Tag Archives: Crow

January 15, 2018

Coming Soon: Black Market Crow

By pbistyping

Preacher Boy - Black Market Crow - Cover 2

Release Date: 2.1.18

“Black Market Crow” is a legacy edition offering from Coast Road Records, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the original release of Preacher Boy’s groundbreaking album “Crow.” This special collection features eight remastered tracks from the original album, plus seven never-before-available outtakes.

Originally released in the UK in 1998, “Crow” was by every measure the most ambitious album of Preacher Boy’s career. Featuring the virtuoso talents of The Backyard Funeral Band (Daniel Andrews, Brendan Rush Dance, Paul Johnson, and Danny Uzilevsky), the album offered a multi-instrumental soundscape that pulled together elements of blues, folk, jazz, and rock to provide a darkly textured complement to Preacher Boy’s rough-edged vocal delivery. The songs featured lyrically brooding narratives, with a dark theatricality that lent a junkyard noir effect to album as a whole. Famed music publication Melody Maker perhaps captured the album’s eclecticism best when they published the following review of “Crow”: “Country blues that marry Nick Cave, Robert Johnson, Woody Guthrie and Tom Waits, honeymoon in the barroom with accordions and banjos and line the wedding bed with sheets of mutant folk, deviant campfire country and beatnik jazz.”

Despite earning some of the best reviews of Preacher Boy’s career, the album ultimately got lost in an unfortunate series of record label shuffles. It was never released beyond a small geographic circle, and ultimately went out of print. Not only would the songs on the official release disappear into the past, but so too would a number of outstanding outtakes.

The release of this legacy edition marks the first opportunity for Preacher Boy fans to finally acquire remastered tracks from the original release, as well as a selection of never-before-released outtakes.

The original artwork that graces the cover is by artist Amy Marinelli.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Preacher Boy: General News

May 3, 2017

365 Days of Album Recommendations – May 3

By pbistyping

Eagle-Eye Cherry – Living In The Present Future

71f7lddlsll-_sx425_

This album represents one of the highest points of my musical career.

The Preacher Boy album Crow had been released. The touring was over. The missus and I were moving to the wilds of Western Ireland.

En route, I played one solo acoustic show at the 12 Bar in London. The next morning, I found myself signed to a top-shelf booking agency.

A handful of weeks later, via a payphone on the Coast Road, I was asked if I wanted to go on the road supporting Eagle-Eye Cherry, whose song “Save Tonight” was at the time the most popular song on the planet. I said yes. Within days, I was in Paris, walking out on stage at the famed Olympia all by my lonesome, to face a crowd that didn’t know I was on the bill. I got an encore at the end of my set.

Fast forward a year or so. Eagle-Eye’s manager calls. Did I want to write a song with Eagle-Eye? I did. Turns out, Rick Rubin wanted to produce Eagle-Eye, but Eagle-Eye hadn’t had a chance to write hardly anything new—he’d been on the road for two years. I flew to New York, settled in with Eagle-Eye in a Tribeca apartment, and tried to write a song.

We wrote 6. Rick Rubin wanted to hear them. He wanted to come over. Eagle-Eye was so nervous, he asked me to leave for a while, until he know how it was going to go. He called me later and said it was going great, could I hurry back? I hurried back. We played all 6 songs for Rick Rubin while he sat on the couch. He loved them all.

Fast forward a few days, and I was at The Magic Shop. The Magic Shop! With Rick Rubin producing. With Eagle-Eye and the band that had recorded Save Tonight. The band I’d toured across 17 countries with. We recorded all 6 songs. Plus 6 more. We were at The Magic Shop. It was magic.

I am so grateful to Eagle-Eye for this record. For everything we did together. I am so grateful.

~

In case you don’t recognize the cover, the album was released in the US in slightly different form, as “Present/Future.”

