Duck Baker Meets The Great Pickers

2023 Harbourtown Records – HARCD 056

(released 2025)

CD ONE:

1 Freight Train WITH JACK LAWRENCE. JUNE 11, 2005, STAMFORD ARTS CENTRE, STAMFORD, ENGLAND
2 Danish Drone WITH STEFAN GROSSMAN. JUNE, 1979, TEATRO IMPERO, VARESE, ITALY
3 Barnes Station Blues WITH KEN EMERSON. JULY 2004, MALOMA STUDIOS, SAN FRANCISCO CA. ENGINEER: DAVE FLEMINGER
4 Zamba’s Strut WITH DALE MILLER. SUMMER 1982, CANYON CA. CANYON RECORDING, ENGINEER: NEIL J. YOUNG
5 When I Grow Too Old To Dream WITH BOB WILSON. JUNE 7, 2007, SCHOENBERG GUITARS, TIBURON CA
6 Cincinnati Flow Rag WITH WOODY MANN. FEBRUARY 6, 1997, FREIGHT & SALVAGE, BERKELEY CA
7 Little Rain WITH WILL SCARLETT (HARMONICA). APRIL 26, 2008, FREIGHT & SALVAGE, BERKELEY CA
8 MEDLEY: Sweet Georgia Brown/Bill Bailey WITH DALE MILLER. SUMMER 1982, CANYON CA. CANYON RECORDING, ENGINEER: NEIL J. YOUNG
9 Lonesome Road Blues WITH JACK LAWRENCE. JUNE 11, 2005, STAMFORD ARTS CENTRE, STAMFORD, ENGLAND
10 Laughing Just To Keep From Cryin’ WITH KEN EMERSON. JULY 2004, MALOMA STUDIOS, SAN FRANCISCO CA. ENGINEER: DAVE FLEMINGER
11 Love Nest WITH BOB WILSON. JUNE 7, 2007, SCHOENBERG GUITARS, TIBURON CA
12 Windy & Warm WITH JIM NICHOLS. MARCH 27, 2018, FREIGHT & SALVAGE, BERKELEY CA
13 In Christ There Is No East Or West WITH DALE MILLER. SUMMER 1982, CANYON CA. CANYON RECORDING, ENGINEER: NEIL J. YOUNG
14 My Bucket’s Got A Hole In It WITH BOB WILSON AND WILL SCARLETT (HARMONICA). APRIL 26, 2008, FRI FREIGHT & SALVAGE, BERKELEY CA
15 Out of Nowhere WITH WOODY MANN. FEBRUARY 6. 1997. FREIGHT & SALVAGE. BERKELEY CA

CD TWO:

1 First Meeting WITH JOHN JAMES. OCTOBER 29, 1976, LIVINGSTON STUDIOS, BARNET, ENGLAND. ENGINEER: NIC KINSEY
2 Blue Monk WITH FRANCO MORONE. SPRING, 1997, VERONA, ITALY
3 Limehouse Blues WITH YOSHIHIRO ARITA (BANJO). JUNE 20TH, 2010, STAR PINE’S CAFE, TOKYO, JAPAN
4 Come Back, Baby WITH BERT JANSCH. MARCH 22, 1985, ALZANO, AUDITORIUM MONTECCHIO, ITALY
5 Lashtal’s Room WITH JOHN RENBOURN. OCTOBER 15-16, 1992, ACOUSTIC MUSIC STUDIO, OSNABRUCK, GERMANY. ENGINEER: PETER FINGER
6 Seven Point One WITH PEPPINO D’AGOSTINO. AUGUST, 2003, REHEARSAL AT THE HOME OF JOE MILLER, EL SOBRANTE CA
7 Closer Walk With Thee WITH TOKIO UCHIDA. JUNE 20TH, 2010, STAR PINE’S CAFE, TOKYO, JAPAN
8 Jones WITH DAVY GRAHAM. 1991, THE TROUBADOUR, LONDON
9 Honeysuckle Rose WITH YOSHIHIRO ARITA (BANIO). JUNE 20TH, 2010, STAR PINE’S CAFE, TOKYO, JAPAN
10 Bumpass Stomp WITH JOHN JAMES. OCTOBER 29, 1976, LIVINGSTON STUDIOS, BARNET, ENGLAND. ENGINEER: NIC KINSEY
11 Merrily Kissed etc./Haste to the Wedding WITH PEPPINO D’AGOSTINO. AUGUST, 2003, REHEARSAL AT THE HOME OF JOE MILLER, EL SOBRANTE CA
12 St. Louis Blues WITH TOKIO UCHIDA. JUNE 20TH. 2010. STAR PINE’S CAFE. TOKYO, JAPAN
13 Waltz On Sunday WITH JOHN RENBOURN. OCTOBER 15-16, 1992, ACOUSTIC MUSIC STUDIO, OSNABRUCK, GERMANY. ENGINEER: PETER FINGER
14 Kingfisher WITH BERT JANSCH. MARCH 28, 1985, BOLOGNA, ITALY

