I wouldn't do it. We ended up not being friends as a result.

Oh well...

After my mother died, I played Van Ronk's "Motherless Children" a lot.

"You know your wife or your husband will be good to you
when your mother is dead.
You know your wife or your husband will be good to you
when your mother is dead.
Ain't nobody love you like your mother do,
Motherless Children have a hard time, when your mother is dead."

What I liked about playing it was that the music was upbeat, kind of like, "I survived, though."

My wife is indeed good to me, and I no longer care about motherly love, as much as my mother gave to me, now a distant memory, other than that mother's love my wife extends to my sons.

My Aunts wanted me to do Josh White's "His Eye Is On the Sparrow" at my mother's funeral, but I refused. I was already an atheist then, and that was a big conflict with my mother, but she was always hopeful I'd "come around," because I did some of Josh White's hymns. She really didn't get it. I just liked the music. I didn't want to confront that psychologically, that big conflict between us about my atheism, when she was dead. After a while, I'd think of my mom though when I'd play White's "Lord Have Mercy" in clubs. I growled a bit in that one too.

Motherless Children was good enough, but of course, I didn't play that - or anything - at the funeral.

I think one reason I stopped playing is that so many of my songs were about being unhappy, and after falling in love with my wife and having that love reciprocated, it just didn't make sense anymore. I just didn't feel like I wanted to sing and play any more, because, well, I didn't need to do so.