517pemubkyl-_ss500

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Album Recommendations

June 3, 2016

What A Difference 20 Years Makes: The Evolution of “Coal Black Dirt Sky”

By pbistyping

Preacher Boy - LIVE

I wrote the lyrics to the song “Coal Black Dirt Sky” pretty much exactly 20 years ago. With The Backyard Funeral Band, we recorded it for the album “Crow.”

Despite the fact that I really love the song, I’ve virtually never played it live. It could be the arrangement. The way we recorded it was very much the evolutionary result of that particular group of musicians coming together, and it just never made sense in any future ensemble incarnations. The same might be said for solo performances as well—I just never wrapped my head around how to own the song on my own.

And so into the brume it went, disappeared into the obfuscatory tendrils of time …

Until recently. The song just started coming back into me for some reason. I wanted to play it. I wanted to own it. I wanted it to be my song again. I wanted to play it on my National.

So I had a go at working up an arrangement, and I played it a couple nights ago. It didn’t go very well. The brume beckoned. But I didn’t give up. I had to get it. The minor tonality of the chorus’ second chord—that had to be nailed on the National somehow, in a way that wouldn’t dip in intensity.

Bruce Springsteen’s “State Trooper” gave me the first third of the answer. It was all about flipping the chord, and pulling the minor tonality out of the bass strings.

That meant the rhythm had to change. Tricky, as the song has a very particular syllabic pattern. That’s where Jimmy Reed’s “Honest I Do” came in—it gave me the second third of the answer. It had to swing.

Finally, I had to bring the slide in. Thank you Mississippi Fred McDowell, for once again showing me the way. This was the third third.

Boom. I have my song back. I hope you like it too. I really do. But regardless, I’m happy. I have my song back. And I love to play it. I played it last night. And I was very happy.

This is bootleg-quality guerrilla audio, but I think you’ll get the gist. Check it out, see what you think. Then, go check out the version from Crow.

A travelin’ song that’s done a lot of travelin’. That’s what this is:

Preacher Boy – Coal Black Dirt Sky [LIVE],  2016

~

Preacher Boy (and The Backyard Funeral Band) – Coal Black Dirt Sky [Studio], 1998

~

Coal Black Dirt Sky

when you’re alone in wyoming you are truly alone
you look out the window and there’s nothing there but road
and if you make it to nebraska there still ain’t nothin’ ’round
and the night wraps around you just like a gown
you look out the window and the sky is coal black dirt
and you realize you’ve ridden through hell on earth
and you leave behind the creaking night, the whip-slap winds a-moanin’
never again to see the wilds of nebraska and wyoming
it’s a coal black dirt sky
the hills laugh out load as we speed by
between sleep, i spy
nothing in the coal black dirt sky
wyoming is as cold as frost on a metal rail
and the cold wind pins you down like the bars of a jail
and the snow sits at the side of the road like a threat
and you pray for the end of the ride but you’re not there yet
and nebraska is tall as heaven and it’s twice as wide
and it’s bound to take a lifetime to reach the other side
and you don’t know what it looks like ’cause you never saw it’s day
so nebraska lies behind you and just fades away
it’s a coal black dirt sky
the hills laugh out load as we speed by
between sleep, i spy
nothing in the coal black dirt sky

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Blues Lyrics | Blues Songs, Live Performance, Lyrics, Songs From The Vaults, Songwriting

May 31, 2016

Setlist Chronicles -or- The Strange Bird Songs I Played Tonight

By pbistyping

Preacher Boy, Mission St. BBQ, photo by Jake J. Thomas

(Preacher Boy, live at Mission St. BBQ. Photo by Jake J. Thomas.)

