Steve Suffet's new CD-I've Been Up On the Mountain

Subject: Steve Suffet's new CD
From: Suffet
Date: 24 Nov 06 - 12:28 PM

Greetings:

I had planned to release my new CD, I've Been Up On the Mountain, early next year. I put a 2007 copyright date on the tray card and I got myself booked for a CD release concert at the Peoples' Voice Cafe in New York this coming March 10. I figured with a little good luck I might even have the product in hand by the time of the People's Music Network gathering in Philadelphia at the end of January. But then just over one week ago I received a call from Oasis CD Manufacturing. The job, they told me, was finished and the CDs were ready to ship ahead of schedule. UPS delivered them to my door the very next day.

Let me tell you a little about the album itself. Of the eighteen songs, four are ones that I wrote by myself in traditional styles, one I wrote in collaboration with Joel Landy, and another I wrote with some help from Anne Price. One is a little known Woody Guthrie song, and another is by Utah Phillips. The remaining ten songs are all my arrangements of traditional folk songs. You will find among them a range of genres, styles, themes, and moods. You will also find a wide variety of vocal arrangements. Several songs are sung through as vocal duets, others have one or more additional voices on the choruses and refrains, and one song has eight people accompanying me. There are also songs that I sing entirely by myself.

Here are the titles:

1. I've Been Up On the Mountain (Suffet)
2. When I Was a Hippie in Arkansas (Suffet & Price)
3. Union Warriors (Suffet)
4. Where's My Bagel and Lox? (Suffet & Landy)
5. Can You Hear That Steam Whistle Blow? (Suffet)
6. Troubled Waters Rising (Suffet)
7. John Hardy (traditional)
8. Banks of the Ohio (traditional)
9. John Henry (traditional)
10. Run, Children, Run (traditional)
11. When the Curfew Blows (Guthrie)
12. Rock Me to Sleep (Phillips)
13. Nine Hundred Miles (traditional)
14. Three Foot Seam (traditional)
15. Don't Let Your Deal Go Down (traditional)
16. The Railroad Boy (traditional)
17. The House Carpenter (traditional)
18. Danville Girl (traditional)

I was blessed to have some fine musicians work with me on this CD. They include Joel Landy, Eric Levine, Anne Price, Gina Tlamsa, and Ray Korona all of whom appeared on my first CD, Now the Wheel Has Turned, and they also include Chris Lang, Bruce Markow, and Jody Kolodzey. I hesitate to call these folks "back-up musicians," for I've Been Up On the Mountain is truly a collaborative product. Think of it as my getting some really talented friends together and having a good time making music with them.

If you would like to hear or download some songs from I've Been Up On the Mountain for free, then please go to my SoundClick music page and listen to any or all of the first five songs at the top.

It's probably a major marketing faux pas to make so many songs available for free, but then I was never much of a business person. In fact, CD Baby will handle almost all of the distribution. I just sent them a box of CDs, and they should be ready for sale on-line in about a week. I'm very happy to let CD Baby deal with the order taking, billing, shipping, and tracking.

But until that happens, you can order I've Been Up On the Mountain directly from me. Unlike CD Baby, I'll mail it to you anywhere in USA postpaid. The price is $15, unless you are a member of People's Music Network or American Federation of Musicians Local 1000, in which case the price is only $13. Just let me know if you qualify for the $2 discount. No, I don't need to see your membership card. In any event, if you want the new CD, please send me an e-mail rather than a PM, and tell me where I should mail it to.

Remember, this offer is good only until I've Been Up On the Mountain is available from CD Baby.

--- Steve Suffet

Subject: RE: Steve Suffet's new CD
From: GUEST,Chris Lang and "Hook Reeport" ...the band
Date: 24 Nov 06 - 04:03 PM

Great stuff!!! Good songs and wonderful energy...these songs make us start to believe that maybe "the good gang" and the caring "tribe" stands at least a slight chance of winning back some ground from all the greedy little kids and baby-bully-boys that have been running wild in the garden and trampling all our flowers. Thanks, "guys"!

Subject: RE: Steve Suffet's new CD
From: GUEST,Anne Price
Date: 24 Nov 06 - 04:06 PM

A word about Oasis CD manufacturing. I found their service exceptionally good for all my three CD projects. Their work was excellent and the people were friendly and very helpful.

