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 I caught the music-making bug in 1984. I'd had years of accordion
lessons as a kid, learned some guitar chords while an undergrad
but had ignored music for years while I tried to establish
a career in data processing and did the romance and family
thing. Since I first pulled the old guitar out of the closet,
I've played in rock, blues, and country bands, and done lots
of solo folk shows. I currently perform with Fahl & Folk.
I've also produced one solo CD, Life is Good, and one CD
with Loky, Here In Paradise.
For a while I was a member of the
country band Kenefick. Kenefick has made one CD so far,
Hard Road, which includes one song I cowrote with Marty
Wells, and has some of my guitar & harmonica
playing on a couple other songs.
I've also had the honor of having
a song covered by Opie Hendrix and the Texas Tall Boys.
His CD, San Jacinto, includes a cover of my song "Shoulda Known Better". It was
Opie's idea to turn it into a Willie-and-Waylon type duet
with yours truly singing one of the parts. I'm not sure which
of us is Willie or Waylon on the thing. The best part of
this for me was when John Lomax of the Houston Press described
my voice as a "smokey baritone". Not only did I
get a new nickname, but all of a sudden I started singing
everything about an octave lower than I used to.
Here's what one of Houston's music papers has to say about David's show.
RF00002
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Download MP3s
(4) The Girls in Their
Summer Dresses (.zip)
(9) Dealer Don't Know (.zip)
(14) Time Passes (.zip)
Few of the songs on this CD sound like typical singer/songwriter material. While nominally a solo CD, it contains performances by the other members of Loky and a number of Houston musicians it's been my pleasure to work with over the years. Many of the cuts were set up to give the soloists room to play and they took advantage of the opportunity to provide many magical moments.
About the Songs:
1. Battle of New Jericho
The song: A traditional folk ballad I made up myself; a story that takes place in a world of the US west circa 1868, the Middle East circa 1000 BC, and somewhere in the 23rd century AD all at once.
The recording: Banjo & fiddle from Buddy Allen, acoustic guitar, and a set of changes from an incorrect learning of a familiar pop song which shall remain nameless here.
2. Jo’s Got Nothing (But Nothing to Say)
The song: This is the tune my now-grown daughter asked me to put on the CD.
It’s one of the first songs I wrote that anyone remembered. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl.
The recording: Joining me on this vocal duet is Beth Mefford,
a friend of several years’ standing who once played congas and sang with David Fahl & the Strange Attractors. She’s a jazz singer now, but helped me out with the old folkie stuff anyway.
3. Waterwall
The song: The waterwall is a landmark in Houston, at one end of a nice
lawn facing graceful Phillip Johnson skyscraper. On nice Saturdays,
quincinera parties get their pictures taken there. Late at night, couples
from the Richmond Strip meat markets hang out and make out. This song is
what happens when a folk singer tries to write a James Brown song, the
lyrics inspired by hearing Dylan’s "Obviously 5 Believers" on the radio.
The recording: Victor Agis’s bass and Dana Harrington’s drumming set an awesome groove that gives Buddy’s fiddle, Kat Jones’s flute, and Jimmy Mac’s guitar an excuse to do some of the prettiest ensemble jamming I’ve ever heard.
4. The Girls in their Summer Dresses
The song: I wrote this at the request of my wife in honor of the
Irwin Shaw short story of the same name.
The recording: Julia Olivares, one of the best jazz pianists
in Houston, helped out here. A long time ago we played this song during
a jam at the now legendary Boatyard; a bar that had great music
any night of the week. This is the one tune on the record that
reminds me of the music my mother and her sister used to play
in my grandmother’s living room.
5. Graduation Day
The song: There were three relationships breaking up at once
in my small circle of friends, all of them due to changing
atti tudes, increased maturity.
The recording: My idea of a straightforward pop arrangement.
6. Life is Good
The song: Written about three months before a beer company’s famous ad campaign using the same phrase. During my first visit to the Kerrville Folk Festival I was hanging with a buddy who seemed unwilling to let the beautiful scenery, fine weather, great music and company keep him from his accustomed state of perpetual anxiety. I repeated the three-word mantra endlessly in an attempt to remind him. The song got written back in civilization a week later.
The recording: This has my all-time favorite recorded Jimmy
Mac guitar solo in the middle.
7. Gifts of Smoke
The song: This was a poem before it was a song. Then it
was a reggae tune. For a friend who had a hard time dealing
with a relationship that was all it ever would be.
The recording: All me. Showing off on acoustic guitars.
8. Running with the Outlaws
The song: A day in the life. Some folks live without working,
though not so well. This is an attempt to do in songwriting
what poets accomplished in the first half of the 20th century;
freedom from the restrictions of formal verse patterns.
The recording: Buddy, Kat & Jimmy again.
9. Dealer Don’t Know
The song: A bitter bitch-is-gone-the-hell-with-her thing.
The recording: me on acoustics again.
10. Close My Eyes
The song: There was a period when I was reading lots of
Sufi material and enthralled with the notion of exalting
desperate, senseless, longing. Inhaling the scent of a
woman you hold as you dance.
The recording: Prettiest thing I’ve ever done, with lots and lots of help.
11. Casey & the Fireman
The song: First two verses were given to me by Pops Overstreet,
a blues singer I used to work with in the late 80s. I added
the last two and tried to give them a setting as close
to Pops’s music as I could.
The recording: One chord blues, no drums, early John Lee
Hooker. Harp by Bob Kerswill.
12. Kelly’s Doing Fine
The song: One of my first sad love songs, with no basis
in reality at all. It once had no rhymes, but a bass player
said it needed a bridge.
The recording: features vocals by Melissa Adams, an excellent
singer/songwriter with a fine album out, Firefly. She was
a 5th member of Loky for several months in 2000.
13. A Love Like You
The song: At the end of the ‘Sufi’ period, my last desperate love song.
The recoding: An experiment in layering acoustic leads,
topped off with one of Jimmy’s trademark flameouts.
14. Time Passes
The song: Larry Dahl, are you out there? A college roommate
had this phrase in sign on his wall. Maybe the 3rd song
I ever wrote. No one will ever hear the first two.
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