ADD: Flight 641 - songs by Lawrence Hammond

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,Robin
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 11:50 PM

I remember border patrol as one of Hammond's best songs, but I believe it was a sensitive subject with him. Given the subject matter I can see how it might be.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,herringbone28
Date: 25 Sep 10 - 03:51 PM

What is that Hammond song about the guy in the Border Patrol? Words included a chorus in Spanish. Seems to me it was pretty long and that he seldom performed it live. Wonder if he recorded it. Anyone know?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,Sybelle Brouilliard
Date: 20 Sep 10 - 11:28 PM

Many vivid memories! both of this blond cantador and of Secorra Plarres-Montes (2/20/46-7/24/76). Together we often searched out Brazilian, Latin-jazz, or bluegrass groups in 1974-75. Secorra and I sat through some memorable performances by LH, both with his band and singing solo. I still have quite a vivid memory of her in bare feet on a beach under a Ramada, dancing alone with a huge grin and eyes closed while Lawrence played some samba on the guitar. Secorra and I worked together over a 4 year period, mostly in Africa and Central America, and were working on the same Yucatan immunization project in late 74 when she suddenly fell ill and was flown to intensive care in Mexico City. She survived (after about 7-8 days), but was pretty fragile for most of a year after that. It is true that during this time her hair turned white, and she became an amazing-looking person. She did receive permission from her medical team to come back to work in 1976 (in Paris) and was very excited about that despite the separation. I believe that during this time Lawrence Hammond had already decided to enter medical studies. Her abrupt death was terribly upsetting for all of us and very devastating for him. She was kind of the lively glue that held a whole diverse community of friends together. There are many people who still miss her, and miss his music. It is nice to know that he is still making music and still is in medicine.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,queenmaureen
Date: 15 Sep 10 - 04:26 PM

I think I first heard him in San Diego in about 1976. After 35 years I can not get that song 'Empty rails in Garfield County" out of my head. Such a stark and desolate longing that the singer sets in a beautifully lonely landscape to an eerily gorgeous melody. I have tried to imagine another singer who might do it, but it is hard to imagine who might pull it off (maybe Merle Haggard?). I probably heard him do the song 3 or 4 times in person. While the singing on the LP version of the song is wonderful, I think I would have preferred it with just Hammond and guitar. A friend of mine had a studio tape of him doing this song with just a fiddle and guitar accompaniment. I copied that on to a cassette, which I played over the years until it disintegrated! Wish I had it now. Does anyone out there have such a tape? Does his daughter who posted briefly above? . It is encouraging to hear there ARE unreleased recordings out there and that they might one day surface. IT is fascinating in this long thread to piece together the life of this unique songwriter, who I had always assumed had died or dropped off the face of the earth. If he is still writing songs of the caliber of "Coyote's Dream" and"Pale Eyed Companion" that would be a treat for the music world.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,Jackalope
Date: 14 Aug 10 - 08:54 PM

Good news from young Hammond. Please keep us posted.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Aug 10 - 03:15 PM

As LH's daughter, I can tell you that he is working (in between long hours at the hospital) on self-releasing an album of remastered tracks of many of the songs mentioned in this thread (Flight 641, Little Britches, Nevada McCloud and others). Some of his best stuff, in fact. I'm sure more information on how you can get a hold of a copy will follow.


He's still writing music and has passed on that love to my brother and I. My earliest memories of my dad and music were of him playing San Carlos to me - a deeply moving and evocative song, even for a five year old.

By the way, Mad River recently had a reunion gathering and some old forgotten recordings were unearthed...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST, Gendleman's agreement
Date: 28 Jul 10 - 05:01 PM

THis long thread is very interesting to me.. I have always thought the "Coyote's Dream" album was a bit uneven, but a way-too-long ignored 1st solo effort from a pretty amazing songwriter, poet actually. The production is uneven and a bid scratchy, although the instrumental work is fine. I imagine the budget was tiny, as for most Takoma issues. The dobro playing on "Dustcloud" is inferior to Hammond's own sparse dobro on the other tunes. The voice and lyrics on "Uncle John Mills" are too far down in the mix to highlight the great lyrics. The absolutely vivid words to "Tornado Comin' Down'" are poorly supported by a rather muddy instrumental track (highlighted however by some terrific whirlwind fiddle ending from Byron Berline). That said, how do you top lines like the picture of a tornado "writhing like the devil trying to wring his own neck" or ""The blizzard it sang, the cowbells they rang, the note in the wind got so strange. When I turned round in flight, two eyes in the night put the winter right into my veins." Or: 'I pray to God and Jimmy Hoffa, please fellas get me offa this rig's brakes are going right down to the floor." It was always my hope that a followup album would arrive with production values and marketing worthy of the talent. Yet it was always clear that Hammond was too far left of center musically, too literate, too adventurous to crack the country market. As the alt-country music world grew, he might have had a long musical career though. So he goes into medicine. Wonder if his career there was half as creative.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,deliriousgirl
Date: 19 Jul 10 - 04:27 PM

never heard of this guy before. checked out the tunes on his MySpace site. "Nevada McCloud:" Nice!! Am only 19, so he could be old enough to be my dad! Will look up more of his stuff. Is he really a doctor?? That's unusual! How can he have any time for music?

