Lap Dancing (Luck) David Luck solo 6-string guitar, Chico Welch violin and slide resonator guitar, Stuart Leitch keyboard bass and kickdrum

Titled in fond remembrance of a friend’s birthday party at a place appropriately called The Squeeze Inn. This tune started out simply as a way to get a garage band to start playing together on an easy riff. It turn into something fun to play with an intro that elevates the tune into something more interesting. Welch on fiddle and slide is just great.

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A great song by a great songwriter, Ben Harper. There are very few new songwriters that turn me on and I rarely bother to learn someone else’s material. But, this is just too great a song to ignore. I hope Mr. Harper will forgive my “country” angle. My other favorite new writer is David Garza, but I haven’t learned any of his material because (as my son Josh says) we were born out of the same womb.

Just wanted to write a road song that felt ‘snakey.’ It’s an homage to a genre that feels immediately recognizable, but I can’t quite put my finger on where it came from. I just remember a PBS ‘on the road show’ with a vintage ‘50s convertible car traveling America’s western states, north to south. The long and snakey road?

I Love You (Luck) Kathy Cowan vocal, Welch mandolin, Luck solo 12-string guitar, Leitch keyboard bass and kickdrum

An unsentimental love song is as close as I get to Feelings. Personal failure or typical human condition? Whatever…Kathy is just sensational.

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It’s a “Wrong Side, Right Side” (that’s right, Camus) sort of thing. It’s your choice don’t you know. Unless you know the night, you can’t appreciate the light. Doo, dah.

Bert Jansch, Gabor Szabo, Sandy Bull, Dave ‘Snaker’Ray, ‘Spider’ John Koerner and John Fahey are my favorite guitarists of all time. This one’s For John Fahey.

Maybe too cute a lyric for its own good, but I sure like playing the 6/4.

The right hand technique includes some modified banjo-style frailing and flamenco-style fist hits. The thumb on this tune is a bit of a coordination challenge. No. I’ve never been to Belize.

12-string instrumental that has riffs over 20 years old. They came together in 1998 for no particular reason. Probably out of boredom.

Another conflicted love song—another terrific vocal from Kathy. Thinking ‘oriental’ when writing this one. I really do like this song. It feels good to play.

Written summer of 2001, before Enron debacle. Title started out as a double-entendre on accounting practices and railroad names. (In the late 90s, I worked on a number of Arthur Andersen/Andersen Consulting projects and had never seen so much jargon used to sell ‘the emperor’s new cloths.’ So, the song is, on one hand, a swipe at ‘bottom liners.’ At the same time, it is a tribute to the ‘Midnight Special’ lineage of great railroad songs and to Leadbelly in particular. Learned “Black Betty” via Dave Ray’s a cappella version from Koerner, Ray & Glover’s “Lots More Blues, Rags and Hollers” – a classic recording. Dave Ray is the world’s greatest 12-string guitar player, ever.

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Title came to me as I watched a yuppie puppy swipe his credit card and fill up the tank of a mammoth SUV. My business had just gone bust, my marriage on its last legs, and – worse of all – I had to pay cash in advance just to partially fill my tank. I rushed home, picked up the twelve and knocked out the first verse. I also wrote “I Love You” during the next half hour. Go figure. This was in the spring of ’98, I believe. The instrumental for “Your Wallet.” wasn’t completed until fall of 2000.

A jazzy little tune inspired by hanging around a bar in Naperville, Illinois. After an entire year, my only friends are tip whores. I had no idea that a man could be this lonely. Written fall of 2000.

This is just pure lyric that for some reason breaks my heart. May be a sign that my song style is changing, again. Stuart’s organ solo really elevates it. Written June 2001.

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So, tell us how you really feel. Might as well take care all the mud slinging with one shot. Written January 2001.

Almost Over (Luck) Luck solo 6-string guitar

Introduction from a longer instrumental that was first released in 1972 as a film soundtrack.