Live at the Freight & Salvage
Duck Baker & Ken Emerson
Fulica Records CD-106
Release Date: 8 April 2023
• Available as Audio CD from the Online Store
• Also available as MP3 Download
Track Listing:
1. Barnes Station Blues
2. Rusty Jones
3. Ka Loke De Mi Corazon
4. Momma’s Getting’ Younger, Papa’s Getting’ Older Each Day
5. Laughing Just To Keep From Crying
6. Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans
7. Up A Lazy River
8. Introduction to Gospel Medley
9. Medley: What a Friend We Have In Jesus/The Sea of Galilee/Wade In The Water/I Shall Not Be Moved
10. Buddy Bolden’s Blues
11. Messin’ Around
12. PW Strut
13. Honeysuckle Rose
Bonus tracks:
14. Ukulele Bounce
15. Take Me Out To The Ballgame
Tracks 1-13 recorded Live at Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse, Berkeley CA, November 19, 2004
Tracks 14 and 15 recorded at Maloma Studios, San Francisco, CA, November 24, 2004, Dave Fleminger, engineer
Duck Baker, flamenco guitar, resonator guitar, 12-String Guitar
Ken Emerson, acoustic guitar, National steel guitar, resonator guitar, ukulele
Thanks to Rich Hoeg for the use of his superb resophonic guitars.
Thanks to Bob Whitfield for providing the recording of this performance.
Mastered by Joe Lizzi at Van Alst Sound
Graphic design by Saana Baker
Cover photograph by Victor Giordano
Country singer Dan McCorison introduced me to Kenton Emerson in the early ’80s, when both of them were living in Southern California and I was in the area for a few gigs and a visit. Ken at that time was best known in Hawaii, where he grew up. He was comfortable with a wide stylistic range, playing both acoustic and electric blues guitar, and Hawaiian music on two native instruments: ukulele and Hawaiian steel guitar. Our styles intersected best on swing and blues material, but it was not until around 2000 that we started working together. I was living near San Francisco at the time, and one day I got a call from Ken who asked if I wanted to come to Hawaii to visit and play some gigs. Needless to say, he didn’t have to twist my arm. Ken was based on the north coast of Kauai, and most of the gigs we played were in that area. After we built up a repertoire, we started recording tracks for what we hoped would be a duo record, but by the time we had it done, I was living in London and it wasn’t practical to release a CD when the duo was not going to be gigging much. So we divvied up the tracks and included most of them on our own CD’s (Ken’s Jack of Spades and my Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans and Shades Of Blue).
While we were finishing up the studio recordings in San Francisco we played a memorable gig at the Freight & Salvage coffeehouse in Berkeley in November, 2004. We played some solos and duos, and Chris and Loren Rowan did a great set to kick things off. We had a pretty full house and I think you can hear how much fun everyone was having. Many years later, we tracked down a recording of the gig and decided it was too good not to share with the world, so here it is.
As for the repertoire, Ken had some very cool ragtime instrumentals that I wrote second parts for (“Barnes Station Blues”, “Laughing Just To Keep From Crying” and “PW Strut”), and we added a harmony part for him to play to a blues tune of mine (“Rusty Jones”). As solos we’re including Ken’s haunting steel guitar instrumental of “Ka Loke De Mi Corazon” and his cover of Roy Smeck’s “Ukulele Bounce”. My solo is a medley of gospel tunes I was playing around that time. The rest of the live duos are tunes often covered by swing and trad jazz musicians, except for Bill Boyd’s western swing version of “Momma’s Getting Younger”, and “Messin’ Around”, which is a somewhat obscure title despite having been originally recorded by a band of jazz age all-stars including cornetist Freddie Keppard, clarinet man Johnny Dodds, and vocalist Trixie Smith. Most of these tunes were from my repertoire, but we both had versions of Hoagy Carmichael’s “Up A Lazy River,” and since they were in different keys, we added a modulation and put together a fun variation to play before the out-chorus. Coincidentally, I first learned to pick this tune from Dan McCorison back in 1969 when we were both living in Richmond, VA.
Most of these settings involved a lot of worked-out sections, but the arrangement of “Honeysuckle Rose” took place on the spot; we weren’t sure we could both remember a couple of our other arrangements, so we decided to wing it on this great Fats Waller standard. You can hear me say “the joke was bad enough” when it all turned into tremolos near the beginning; that was in reference to a clunker I told before the tune, which we have spared you from hearing, dear listener. The last bonus studio track is, in my opinion, the best arrangement of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” for 12-string guitar and Hawaiian steel ever recorded.
Duck Baker
Reading, Berks
December, 2022
Live at the Freight & Salvage