WILLIAM DEAN WATSON

STRAIGHT AHEAD BLUEGRASS – “Whitewash And Creosote”

Music: William Dean Watson
Frank Evans: banjo
Rob Fenton: dobro
Charles James: upright bass
Graham Mansfield: mandolin
Darryl Poulsen: guitar
Nate Smith: fiddle
William Dean Watson: guitar
Arranged and produced by: William Dean Watson and Rob Fenton
Mixed and mastered by: William Dean Watson

“Whitewash and Creosote” opens at a moderate tempo, fiddle and guitar playing a cycle of the melody in unison, then shifts sharply uptempo, a full bluegrass lineup trading fierce solos until the close¹. The slower rendition aims for the steady rhythm and simple melody of Maybelle Carter’s “Wildwood Flower”² or Norman Blake’s “Church Street Blues”³, while the fast choruses have the urgent drive of classic bluegrass instrumentals like the Stanley Brothers’ “Daybreak in Dixie”⁴, or “New Camptown Races” by Red Allen, Frank Wakefield & The Kentuckians⁵. I have chosen “Whitewash and Creosote” as the signature song for my Straight Ahead Bluegrass collection because it incorporates such a wide contrast of bluegrass idioms.

The title “Whitewash and Creosote” represents contrasting elements – the translucent lightness and soft, chalky fragrance of whitewash and the penetrating darkness and acrid sweetness of creosote – which can nevertheless form a meaningful aesthetic unity; these traditional folk finishes are frequently seen together. The tempo change, and the title’s reference to eminently practical household materials, suggest the calm of very early morning followed by the bustle of the working day.

(1) The reverse tempo change can be heard in the Johnson Mountain Boys’ Goodbye To The Blues, on the compilation album Life Goes On: Musicians Against Childhood Cancer, Rural Rhythm Records RUR 1094, 2012. Words and music: Marshall McKinney Wilborn, Flying Pig Music.
(2) Victor V-40000, 1928. Words and music: A.P. Carter, Peermusic Publishing.
(3) On Whiskey Before Breakfast, Rounder Records 0063, 1976. Words and music: Norman Blake, Happy Valley Music.
(4) King Records 45-5384-B, 1960. Music: Ralph Stanley, Fort Knox Music Inc.
(5) On Bluegrass, Folkways Records FA 2408, 1964. Music: Frank Wakefield, Wynwood Music Company Inc.ICS

STRAIGHT AHEAD BLUEGRASS – “TRAVELIN’ BLUE”

Words and music: William Dean Watson
Frank Evans: banjo
Rob Fenton: dobro
Charles James: upright bass
Mike Mezzatesta: mandolin
Ben Plotnick: fiddle
Darryl Poulsen: guitar
William Dean Watson: guitar, vocal
Arranged and produced by: William Dean Watson and Rob Fenton
Mixed and mastered by: William Dean Watson

Standing at the station, waiting for that train.
Swore by all the saints that I won’t come back here again.
Going to keep on running to get away from you.
If I find a place to settle down, I’ll just be passing through.
I’m on my way to nowhere; I’m travelin’ blue.
You told me that you don’t care; I’m travelin’ blue.

Looking out the window, the plain goes rolling by,
Hills are in the distance, hard against the sky.
I left you in the city, you’ll find somebody new.
I’m headed for the outlands where the single girls are few.
I’m on my way to nowhere; I’m travelin’ blue.
You told me that you don’t care; I’m travelin’ blue.

Staring out the window, trying not to weep.
Feel my eyelids falling as the train rocks me to sleep.
Dreaming it’s our wedding, and I hear you say “I do.”
Then I’m woken by the whistle and I find it isn’t true.
I’m on my way to nowhere; I’m travelin’ blue.
You told me that you don’t care; I’m travelin’ blue.

As a young child, I loved to listen to my uncle’s record of Last Train To San Fernando by Johnny Duncan and the Bluegrass Boys, originally a calypso but rendered somewhere between skiffle and rockabilly in this version¹. It is a raucous uptempo celebration of sexual licence (lost on me) with an insistent beat that mimics the drive of a powerful locomotive (not lost on me). A proliferation of ‘train time’ songs are found in traditional American folk and popular music, including The Rock Island Line, “Riding On That Train 45”, “The Wreck Of The 1256”, and for bluegrass bands especially, the manic “Orange Blossom Special”, in which the instrumentalists vie to mimic the very sounds of the railroad². The sixteen bar blues “Travelin’ Blue” follows in this tradition, deploying the joyous dynamism of train time to sweeten, even while it highlights, the despair of romantic rejection. The instrumental sound, as well as sharp contrast of music and lyric, are standard bluegrass.

(1)Columbia 45 DB 3959, 1957. Words and music: Carlton Joseph Gumbs; revised: Randolph Padmore & Sylvester DeVere.
(2)The Rock Island Line, Convicts of Cummins Farm. Words and music: traditional. Riding On That Train 45, Steve Ledford, Wade Mainer and Zeke Morris. Words and music: Steve Ledford, Wade Mainer and Zeke Morris. The Wreck Of The 1256, Curley Fox. Words and music: Carson Robinson. All available on Train 45: Railroad Songs Of The Early 1900s, Rounder Records CD 1143, 1998. My favourite version of The Orange Blossom Special is by The Stanley Brothers, on True Bluegrass Instrumentals, Rebel Records REB-8003-CD, 2007.