Subject: Lyr Add: CHEROKEE QUEEN (Carl Oglesby)
From: GUEST,djfrantz
Date: 17 Jul 10 - 03:50 PM

These are the words to "Cherokee Queen" ( by Carl Oglesby) that Lawrence Hammond sang on Mad River's "Paradise Bar and Grill:"

Said the Cherokee Queen
Are you goin' my way?
Is that a road map I see
Clutched in your tremblin' hand?
My warrior so brave laid his ambush
in a place where the moon made him blind.
And we couldn't get word down the river in time.
And all we could hear in the night
was the sound of him dyin."

My tall bronze man
with the cloud-colored eyes..
There was a ruby in the forehead of my love.
But the circle-of-silence was broken,
and no one could remember the plan.
And the wise-men just cringed in the temple all night
waiting for word or the newcomers' final demands.

Now the ceiling fan
turns slowly in the night,
and the winner deals me another hand of lies.
Oh yeah..playin' again with the master
I draw two, the old pair of freaks.
And prayin' again for disaster to come
bleeding with whiskey I dream of my old Cherokee.
Bleeding with whiskey
I dream of my old cherokee..

Lawrence Hammond had a pretty good sense for a good song. I have often puzzled over the words to this one. It seems to me to be sort of hallucinatory portrayal of the devastation and demoralization of native peoples ground under by the encroachment of Europeans, but it does not seem to be just a specific picture of the oppression of the Cherokee, the Trail of Tears etc.

The production on this track is so much like what Hammond ended up sounding like (think "Coyote's Dream") , simple and haunting. I heard him play when I was a student at UC Berkeley.We love him here in Germany!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,Vern Slatter
Date: 15 Jul 10 - 03:43 PM

Is there a website that tracks Bay Area musicians careers? Sort of a where-are-they -now?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,summerstorm
Date: 13 Jul 10 - 03:01 PM

Yes! I have loved that " Cherokee Queen" song forever and I REALLY wish Hammond had recorded it again on his solo album. We did ask him to play it again at a performance in Boston in maybe '76 pr '77. THe song was written by SDS founder Carl Oglesby who apparently was friendly with Mad River during their Berkeley years. Hammond when solo mostly performed his own stuff but I do remember him sometimes slipping in a Billie Holliday or Merle Haggard . The 2 songs that really got to the audience at the Boston thing were that rodeo song "Little Britches" and "Tornado's Coming Down". I wonder if I was at the same gig Barbara Lee Laughton cited above. My boyfriend (now my husband) and I approached him after the show. He was kind and friendly, signed a copy of his record for us and showed my BF how to do the Cherokee Queen chords and the kind-of-odd chords to the tornado song, but he seemed sad, as if keeping something painful deep under. Maybe the info posted above explains this, but I've always remembered this impression of him, especially when he was singing something melancholy (like Cherokee Queen" or "Coyote's Dream)"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,Mickey
Date: 29 Jun 10 - 03:18 PM

Living here in Campbell River, B.C., we don't get a lot of live music, but we hear an amazing amount of good music on a little 50-watt station out of Cortes Island (about a 1 hr ferry ride away). Lawrence Hammond and Mad River were well before my time, and I only had read about them. About 2 weeks ago I heard a radio interview with all 5 members of Mad River, who were apparently having a reunion of sorts on the island. The DJ played some of their cuts, which were pretty intriguing, so I set about finding a way to get the music myself., which led me to this site. It was interesting to find that Lawrence Hammond's band mate Rick Bockner lives over on Cortes. He plays concerts around here sometimes. I have found a copies of both the Mad River albums and the Hammond "Coyote's Dream." which has some really haunting stuff. Also think "Cherokee Queen" on the 2nd MR album pointed to the direction Hammond would take after Mad River. Hope we hear more from this talented bunch.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,50Marks
Date: 01 Jun 10 - 03:23 PM