Kind of an intriguing set tonight, if I do say so myself. I certainly bookended with a pair of the usual suspects, and there were a few other familiar chirps throughout as well, but all in all, quite a lot of strange birds making sonic appearances tonight. Lots of country blues in here. Here’s the full list of what I ran down:

  1. If I Had Possession Over My Judgement Day (Robert Johnson, arr. PB)
  2. Preachin’ Blues (Son House, arr. PB)
  3. Levee Camp Blues (Mississippi Fred McDowell, arr. PB)
  4. Old Jim Granger (from the Preacher Boy album “The Tenderloin EP”)
  5. Diving Duck Blues (Sleepy John Estes, arr. PB)
  6. Evil Blues (Mance Lipscomb, arr. PB)
  7. A Little More Evil (from the Preacher Boy album “The National Blues”)
  8. Revenue Man Blues (Charley Patton, arr. PB)
  9. Milk Cow Blues (Mississippi Fred McDowell, arr. PB)
  10. Catfish Blues (Willie Doss, arr. PB)
  11. The Dogs (from the Preacher Boy album “The Devil’s Buttermilk”)
  12. Spoonful Blues (Charley Patton, arr. PB)
  13. Down And Out In This Town (from the Preacher Boy album “Gutters & Pews”)
  14. Sliding Delta (Mississippi John Hurt, arr. PB)
  15. Stagolee (Mississippi John Hurt, arr. PB)
  16. A Person’s Mind (from the Preacher Boy album “The National Blues”)
  17. Down South Blues (Sleepy John Estes, arr. PB)
  18. Coal Black Dirt Sky (from the Preacher Boy album “Crow”)
  19. Black Crow (from the Preacher Boy album “Crow”)
  20. Railroad (from the Preacher Boy album “Gutters & Pews”)
  21. Motherless Children (Blind Willie Johnson,/Mance Lipscomb/Dave Van Ronk, arr. PB)
  22. Shake ‘Em On Down (Bukka White)

And for your listening pleasure, two straight-from-the-stage-to-yer-ear-buds guerrilla-live tracks:

Preacher Boy – Sliding Delta [LIVE]


(arrangement based on the Mississippi John Hurt version)

Preacher Boy – Levee Camp Blues [LIVE]


(arrangement based on a recorded performance by Mississippi Fred McDowell)

For the guitar heads amongst ye, this version of Sliding Delta is performed on a ’36 National (Grandpa’s National), which is set up for standard tuning. This chords are based on Key of E forms, but the guitar is capo’d at the 4th fret. Levee Camp Blues is performed on a different ’36 National (THE National), and the guitar is tuned to an Open G tuning, then capo’d at the 2nd fret.

For the footwear fanatics amongst ye, the stomps come courtesy of my cowboy boots, which are a Size 13.

 

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Blues Lyrics | Blues Songs, Country Blues, Live Performance, Performance Stories | Tales From The Road

November 3, 2015

As Rare A Pair Of Preacher Boy Tracks As You’re Ever Likely To Find

By pbistyping

CROW

After decamping to England to sign with Manchester-based indie WahTup Records, the whole Preacher Boy carnival underwent a fairly radical sonic transfiguration, emerging as Preacher Boy and The Backyard Funeral Band, and featuring the multi-instrumental talents of Danny Uzilevsky, Paul Johnson, Dan Andrews, and Brendan Rush Dance.

Crow was the album born of the change. It was the result of months of rehearsal, and a progressive whittling down from some 60+ songs rehearsed, nearly 50 basic tracked, over 20 songs completed, and 14 songs mixed and mastered.

The album was a sort of glorious disaster, a kind of Captain Beefheart folk opera, as if Nick Cave had produced the Captain recording his own version of Neil Young’s Harvest, with lyrics by Carson McCullers. The reviews were priceless:

“Country blues that marry Nick Cave, Robert Johnson, Woody Guthrie and Tom Waits, honeymoon in the barroom with accordions and banjos and line the wedding bed with sheets of mutant folk, deviant campfire country and beatnik jazz.” –Melody Maker

“Preacher Boy is a songwriter of startling originality.” – MOJO

In retrospect, it could have been a lot of different albums. With so many songs to choose from, it could have been a blues record, a folk record, a gypsy record, a rock record, a cabaret record. Gothic acoustic chamber blues. Ultimately, it was all of that.

