Mexico
Hoke Simpson
Notes on Mexico
This collection gets its title from my feeling for four of the songs, which I think have a distinctively border feel: Spanish is the Lovin’ Tongue, Boll Weevil, Help Me Make It Through the Night, and Jesse James. Moreover, it contains a simple classical guitar piece, Chanson Sans Paroles, which, despite its French title, brings back a wealth of fond memories of our Mexican tour in the Grossmont College Classical Guitar Ensemble, under the fabulous direction of my friend Chris Amelotte. Nylon strings will always remind me of Chris, that tour, and of my duet partner, the beautiful, talented, nerves-of-steel Bridget Shea. Playing classical guitar in front of an audience always unnerved me, a fact not lost on Chris, so he paired me with Bridget, the ice queen of classical performance, whose composure was truly contagious.
Spanish is the Lovin’ Tongue began as a poem, ‘A Border Affair,’ by cowboy poet Charles Badger Clark, written in 1907. (I will always believe that the poem was the inspiration for Cormac McCarthy’s ‘All the Pretty Horses.’) The poem was set to music by Billy Simon in 1925, and has been recorded since by everyone, from Bob Dylan to Judy Collins to Emmylou Harris, and on and on. I learned it in my teens from a book of campfire songs. The song’s written in 3/4 time, but frankly I don’t like it at all in that tempo, so changed it from the outset to 4/4, at which tempo it’s always been one of my favorites.
Casey Jones is a song about a real engineer, John Luther “Casey” Jones, of the Illinois Central line, who died trying to stop his passenger train and avoid a collision with a freight train. The original song was written by Jones’ friend and admirer Wallace Saunders. It became a popular hit, and spread to vaudeville, where a verse was added—and is included here in Mississippi John Hurt’s version—in which Mrs. Jones says “Children, children, hush your cryin’/You got another poppa on the Frisco line.” Mrs. Mary Joanna Brady Jones was not a fan of this version.
My daughter, Lisa, had despaired of long-term relationships, and was trying out online dating services. She told me, hilariously, about what a drag that had turned out to be, that all the posts about “loving classical music and walks in the moonlight” were so much b.s., and that the guys online were there for one thing only. So I wrote Dirty Girl as a representation of what all those romantic posts really meant.
The same campfire book that gave me Spanish is the Lovin’ Tongue also served up the Boll Weevil song. I love the boll weevil’s indomitable spirit, so this song’s been in my repertoire for over 65 years. I had never heard the popular version by Brook Benton, but Kate told me it was awful. So I went on YouTube and listened to it. She’s right. If you have the opportunity, avoid it.
Huey “Piano” Smith’s music is so much fun that I had to do one of his songs. High Blood Pressure has nothing to do with Mexico or anything else—it’s just a kick, with lyrics that reflect the same abandon as Huey’s playing.
Rod Stewart’s Maggie May is another totally-unrelated-to-Mexico piece. It’s here because I learned the bass line in order to accompany Nan Fortier and Beth Mullaney in a concert at the Bar du Donjon, and I love the bass line, so here it is, with other parts appended.
Help Me Make It Through the Night is a country song? Depends. I think with nylon strings and a bossa beat it’s definitely Texas border.
Chanson Sans Paroles is simple (although there are parts with five guitars layered), all nylon, and, I hope, soothing. It’s in that hope that I dedicated it to my friend Jérôme Thierry.
A friend, Michael Weber, taught me a finger picking pattern on guitar in graduate school. Anything else I learned from listening to the recordings of Mississippi John Hurt. Here’s his version of Stagolee. I did the song on the Dragonfly CD with just guitar and vocal. Here, I’ve used those same tracks, and added a growly bass and the wonderfully tinny drum kit heard on several pieces in this collection.
I’ve always played Jesse James in a bluegrass, he-haw rip-‘em-up context. But I also thought that the melody, when slowed way down, had a lovely plaintive quality. So I did that—slowed it down—and played the melody solo on a Weissenborn lap slide. That part, anyway, sounds like the Mexican border to me. One of the verses—not included here—says "This song was made by Billy Gashade." Problem there is that no one by that name was ever known to exist.
PERSONNEL: Well, there's me, a microphone plugged into my laptop, a houseful of guitars, basses, mandolins and banjos, and a drum software program called BFD3. And there's Kate, who knows that I love to do this stuff, who tries to let me know when I've gone beyond my musical limits, whose advice is then often ignored, and who seems to love me anyway. I am a very lucky person!