THANKS TO ALL THE MUSICIANS FOR ALLOWING ME TO INCLUDE THEIR MUSIC ON THIS RELEASE, AND SPECIAL THANKS TO TERRY HELBUSH AND VALERIE LETTIERI MANN, FOR PERMISSION TO USE THE TRACKS WITH DALE MILLER AND WOODY MANN. THANKS ALSO TO STEFAN GROSSMAN FOR PERMISSION TO USE THE TRACKS WITH JOHN JAMES, TO PETER FINGER FOR PERMISSION TO USE THOSE WITH JOHN RENBOURN, AND JAN LEMAN FOR ALLOWING ME TO USE THE TRACK WITH DAVY GRAHAM.

A NOTE FROM STEFAN GROSSMAN

There are guitarists that play ragtime. There are guitarists that play jazz. There are other guitarists that focus on Celtic melodies. Still other guitarists prefer the blues. And then there’s Duck Baker. He plays everything and anything from Thelonious Monk tunes to the compositions of the 18th century Irish bard Turlough O’Carolan. Duck is at home jamming on an old-time fiddle tune as he is on a Jelly Roll Morton rag. On top of Duck’s great prowess for arranging and improvising he is also a gifted composer.
I have spent hours learning his pieces. Together with John Renbourn, we have performed and recorded several wonderful, interesting and challenging compositions by Duck.

Duck also has a great sense of humor that appears in his playing and stage patter. I still smile thinking back on an Australia tour we did in the late 197os. The audience was enthralled by Duck’s playing, and at the end of his set he asked for requests. Somebody yelled out “Melancholy Baby” and without blinking, Duck gave a tour de force version of this 1912 hit.

Duck and I toured for years. We would each do solo spots and then end wich duets. I loved ending our shows playing together. We would play Blind Blake’s “Righteous Blues” and the old-time fiddle pieces
“The Green Fields of America” and “Billy in the Lowground”. We would end our concerts with
“Danish Drone” (aka “Kicking Up The Dust?). This had a structured first section that we played in harmony. It then went in to a 5/4 vamp that allowed us both to improvise. Each night Duck would spread his wings and take the music to another time and place. Each night something new would be created.

What a player!!!

Enjoy,
Stefan Grossman
Bowerley,
N. Yorks
May, 2023

It’s appropriate that Stefan Grossman wrote an introductory note here; it was Stefan who introduced me to the music world some so years ago, when he signed me to Kicking Mule Records. He also introduced me to several of the musicians heard here, as well as many, many others. And he took me along on tours that ranged all the way from “From Berne to Perth”, to quote the title of a tune we wrote together and recorded during a tour of Australia.

This collection pulls together tracks recorded with many of the great musicians I have been lucky enough to work with over the years. Most of these encounters have been duos with other guitarists, but there is one trio, one banjo player, and one harmonica blower. In a couple of cases, I met these musical partners on the day of the recording John James, Yoshihiro Arita). At the other end of the spectrum are people like Stefan and John Renbourn, with whom I performed dozens of times.

In the guitar world, John is often linked to Davy Graham and Bert Jansch as prime exponents of the British guitar style known as “folk baroque”, who are all heard from here. I got to be good friends with all of these great characters, and toured with them all. But since they are well known to guitar fans I will pass now to the names which may be less familiar.

I met Dale Miller in San Francisco in 1973, and since we were both Kicking Mule recording artists, we did gigs together in those early years fairly often, and remained good friends until he left the stage in 2010. Dale had his own take on music and on life, gentle and somewhat whimsical. The only recordings of us together were made for a record of his that came out in 1983. His original “Zamba’s Strut” is a really fine piece, and it’s a shame that this is the only recording of it.

