Gurf Morlix "Voice of Midnight"

Have you noticed the older you get, the more prone to tears you are?  Do you cry when you see birthday candles being blown out by complete strangers in restaurant celebrations?  What about weddings?  Awards bestowed?  College diplomas being handed out at graduation ceremonies?  Funerals, for sure.  Life is precious.  It is so easy to take it for granted, and to think that it will go on forever.  Two weeks before my mother passed, I saw my father take in the scene as we sat at the dinner table; Mitch, Mom, Dad and I.  I saw a 'blink' moment, when Dad realized this would be the last time we would be together as a family.  I have tears in my eyes writing about it now.  Memories.  Poignant moments.  We need to savor them when they happen; laughter, tears, tenderness, togetherness.  To store them up for the time after.

Gurf Morlix is sometimes zany, sometimes rocking, sometimes introspective.  This song is one of the latter, an acknowledgement of the cycle of life.  A testament to the love and commitment of two close friends, it's an example of the divine inspiration songwriters sometimes experience when they act as the vessel for the message.  Gurf.  "Voice Of Midnight."

-- Jessie Scott

8 Ball Aitken "Refugee"

Call me a commie pinko, if you want. I don't often get political here, but I just have to say something. In our travels the last couple of weeks, there have been way too many for rent and for sale signs. There have been storefronts and warehouses abandoned in too many towns, even in places you would not expect. Outsourcing and unemployment is taking its toll on America. One of the shopkeepers we talked to in Telluride categorized it by telling us, "The deeper the dreadlocks, the richer the trust fund," as he talked about how that town has changed in the past 30 years, from a hippie enclave to a wealthy playground. And no, it is not healthy for a democracy. It's even harder on the less fortunate in our society. There is a man I know who has received a continuance to stay in his house for another couple of months. My heart went out to him when he told me if he loses his house, he has no place to go. No work, no hope. Many of us are only a paycheck or two away from crisis. Many of us no longer have paychecks, and have been forced to scramble in the last couple of years to make ends meet, often without a safety net. I don't know what it will take to set the ship of America back on course. To get us back to work. To get America manufacturing again. To allow the American Dream to be revived from its doldrums. Or we will, once again, all be refugees in search of better lives.

8 Ball Aitken comes from Australia with a National Resonator guitar on his knee, and brought his Australian blues to us in Memphis, TN during Folk Alliance last February. "Refugee" comes from his 2004 CD Behind The 8 Ball. It rings true worldwide, no matter who you are or where you are.

- Jessie Scott

Red Dirt Rangers "Without My Baby"

Our own Music Fogger Chris Walsh asked me for a definition of Red Dirt Music last trip. We were deep in Oklahoma, and the heat was knocking us back a tad. I explained that it was a pure Oklahoma thing, although it gets lumped into becoming Texas-Red Dirt in lots of people's minds these days. And although both movements look in a similar direction for inspiration, and draw from a similar passion, they are really different entities. Red Dirt is epicentered in Stillwater, which is the home of Oklahoma State University. There was a two-story, five-bedroom, funky old place called The Farm that acted as its home. The Red Dirt Rangers started hanging out there as a band in the late 1980's. But years before that, Ben Han, John Cooper, and Brad Piccolo became an integral part of the Farm’s musical brotherhood; first trading songs and licks with folks like Jimmy LaFave, Tom Skinner, and Bob Childers. Later, with the next generation; Cross Canadian Ragweed, Jason Boland & the Stragglers and Stoney LaRue.

The Rangers represent all the musicians who honed their chops in that living room, front porch, garage (aka The Gypsy Café) and campfire-dotted acreage of the Farm, where the sheer joy of creating music with friends transcended everything else. As Rangers' mandolinist-vocalist John Cooper has noted, "The Farm was as much an attitude as a physical structure. It allowed a setting where freedom rang and all things were possible. Out of this setting came the music." The physical structure burned down in 2003. But the music, and the Red Dirt Rangers are still going strong.

We caught up with the trio at the main stage at WoodyFest, and asked them to come see us the next day. And so it was, as they brought us new songs and tales of enigmatic Red Dirt Godfather and guiding light of The Tractors, Steve Ripley. Look for him to produce their next CD, as he did the last album, Ranger Motel released in 2007. "Without My Baby" will likely be on the new one, which is set to be recorded soon! Meanwhile, enjoy the very first recording of this song, and witness the early stages of what should be a Red Dirt Rangers classic.

- Jessie Scott