Production Notes
Chris White's New CD
"From the Sacred to the Profane" BMM279.2
Available through Black Market Music

Track 1 - You Gotta Move (Mississippi Fred McDowell)
I think I first heard this track on a Rolling Stones album when I was a mere slip of a lad. After that I devoured everything Mississippi Fred McDowell did and to this day this song is my all-time favourite blues tune. It has everything, strong melody, a simple but powerful message and a guitar part to die for.

Track 2 - Beulah Land (Mississippi John Hurt)
By all reports John Hurt was a really nice man and that comes through in his music. He cut some great sides for Okeh in 1928 and then disappeared from the music scene until the early 60s when he was rediscovered as part of the folk boom around that time. Every blues player has a John Hurt song in his or her repertoire. He didn't write this one……it was probably written in the late 1800s….but his version was the inspiration for mine. A simple tune about faith….. that there's a better world after this one. Tim Williams plays some lovely mandolin on this.

Track 3 - Satisfied and Tickled Too (Mississippi John Hurt)
John Hurt was very often embarrassed to play this tune. It's about a bloke who thinks that standing in the street waving his wedding tackle about will encourage his girlfriend to come back and marry him. I asked my wife whether she thought this kind of behaviour would be persuasive. She said she didn't think so and added, that based on her experience, it was, unfortunately, about the best that most blues players could come up with. Some great accordian playing from George Butrumlis.

Track 4 - Spoonful (Willie Dixon)
A duet, Tim Williams playing slide and me playing mandolin, recorded live. We rehearsed this a couple of times whilst sharing a bottle of red and smoking cigars sitting on my back deck looking out over the Dandenong Ranges and the Yarra Valley. This is absolutely the best way to rehearse.

Track 5 - Cropduster Blues (Chris White)
Tampa Red and Bo Carter were the masters of the single entendre and I have always loved their songs. Here is my contribution to the genre. Dave Hicks creates the plane noise at the end using nothing more than a drum head and a wet finger.

Track 6 - Collateral Damage (Chris White)
I hope someone from the political right hears this and gets pissed off that I used the national anthem in an anti-war song. I have no idea why anyone would think it acceptable to kill and maim innocent children for the advancement of any cause.

Track 7 - Rollin' and Tumblin' (Hambone Willie Newburne)
Another quintessential blues tune. Thanks to Tim for leading me to the blues mandolin, which is truly the path to righteousness. Played on my 1940s Stella mandolin.

Track 8 - My Lips are Making Promises (That my Heart Can't Keep) (Chris White)
A man and a woman - confrontation, recrimination, disintegration, disconsolation, embarkation. Slide guitar by Tim. Great bass line from Howard Cairns.

Track 9 - Peepin' and Moanin' Blues - (Mike Bloomfield)
This is from the Analine album by Mike Bloomfield which is one of the best acoustic blues albums of all time. It is, sadly, the only one of Bloomfield's records that is appropriately produced. When he was on the downward spiral he did the score for a couple of porn movies and in the course of that experience found himself being stalked by an incompletely transformed transsexual. This is documented in the very funny tune Peach Tree Man that I may put on the next CD. This tune, however, is about masturbation.

Track 10 - Diddy Wah Diddy (Blind Blake)
Hard to go past Blind Blake as the most consummate blues player of his era. He has influenced just about everybody since. A great ragtimey picker and wonderful singer. He came from nowhere and just disappeared. He is much more of a mystery than Robert Johnson. Thanks to Kaz Della Rosa for the great harmonica lines in this tune.

Track 11 - Let Me Play with Your Poodle (Tampa Red)
I went to school with Gary Sweet and quite a few years back I bumped into him. We had a few drinks and chewed the fat. In the course of the conversation and knowing his reputation as a ladies man I asked him what his favourite pick-up line is. He looked at me like I was a small and not very bright child and said "Hello, I'm Gary Sweet." Tampa Red's line is a bit more creative but I haven't had a lot of success with it either.

Track 12 - A 3am Leaving (Chris White)
A slow, sad waltz. Lovely accordian by George and lap steel by Tim.

Track 13 - Come in my Kitchen (Robert Johnson)
I was originally going to do this song pretty straightforwardly on lap steel with vocals. While I was noodling and warming up Bob said, "Let's plug this end of the guitar lead into this box and see what it sounds like." We both liked the result and decided to leave the vocals off. Strangely enough, if you play this tune and then immediately go back to track one, the song cycle sounds complete.