After scoping out these posts, I went to the Lawrence Hammond My Space site. Wow! Who do you suppose are the fiddlers on that "Red-Dirt Texas Fiddler" cut.? The gorgeous, moody "Nevada McCloud" song on the site really has echoes of Marty Robbins. I heard Hammond a couple of times in the mid-70's. Once at The Boarding House in San Francisco and later singing solo at UC Riverside in about 1977. Until now I had no idea why or how he vanished from the music world. Thanks to everyone who has posted to clear this up. If there are unreleased Hammnd recordings out there, SOMEBODY should rescue them somehow. Does Enrique Paredon know who has or owns these recordings. And if Fantasy Records has the "Coyote's Dream" masters, does Fantasy still exist?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,DWR
Date: 24 May 10 - 04:24 PM

Herringbone28, EYES was what I heard for all these years, but in careful repeated listening when I was transcribing the lyrics, I made the change to lines as that was what it sounded like.

It would have been a whole lot easier if I could have found the liner notes, but who knows where they might be after all these years? Brdalton and others have mentioned having them. He made the confirmation that the other line in question was definitely STYLE. I'm guessing that if the other was wrong he probably would have said so. Like I say, that's only a guess.

Getting back to my comment Neither of the two choices makes all that much sense. in reference to sound or style, that was a poor choice of words. What I meant was that I couldn't hear either of the choices, not that they weren't sensible.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,RobbiePreston
Date: 24 May 10 - 03:42 PM

Think it is the same :Lotus Blossom."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,herringbone28
Date: 22 May 10 - 02:54 AM

Hmm. Am thinking that "Coyote's Dream" line is actually:
"And the kiss that she laid on these tired old EYES
was light as a coyote's dream."

As for the "Lotus Blossom" query from Robbie Preston, I have heard on old jazz record by Julia Lee that seems maybe to be the same song. I wonder if that is where Hammond picked it up. The first line of that one goes:

"Sooth me with your caress, sweet lotus blossom, I'm beggin you
Help me in my distress,sweet lotus blossom, please do."

Is this the same one?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,L.E. Mondracer
Date: 21 May 10 - 05:02 PM

Holy Toledo! I have not logged on to this site for over 4 years and am just amazed at how this thread has grown and the amount of info it contains. There is just precious little else of worth on the web about this man. When I met him on a sunny day in the park in Silver City New Mexico he had 2 young children in tow. He was genial, but, I thought a bit dismissive of his time and his accomplishments in the music world. I got the impression these were painful times for him, but he did provide me with some song lyrics and spoke with some feeling about his US Public Health Service years on the Montana Indian Reservations. He was clearly in love with Montana and the southern New Mex landscape, and I wonder what made him leave there and go back to the Pacific Northwest. If I am remembering it right, he alluded to an upcoming chamber music concert (!) he and his wife and some friends were giving at a local church. I am pretty sure he said that he and his wife were going to play Debussy (!?) He mentioned she was a violinist and pianist and had been one of his teachers in medical school. I still sing "Empty Rails in Garfield County," and have been humming "The Pale-Eyed Companion" for years. Am grateful to BR Dalton for his hints on the chords! Keep this going. soldiers!!!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,Rod in England
Date: 04 May 10 - 04:03 PM

incredible. See, I was always a huge fan of Mad River, which was a minor cult over here in Great Britain, and I actually heard MR's Rick Bockner play solo over on this side of the pond over a year ago. For some crazy reason, I was never really aware of Lawrence Hammond's solo stuff until quite recently when I scored a vinyl "Coyote's Dream" (mint copy still in plastic wrap with the lyrics on the record sleeve and all of the gorgeous lonesome-west photography). I paid a lot for it too! Although the studio quality was very much 1970's, the words really hit me--and I haven't been a huge fan of country. But, like the liner notes say "this is country music, and then it isn't. ". The instrumental playing on the album is top-notch, especially on "Trucker's Nightmare." And "Coyote's Dream" and "Pale-Eyed Companion" are just hugely memorable.

But...here is the incredible thing:

I worked in international relief projects for about 30 years and was involved in the Uganda refugee airlifts out of there during the Idi Amin rampage (have you seen "The Last King of Scotland?"). I am pretty sure I knew Secorra Plarres-Montes during that time, not positive, but she was fairly unmistakable. Think she was going by a different surname at the time though. Sad to think of that particular life cut so short, but what we did was often pretty risky. I contracted all kinds of crap, including malaria, in Africa. It would be an amazing coincidence, as I was already a fan of Mad River's two albums, which, by the way, seem to resist dying off. It would have been a kick to run into Hammond during that time. Is everyone aware of the extensive interviews with Hammond and MR on the web-archive about the San Francisco poet/novelist Richard Brautigan?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,RobbiePreston
Date: 26 Apr 10 - 03:04 PM

I think there is a last "Coyote's Dream" verse that was not on the album cut. I have sung this song for over 30 years and can't remember where I got this final verse. It goes:

These hills ain't got no conscience
This valley ain't got no shame
To watch a good man cryin'
And never know his name

I have always thought those lines echoed the last verse in "Empty Rails in Garfield County"
that go:

As the mountains looked down without no understanding
A few hard tears were washed down in the flood.