It was fun working with Steve on his CD. The song we "co-wrote" was mostly his, but I happened to be in his kitchen when he was working on it, and I added a few suggestions. I added some vocal parts on the CD.

Subject: RE: Steve Suffet's new CD
From: Suffet
Date: 24 Nov 06 - 10:21 PM

Greetings:

Anne Price is right about When I Was a Hippie in Arkansas, the song for which we share credit. I would say I wrote about 85% of it, maybe more, but she shouldn't undervalue her contribution. I had been stuck on a verse, and then Anne came along at exactly the right moment and finished it. She also helped improve some of the other verses, and she composed the vocal harmony part for the chorus, although I wrote the tune throughout. Anyway, I never quibble about who did how much, what, where, and when. A song belongs equally to all who created it.

I should point out that Joel Landy wrote six of the seven verses Where's My Bagel and Lox? that I sing on the CD. The idea for the song was mine, and I wrote the tune. I also wrote nine verses, and Joel wrote eleven. Twenty verses were far too many to record, so I chose the seven that I felt best told the story, even though only one of them was my own creation.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Steve Suffet's new CD
From: GUEST,Joel Landy
Date: 25 Nov 06 - 12:15 AM

It's has always been fun singing with Steve and the MacDougal Street Rent Party gang. Steve's CD has a lot of that energy on it.

Yes, that Bagel and Lox song had lots of verses. It was one of those email written songs where every day for about a week Steve and I would trade wits, laughs and yet another verse. Not on the CD were the verses about Abraham Lincoln, Julius Caesar, and other figures from history (maybe to appear in the future VH1 "Cutting Room Floor" series of takes, remakes and mistakes...)

Anyway, it was a fun time recording the songs. I wish Steve lots of luck with the CD.

joel

Subject: RE: Steve Suffet's new CD
From: Suffet
Date: 27 Nov 06 - 10:26 PM

One verse which did not make it onto the CD...

In Saint Petersburg the Bolsheviks,
Gather in the dark,
Outside the Winter Palace,
Ready to set the park,
All eyes turn to Trotsky,
For the signal to arise,
But instead of "Storm the palace!"
These are the words he cries...

Where's my bagel and lox?
Where's my bagel and lox?
The cause can wait until I ate,
I want my bagel and lox.
Where's my bagel and lox?
Where's my bagel and lox?
The cause can wait until I ate,
I want my bagel and lox.

There are many more outtakes where that came from.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Steve Suffet's new CD
From: Suffet
Date: 29 Nov 06 - 10:21 PM

Greetings:

CD Baby moved a lot faster than I imagined they could, and they now offer I've Been Up On the Mountain for sale on-line. Here's link to the descriptive page: http://cdbaby.com/cd/stevesuffet2

I owe much thanks to the 16 people who have already purchased I've Been Up On the Mountain directly from me. I really appreciate their patronage. However, from now on CD Baby will will handle distribution, and the only CDs I will sell directly are the ones I bring around in person.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Steve Suffet's new CD
From: Suffet
Date: 01 Jan 07 - 08:24 PM

Press Release from Steve Suffet
Contact information:
E-mail: [Click here.]
Phone in USA: 718-786-1533
Website: http://suffet.home.att.net/

For release on January 1, 2007:

• Folksinger Steve Suffet officially releases new CD today.

• I've Been Up On the Mountain now available from CD Baby.

New York City based folksinger Steve Suffet officially released his newest CD, I've Been Up On the Mountain, today, January 1, 2007. Internet music retailer CD Baby already has a supply available for purchase. Just click on http://cdbaby.com/cd/stevesuffet2 to order.

The highly respected songwriter Jay Mankita recently said, "Steve Suffet is one of the great songwriters of the decade." While thankful for Jay's description, Steve prefers to call himself just an old-fashioned folksinger. Steve explained, "I don't make much of a distinction between writing songs and singing ones that already exist, perhaps adding or subtracting a few words here and there, or reworking the tune, or making up a new arrangement. That's all part of the process we call folk music."

I've Been Up On the Mountain contains eighteen songs. Six are Steve's own original compositions, all created in traditional folk styles, including one he wrote in collaboration with Joel Landy and another he wrote with some help from Anne Price. The CD also contains a little known Woody Guthrie song, as well as a song written by Utah Phillips. The remaining ten songs are all Steve's arrangements of traditional folk songs. You will find among these eighteen songs quite a variety of genres, styles, themes, and moods.