The point being, a lot of great performances were left on the cutting room floor. I’d like to share two of those with you here today. I discovered them recently on an old cassette that was hastily run down at the end of a long day’s session (the sound quality is not great, but the songs are there!). The cassette has been sitting in storage for nearly a decade-and-a-half, and the songs have never been heard publicly before; they were never played live, and never re-done on any other projects. The first is “Cold Trials Of The Dispossessed” and it features outstanding horn from Brendan Rush Dance. The second is “Veleaux.” Check out the outro (don’t be fooled by the long pause!) for some classic Telecaster work from Danny Uzilevsky. The rhythm section (Paul Johnson on drums and Dan Andrews on bass) is exemplary throughout.

Cold Trials Of The Dispossessed

Veleaux

How rare is Crow today? Well, there is a brand-new copy of it currently available on Amazon. Only $75!

 

It’s worth noting, that despite never having been released stateside, the album had an amazing impact on my career. Among other things, it earned the band a spot at Glastonbury, sharing stage space with the likes of Bob Dylan, Nick Cave, and Portishead. And it was the album that led Eagle-Eye Cherry to invite me on tour.

Anyhow, lyrics below, should you wish them …

Continue reading

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Lyrics, Recordings | Albums, Songs From The Vaults

April 12, 2015

One Of The Old Songs

By pbistyping

PreacherBoy_GitCase_TrainTracks

I played 3 hours straight, no break. Solo acoustic. Just me and my two Nationals. It was a night of rarities. Preachorum Obscurata. In no particular order, I am pretty sure I played:

De Vamp (from debut album Preacher Boy & The Natural Blues)

Dead, Boy (ditto)

The Cross Must Move (ditto)

Like Me (PBATNB again)

Down & Out In This Town (from 2nd album, Gutters & Pews)

In The Darkened Night (G&P again. Last time I played this live? 2001, in Boulder, CO, methinks …)

Railroad (from G&P. This was my Grandpa’s favorite Preacher Boy song …)

Ugly (G&P)

Old Jim Granger (from The Tenderloin EP)

Black Crow (from Crow)

A Golden Thimble (from The Devil’s Buttermilk)

At The Corner Of The Top & The Bottom (fromTDBM again. Written about a lil’ corner just up the street from Biscuits & Blues in SF)

Friend’s Lament (also from TDBM. As far as I can recall, I only ever performed this song once live before tonight. On a radio show in Brighton, England)

Whistleman (from Demanding To Be Next)

Rock Skipper (also DTBN)

My Gold Canoe (DTBN again. Written with the very great Colin Brooks)

Comin’ Up Aces (DTBN)

Jackson Street (DTBN)

99 Bottles (DTBN)

West of the River (new/unreleased. NEVER performed this live EVER before)

Envelope (I think the last time I performed this live was at Two Boots in Park Slope)

My Car Walks On Water (unreleased)

Down The Drain (unreleased)

Cornbread (unreleased)

A Little More Evil (unreleased)

Blister and a Bottlecap (unreleased)

… and some other things as well, which I cannot currently remember. Other than “Sliding Delta.” I know I played that too …

The show was at Jerry’s Front Pocket in Santa Cruz. The cleanest dirty bar in world. Jerry is fantastic. We talked Nick Cave after the show, and MC 900 Foot Jesus.

PreacherBoy_PreachorumObscurata

 

It was epic.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Blues Lyrics | Blues Songs, Live Performance, Performance Stories | Tales From The Road, Recordings | Albums, Songs From The Vaults

January 3, 2015

Preach In The Pocket

By pbistyping

Droppin’ into a new venue for the first time tomorrow night (1.4.15): Jerry’s Front Pocket. Gonna run the sound down with a trio: myself, harmonica ace Virgil Thrasher, and Zack Olsen on the skins.

I don’t know the place yet, but they’re pullin’ in some killer talent, including a couple of my ol’ Blind Pig Records stablemates: Debbie Davies & Popa Chubby.