I lived in Palo Alto in the mid 70's and used to drive over to Freight and Salvage to catch High Country, U. Utah Phillips, and Hammond and his very cool band fairly often. Also caught Hammond solo one night at a club in Palo Alto where he sang a gorgeous old jazz/blues song called "Lotus Blossom." I've hunted for that on the web and found a faster New Orleans-style band rendition, but it did not have the intensity and loneliness Hammond's version did. Anybody know that one?

Thank you guys lots for this thread. What a great find!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,brdalton
Date: 20 Apr 10 - 02:24 PM

The lyric sheet on the inside of my vinyl disc sleeve says "style." think that makes sense, too.

Subject: Lyr Add: LIGHT AS A COYOTE'S DREAM (L Hammond)
From: GUEST,DWR
Date: 14 Apr 10 - 03:43 PM

I am reluctant to actually admit how long ago I promised Q that I would come up with the transcription for this. But anyway, here it is.

I solicited input from Arkie, Gene, Joe and Stewie and this is the final result, or at least as final as we could come up with. As you can see, there was one word that we couldn't seem to work out no matter how many times we listened. Hammond's rhymes aren't always all that exact, but style does come closest to smiled. Neither of the two choices makes all that much sense. You can listen for yourselves at the myspace link Suffet gave back on 24 Mar 10 - 10:45 PM. http://www.myspace.com/lawrencehammond There are four songs on the site, Coyote's Dream, Pale-Eyed Companion and the two previously unreleased songs Texas Fiddler and Nevada McCloud. All are worth the time it will take you to go to the site and give them a listen.

Dale

Light As A Coyote's Dream
Lawrence Hammond
As sung by Lawrence Hammond on "Coyote's Dream," Takoma 1047, 1976

The last tired stars are fadin'
The wind is cryin' low
The rollin' weeds go whinin'
Like tires down a far off road.

These brown hills of Nevada
So blue in the desert moon
But not as blue as her eyes like the Washoe County skies
Where the fallen stars once bloomed.

She was sweet as a mountain wildflower
With a voice like an easy rain
And the kiss that she laid on these tired old lines
Was light as a coyote's dream.

But with lights those eyes were smilin'
With such sweet laughin' ??sounds/style/something else??
That hard old man up in Heaven
Well, I think even he must have smiled.

Far cross them old Slate Mountains
Another man holds her there
Like mine, his hands tremble softly
Smoothin' down her long yellow hair.

She was sweet as a mountain wildflower
With a voice like an easy rain
And the kiss that she laid on these tired old lines
Was light as a coyote's dream.

Way down in the arroyo
Where the mesquite blooms so deep
Wakin' from his dark dog's dreamin'
Some coyote hears me weep.

She was sweet as a mountain wildflower
With a voice like an easy rain
And the kiss that she laid on these tired old lines
Was light as a coyote's dream.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,Carver in Marin
Date: 12 Apr 10 - 03:56 PM

I was always a fan of Mad River's slightly manic dark edge and saw them live many times. Friends with similar enthusiasm always wondered why MR veered toward country and folk on their 2nd album and how Hammond wound up with the solo career in country-folk like he did. In 1968 I was at a gathering at the home of Harvey Brooks. Nick Gravenites was there, and their band The Electric Flag was signing with Capitol. I believe the lawyer Richard Hodge was there with Mad River to discuss whether Capitol would be a good fit for them. I remember Hammond as a skinny blond kid hunched in a corner listening to one Merle Haggard record after another. That MR eventually veered from psychedelia and that Hammond ended up writing the music for "Coyote's Dream" never seemed too odd to me. He sure did it with a novelist's eye. It would be good to hear more from him. I discovered this site while looking to replace my MR albums online. Hope more folks do.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,Seth in Olympia
Date: 09 Apr 10 - 09:59 AM

"Empty Rails in Garfield County " is also on LH's Takoma LP " Coyte's Dream" A really beautiful, haunting song. I would have to dig the record out of my garage to get the words.....