"The title song," Steve explains, "tells the Passover story in old-time country style. I actually made it up to sing at a seder." Some of the other songs, Steve further explains, "contain all the bloody elements that make folk music so appealing: murders, mine disasters, floods, hangings, even an eternal damnation." The CD, however, also contains a couple of humorous songs, When I Was a Hippie in Arkansas and Where's My Bagel and Lox? That last song manages to summarize the entire span of human existence, from the emergence of our earliest ancestors through our ultimate extinction, in just four minutes and forty-four seconds.

I've Been Up On the Mountain features vocal and/or instrumental accompaniment by Jody Kolodzey, Ray Korona, Joel Landy, Chris Lang, Heather Lev, Eric Levine, Bruce Markow, Anne Price, and Gina Tlamsa. Each is a talented musician in his or her own right, and the CD is truly a collaborative product.

Only 500 copies of I've Been Up On the Mountain have been manufactured, and many of those are being held for people who requested them in advance. So if you want to be sure you get one, please order it right away.

Steve Suffet's first CD, Now the Wheel Has Turned, is also available from CD Baby. Click on http://cdbaby.com/cd/stevesuffet to order. The price is $15 for either CD, with a 10% discount if you buy more than one of the same title.

[end]

Subject: RE: Steve Suffet's new CD-I've Been Up On the Moun
From: GUEST,Anne Price
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 06:12 PM

CD Baby is a great place to buy or sell CDs. Very easy to sign up to sell. I have all three of my CDs for sale on CD Baby. Also easy to buy. Good clear descriptions so it's easy to browse, and a very large selection. Have a look, if you haven't already.

Subject: RE: Steve Suffet's new CD-I've Been Up On the Mountain
From: GUEST,Ray Korona
Date: 02 Jan 07 - 09:35 PM

After issuing an amazing collection of folk and folklike tunes on "Now the Wheel Has Turned," it's wonderful and impressive to see Steve Suffet back with eighteen more songs on his new CD "Been Up on the Mountain."

With all the banjos, guitars, dulcimers, mandolins, fiddles and harmony vocals, Steve's doing as much for traditional music and its progeny as any ten bands. The orignals Steve includes on the CD so seemlessly fit his "old fashioned folk singer" persona, it would take a true folk librarian to pick them out among the authentic time-worn folk songs.

This man is doing important and worthwhile work. I'm very happy to have played a small part in supporting his efforts by contributing a couple of harmonies and turning a few dials to get the music recorded for all to hear. Hope you get to kick back some evening and give a listen. I double dare you to not sing along!

Subject: RE: Steve Suffet's new CD-I've Been Up On the Moun
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 03 Jan 07 - 01:03 AM

sounds perfect from the descriptions, tho the use of sound on this
'puter is so new to me I forgot to even think of clicking on the sound thingies on CD Baby, so I eagerly await my parcel!

And I bookmarked the site as requested & added it to my folder of Stuff to Buy.

maybe I could go back & listen? Nah, I'll await the CD.

sandra

Subject: RE: Steve Suffet's new CD-I've Been Up On the Mountain
From: GUEST,Eric Levine
Date: 04 Jan 07 - 01:55 PM

Steve Suffet is a real charicter!He never stops writing , practicing, arranging his next gig , recording session etc.Semi retired from the New York Public school system where he was a high powered special ed adminisrator,Steve has essentially moved his office home, and switched to an old hobby , folkmusic. Others reported to me that he was the man at school, now he is the man at folkmusic.I just loved playing the banjo on this CD, which we recorded on the hottest fucking day of the year.I think some of that heat rubbed into the little digital tracks of Steve Suffets New CD.
So go get it!!
Eric Levine (if anyone knows me from anyhere)

Subject: RE: Steve Suffet's new CD-I've Been Up On the Mountain
From: Suffet
Date: 05 Jan 07 - 02:08 AM

Greetings:

Wow, what an endorsement! GUEST Eric Levine, if you don't know, is the musical director of the Disabled In Action Singers. He is also one of my personal heroes, someone who keeps on going in spite of all odds. And yes, that was quite a hot day last summer when we took the bus out to Ray Korona's recording studio in New Jersey.

