The Oak And The Willow

Steve Hicks Plays The Music Of Duck Baker

Fulica Records FCD-107

Released: November 2023

Formats: Audio CD, MP3 Download, PDF Music Book

Special Bundles:

I first met Steve Hicks in the late 1970s, when I was living in London and Steve was in Nottingham; he used to travel down for guitar lessons, and I soon realized that he was picking things up not only quicker than any other student I ever had, but was getting on top of the tunes faster than I had done, myself. That such a great guitarist has not achieved much recognition during the years I have known him is a mystery to me. But in any case I’m flattered that Steve wanted to record some of my tunes that I haven’t gotten around to myself, and I’m delighted with the results.

Duck Baker

Track List

01 One For The Man 02:31
02 Jaybird 02:38
03 Blueprint For Niani 3:39
04 Doctor Byrd’s Prescription 3:02
05 Deidre 3:03
06 The Rook 3:09
07 New York Minute Waltz 3:45
08 The Odd Fellows March 2:36
09 The Mock Orange Tree 2:38
10 To The Nines 2:47
11 Air 2:34
12 Tasha’s Cakes/The Oak And The Willow 4:08
13 The Houses 2:43
14 Strawberry Blonde 4:12
15 One For Tom 2:17
16 There’s No Time Like The Past 4:15

All compositions by Duck Baker

Recording engineer, Lynn Goulbourn

Mastered by Joe Lizzi at van Alst Sound, Long Island City, NY

Photo by Lovat Fraser

Graphic design by Scott Friedlander

One For The Man

For Chet Atkins, in open G, a tuning he used brilliantly. Also a tip of the hat to Bardstown, Kentucky guitarist Pat Kirtley.

Jaybird and The Houses

Two jazzy blues tunes. The first is named for Jaybird Eddelson, a black pianist I knew in Richmond, Virginia back in the 1960s. The second title is from British slang; to go “around the houses” means taking a circuitous route, as this harmonic progression does.

Blueprint For Niani

This tune was inspired by traditional African music as far as rhythms. Harmonically I hear the influence of the great Welsh guitarist, Dave Evans.

Doctor Byrd’s Prescription

For Henry Roeland Byrd, aka Professor Longhair. A deep, deep well.

Deirdre

This impressionistic piece is named for the Irish girl of legend who was too pretty for her own good. It doesn’t sound like Irish music, but it seemed me to evoke Deirdre’s haunting story.

The Rook

Another salute, this time to Bert Jansch. Both “Strolling’ Down The Highway” and “Veronica” are referenced, though Bert told me that the latter was really “Casbah”, until the record company confused the two titles on the original LP.

New York Minute Waltz

A jazz waltz for people who know what time it is.

The Odd Fellows March, To The Nines, and There’s No Time Like The Past

One thing about standard tuning is that you can find fun things that lie in keys like A flat and E flat, which is very handy when it comes to writing jazz tunes. Jazz musicians would improvise on the structures, but for this project I wrote sets of variations.

The Mock Orange Tree

This one was inspired by Old Time banjo pickers like Wade Ward. We had a mock orange tree in our yard when I was growing up, and I’ve never seen another since. The mock oranges were inedible but very throwable, as any boy would realize in about two seconds.

Air

Another jazz tune with a set of variations. The first two measures echo the Depression-era song “Seven Cent Cotton and Forty Cent Meat”, and air, according to Ambrose Bierce, is “a nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor”.

Tasha’s Cakes/The Oak And The Willow

Two jigs. The first was named for a bonnie wee Glasga bairn who played a very amusing prank on me one morning.

Strawberry Blonde

The lady in question was the costar of one of the most popular songs of the gay nineties:

“…His brain was so loaded it nearly exploded; the poor girl would shake with alarm.

He’d ne’er leave the girl with the strawberry curls, and The Band Played On.”

One For Tom

The first measure of this ragtime piece is just like Tom Paxton’s “Bottle of Wine”, and the bouncy, happy quality of the tune seemed to fit Tom.

Duck Baker

Reading, Berks

May 2023

The Oak And The Willow

Steve Hicks Plays The Music Of Duck Baker

Like many great projects, this one started with a throwaway comment. Steve Hicks and Lynn Goulbourn were playing at a local club, and Duck Baker was in the audience. Steve quipped that he’d like to do an album of Duck’s compositions, to which Duck jokingly replied “You might regret that”.

In 2017, a 2-CD set of Duck’s compositions played by him and other guitarists was recorded and released in Italy as Parato Sketches. Steve was invited to participate but couldn’t make it. Undaunted, Duck sent him some scores and then even more scores. Eventually during the COVID-19 lockdown Steve finally got time to look at them. He found them a technical challenge but worked through them until he was ready to start recording.

Getting into a studio was another problem, so he and Duck agreed that Lynn should record him playing at her home, a few tracks at a time. After eighteen months they had finished, and Duck had the tracks mastered. Steve describes the music as “a fascinating selection of fingerstyle guitar compositions from the ever-inspiring Duck Baker”. The stylistic range is impressive. About half the tunes are jazz compositions, but there are a couple of jigs, a ragtime number, an imitation banjo tune, an homage to Chet Atkins, and various other genres and influences that Duck mentions in his notes about the tunes.

Duck Baker is one of the world’s foremost fingerstyle guitarists. He plays in many styles: folk and Celtic music, bluegrass, gospel, blues, and jazz from ragtime and swing through to modern jazz and free improvisation. His recordings since 1990 have been mostly of his own compositions and display an advanced knowledge of jazz harmony, reflecting the influence of jazz pianists, especially Thelonious Monk, Herbie Nichols, Randy Weston and Horace Silver. All the tracks on this album are original compositions and only three have previously been recorded.

Hugh Taylor

Celtic Music Radio