Costa Rica

       I'm listening to Ryan Bingham's Junky Star right now, and it's damn good.  I was wondering why I didn't hear more about this album, but then I realized it rode out the wake of a Grammy.  I can't imagine how tough it must be to follow a Grammy.
       I remember a night in '02 or '03 when I watched this skinny kid from Texas with a too big for his head cowboy hat tear up the stage at the Blue Moon Saloon.  Even then his voice sounded 40 years older than he looked.  He moved really cool on stage, tall and lanky, but in control, like a wave.  He had an album for sale at the time called "Wishbone Saloon".  I approached him after the show to ask how much for a cd, and he replied like a really bad salesman, "only fifteen dawlors."  I was laughing as I handed him the cash, and he just laughed back as he put my money in his pocket and walked away.  I wore that cd out.  It was an acoustic album, and almost all of the songs on it were featured later on his major label release, Mescalito, including Southside of Heaven which we play sometimes at sound-check.  If you listen to Southside of Heaven, then listen to my song Dusty Trigger from Hours Later, you'll notice I tried to play the same lick on the harmonica.  (if you're a beginning harmonica player, there is great article by Jake Kelly in last month's American Songwriter all about the harp.  He claims Bob Dylan once said "the harmonica is the best selling instrument in the world.  You're welcome."  good stuff!)
       Ken and I had a couple of things left to do on Hours Later, and were on our way to to the home of Steve Stubblefield (musician, engineer, producer on Hours Later) in Jackson, Mississippi back in '04.  We had stopped in a music store in Baton Rouge along the way for Ken to grab some strings, and just for the hell of it, I bought a Hohner harmonica, key of 'G' (of course).  We had the rough mix playing in the truck on the ride up to Jackson (where I'm from, everywhere is up), and I just played along the best I could.  By the time we got to Steve's studio I had somewhat figured out a harmonica part for Cash Conversation.  I was trying to make it sound like a train, and it was good enough at the time.  I had Southside of Heaven in my head, and I tried mimicking it's harmonica part while fooling around to Dusty Trigger.  By the time I got lost, found the beer store, got lost again, and found Steve's studio, he and Ken were already done.  "let's lay down some harp", Steve said.  At the time, it was good enough for what we wanted to do.  I haven't played harmonica on an album since.  Troy Richard took the honors on Must've had a good time, and Blake Simon played on Woods.
      There's a song on the new album called Riding Dead Horses.  It is, in a way, a tribute to Ryan Bingham and that Wishbone Saloon album that I spent so much time listening to back when I first started playing music.
       I had intended this blog to be about my time in Costa Rica this summer.  I wanted to write about how friendly the people are, how beautiful the Pacific coast is, how cool the School of the World is, how good the fruit and coffee are being they don't spend days on a truck, how hard it was for me to paddle out past the breakers on a surfboard, try to stand up on it, and how much fun it was falling off a couple of hundred times.  But Junky Star is playing.