As a teenager, Woody Mann took lessons from blues/gospel great Rev. Gary Davis and, when Davis passed on, he studied with the legendary jazz pianist/composer/teacher Lennie Tristano. He and I did several tours together and talked about making a duo record but never got around to it. I did, however, locate a tape of a short live set we played in 1997, and it’s only appropriate that Woody is heard here on Gary Davis’s “Cincinnati Flow Rag”, and on “Out of Nowhere”, a standard well loved by Tristano and his acolytes.

Jack Lawrence’s name is familiar to fans of bluegrass and old-time music because of the many years he spent touring with Doc Watson. I used to play some bluegrass when I was younger, and I love playing with guys who have mastered the art of bluegrass flatpicking, I got the chance to go toe-to-toe with Jack when we both played at the Stamford Guitar Festival in 2005.

Ken Emerson is a native of Hawaii who is a real master of ukulele, Hawaiian steel and the Hawaiian slack-key guitar style. He is also a terrific acoustic and electric blues guitarist and, as if that wasn’t enough, has written some great ragtime guitar pieces, two of which are heard here. Ken and I worked together quite a bit from 2000-2004, and our duos have been featured on each other’s records, as well as the CD Live At The Freight & Salvage (Fulica Records).

On my second trip to England, Stefan arranged for me to play a couple of tunes with John James, who at the time was recording his first Kicking Mule LP, Descriptive Guitar Instrumentals. John James already enjoyed a solid reputation in Britain, having recorded several excellent solo LP’s and a fine set of duos with Pete Berryman. John has a unique guitar sound and approach, and I have always thought we blended nicely on the two duos we cooked up that day.

In 1979 Stefan booked a memorable tour in Italy for himself, Renbourn, and I. The big boom for folk music that had swept most European countries a decade earlier was coming to its peak of popularity in Italy at that point, and we had crowds that numbered in the thousands in a few cities, including Turin. After that concert we met an impressive young guitarist named Peppino D’Agostino, who had gone AWOL from the army to come to the show! (Italy at the time had compulsory service for young men). That was the beginning of a friendship that continues to this day. We played gigs together in Italy and then, after we both had moved to California in the 198os, we continued the habit.

I met Franco Morone when I lived in Italy in the 198os but got to know him later and did some touring with him there in the 1990s. Like Peppino, Franco draws on all kinds of influences, from traditional Irish music to Italian pop songs to jazz and blues, to create something personal. You can hear how well he does with the latter style on our duo version of Thelonious Monk’s “Blue Monk”.

Tokio Uchida is an excellent Japanese guitarist who organized tours for fingerstyle players for many years. He and his wife Haruko set up several tours for me in Japan, and I often played duos with Tokio, who is a great picking partner with a big, clear tone and unerring sense of time. His own excellent compositions combine American and Japanese influences but our duos were generally on blues material. The duos here were recorded at the Star Pine’s Cafe in Tokyo in 2010. Tokio also invited monster banjoist Yoshihiro Arita for this gig, and he and I worked up the two duos heard here during the soundcheck. Yoshiro lived in the US for many years and has performed with such luminaries of the bluegrass/acoustic scene as David Grisman, Mark O’Connor and Darol Anger.

Bob Wilson, Will Scarlett and Jim Nichols are all terrific musicians who live in the San Francisco Bay area. Will, a soulful harmonic player whose personality is as sweet as his playing, is probably the best known of the three through his associations with Jorma Kaukonen, Jerry Garcia and David Grisman. Jim Nichols, in addition to being an excellent jazz guitarist, will be well-known to fans of Chet Atkins as he is recognized as one of the leading exponents of that style of playing. Our duo here is on a tune by John D. Loudermilk that Chet Atkins put his stamp on in 1961. All fingerpickers know of the tune and, though I never really worked it up, I thought it would be fun to add a second part.

Bob Wilson’s name is, for the most part, only familiar in the Bay area, but when I was first learning to play swing in the 1970’s, he was knocking us neophytes out as a member of a red-hot trio called Shubb-Wilson-Shubb. Bob had developed a style that blends the influence of Django Reinhardt, Western Swing and Rockabilly, amongst other things.
For this collection there are two duos with Bob and a trio with Will Scarlett on “My Bucket’s Got A Hole In It”. This great old tune has been a jamming favorite of mine for years, and it’s hard to believe that this is my first recording of it.

Duck Baker
Reading, England
May, 2023