I have had a couple or three e-mails asking for a list of the songs on the "Chicago Town" CD.

They are:

"Chicago Town Blues" (my own--one of the very few that is)

"The Wreck Of The Tennessee Gravy Train"--Uncle Dave's old song that could easily be about modern huge budgets.

"Diamond Jo (Joe)" Duncan Emrich got this song for the Library of Congress' Archive Of American Folk Song from a prisoner at Angola Prison, a man named Charlie Butler in 1937.

"Jim Bridger And The Winter Of 1830" A tall tale about the 1820s mountain man---and great liar.

"Sioux Indians" A ballad of the American push westward.

"When I Was A Cowboy" From Leadbelly--making fun of Gene Autry.

"Stealin'" A song about the wonders of stealthy love from the Memphis Jug Band.

"Ridin' Down The Canyon" A fine song of Western beauty by Gene Autry and Smiley Burnett who wrote it in a car on the way to a gig near Chicago when both were with the WLS National Barn Dance in that city.

"A Scottish Soldier" Admittedly, this song from Andy Stewart came from Scotland, but I figure that if ya go west from Chicago, eventually you will get to Scotland!!

"Lazy Bones" I finger-pick this great Hoagy Carmichael song on a Vega Tubaphone banjo. It always seemed quite natural to me that we urban folksingers sometimes ruralized the popular songs our parents listened to.

"Groundhog With my jaws/jews/juice harp. It is rural song about folks securing necessary protein-and how to have fun doing that. Exhibits my 'different' style on this ancient instrument.

"The Hills Of Roane County" A true song with a great tale to tell. I learned it from one of the very first old-timey folk revival bands---The Philo Glee And Mandolin Society --- in Champaign, Illinois---1959 or '60.

"Molly Darling" John Hartford told me that this song was written by William Shakespeare Hayes. It's a wonderful love song.

"Mary Charlotte Ann McGhee" I learned this from Bill Chipman (Billy Chips) in Chicago in 1965. Bill was from Senath, Missouri in the Missouri panhandle--a.k.a. "swamp Eastern Missouri"--a.k.a. the land of the gumbo mud. Bill had a wonderful rural/country voice, and a unique flat-picking style I've never ever heard again. He made a great tape for me of his found folksongs.

"The Biggest Whatever" A creature feature song from the Dillards Wheatstraw Suite album. I had fun with this for a long time.

"San Antonio Rose" This is a right but ragged banjo instrumental of Bob Wills' classic song done by me during a song-swap with old friend, Cathy Fink, at Chicago's No Exit Coffeehouse And Gallery sometime in the 1970s or 1980s--but definitely not the 1990s. Listen carefully and you will hear Cathy's unabashed spontaneous outburst after a particularly ragged part of this tune.



"In Soho On Saturday Night" A song of a Pittsburgh, PA neighborhood when they tried to reform the denizens thereof.

"No More Booze" A song I learned from Canadian Ed McCurdy. These were the days before 6-packs. If you wanted to take it home you had to have a metal can filled up for you at the saloon.

"Hard Times In The Mill" A song from S. textile mills---before their sad and cruel employment realities were corrected here in America---so globalization could make way for those factories to easily be shipped to other countries where the inhuman human rights violations could, once again thrive. And the former workers in the USA could either choose to live homeless on the streets, or they could join the armed forces and be sent to Iraq or Afghanistan or whatever's next!

"A Dollar Ain't A Dollar Any More" A humorous take on the joys of run-away inflation from a 1940s 78 rpm record by The Union Boys. The Union Boys included Woody Guthrie and Burl Ives and Josh White--among others.

"I'm Gonna Leave Old Texas Now" A short Texas song about changing times and how one man dealt with it. It contains one of my two favorite lines in all of folk music: "I'm a better man for just the knowin' of you!" (One of my other favorite lines is on this CD too----in the song "Hard Times In The Mill" ------- To find out--give it a listen...

All the best,

Art Thieme