Hunting the Buffalo

I was born and raised in the great pine tree state commonly referred to as Maine. A place so amazing, they banned billboards.

I have taken many a bus, concord trailways and Cyr, from Portland up to Caribou. Laura's family is in Fort Kent so we bus up from Brooklyn as often as we can. My folks are at the halfway point from Brooklyn. Bangor is the midway point between Portland and Fort Kent, so I could see my self singing "riding down from Bangor" or "Riding up from Bangor" because you have to do both. Did I mention there is a singing cowboy bus driver on the Cyr line?

Anyhow, I wanted to drag out some Maine songs for Dan and I to tackle. This was the first. I kept the basic structure of the tune, but wrote a turn around for between the verses. First core recording was just banjo, brushed drum, muffled and phased banjo pluckings, electric bass, and a snakey line on the Guiro. Dan did a great job filling things out. He added a lot of percussion. The bongos really make it click with the slinky banjo line. He added a washtub bass which actually pushes things a lot more. The guitar parts really fierce it out, and that slide gets things nice and gillette. Laura also lent a hand at singing some "MMMMs" for me.

Anywho, hope yal diggit.
-Jeff

Dan Greenwood: Gut Banjo, Guitars, Slide Guitar, Percussion, Jaw Harp, washtub bass, and washboards.

Jeff Burns: Steel String Banjo, percussion, vocals, muffled banjo, Bass, and mixtography

Laura Grandmaison: Back up Vocals

Riding Down From Bangor

Hop High my Lulu Gal

This is a waltz about Nana, a stray cat that primarily lived in the public garden next door to my backyard. There's a version of this tune with lyrics on our sound cloud page. 
https://soundcloud.com/greenwood-burns/buried-the-cat?in=greenwood-burns/sets/g-b-genuine-originals

Nana 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. -Jeff

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 in a good swinging way.

Performers:
Dan Greenwood: Slide Tenor
Dan Greenwood: Guitar
Dan Greenwood: Washboard
Sarah Moskowitz: Uke
Jeff Burns: Steel String Banjo
Black Wood Pecker: supporting vocals

For more on Lonesome D String Band: @lonesomedstringband
For more on Sarah check out: @sarahmouse
and also @samisarah

Buried The Cat instrumental version

My rendition of a song by Molly and Jack Tuttle. Played on one of my homemade gourd banjos.

The Old Apple Tree (Molly and Jack Tuttle song)

TD Bartnick