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About the musicThanks to those who have supported and inspired my music throughout the decades – Henry Sapoznik, my lifelong friend and musical mentor; Eugene Goodman, my brother who filled the rooms of our apartment with vintage blues; Don Wessels, my cherished pal who always has something to teach me about music; Emily Fleisher Beach, my best friend who has faith and enthusiasm beyond logic for my music; Mac McHale, my friend who has always cheered me on with gusto; Mark Murphy, my dear friend whose voice always speaks volumes of love and music; Monica Grabin, my Mom's Home Cookin' musical partner and companion on a wonderful musical journey; Dan Berggren, who gave us "Old Green Sweater," Kat Howard Petersen, my partner in Underdog crime; Carmen and Dick Gilman, who showed me where to look for my musical self. Special thanks to: – Dale Robin The Instruments:Dale Robin's guitars: 1971 and 1972 Guild F-30 guitars. Lovingly and masterfully repaired and restored by master luthier Chris Pearne at Portsmouth, NH Dale Robin's banjo: 2006 Chuck Lee Lone Star Deluxe Dale Robin's dulcimer: 2004 Dennis Dorogi T model hourglass dulcimer The Songs:1. Old Green Sweater; 4:21 My good friend Dan Berggren is a musician and singer and songwriter from the Adirondacks region of New York State. Our musical worlds collided in Fredonia, NY at a time when the music was as plentiful as the endless lake effect snowfall in that town on the shore of Lake Erie. Dan wrote this song and it has been one of my favorites for decades. I dedicate this song to my two favorite aunts, Shirley and Yetta, who taught me the joy of two needles clicking to the rhythm of life. Dale Robin: acoustic guitar, vocal 2. Boatman; 2:27 I picked up the banjo when I was a teenager in Brooklyn, but it didn't stick. My friend Lenore DiStefano got a new banjo and loaned me her old one. I have always loved the sound of a clawhammer banjo, but I didn't really learn much until many years later. I relocated to North Carolina for a job and knew not one soul in that state. But I guessed there'd be music a-plenty to drink in, and I was not disappointed in the least. As I traveled around the Carolinas for my work in a Head Start program that served the families of agricultural farmworkers, I encountered so many songs and tunes and players. My horizons were broadened and I finally did learn a little banjo, bit by bit, from the many generous players that crossed my path. That is still how I learn banjo. Now that is folk music! Dale Robin: banjo 3. Same Old World; 1:49 There is an old song called "Old Man at the Mill" that I used to play when I was in a band in the 1970s and 80s called "The Underdog String Band." The refrain in that song goes: "The same old man sittin' at the mill / The mill turns around of its own free will / One hand in the hopper and the other in the sack / The ladies step forward and the gents fall back." There is a longstanding practice of borrowing old tunes for new songs and that is just what I did here. I borrowed from the form as well, and I used a dance reference in the last line of the refrain, though a different one than in the original. The turning mill stone became our turning world ... and then I was on my own! Dale Robin: dulcimer, vocal 4. If He's Gone; 3:22 As near as I can find out, the full title of this song is "If He's Gone Let Him Go God Bless Him." It was collected from a singer named Ollie Gilbert in Mountain View Arkansas in 1969. I first heard it performed in a very plaintive traditional folk style on a recording I can no longer find. I think it was the daughter of Grandpa Jones singing it on a record that featured the Jones family singing and playing together, but I am not even sure of that. I heard it again from my friend Lisa Null, who recorded it on her CD "American Primitive," which has recently been re-released on Folk-Legacy Records. Over the many years I have been singing this song, I have put it through a lot of style changes. Of all the songs I sing, this one most captures my curiosity. While it is clearly reminiscent of "St. James Infirmary," I don't know which came first. I like this song because of how it evolves: She is sad and misses her lover but she knows that his leaving is his own loss; then she is trying to forget him, but can't, although she also wishes him well and wants to be rid of the memory; finally, she is a person of loyalty and cannot let go quite that easily. Sometimes when I sing this song, I imagine that she soon finds a fabulous fellow who appreciates a strong woman. Dale Robin: acoustic guitar, vocal 5. Waltz Across Texas; 2:48 I learned this song one late night around a campfire at Fox Hollow. So many musicians were there who have since become well known, but at the time (1973 or 1974) we were all just regular folks who had come to this music via our varied paths. I used to waltz around the house carrying my oldest son when he was a toddler, singing this song to him at full voice. He would throw his head back laughing and dancing in my arms to the three-quarter time. Dale Robin: acoustic guitar, vocal 6. Where'd You Get That Hat; 2:55 My two sons Seth and Aaron figure prominently in how this song came to be on this recording. I learned this years ago from the singing of banjo master Bob Carlin, who was a friend and band-mate of my dear friend Henry Sapoznik. My sons have always loved this song. About five years ago, I had surgery, and believe it or not I brought my banjo into the hospital with me, much to the good-natured puzzlement of the hospital staff. Days later, as I recuperated, the boys, then 10 and 8, came to visit me and we sat together singing songs including that one, of course. They got an idea for another verse, so we wrote it right there in the visiting room of Portsmouth hospital. It's the one about the space ship, as if you couldn't have guessed! Dale Robin: banjo and vocal 7. A Taste of You; 2:40 Sometimes desire trumps reason. 