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,Marte Cosette
Date: 08 Apr 10 - 11:44 PM

There were two other memories of the young Lawrence Hammond that I have from Paris. He had a friend from London, an older woman named Mary who was a South African in exile because of her anti-apartheid activity. This woman had a beautiful tape of a song by LH called "Empty Rails in Garfield County" on which the instruments were just guitar and one violin. I thought this performance was more haunting and desolate than the one on the "Coyote's Dream" recording, and I wish I still had it. One night I when visited with this Mary and Secorra Lawrence sang a song in French which I believe was called "Un Canadien Errant" (A Wayward Canadian). A beautiful song of exile. I almost wept to hear it. That evening the playwright Athol Fugard, a friend of this Mary, called and asked to speak to LH to say he had heard the "Empty Rails" song and admired it. LH, who loved this playwright's work so much was very touched. I believe this was one of the last times in Paris where we were all together. I saw Hammond very briefly once again when he was in London during his final year of medical school and visited Paris.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE LEGEND OF THE PALE-EYED COMPANION
From: GUEST,DWR
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 04:58 PM

It wasn't as hard to find as I thought it would be. I still owe Q the transcription of Coyote's Dream. It's mostly done, just needs a few little things done that I haven't quite got yet. (Has it really been since July? ACCK! Some people are just slow.)

THE LEGEND OF THE PALE-EYED COMPANION
(Lawrence Hammond, Desert Jewel Songs BMI, 1972)
As sung by Lawrence Hammond on "Coyote's Dream," Takoma 1047, 1976

They say a New Mexico winter
Will drive old Satan from his home,
And the poor cowboy who's caught in the blizzard
Well he knows that he's never alone.

'Cause the Devil's on the range in the winter.
His eyes are the color of snow,
And they call him the Pale-Eyed Companion.
He's got the shape of a wolf 'round his soul.

I ain't a man of superstition,
But there are things beneath the sky
That can make a long-time cowboy
Lay down in the cold snow to die.

He feeds on the flames of your campfire
To stoke up the fires of his soul,
And he'll creep up when the wind starts to howlin'.
Lord, he'll leave you at the mercy of the cold.

Now a blizzard it caught me north of Clayton.
I had fifty head to go up to Raton.
The prairie dogs they froze down in their burrows,
And every step another steer was gone.

I ain't a man of superstition,
But there was something caught their eye
That made them longhorns sure get edgy
When I built me a fire for the night.

The blizzard it sang.
The cowbells they rang.
The note in the wind got so strange ...
When I turned 'round in fright,
Two eyes in the night
Put the winter right into my veins.

I drew out my rifle and sighted.
I whispered a prayer to the skies,
But I found I could only stand and shiver
In the light of his pale snowy eyes.

And them longhorns they'll die if you run them
Too fast in the high drifted snow,
But I saddled my pony and I drove them
Just as fast as any longhorn will go.

I ain't a man to run from danger.
Many's the time I've walked Boot Hill,
But the ghost of the Sangre de Christos
Never blinked as he closed for the kill.

I never have rightly remembered
How I rode myself in from the range,
But I remember that trail boss a-swearin'
As I left just twenty head on his hands.

I stayed drunk the rest of the winter.
Now they say that I'm touched by the moon,
But it's because there's a Pale-eyed Companion
Who waits for me outside the saloon.

Nobody wants a drunken cowboy,
But whiskey's warm and friends are cold.
Now they say I'm just tellin' stories
'Cause I rode them longhorns down in the snow.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,DWR
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 04:48 PM

And we thank you so much Marte, for taking the time to stop by and share your memories with us. I think I can speak for all in saying how much we appreciate it.

I think that this thread has now become more than it was ever intended to be and should be recognized as the definitive Lawrence Hammond thread. I will move my transcription of The Pale-Eyed Companion over here as time permits.


Again, Thank You Marte.


Dale

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,Marte Cosette
Date: 29 Mar 10 - 04:02 PM

I discovered this forum while collecting memories from my prior workplace. As regards the muse of this man"s later work: I oversaw the work of Secorra Plarres-Montes in the Paris immunization project where she was working at the time of her death. I met the young Hammond during a brief 4 or 5-day visit in 1976. I cannot add anything to the comments on much of his work since, as I am French, much of the idiom is foreign to me. these two were a very charming couple and I remember Secorra as a very striking, well-travelled, vibrant woman with a palpable compassion and tenderness with her pediatric patients. On the day of her death, when she uncharacteristically did not appear at work I went to her apartment and had the concierge let me in after she did not answer. She was lifeless in the apartment, claimed by a late effect of the illness that had nearly killed her several years earlier. Her 6-year-old son (who spoke no French but was able to communicate with us in a smattering of English) who told us what he had experienced. This young man, Manolito, a child by her previous marriage, went on to become a brilliant art student but died tragically young at 21 of HIV. Secorra's previous husband, Manolo, with whom she always remained close friends, died I believe in Argentina in 2008. He apparently sang background on a recording LH made but I do not know the details. I remember listening to LH sing several gorgeous songs, including 2 in Spanish, that he wrote for Secorra. I do not know if they were ever recorded or ever will be. I flew to Guaymas to Secorra's memorial and was with LH and Manolo on the boat as her ashes were spread on the Sea of Cortez. She was, perhaps, even more a muse to him in medicine than in music. I am an old woman now leafing through memories, and this episode is one that shines brightly, if sadly.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,DWR
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 10:48 PM

