This song represents my Dad and I for sure, in our ranch days way back when. We had some land, a few horses, enjoyed the hills above the Russian River in Sonoma County outside of Cloverdale, CA. We weren’t cowboys, or hardcore ranchers, far from it. The character in this song is a hybrid of my Dad, and who I imagine his alter ego is in a cowboy life. As I watched my dad work all his life at construction, installing storm drains and sewage stations, joined him on jobs all the way through my 20s, I got to see how much he enjoys the simple things, how he goes about enjoying doing new things outside of work. Always up to something. Finally watching him retire into the fall of years, I wondered what he’d do with himself. So, in this song Still Red, the character is a retired from the ranch work, and long done with being a rodeo rider. At 75, he’s done with cattle, horses, fixing fences, and he's turning the barn into a man-cave. In figuring out how to live ’the fall’ of his years, he sits in a comfy chair, enjoys the view of the back 40, has a coke machine in the shed next to unused tools, and listens to a clock radio that doesn’t keep time. All hat not cattle, but the barn’s still red. He may hit the track, play some poker, or play some pool, maybe ride the mechanical bull, or at least talk about doing it. Burning daylight is a common theme. My Dad sometimes says that, when I ask him what he’s up to. "Just looking for something to do, burning daylight". Sun’s long gone but the sky’s still red. I have a companion song for this character too. An old rodeo rider, now at 50 years old, decides to try the Livermore Rodeo one more time. It’s called "Buck 39". That’s another song, but it sort of belongs in the trilogy of this guy in his various seasons of life. I haven’t written one about him as a young man yet, I have ideas for it. There are a number of underlying meanings, personal ones overlapping with some true life experiences. Mainly, I’m hoping this guy is enjoying retirement as much as he enjoyed working, riding. Like my dad, now 86, he's kept himself healthy enough to enjoy the twilight years. Another of my Dad’s old sayings; "Shoot Luke, the air is full of birds”, meaning life is good at the moment, point it to the sky, can’t miss.

This Etch A Sketch drawing is one I did at the edge of the lower meadow at the Kerrville Folk Festival, looking out on the adjacent field. Circa, 1998. Staring a drive to Texas tomorrow for a fall 10-day version of that festival tomorrow morning. I’ll be sitting right about where that guy is, in camp Coho.

Met Hob in the Phoenix airport, Thanksgiving weekend. My Dad Jack and I were waiting on a plane. Hob walked by with his family, his grandson was carrying his fiddle for him. I was strumming my Martin backpacker, Hob stopped and said hi. Seasoned bluegrass guy meets young folkie, we settled on Wabash Cannonball so he could jam. I did my best to keep up with him on rhythm. A little crowd gathered around. Then we said goodbye, my Dad and I wrote the song on airport bar napkins. My Dad was in his mid 60’s at the time, now Dad is 86, about the same age as Hob was when we met him. Though we never saw Hob again, I sang the song at shows for 13 years more years, until an audience member told me he googled the song and learned Hob had just passed away, his obituary showed up. Turned out Hob was from Tuscaloosa Alabama, lived to be 97, died in the Spring of 2013. He played in a bluegrass jam every Thursday night, up to the Sunday he passed away. Beloved in the area, he carved his own fiddles.

Margaret, 1956
Indie-folk, Americana.
A ’day in the life’ song for Margaret, then a 17-year-old teenager in 1956, living in the Mission District of San Fransisco. Cutting school, she buys a plane ticket to LA, spends the day on a Hollywood street corner, hoping to be discovered. The same corner where starlet Lana Turner was discovered, she goes home at the end of the day, with no regrets. Six years later Margaret returns to the area as a wife and mother of four boys, living a different life than before. They live down the street from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, where she becomes a sidewalk fan of the big parade. A Mother’s Day tribute, I love and miss you mom.

“Cradle to Grave” started out as a folk ballad, now it’s got a pub feel too. A Catholic and a Protestant walk into a bar… sounds like the start of a joke, but really it’s the song premise, environment, and vibe for two Irish ExPats in a pub in Fort Worth, Texas. Sharing a whiskey together, they both miss Ireland, their north and south roots. Jameson whiskey comes from County Cork in the south (some of McNevin’s origins are from there too). Bushmills is from Belfast, a whiskey of the north. I wrote this song for a film, about an Irish family reunion. After reading the script for “Three Days In August”, I also imagined the Irish ExPats who hang out in SF’s irish pubs, in particular Ireland’s 32 on Geary. There happens to be more than one pub across the US with that name. There are 32 counties in Ireland, fun fact. I’ve played at the one in SF. Easy to imagine a conversation between the two, with an eye on a soccer match on the overhead TV, talking about their neighborhoods, families, friends, teams, home. Where the pub treatment of the songs adds festivity, I hope folks hear the ballad in here too, it’s not just a drinking song, even if it sounds like one, it’s for any Irish ExPat living anywhere, in a quiet pub or a loud one. Sláinte!