STRAIGHT AHEAD BLUEGRASS – YOU BROKE MY HEART (CLEAN IN TWO)

Words and music: William Dean Watson
Frank Evans: Banjo
Rob Fenton: Dobro, Vocal
Charles James: Bass
Mike Mezzatesta: Mandolin
Ben Plotnik: Fiddle
Darryl Poulsen: Guitar
William Dean Watson: Guitar, Vocal
Arranged and produced by: William Dean Watson and Rob Fenton
Mixed and mastered by: William Dean Watson

The morning I first saw you was the day that changed my life.
I never knew a simple smile would turn me inside out.
Followed you to Tennessee and won you for my wife.
I thought you would be true but you soon filled my mind with doubt.

And then you left me lost and lonely when you told me we were through.
I’d given you my heart and you broke it clean in two.
One half went away, the other’s stuck in yesterday;
I’ll never love again because I’ll still be loving you.

Stranded here in Knoxville, working shifts to make ends meet.
No-one cares about me; I’m a stranger in this town.
You’ve been living easy, tempting married men to cheat.
I can earn an honest buck, but still I’m sinking down.

You left me lost and lonely when you told me we were through.
I’d given you my heart and you broke it clean in two.
One half went away, the other’s stuck in yesterday;
I’ll never love again because I’ll still be loving you.

You left me lost and lonely when you told me we were through.
I gave my heart to you; you broke it clean in two.
One half went away, the other’s stuck in yesterday;
I’ll never love again because I’ll still be loving you.

Songs of heartbreak and romantic betrayal form an indispensible element of the bluegrass lyrical outlook. In these songs, the dynamism of the music throws the sadness of the lyric into dramatic relief, the effect of what Ned Luberecki, formerly of Chris Jones and the Night Riders, jokingly describes as: “Happy, upbeat music with miserable, depressing lyrics.”¹ These are typically songs with a bitter male narrator: The Stanley Brothers’ Think Of What You’ve Done; ² or Doyle Lawson’s Misery River. ³ The Carter Family frame the sentiment in the third person in Forsaken Love, ⁴ while Hazel Dickens provides a female version with You’ll Get No More Of Me.⁵

“You Broke My Heart (Clean In Two)” is an uptempo bluegrass song with the narrator’s sorrow expressed in a mixture of lurid self-pity and enduring attachment. The upbeat aspect is underscored by another bluegrass staple; the bright two-part harmony (lead and tenor) given perfect articulation in songs like Think Of What You’ve Done. The final recitation of the chorus has a sharp musical break before “you broke it clean in two,” the lighthearted novelty hiccough inserted into the driving bluegrass rhythm establishing another dramatic contrast with the heartfelt anguish of the lyric.

(1) After Then I Close My Eyes, on Chris Jones & The Night Drivers: Live At The Old Feedstore, GSM Records GSM-103, 2014.
(2) On Stanley Brothers & The Clinch Mountain Boys: Stanley Brothers And The Clinch Mountain Boys, King Records 615, 1959. Words and music: Carter Stanley, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC.
(3) On Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver: Quicksilver Rides Again, Sugar Hill Records SH- 3727, 1982. Words and music: Glenn Worf, Chiplin Music Company.
(4) Victor V-40000-B, 1929. Words and music: A.P. Carter, APRS/BMI.
(5) On It’s Hard To Tell The Singer From The Song, Rounder Records 0226, 1987. Words and music: Hazel Dickens, The Bicycle Music Company.

STRAIGHT AHEAD BLUEGRASS – “STILL DIGGIN’”

Music: William Dean Watson
Frank Evans: banjo
Rob Fenton: dobro
Charles James: upright bass
Graham Mansfield: mandolin
Darryl Poulsen: guitar
Nate Smith: fiddle
William Dean Watson: guitar
Arranged and produced by: William Dean Watson and Rob Fenton
Mixed and mastered by: William Dean Watson

There’s no denying the title of this song is a terrible pun, referencing undiminished appreciation for traditional music, the enduring necessity of hard physical work in the agricultural heartlands, and the intense affinity between the two.

“Still Diggin’” is slow bluegrass with a strong emphasis on the offbeats, which represent the chunk-chunk of a shovel being forced into hard ground time after time. Although bluegrass is often played at breakneck speed, I have chosen Still Diggin’ to close out my Straight Ahead Bluegrass collection because bluegrass is, palpably, a working music, accomplished through dedication to craft and professional endurance

The most direct musical inspiration comes from Chubby Wise’s soulful rendition of “I Can’t Stop Loving You”¹, but there is also a connection to Ricky Skaggs’ “Missing Vassar”² , and ‘slow drags’ like Rev. Gary Davis’s “Cincinnati Flow Rag”³. In the second cycle, the melody is taken by fingerpicked guitar, where the gentle syncopation is most evidently expressed.

(1) On An American Original: The ’94 Sessions, Pinecastle Records 1041, 1995. Words and music: Don Gibson, Sony/ATV Acuff Rose Music.
(2) On Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder: Instrumentals, Skaggs Family Records 6989010072, 2006. Music: Ricky Skaggs.
(3) On Blues & Ragtime, Sanachie 97024, 1993. Music: Rev. Gary Davis.