I'm sure there are probably more, but there is a St. Clair County in Southwestern Illinois -- E. St. Louis, Belleville, Cahokia, etc.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: Suffet
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 10:45 PM

Lawrence Hammond has an active page on MySpace. However, he hasn't logged onto it in nearly two years. Anyway, here is a link.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,BRdalton
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 10:34 PM

OK. thank you RBones. Another great song! I think the chords to the chorus must go:
F-Db-F#m B7-E-E7
A-A-D7-E7- A (back to verse).
I remember Hammond used to say at the end as the guitar faded out, "And THAT was the great St Clair County Jailbreak." (where the hell is St Clair County, anyway? Have to look it up sometime
.This song needs to find a bluegrass group to play it. Anybody have it on tape or disc??

Subject: Lyr Add: DO-RIGHT HOTEL (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,RBones
Date: 16 Mar 10 - 02:53 AM

After review, some small corrections that I think are right:

Words and Music
By Lawrence Hammond
Copyright 1971


DO-RIGHT HOTEL

Well the Man in this town is at the head of the chain
And he sits upon a Harley that's as long as a train
That he parks right by the front door of my favorite bar
To remind me that the Courthouse, well it ain't so far

Now for years I been tryin all that I could devise
Just to slip my misdemeanors past his all-seein eyes
And there's one in partic'lar, Lord, that keeps croppin up:
When I'm lookin at the bottom of my whiskey cup

Do-Right Hotel, I'm in the Do-Right Hotel
I overshot my quota and I'm here for a spell
Don't you fail me come and bail me
Right out of the Do-Right Hotel

Well last night I sat gambling with my back on the floor
I kept holdin up my glass and sayin "Deal me one more!"
When the Sheriff come in I dumped my ace in the hole
All over his britches and I'm here once more

I blew up their balloon and it pointed to me
It said "Drunken disorder in the highest degree!"
With justice so swift the Judge he did not sit down
I got a thirty-day vacation in the heart of the town

Do-Right Hotel, I'm in the Do-Right Hotel
I overshot my quota and I'm here for a spell
Don't you fail me come and bail me
Right out of the Do-Right Hotel

Well before they constructed this here awful ol hole
They used to handcuff all us rounders round the old flagpole
With the tall ones a-standing and the short ones crouched down
And on Friday night that was nearly half of the town

Till one night me and a rounder name of Squirrel McGee
Well, we shinnied over the top and by God we was free
Went out on the town and really bent one on
When we come back next morning all them jailbirds was gone

Do-Right Hotel, I'm in the Do-Right Hotel
That drain-hole in the floor there that's my wishin well
And I wish that you'd bail me
Right out of the Do-Right Hotel
(Doncha fail me)
Right out of the Do-Right Hotel
(Come and bail me!)
Right out of the Do-Right Hotel

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,brdalton
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 04:01 PM

Thank you for jogging my memory herringbone 28! The 1st verse of "Do-Right Hotel" as I remember it went:
                  
The Man in this town is at the head of the chain
and he sits upon a Harley that's as long as a train
that he parks next to the front door of my favorite bar
to remind me that the courthouse really ain't so far

For years I've been tryin all that I could devise
just to slip my misdemeanors past his all-seeing eyes.
And there's one in particular that keeps croppin up
when I's lookin at the bottom of my whiskey cup

There my recall fails me. I think the chords are:
A7 -A7 -A7-A7
F- F-D7-g
C- C- G7-G7
F-F7- A7- A

The chorus chords I recall are really wierd and wind all over the place. If someone could shoot me the words, I think I could figure them out, though

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,herringbone-28
Date: 15 Feb 10 - 10:01 PM