As far as being a high powered public school administrator, that's all in the past. I can thank the New York City Department of Education for laying me off in 2003 after 31 years, 9 months, and 10 days of more or less faithful service. But what the heck? I had enough years in for full retirement, which includes hospital, medical, dental, optical, and precription drug benefits for me and the Mrs. for life, so I signed on the dotted line. It has proven to be one of the best decisions I ever made, leaving me a decent pension and plenty of time for music. I even found a good paying one day a week job that lasted two years. That job is gone now, but I still generally find work at least one day a week, even if it's as a per diem substitute teacher.

For example, this past Tuesday and Wednesday, I covered some high school senior classes for a college advisor who is out on maternity leave. That's something I have never done before, so while I can't say it was fun, I can honestly say it was a novel and interesting experience. Even more interesting was attending faculty meetings both days where principal was about twenty years younger than me. Has anyone else out there in Mudcatland had a comparable experience?

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Steve Suffet's new CD-I've Been Up On the Moun
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jan 07 - 10:34 PM

Hello, friends.

Yes, Steve put his thirty plus years into the NYC school system. I am now in my second year. In effect, he has passed his Department of Education baton on to me where I get beaten with it five times a week.

Thanks, Steve!

jl

Subject: RE: Steve Suffet's new CD-I've Been Up On the Mountain
From: GUEST,Ada
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 12:59 PM

"I've Been Up On The Mountain" has long been one of my favorite Steve Suffet songs in live performance, so I'm delighted to see it featured on his new CD. And "The Banks of the Ohio" was perhaps the first song I ever heard Steve sing, back in 1993 - and I'm still listening to him sing it, with joy! It's got such an upbeat tune for a murder ballad.

Congrats, Steve, on a remarkable collection of remarkable songs - I hope it's a best seller! But I miss the "stamp art" from the "Now the Wheel Has Turned" - I was hoping that would be a recurring theme.

Ada

Subject: RE: Steve Suffet's new CD-I've Been Up On the Mountain
From: Suffet
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 07:23 PM

Greetings:

I have a homemade cassette tape recording from 1996 of me and GUEST Ada singing Banks of the Ohio together. I wonder if she still remembers it. Another song on the cassette features the two of us singing Woody Guthrie's Taking It Easy, Taking It Slow. Always good advice!

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Steve Suffet's new CD-I've Been Up On the Mountain
From: GUEST,Ada
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 05:25 PM

Yeah, Steve, I remember that tape. But that was before you were a famous recording star. ;>)

Subject: RE: Steve Suffet's new CD-I've Been Up On the Mountain
From: Suffet
Date: 16 Jan 07 - 12:12 AM

Greetings once more:

GUEST Ada and I belong to an organization called the New York Philatelic Bandits. We used to get together once a year in Rochester, NY, to eat pizza and sing songs about stamp collecting. I kid you not. We even had a newsletter called Pickin' & Lickin' that Ada used to edit. It was kind of a cross between Sing Out! and The American Philatelist. Well, not quite, but each issue had one or more new songs, such as New Gum and Perfs Where There Were None which was sung to the tune of So Long, It's Been Good to Know You.

Pickin' & Lickin' even won a bronze medal one time in a philatelic literature competition. Yes, there really is such a critter as a philatelic literature competition. You can't make stuff like that up. Well, actually you can, but why bother?

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Steve Suffet's new CD-I've Been Up On the Mountain
From: Suffet
Date: 31 Jan 07 - 07:17 AM

Come celebrate Steve Suffet's newest CD
I've Been Up On the Mountain

Steve Suffet
Old Fashioned Folksinger
accompanied by friends from MacDougal Street Rent Party

and

Holly GoAnarchy
Anarcho-Feminist Folksinger

performing at the

Peoples' Voice Cafe
in the Workmen's Circle Building
45 East 33rd Street, just west of Park Avenue
New York City
Saturday • March 10, 2007
8:00 PM • Doors open 7:30 PM

Suggested admission: $12.
Peoples' Voice Cafe or Workmen's Circle members: $9.
More if you choose, less if you can't.
TDF vouchers accepted. No one turned away for lack of money.

For more information, please call 212-787-3903.

Click here for Peoples' Voice Cafe website.
Click here for Steve Suffet's website.
Click here for Holly GoAnarchy's website.

Be there!