'Nuff said. Dale Robin: vocal 8. One, I Love; 3:45 Jeanne Ritchie is indisputably the person most responsible for bringing the mountain dulcimer out of the "hollers" and into the coffeehouses and concert halls where a city girl like me could get to hear the gentle beauty of its plaintive sound. You know how deep the old music is in her soul when you hear the songs she wrote. Many sound as though they were discovered and not written, and in a much earlier time than the present. The refrain of this song gives me the picture of a stubborn, love-struck young woman whose family is asking – begging – for insight: "Just give three good reasons you love this man." And she replies, "One, I love; two, he loves; three, he's true to me." I can see her counting out the reasons on her fingers as I sing this song. Dale Robin: dulcimer, vocal 9. Delta Mama Blues; 4:37 Townes Van Zandt is one of my lifelong musical heroes. I discovered his music during the late-night stealth radio listening I did as a young teenager. I listened to WBAI from New York City, and WFMU from East Orange New Jersey, switching back and forth to hear the jewels of the non-mainstream music scenes until the wee hours. Under the covers, my radio and I hunkered beneath my pillows so as not to be heard at the unacceptable hour. There my musical tastes were formed and fed in the darkness. Bleary-eyed in the mornings, I would head for school and sit through classes, but in my head I heard only the music I ingested the night before. Once, I met one of my radio heroes, WFMU's overnight DJ, Vin Scelsa. He gave me some records to take home. Two were Townes's releases on Poppy Records. I still have those records and the songs on them are still in my head, as fresh and important to me as they were when I was in the 7th grade and just beginning to find my musical way. I met Townes a number of times, and would sometimes travel long distances to hear him in person. It was clear he was a troubled person – one of the creative geniuses for whom the world was the wrong shape – but he left us some songs that should always be sung. Dale Robin: acoustic guitar, vocal 10. True Blues; 3:18 In Kennebunk, Maine where I live, there is a monthly gathering of music people. Some important friendships have grown within that community of players and listeners and some marvelous music is made there each month. It was there that I made the acquaintance of Dana Pearson who is a talented songwriter. He started a recording project that was to be a surprise Christmas gift for his wife Diane. When he wrote this song and was planning to put it on the CD, he asked me to sing it. I did, and I have been singing it ever since. Some have been tricked by these lyrics; you have to listen closely! Dale Robin: vocal 11. Maple Sweet; 3:34 Is there anything more promising than a sip of cold sap from the trees in late winter? There's just a hint of the sweetness that is soon to be coaxed out of that sap. I love visiting the sugar bush, and when I go, I always sing this song under my breath. Well, sometimes out loud. I learned this from Margaret MacArthur, a grand lady who taught me so many songs and was always her truest and most genuine self. I learned many dulcimer pieces from her, and for many years I admired her work in music. Margaret is now gone, but her friendship and her voice and her gift of music are with me until the end of my own days. This one is for you, Margaret, in honor of the sweetness you brought to us through the years. Dale Robin: vocal 12. True Love Real; 2:14 When I wrote this, I imagined all the parts of a person that jump into the game when one falls in love. Jonathan Danforth added bones to this piece, and I was reminded of encountering his grandfather, the master of the bones, Percy Danforth. I met Percy Danforth at the Fox Hollow Folk Festival, which was held on the Beers family farm in Petersburg, NY every summer for about 15 years. Each year at Fox Hollow I would visit with Mr. Danforth at his display table which contained every sort of bones one could imagine. He had heard me play spoons and he complimented me. But I had always wanted to learn bones and just couldn't seem to grasp it. He promised if I could play spoons, then I could play bones, and that he could teach me. Each year, though he tried his most patient best, I failed miserably. He was always encouraging and upbeat, but I always went home without having learned the bones. I still can't play the bones. Fast forward more than 30 years, and here was his grandson, one of the finest musicians I have encountered, playing the bones on my recording! The world is indeed a small place.. and the musical world is a cozier place yet! Dale Robin: banjo, vocal 13. Movin' Day; 2:50 Whenever anyone I know is moving, I sing this song to them to lighten the weight of the work involved in packing up one's stuff. I learned this song from my dear childhood friend, Henry Sapoznik. "Hank" guided my first steps into the world of traditional American music, and has inspired me constantly with his encyclopedic knowledge and performance of this music we both love. The source credited for this song is Charlie Poole, the renowned banjo minstrel from North Carolina who popularized songs from the farms and villages by singing them on radio, back when radio was about real and live and honest stuff. Dale Robin: acoustic guitar, vocal 14. Workin' Girl Blues 4:40 Hazel Dickens is another of my heroes. She writes songs that go straight to the heart of the matter. This one has been a favorite for so many years, I don't remember not knowing it. My parents are the children of Eastern European Jewish immigrants. The parents all spoke Yiddish and the children were not supposed to speak it at all. We were supposed to melt into the melting pot and become Americans. Well, looking back from this point we know now that people don't really melt, we can blend and mix, but we don't melt. For me, the beckoning call of the music was what brought me out of the Jewish ghetto in Brooklyn and fully into American culture. But my Mom and Dad have never fully ventured out into the America that I have come to embrace. So imagine the look on my parents' faces when I first sang this song for them and yodeled. If I had suddenly changed into a chicken they could not have been more surprised. My Mom, in her deep Brooklyn accent advised me, "Dahling, I hope you warn them before you do that in front of people." I do love this country! Dale Robin: guitar, vocal CreditsAnalog recording at Sounds Interesting Studios, Middleborough, Mass.; |
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