I heard Hammond sing in San Diego in about '76 as well somewhere near the UCSD Campus. This may have been the same gig BR Dalton posted about above as I also noticed him before and after the gig with the same striking-looking woman noted by Dalton. He sang a very fast bluegrassy song about a small-town jail called " I'm in the Do-Right Hotel" I think it was. There was a line about the jail consisting of the courthouse flagpole with all of the arrestees handcuffed to it and ended with describing the "jailbreak" (or flagpole-break). This was a very wry song. Does anyone know this one? Would love to have the words and chords.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: blogward
Date: 02 Feb 10 - 01:05 PM

"...her soft doeskin backside kept me warm in the night". Quite a line.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,BRdalton
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 08:16 PM

Marty Robbins? I am guessing Hammond would be the 1st to acknowledge his debt to Marty.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,benson
Date: 01 Feb 10 - 04:55 PM

Best capturers of US Southwest in song, I think, are Guy Clark, Townes Van Zant and Lawrence Hammond. Other candidates anyone?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,yuki nizaki-moore
Date: 26 Jan 10 - 05:05 PM

This is neat! I blundered into the Lawrence Hammond MySpace site completely cold and was intrigued by the songs , so I ordered a vinyl copy of Coyote's Dream I found online. I would love to hear the music from that San Carlos Fiesta song Lemondracer posted. Does anyone know it? or have a recording? The theme is very similar to he one in "The Pale-Eyed Companion:" Vulnerable human against a relentless supernatural animal force. New Mexico setting. The cougars are still thriving in that state. I saw a family of them while driving through the Gila Wilderness 4 years ago on the way up the the cliff dwellings, and saw one more up in the Sangre de Christo Mountains in 2007. The 2 songs give me the cold chills!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,DWR
Date: 11 Jan 10 - 11:47 PM

Well, NINE+ years. My math really is better than that. Listening to Trucker's Nightmare right now. Thanks, Dr. Hammond.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,DWR
Date: 11 Jan 10 - 11:36 PM

Q, back in July you asked for the lyrics to Coyote's Dream.   Due to inattention to Mudcat at times, I had missed ALL of the 08 and 09 additions. Much to digest there. I will try to come up with those for you. Not tonight, but soon. I will write myself a note.

As so many have been saying since Seth started this back 10+ years ago, it was a very interesting album, and yes I still play it.

Dale

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,benjinelson
Date: 11 Jan 10 - 06:52 PM

I also found this while looking to replace my "Coyote's Dream" vinyl. That rodeo song had the line in the chorus where the cowboy tells the bucking bronc "I aim to sign your unemployment check with the fine point of my spurs, and I aim to make my working year a few seconds longer than yours!" Great line! Does anyone know where you can download Hammond songs?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,fretfly
Date: 02 Jan 10 - 02:32 AM

Well...this was a pretty interesting find that answers some questions I have had about this guy and whatever happened to him. The catalogue of his songs that are out there is pretty slender, but what strikes me about them now and what struck me at the time I first heard him in '76 is how visual the songs were. When he sang these I had the movie running in my head. Some of the posts above give some explanation of how it was that someone who could evoke such images could just disappear from the music world apparently so completely. It is great to know that other songs might someday be released. I wonder about that one I heard him sing up in Sonoma, CA about the kid who sees his dad make an epic ride in the rodeo. I think that mini-novel is the one Ms Laughton mentioned above. When I sit through a reading of cowboy poetry I always wish folks could hear this one

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641 (Lawrence Hammond)
From: GUEST,brdalton
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 11:31 PM

I have asked around and discovered that the Takoma catalogue was sold was sold off to Fantasy Records. They presumably would have the master tapes to "Coyote's Dream." But whether they have any previously-unreleased stuff is not clear. Wish they would get with the program and give us that finerecord on disc.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641: 'Take this plane to Heave
From: GUEST,sean de leger
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 03:26 PM

My vinyl of "Coyote's Dream" is practically warn through to the other side! Who has the master copies of this unusual record? Why haven't they re-released it on vinyl? Is it still Takoma? I've learned a lot from deading these entries. Can anyone enlighten us on this question???

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641: 'Take this plane to Heaven...
From: GUEST,robopicker
Date: 29 Nov 09 - 10:06 PM

What a treasure trove of info this is.It answers questions I've had for years about this songwriter ..and raises even MORE. Thank you to whoever it is that maintains this site! Let's hope more recordings exist and somehow get out there! There have been very few songwriters who make you feel like you are reasing Steinbeck yet still constantly surprise you musically. Hammond was one for sure.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641: 'Take this plane to Heaven...
From: GUEST,enrique paredon
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 08:29 PM

