Nana just must be smiling now!  A feline tribute for the ages! Loved it!

@greenfingersmusic: There's a pair under the tulips in that picture I used

Jeff, been meaning to ask... is this your debut on lead vocals? Favorable reception so far indicates yours indeed was the right voice for this, as I knew all along... great mixing, too, love the churchy feel (in terms of where it sounds like they're being sung) on the backing vocals.

@dabluroom: Thank you very much. Makes my eyes water too, I didn't make up a single leg of that story. A funny side note though, I could tell she was decomposed so I took the darkest sunglasses I had and smudged dirt over them. Once I realized I had to do everything by hand so to speak, I didn't want to see the gore. I could smell it plenty,but she was falling to pieces. Can't recommend dirty sunglasses enough.

This is a waltz about Nana, a stray cat that primarily lived in the public garden next door to my backyard. She was 12 when I met her, and she had a clipped ear. That meant that NY animal control fixed her, apparently after her fourth litter. You could see her family all over the block. I fed her basically every day for almost two years, but she would also follow me around when I would weed the garden.

She was a stone cold thug. Preemptive no holds barred street fighter. Now after a few months she would let me rub her belly, but if another outdoor cat came near she would call them out and toss the gauntlet. She actually fatally injured the cat that broke her legs.

Last summer she became gravely wounded from a dangerous scrap with another feral cat, and she was forced to set camp beside an old trash can surrounded by rusty barb wire in my back yard. At least one of her back legs was broken, and she hadn't eaten in a while. I fed her by hand for about a week. She got better, then worse, then not so worse, then she died. I was at work when she poassed and it was so hot out by the time I got home from work to find her, the smell, the whole thing, was awful.

Frankie and I wanted to bring her to the public garden next door to bury her. That's where she lived for a decade, but she was too far decomposed, it was over 95 degrees out, so she would have to stay in my backyard.

We all loved that cat, she loved us, she loved the neighborhood, and by god she was the wrong chick to mess with.

About this track, Dan did a lot of the arrangement. The slide added so much, and he sort of built the rhythm of the band, which Sarah filled out. The Uke fills that hi middle n a good swinging way.

Performers:
Dan Greenwood: Slide Tenor
Dan Greenwood: Guitar
Dan Greenwood: Washboard
Dan Greenwood: Vocals
Sarah Moskowitz: Uke
Jeff Burns: Steel String Banjo
Jeff Burns: Vocals
Black Wood Pecker: supporting vocals

For more on Lonesome D String Band: @lonesomedstringband
For more on Sarah check out: @sarahmouse
and also @samisarah

Soon there should be a version with singing sung!


Lyrics:

Buried the Cat

When we met she wore black and white
She, would only come out at night.

She would scratch across the hot pepper plants
Lie in the sun, and stair at the ants

Frankie told her to not go far
She stood like a giant and ruled the yard
She’s seen enough to exact the price
14 years of snow and ice


Once she walked with flowers all in a daze
Her wild green eyes, ran through a maze

She limped to the window and she fell off her feet
I brought food for her to eat

Frankie told her to not go far
She walked on glass and ruled the yard
She saw everything once, and saw it twice
Showed her respect with a pile of dead mice

She took a seat in twisted barbs of wire
Curled in the sun, like a funeral pyre

Lying there, her legs were knotted together
passed out from pain and dreaming of feathers

Frankie told her to not go far
After work I buried her in the yard
The birds came out and they started to sing
For now she can’t catch anything.


Buried The Cat With Vocals

A masterpiece of austere melancholia, this lesser-known tune by the great John Fahey--I recorded my arrangement for banjo, plucked cello, e-bowed slide guitar and brushes back in 2012.  Now that I live within a short but congested drive of where he grew up, I've been meaning to carve out some time and see what's left of the places mentioned in his music and writings.

Photo: John Fahey's boyhood home in Takoma Park, Maryland.  Swiped from Flickr.

Joe Kirby Blues (John Fahey)

Headphones recommended! 

Child 81, one of the most well known ballads among the fans of British folk rock thanks to the epic version on Fairport's classic Liege & Lief record. We look instead to Nic Jones for source material; his take was only a year behind Fairport's, and was according to his notes based lyrically on an American version and melodically of his own construction. The song dates to at least the 17th century. 

We've sort of re-modalized it from Jones's take with lot of drones, DADGAD tunings, some electronics and dulcimers and whatnot else. This has been a while in the making. Along the way we asked some friends for some input and were lucky enough that Alan sent us some accordion takes and Carl Young put several of his hand pans to use, adding texture and color and even more of an ethereal feel. The music, as is our wont, builds to the climactic deaths with layers of electrics on top of acoustics and Jeff keeping track of it all somehow. 

Newshoe (Alan Ingall): Accordion
Carl Young: Hand pans
Mark Bennett & Chris 0(2): Valued input
G&B: 4-string guitar, 6-string guitar, cigar box guitar, ukulele, mandolin, dulcimer, pennywhistles, percussion, jaw harps, Monotrons, kalimba, vocals, midi synth, bass

pic: Hickory tussock moth caterpillar, October 2017, French Creek State Park PA

Little Musgrave, ftg. Carl Young and Alan Ingall

Excerpt from one instrument of many going into a new Loran Otzer banjo-and-flatpicking piece. New as in so far unreleased, but Loran sent us the track about a year ago, we're that far behind. Jeff is now hard at work mixing the entire track, but in the meantime I bounced out and edited down the ridiculous five jaw harp takes that went into it. 

Pic: we're on track for 75+ monarch releases this year.

Me Granny Taught Me To Play... JAW HARP?!?!?

My name is Jeff Burns, I live in Brooklyn, originally from Buxton, Maine, and I started playing 5 string banjo in early 2011. 

Lately I have done a lot of colaborations with Dan Greenwood AKA Lonesome D String Band.
We set up a new page so please check it out.
https://soundcloud.com/greenwood-burns

I also wrote a novella about lighting as my Mother has danced with such on more than one occasion.
http://www.amazon.com/Rain-Too-Heavy-For-Kites/dp/1477509283
That's a shameless plug, and I hope to offer some good shameless music, as music should have no shame (except when it's used as enhanced interrogation.)

Thanks for the listen folks,
Jeff Burns

Buried The Cat With Vocals

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