INTERSTATE BLUES
Song Stories
Originals by Les Lenoff except track “Johnson City Blues,” “No Depression in Heaven,” “Aboline,” and “Kansas City”
Side 1
I Don’t Lie – I was listening to Steve Earle’s “Still in Love with You” and wanted to write a song with a sense of loss. But everything I tried sounded like everything I had heard and somehow I took that loss in different direction.
Johnson City Blues (Clarence Greene) – Johnson City, like Bristol, both in Tennessee was the site of early recording sessions of what would later evolve into hillbilly music and race music. The story behind the song goes that Clarence Greene, primarily a fiddle player, was in town to record at the same time Blind Lemon Jefferson was living there, and was taught guitar by the blues man if you listen you can hear in Greene’s the intro a lick that sounds lifted from Lemon’s Matchbox Blues. The lyrics were drawn from Ida Cox’s “Chattanooga Blues.” I first heard the song from Tom Paley on New Lost City Ramblers v. 5. Steve Tarshis transcribed it for me and Janie Barnett added the harmony. With that lineage, it’s no surprise that “Johnson City” is both my favorite fingerpicking song of all time and the second verse – “Down in Memphis …” – sets the emotional tone I aspire to into all my songwriting.
Cowboy Chords – I saw an ad for a guitar that was hard to play but good for “cowboy chords,” those first position easy ones for “This Land is Your Land.” Nothing fancy. G, C, D, Em, and two bass runs. Thoughts of playing for my mother.
Untitled Truck Driver Song – Written at a down moment on a screened in porch in Boca Raton in December on a Gibson J45 I later traded. I recognized that I had copied Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Bonangles” descending bass run. Felt better when I heard in the intro to Paul Simon’s “America.” “Highline poles” from the Flying Burritos Brother’s cover of “White Line Fever” a Merle Haggard song. And “wings of angels in the crashin’ of the gears” from the second song I wrote, in about 1973, then a 30-year gap before I started again.
White Line Lullaby – For my wife. “Asked for water and she gave me gasoline” from Howlin’ Wolf. “A pocket full of days” from my tan zipper jacket.
No Depression in Heaven (AP Carter) – An iconic Carter Family sing and the anthem of the Alt Country community. For me, from the Ramblers again. I waited more than forty years to do it with harmony from Janie and Paul. Close to my heart and my home’s in heaven, I’m a-goin’ there.
Side 2
Aboline – (Bob Gibson, Albert Stanton, Lester Brown and John D Loudermilk) – I got it from my sister’s Erik Darling “Folksinger” album around 1958. Turned out it’s a Nashville songwriting team song, a hit for George Hamilton IV. But Erik made it into a city blues and I set out to keep it there.
Interstate Blues – Another highway song. An early foray into sus2 chords.
Back Line – Caught myself in a mirror and thought, “Empty-hearted sailors crowd the dance floor.”
Teamster’s Lament – Driving my daughter home from upstate New York for Thanksgiving. Listening over and over to some Steve Earle song, trying to write. Saw frost on the windshield and the rest of it came and committed to memory before I got home.
Kansas City (Furry Lewis) – Not Wilbert Harrison. Not Little Richard or the Beatles’ cover. Memphis bluesman Furry Lewis. His finger picked version is beyond my hands, but I needed that song. I just needed it. “Goin’ to bring Jim Jackson home” from Janis Joplin.