There IS such a CD. I knew Secorra Plarres-Montes from our work together in Africa, and through her met LH. Five years later I provided percussion for a recording of "Flight 641" with LH at a studio in Los Angeles in 1981. Also on this track was Jorge Calderones playing bass, and a pedal steel guitar player from Tucson. If I remember it right Lawrence played guitar and overdubbed a track of dobro. There was also a wonderful fiddle player and a banjo player who I think was John Hickman. As I recall, the backup singers were very drunk during the recording. At this time LH was also finishing a long long track about La Migra (US Immigration). Included on that was Lupe Arrellano on cello and Lawrence on viola, as well as the same steel guitar player from Tucson. Lawrence was in medical school at the time and did not expect that these songs would be released. I believe someone has transferred the tapes to disc, however, along with other songs recorded between 1976 and 1981 or 82.
I have recently spoken to someone who has heard these. Thank you Lupe de Vega for calling my attention to this thread!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641: 'Take this plane to Heave
From: GUEST,lizabethtarver
Date: 16 Nov 09 - 04:24 PM

I keep hearing rumors that there is a CD in the works including mid-late 70's recordings he made. Would love to know more about this. Does anyone know anything about this, and, if it exists, what songs it includes? I too would love a recording of "Papa Redwing!"

Subject: Lyr Add: PAPA REDWING BLACKBIRD
From: GUEST,RPeters
Date: 05 Oct 09 - 03:20 PM

Wow! this is a long thread! Saw LH at Berkeley's F&S and once in some place on Union St. in SF. Copied some unusual words.
I think "PAPA REDWING BLACKBIRD" went like this:

Well the redwing's call
Got 67 different notes in all.
When I hear that song I wanta flap my hands along

I'm an old earth doctor
I put my fields to seed.
Seems like it ain't for the crops, it's so the damn blackbirds get something to eat.

CHORUS:
But I'm going to fly away
Papa Redwing's going to lead my way
Bye-bye, babe. there'll be no more cryin'
Gonna sit all day with my firends on the old clothesline.

Just a broke-dwon coonhound
And blisters, all I got to show.
Papa Redwing you're laughin', is there somethin' I don't know?

Well I've lived this here grey life
One whole year too long.
Now they're payin' me not to plant and I'm learnin that blackbird's song.

REPEAT CHORUS
Bye-bye, babe.
Missouri Girl, bye-bye....

I remember lots of very fast fingerpicking in this one. I have not ever been able to replicate the fingerings, though. Does ANYONE have a recording of this incredible song?? Or insight into the chords or fingerings. I have tried a number of things over the years, and it would make an interesting bluegrass song.I think the flutist who used to play with LH sometimes was Leni Isaacs. Googled her...involved with LA symphony management.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641: 'Take this plane to Heaven...
From: GUEST,John Patterson
Date: 27 Sep 09 - 05:53 PM

This 7-year thread amazes me. Like many of you, I consider "Coyote's Dream" one of my "desert island discs", alongside Hammond's Harvard schoolmate, the late Luke Baldwin, whose only album, "Tattoo on my Chest", was also played frequently on KFAT radio in the '70s. All "FATheads" learned to love them.

A couple obvious questions: If there are two apparent studio cuts to be heard on his myspace page, http://www.myspace.com/lawrencehammond, where can one get clean copies of them? Are there more where they came from? Will there be new recordings from this incredibly talented songwriter any time soon?

Songwriter Willis Alan Ramsey, when asked if he plans a follow-up to his 1972 album, is fond of coyly answering, "why, what was wrong with the first one?" or somesuch. I hope Hammond won't follow the same path. I, for one, look forward to more from him.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641: 'Take this plane to Heaven...
From: GUEST,lucia de vega
Date: 21 Sep 09 - 03:19 PM

I have been aware of this thread for some time and wish to comment on a couple of things: the woman companion referred to above would have been Secorra Gutierrez y Plarres-Montes (1945-1976), who, at the time she and LH met, was my roommate. Although her many international commitments with the UN and WHO as a nurse-practitioner placed a long-distance strain on them, these two seemed determined to make a life together. A passionate music-lover, she inspired not only his later commitment to health care but also certain strains of his music. When she died in Paris in '76 while their relationship was still young, LH seemed to lose all heart for writing and singing and dropped out of sight musically. Fortunately, after she was lost, his determination brought him to medicine, and he married, I think in '84 at the end of medical school (to another physician), raised 2 musically-accomplished children and is once again writing songs!
LdV

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Flight 641: 'Take this plane to Heaven...
From: GUEST,brdalton
Date: 12 Sep 09 - 08:26 PM

John: I noticed LH used a drop-D tuning on occasion, and did a song about his hound-dog in an open-G tuning. Seemed he usually played in standard tunings, though. That hound song had a great line: something about floppy ears that swept away the morning dew. Think of it every time I see a beagle!