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Bread and Bones - I Know Stories - Riptone Records RR002
Bread and Bones: Richard Ruane – vocals, guitar, mandolin and ukulele; Beth Duquette – vocals; Mitch Barron – fretless, fretted and upright basses and vocals.
We had additional help from Jeff Pratt – mandolin on Walking Cane, Matthew Witten – accordion on Fair and Tender Ladies, and Adam Frehm – Dobro on Bread and Bones.
All songs written by Richard Ruane, except You Call to Me written by Richard Ruane and Beth Duquette, Walking Cane, traditional with additional words and music by Richard Ruane and Fair and Tender Ladies, traditional. All original music published by Okey Dokey Folkie Music (BMI).
Recorded from April 2006 to April 2008 at Resting Lion Studio in Huntington, Vermont, and Toast Pirate Studios in Ripton, Vermont. We also recorded at a number of homes of friends who graciously allowed us to take advantage of their good acoustics and generous hearts. Our thanks to Cindy and Michael Seligmann (and Kathy Clarke), Jim Lienau and Brenda Myrick, Su White and Eric Warren, as well as to the Lincoln Community School and Centerpoint School. Thanks to Gertrude A. Ruane and Tom Ruane for generous encouragement and support and to Mark Mulqueen, Andrea Chesman, Susan Abell and Max. Mixed and mastered by Lane Gibson at Charles Eller Studios in Charlotte, Vermont.
We had additional help down the homestretch from The Top Floor (Beverly Wyman and Alan Marshall), Fran McKay, Cindy and Michael Seligmann, Win and Joanna Colwell, Anjanette Sidaway, Mary Lower and Sandy Lance. Thank you.
Art design, good thoughts and band photo by Win Colwell (www.wcolwell.com).
CD manufacturing by the very good folks at Oasis Disc Manufacturing, who did a stellar job.
Click on a song title to read the lyrics. Song notes by Richard Ruane.
Bread and Bones 3:09
Richard: guitar and vocals; Beth: vocals; Mitch: bass and vocals; Adam Frehm: Dobro
I did a solo song-writing retreat a few years ago at Ron Rost’s family cabin in the Berkshires (thanks Ron!) where I set out all my instruments and a tape recorder and I just spent a few days playing and writing. It was pure heaven. Three of the songs on this CD were started there (and a number of other ones that I hope no one ever has to hear). This song kind of veered off from its beginnings, however. About four months down the road, I was playing around with it and decided I didn’t feel the melody was fitting the lyrics properly, so I completely rewrote the melody and changed the beat structure. Then a couple months after that I decided the lyrics didn’t seem to fit the melody all that well, so I threw out the lyrics and wrote new ones. Other than a couple phrases, this is actually entirely different from the original song. But if it hadn’t been for that first song, this wouldn’t have come into being.
My Father Is Gone 3:36
Richard: guitar and vocals; Beth: vocals; Mitch: bass
This is another song I started writing at that same song-writing retreat, but this stayed pretty much the same. My great-grandfather and grandfather emigrated from Ireland to the Scranton, Pennsylvania, area in the late 1800s to work in the coal mines. I was born in Kingston, Pennsylvania, and my family spent almost all vacations at my great-grandmother’s house in Pittston, Pennsylvania. The song is based at her old Lambert Street house.
Time Is Passing 3:06
Richard: guitar and vocals; Beth: vocals; Mitch: bass and vocals
A composite of several dear people I’ve known who have dealt with serious illness.
You Call to Me 4:27
Beth: vocals; Richard: guitar; Mitch: bass
This is a co-written song sung by Beth that’s best left to people’s own interpretation.
I Was Not Born Here 2:42
Richard: guitar and vocals; Beth: vocals; Mitch: bass and vocals
Which defines you more — where you were born or where you choose to live?
Let Me Know 4:10
Richard: guitar and vocals; Beth: vocals; Mitch: bass
The only finger-picked song on this album.
Beth: vocals; Richard: guitar, mandolin and vocals; Mitch: bass; Matthew Witten: accordion
This traditional song features Beth’s vocals.
Blue Coyote 3:22
Richard: guitar and vocals; Beth: vocals; Mitch: bass
When I lived in New Haven, Vermont, there was a long field that sloped down to a boggy stream about a quarter-mile below my house. Coyotes would come through there at night, calling out to each other with their howls. One February night I had to go out to get more wood from our woodpile at about four-thirty in the morning. It was one of those beautifully clear and cold winter nights we get in Vermont, when each star sparkles brilliantly and the snow has a special crunch you only hear when it’s dropped below zero. I filled my arms with wood and heard the coyotes starting up down the hill. I stopped and looked up at all those stars with the sweet, melancholy musical sounds from the coyotes in my ears. I was reflecting on what a wonderful world it really is when I heard a coyote answer the pack from about fifteen yards behind me. I decided it was time to head back in, but I do love that sound.
Richard: guitar and vocals; Beth: vocals; Mitch: bass
From coyotes to wolves — this dreamlike song takes place at my house which is complete with pictures on the walls of ancestors and ghosts.
Slipping on Your Way 1:53
Richard: ukulele and vocals; Beth: vocals; Mitch: bass
Everybody loves the ukulele, don’t they? It is an instrument largely lacking in pretensions, as is this song.
I Know Stories 5:32
Richard: guitar and vocals; Beth: vocals; Mitch: bass
Sometimes this song seems to be an allegory and sometimes it doesn’t. It’s one of those songs that leapt straight from my subconscious without much intervention by me.
Walking Cane 2:15
Richard: guitar and vocals; Beth: vocals; Mitch: bass and vocals; Jeff Pratt: mandolin
I had done this traditional song in a few different bands over the years. Though I love the song, I started getting tired of the normal lyrics with the same line repeated three times in each verse. I ended up rewriting the lyrics and adding a bridge. It’s all part of the “folk process.”
I Dreamed I Rose 2:32
Richard: guitar and vocals; Mitch: bass
Many of the songs I write are based on something that really happened, either to me or someone I’ve met. This is based on an actual dream.
The photographs used on the CD, other than the band photo and the 1933 picture of Joseph John Ruane (Richard’s father) on the cart are from the Library of Congress American Memory Panoramic Photographs Collection (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/panoramic_photo/).
The front cover photograph (and the strips along the sides of the CD tray) are details from a photograph of the Los Angeles Motorcycle Club at Venice, California, taken in 1911.
The back cover photograph (and the inside one of a girl with a beach ball) are details from a photograph of the Venice Bathing Beauty Pageant of 1926.
The inside photograph of a brass band is of The Cowboy Band, Inc. of Simmons University, Abilene, Texas. It was taken in 1929 and it says on the photograph, “The best known university band in the world. Leaving Texas June first and playing eighteen weeks on Broadway, New York.”
Click on any photograph on this page to see a larger version.
