Under Your HeartEdition Collage Records – LC 8975
1985
Vinyl LP
Digital Recording!
Tracklist
| SIDE ONE | ||
| 01 | Holding Pattern | 3:21 |
| 02 | Keep It Under Your Heart | 3:22 |
| 03 | Putney Bridge | 3:41 |
| 04 | Crawl, Don’t Walk | 2:12 |
| 05 | Flowers Of Belfast | 3:28 |
| SIDE TWO | ||
| 01 | Advent | 2.52 |
| 02 | Walz With A Smile | 4:24 |
| 03 | Contra Costa Dance | 3:07 |
| 04 | Not The First Time | 2:43 |
| 05 | Walz On Sunday | 4:20 |
All tunes by Duck Baker
Recorded at Studio Leyh, Sandhausen
Sound engineer W. Leyh
Master tape produced by Duck Baker and Alan Geagle, LP by Edition Collage 1985
Foto K. Harms
Front-Cover design Helli Hofman
Duck Baker, Richard Royal, the preachers son from Richmond Virginia, born 1949, seasoned traveller, raconteur, potential Maitre de Cuisine southern style, would be pool champion of the world – guitar player extraordinaire.
Whether or not Duck’s many attributes hold up under close scrutiny, there is no doubt that his playing ability does, and much more besides. Since our first meeting in London in the late 1970s, stopping off on his way over to Belgium for a tour, I, like just about every other guitarist I know working in a similar area, have been lastingly impressed by his approach and musical directness.
To try and convey on paper even an adequate idea of Duck’s playing would be a daunting undertaking as like all the best contemporary player, his music is an amalgam of widely spread influences. In conversation he ranges with ease from Western Swing to the avant-garde and is equally at home with the music of the older European folk traditions. But not only diverse connections seen and drawn together but also made to work and used creatively in the framework of his own playing. The music on his album is really much more than a straightforward blending of styles and influences.
Playing on a Flamenco guitar strung with high tension Savarez strings, Duck works with a fingerstyle technique that encompasses both a classical three finger approach and the traditional American fingerpicking style. Stylistically the music incorporates a number of relatively distinct and separate elements – straight fingerpicking but in altered harmonic frameworks typical “Duckisms” that result from an endearingly perverse harmonic approach – utilising unusual bass patterns as in ‘Crawl don’t walk’ Also single string breaks and improvised solos against a pedal point and a much freer and more confidant use of odd metres. 5/8 for example as in ‘Contra Costa Dance’, than certainly most contemporary ‘folk’ players that I can think of are comfortable with. The roots are here I suppose in the mainstream of American jazz/swing but with ideas culled more from piano players than from straight jazz guitar, as well as the broader background of American folk traditions, but here and again more immediate influence of British friends crops up. I hear more than a nod to Bert Jansch for example in ‘Putney Bridge’ and a touch of Davey Graham perhaps in the jazz/gospel ‘Waltz on Sunday’. The sound of the great Bahaman guitarist Joseph Spence, combined with that of Dollar Brand emerges in the title track ‘Keep it Under Your Heart’. Even Scott Joplin gets a little quote in ‘Not For the First Time’, and the ‘Flowers of Belfast’ is an open acknowledgement of the timeless character of the Celtic tradition.
But although the roots are clear, and specific players get the occasional tip of the hat in passing, for me the music is complete, and the pieces form a convincing and personal statement, captured, as they are here, in the potentially hazardous circumstances of a direct to digital recording.
This album will give players like myself the chance to catch up with the latest from the elusive not to say shadowy Lard Baker and maybe even get to grips at last with ‘Conta Costa’ and the translucent ‘Waltz with a Smile’. I suspect that Duck’s compositions will make a significant contribution to the repertoire of the guitar, but until then the music makes fantastic listening.
John Renbourne