So the other night I’m reading Lassiter by Paul Levine and I read the following:
The C.D. player was turned up full blast, Tom Russell singing “Tonight We Ride” over the wail of the wind.
“We’ll skin ole Pancho Ville , make chaps out of his hide”
A tale of good-natured violence, the song speaks longingly of scalping, whoring, russling, and robbery. Needless to say it’s one of my favorites.
I knew I liked Jake Lassiter!! Here’s Tom on Letterman with the song!
Anyway, over the weekend I was reviewing the October Folk DJ list and the artist at No,21 caught my eye, Steve Spurgin and his latest release Past Perfect. So I went over to Napster found the album and only took the dobro intro for me to like the album! Of course the rest of the first track “Fire on the Kettle” displays the other great things about this album, Spurgin’s vocals and his songwriting! The first thing I noticed when I visited Sprugin’s website was that Spurgin, like myself, is not a young man! So where has he been all these years! Reading his biography at his website, I discovered, that after leaving high school in 1965 he played folk music in and around Dallas, Texas for a few years. Then he moved onto Los Angeles, bought a set of drums, and spent the next fifteen years providing drums for various rock bands, an electric bluegrass band (way ahead of its time!), Freddy Fender, Mason Williams, The Limeliters and Byron Berline’s cutting-edge country/bluegrass band SUNDANCE, with Vince Gill. By 1983 he was back in Texas where he switched to electric bass and again teamed with Bryon Berline, along with Dan Crary and John Hickman, in a band that became CALIFORNIA, after adding John Moore on mandolin. CALIFORNIA went on to earn three consecutive IBMA Instrumental Group of the Year awards
As if that wasn’t enough, Steve’s true love was songwriting and he spent three years as a Nashville staff writer for The Welk Music Group, writing songs for Gene Watson and Reba McEntire. After winning the prestigious “New Folk” award at the Kerrville Folk Festival in 1994, Steve set out as a solo artist and since has become one of the most distinctive and enjoyable singer/songwriters in Texas.
Past Perfect is chock full of great songs and good picking! Spurgin surrounded himelf on this album with some great players. That dobro I heard at the beginning of the slbum one of the best and one of my favorites Rob Ickes. The mandolin sprinkled thorughout the album is played by none other than IBMA mandolin player of the year Adam Steffey and then there’s Swiss luminaries Uwe and Jens Kruger, and bassist Rusty Holloway rounding out the band. But at the heart of the album are the ten Spurgin original songs including the aforementioned “Fire on the Kettle” about making ‘shine, “The Walking Boss”, “This Might Be the Year” about that old time search for gold! The murder ballad “The Lights of Reno” and a song that makes me remember all those photos I have in boxes “Kodak 1955”. The two covers are John Malcolm Penn’s “Sasquatch” (a favorite on the album) and Gordon Lightfoot’s “Song for a Winter’s Night.” Bluegrass Unlimited sums it up best:
“Every piece is a true gem.”
There’s not much on YouTube but here’s a great Steve Spurgin song “Muley was a Railroad Man” Oh by the way … mentioned in the band California was Dan Crary. Dan’s new album Perfect Storm is another album I’ve been listening to this week . His band is Dan Crary and Thunderation and their album was number 6 on the Folk DJ Chart last month and is also a fine album, “Muley was a Railroad Man” is one of my favorite tracks that album!