This is gonna be a great chance to reunite with my new fave drummer pardner Zack Olsen, whom you can hear here poundin’ the tubs with me and Big Bones at Biscuits & Blues:

And as to Virgil and I, we were most recently caught together on New Year’s Day at my new weekly musical home Aptos St. BBQ, runnin’ down an alt. blues stomp-off of “If I Had Possession Over My Judgement Day”:

This particular trio format is a pretty odd one (National, Harmonica, Drums), but it’s a gas, with a lot of space for everyone to fill, and big responsibilities for the right hand thump; as there’s no bass …

Gon’ be playin’ tunes from the whole history; pre-Blind Pig, some Blind Pig era cuts, lil’ something from Tenderloin, even a cut from Crow, and of course some things from Devil’s Buttermilk and Demanding To Be Next.

Not to mention a whole slew of Bukka White, Son House, Fred MacDowell, Blind Willie Johnson, Sleepy John Estes, etc.

Gon’ be in the pocket. Dig.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Live Performance, Performance Stories | Tales From The Road, Preacher Boy: General News, Video

December 26, 2014

The Bottle And The Pen -or- The Secret History of Joe Louis Walker’s Mean Streets Records

By pbistyping

I have a new column that has just debuted on Grape Collective, entitled “The Bottle & The Pen: An Exploration Through Wine & Literature,” and I wanted to offer a little bit of backstory to the title, as it’s actually derived from a Preacher Boy song.

After completing the sessions for “Crow,” I stayed on at Revolution (the English studio outside Manchester where we recorded the album) laying down a bunch of publisher demos of additional songs I was working on at the time. Among these tracks was a song called The Bottle & The Pen. I recorded a solo acoustic version with just voice & The National, thinking I’d revisit it at another time to explore arrangement possibilities with the band.

Fate intervened, however, in the form of Frank Klein, and Biscuits & Blues. Frank was the manager of Biscuits at that time, and was pushing hard, and with great imagination, to broaden the ways in which B&B could contribute to the world of blues music.

The answer was a record label! Frank launched Means Streets Records, as presented by Joe Louis Walker, with this release:

Mean Streets Blues – A San Francisco Collection – 13 Stompin’ Tracks

Mean Streets Blues - A San Francisco Collection - 13 Stompin' Tracks

The album reads like a Who’s Who of Bay Area Blues from that era, and to the endeavor’s credit, nearly all of these artists are STILL vibrant presences on the scene. Check it out:

Mean Streets Blues - A San Francisco Collection - 13 Stompin' Tracks

Tommy Castro, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Lavay Smith, Mark Hummel, Rusty Zinn, Big Bones, James Armstrong, and more; it’s a remarkable collection.

Remarkable all the more for the fact that, like so many great blues projects with great blues intentions, this would prove to be the only Mean Streets Records release.

That said, I am extremely proud to have been a part of this project, and was honored and humbled both when Frank asked for a song. Having just completed the Revolution sessions I mentioned earlier, I had quite a few new recordings to consider, and The Bottle and The Pen, in its original solo acoustic format, was the final selection.

Strange journey, that it now lives on as the title to an article about wine & literature. Prophetic in a way, I suppose. The chorus lyrics:

If you wanna know where I come from
I’ll tell you this my friend
I was born beneath a bottle and a pen

You can here this recording of The Bottle & The Pen by clicking here.

~

Big Bones and I recently reunited for a very special show at Biscuits & Blues: you can see footage from that performance below:

 

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Blues Lyrics | Blues Songs, Lyrics, Recordings | Albums, Songs From The Vaults, Songwriting

December 14, 2014

Preacher Boy: FAQs

By pbistyping

Q: Where does the name Preacher Boy come from?
A: Well, it started out essentially as a demi-derisive nickname a good friend used to call me when I’d get to soapboxing too much; sort of a Hazel Motes call out.

Q: How many Preacher Boy albums are there?
A: 6, if you include the 4-song Tenderloin EP:

 

Q: Best gigs ever?
A: Too many to count! How about favorite acts I’ve gotten to perform with? Some highlights:

  • Opening for Taj Mahal in Denver, Colorado
  • With Los Lobos at The Catalyst in Santa Cruz, and then with JJ Cale at The Catalyst
  • Opening for Shane MacGowan (The Pogues) at his annual X-mas show in London, ON my 30th birthday!
  • The San Francisco Blues Festival, the same day and stage as John Lee Hooker
  • Guesting in the set with Eagle-Eye Cherry, for his live concert film at Shepherd’s Bush, in London
  • Opening for Clarence Gatemouth Brown at The Great American Music Hall
  • With Sonny Landreth at The Great American Music Hall
  • 4 different shows at Slim’s in SF, opening for Bob Geldof, Peter Wolf, Jimmy Vaughan, and The Texas Tornadoes
  • With AJ Croce at Moulin Blues in The Netherlands
  • Opening for Cracker at The Warfield
  • Playing the Glastonbury Festival on the same bill as Portishead, Nick Cave, and Bob Dylan
  • Opening for CJ Chenier in LA, and for Buckwheat Zydeco at Bimbo’s in SF
  • Opening for Chris Whitley in Portland, OR
  • Playing opposite Chris Isaak at The Paradise Lounge in SF
  • Opening for Charlie Musselwhite at The House of Blues in New Orleans

PreacherBoy_TheNationals

Q: How old is your National?
A: 1936! And actually, I’m so fortunate, I have two now, both from 1936!

Q: What tunings do you use on your Nationals?
A: Well, as I said, I have two, and I use them differently; what I call “The National” (the one my Grandpa gave me) is my slide instrument, so on that one, I use primarily Open G and Open D, and the minors of each as well. My second National (the one that belonged to my Grandpa, and was passed down to me when he passed) I keep mainly in standard, though I’ll occasionally do Drop D or something like that. I have one tune for which I use a really strange tuning (Open C, essentially, but with no 3rd: CGCGCC), and I generally do that on this second National as well.

Q: What do you think about all the Tom Waits comparisons you’ve received over the years?
A: Well, two things, I suppose: 1) High praise, and 2) A lot of people need to go listen to Blind Willie Johnson, Bukka White, Charley Patton, Dave Van Ronk, Lemmy, Louis Armstrong, and Captain Beefheart.

Q: What’s the most successful song you’ve ever recorded?
A: Depends on the criteria for judging, really, so, four answers:

  • If you ask my bank account, it’s “Long Way Around” which I wrote with Eagle-Cherry. We recorded it at The Magic Shop in New York with Rick Rubin producing, and Eagle-Eye’s sister Neneh sung on it, and it went on to be certified Gold in Europe.
  • If you ask iTunes, it’s probably the version of “Old Boyfriends” I did for a Waits tribute album. Per the question above, I was a little put out by the request initially, but decided to do it as I found what I thought was a clever way to circumnavigate the vocal comparisons; Waits never sung “Old Boyfriends,” Crystal Gayle did, on the One From The Heart Soundtrack. So that’s the one I covered!
  • If you ask my discography, it would probably be “I Won’t Be There” from Gutters & Pews, as I think that’s the one that’s been anthologized the most. Or perhaps “This Is New York,” because that made it onto the Approaching Union Square soundtrack.
  • “Dead, Boy!” Because that was the first “professional” song I recorded with my National, and it was for my debut album, for my first record label! Thus, the beginning of it all …

Q: What got you into this music in the first place?
A: Simple. Side 1, song 1, of a Vanguard Twofer that collected all the great country blues performers who had performed at the Newport Folk Festival in the 60s. I put it on my record player with NO idea what to expect, and along came the first song: Mississippi John Hurt playing “Sliding Delta.” And that was it, man. I heard it, and I said, “I’m sorry Joe Strummer, but THAT! I want to be able to do THAT!”

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Performance Stories | Tales From The Road, Preacher Boy: General News, Recordings | Albums

%d bloggers like this: