FAQ

A:

“Mighty Storm” couldn’t be simpler. It’s in an open tuning (formerly C tuning, now G tuning capo’d on the 2nd fret). It has 2 chords: the One (all open strings or at the 12th fret, an octave higher) and the Four (fifth fret). I use the handle of a table knife for a slide, but anything will do.

A:

Thanks for the note and the kind words. I did TYMG in an open G tuning (D,G,D,G,B,D, starting at the bass string). I just checked and apparently I was in those days tuning my guitar a half tone down, so the recording is actually in F#. Hope this helps.

A:

I think there’s some confusion here. I very seldom do Driving Wheel solo because I don’t feel I can make it “Big” enough without some accompaniment — though I occasionally have a lapse in judgment and try anyway. But I have never done it with a slide (though David Bromberg is playing a key part on a Dobro in the Columbia recording). I think the song you’re conflating with Driving Wheel is Panama Limited, a long train song/story. That one I do in a D tuning, with the capo on the second fret, so it comes out in E. (I used to do it in E tuning but broke a lot of strings — it took me decades to realize I could tune down, capo up and end up in the same place with a lot less string tension.)

A:

There is no proper sheet music. I play it in D shapes but capo’d at the 3rd fret, so it comes out in F. I’ve worked it up into a downloadable PDF file.

A:

It’s a D, capo at the third fret to yield an F.

A:

It’s in a conventional tuning, capo on the 3rd fret, played in A shapes so it comes out in C. There’s an instructional video on Homespun (available at the store at TomRush.com as chance would have it) that will give you a blow by blow, chord by chord, nuance by nuance lesson if you’d like, but you probably can figure it out all by yourself.

A:

Sorry, no tab. But the tuning is an open D (starting with the bass string, D,A,D,F#,A,D). I used to tune my guitar down a half, or even a full step, so the recording might be lower than D. Then I put the guitar face-up on my lap and use the handle of a table knife as a slide, holding it by the blade. Do not use a sharp knife.”

A:

I play the “Remember Song” (a/k/a Remember?) in a regular tuning, D shapes with the capo on the 3rd fret, so it comes out in F.

A:

Back in ‘66 or ‘67 I showed Joni open tunings. (Now, David Crosby claims that HE taught Joni open tunings, but no matter – I taught HIM open tunings in Coconut Grove in ‘62 or thereabouts.) She took what I showed her and blasted off the planet with it. She used the over-the-neck trick for Circle Game, and I’ve also found it useful for Drift Away. It’s basically a simple way of making a bar chord while leaving the top 2 strings open. The “proper” way of accomplishing this involves bending the finger in ways that are anatomically improbable and downright uncomfortable.

I don’t know what you’re talking about when you say “C shape” tuning.

By “C shapes” I was referring to capo-ing up a guitar in standard tuning. The Child’s Song, for instance, is in a standard tuning. I put the capo on the 4th fret and then play “in C shapes,” in other words I play the chord that, if there were no capo and I was 4 frets down the neck, would be the C chord. But since it’s capo’d up 2 full tones it comes out in E.
Another way of saying it: with no capo, play a plain old C chord. Now hold that shape and move up the neck 4 frets (and put a capo on the 4th fret). Now you’re playing a “C shape,” but a tuner will tell you you’re playing an E chord.

A:

Rye Whiskey’s in an open D tuning (D,A,D,F#,A,D, starting with the bass string), no capo as I recall, though you could capo up to a better key if you like. It’s a style called “knife guitar,” wherein the handle of a table knife is used as a slide. (It wants to be a handle with a slight concave curve to it, to match the convex curve of the guitar neck.) The only chords are the one (and the octave at the 12th fret), the four and the five – D, G and A, if you’re in the key of D. Hope that helps. If not, take a shot or two of Jack Daniels and try again.

A:

I’m confused most of the time myself, so I can relate. The tuning in question is the full D chord; starting from the bass string it goes D, A, D, F#, A, D. I’m capo-ing on the 3rd fret, so it comes out in F. Hope that helps!

A:

It’s a C tuning: Starting with the bass string it goes C,G,C,G,C,E with the first three being tuned down from “regular” tuning, the G and high E strings being left alone, and the B string being tuned up to C. It’s a nice tuning.

A:

I drop both the E strings to D and play it in D (with the high string open most of the time). That’s about as helpful as I can get, since I don’t have tabs on it – but that should get you moving in the right direction!

A:

I’ve usually done Joshua in open G tuning, and that’s the way it’s been recorded. Lately I’ve taken to doing it in open D, capo’d on the 3rd fret, so it comes out in F.

A:

I used to play it in a C tuning (C,G,C,G,C,E – starting with the bass string), but have recently switched to the key of A (a G tuning capo’d at the 2nd fret). All the recordings are (I think) in C. I’m sliding a kitchen knife – held by the blade, using the handle as the slide – up and down the strings. 5th fret and 12th fret are the only stops on the route.

A:

No, no cuts so far, but it’s a plain old table knife, wouldn’t cut much more than butter. I hold the handle right over the fret, don’t push down any harder than needed to make good contact with the strings – firmer than one would do for harmonics, but not “all the way down.” The string will be vibrating on both sides of the contact point which gives it all sorts of odd overtones. (This is as opposed to the Dobro style of playing where you use your hand to mute the strings behind the slide.) One other thing: I use a knife that has a bit of a concave curve to the edge of the handle, the better to approximately match the convex curve of the neck. A flat handle will only make good contact with a couple of strings at any one time and the rest will buzz like crazy. Hopes this helps!

A:

It’s been a long time, but I recall that it’s in a G tuning (D/G/D/G/B/D).

A:

It’s in a regular tuning, though back in the old days I used to tune my guitar a full tone low, then a half tone low for a while, then I finally got up to pitch in the late ‘60s. It’s in C shapes, and includes F and G (of course) and also A and D and E7. I’m sure there’s some helpful website that will give you the chord chart – it was written by Jesse Fuller.

A:

The tuning is C and, starting with the bass string, it goes C,G,C,G,C,E. So you tune the E, A and D strings down, leave the G and high E alone, and tune the B string up half a tone.

A:

It was written by Murray McLauchlan (of Child’s Song fame). It’s been decades since I’ve done the song, but I believe it was in a regular tuning.

A:

It’s an open D: starting with the bass string – D,A,D,F#,A,D. Back when I recorded it I seemed to be tuning my guitars down either a half or sometimes a whole step from A=440, so the recording may be pitched lower than D.

A:

‘Circle Game’ is in G tuning capo’d on the 4th fret, though I used to tune down a half (sometimes a full) tone so I’m not sure what key the recording was in.

A:

Again, it’s a C tuning, (starting with the bass string) C,G,C,G,C,E. The B string is tuned up to C, the rest are tuned down (except for the G and high E, which stay the same)

A:

Originally I used an “E” tuning, where the strings are tuned exactly as they would be if you played an E chord (E,B,E,G#,B,E) but I found I was breaking strings a lot, especially the G string. I quit doing the song for years until it finally occurred to me that I could tune a full tone lower and capo on the second fret to achieve the same effect with less string tension. So I now use a “D” tuning: D,A,D,F#,A,D. Go to it!

A:

I think it’s in E. D tuning capo’d on the 2nd fret. Chords are the 5, the relative minor and the 1. Relative minor is a wrap-around with the thumb covering the 5th and 6th strings on the 2nd fret, ring finger covering 3 through 1 strings on the 2nd fret, and the 2nd finger covering the 4th string on the 1st fret. I think. Something like that.

A:

Mike Smith, from Chicago, wrote “Hobo’s Mandolin”; it’s in C-sharp with the capo on the 3rd fret, so it comes out in E-flat (I think – I haven’t played it in a while.).

A:

As I recall I just dropped the 2 E strings to D for this one to get a “modal” sound. I can’t remember where I first heard it, but Dylan has said that it was indeed the “seed” for his “Ballad of Hollis Brown.

A:

In 1961, a flamenco guitarist friend, Johnny Pankin, had a regular gig at the Salamander Coffee House in Boston. He decided he was going to go to Spain and live with the Gypsies and study guitar with them (when he got there, of course, the gypsies would have nothing to do with him). He asked me if I’d like to take over his night at the club and I agreed, all excited. My first paid gig! $10, if memory serves, and all the coffee I could drink.
I recall it was a tough one, propped up on a stool in the corner trying to musically get people’s attention while they chatted over coffee. Apparently, I was too successful, though it didn’t feel that way at the time. After the first night, Paul very kindly told me there would not be a second night because his customers weren’t buying enough coffee and they were listening to me instead of drinking – one of the stranger compliments I’ve received. I decided to focus my efforts on coffee houses where the emphasis was more on music than coffee, and it’s been downhill ever since.

A:

Yes, that was me. And Trevor. Best party I’ve ever been to. And that’s saying something, even if it does end with a preposition. (The DVD is, unfortunately, out-of-print)

A:

I wrote the piece as a sound impression of a generic small seaport town, was going to call it Newport Sunday but decided that Newport carried too much baggage, switched to Rockport. I did have Rockport, MA in mind, but almost any Rockport would do, as long as it has ocean.

A:

‘Duncan & Brady’ was recorded for the CD Trolling for Owls, which is available at shows and online.

A:

It’s been a while since I performed “Kids These Days.” I mainly work solo these days, and at least half of that song is introducing the band. The last and only time I did it solo I didn’t realize my dilemma until I was well into the piece — I spent the last half introducing the potted plants around the stage (“All the way from Asia, give it up for FICUS!!”). The audience sat and stared. Lesson learned.

A:

One of the cool things about traditional music it that the songs exist in innumerable variants and one can pick and choose which versions of verses to use. I believe that I assembled this version from pieces that are not guilty of character assassination. (Even though some of those verses are pretty good: “Mr. Casey said just before he died/’There’s one more drink I wish I’d tried.’/The fireman asked him ‘What can they be?’/ A glass of water and a cup of tea.”) The music is my attempt to emulate my friends Todd and Malcolm McKinney’s version, but I fall short.

A:

it was written by a Canadian friend named David Wiffen. When I was making that first album for Columbia (“Tom Rush,” a/k/a “the purple album”) Trevor Veitch, my lead guitar player, also a Canadian, pitched the song to me and I didn’t want to do it — something I can’t recall now about some of the lyrics being awkward. He persisted, we cut it with David Bromberg adding the hook part on Dobro and it became one of my all-time favorites. I don’t often do it in my solo shows because I feel it needs to be bigger than I can make it with just one acoustic guitar, but whenever I have even one more player on stage with me I’ll take it out for a spin. Thank you Trevor!

A:

The core band was live in the studio with me, but Emmy, Nanci and Bonnie overdubbed their contributions in that same studio while we all stood around in awe. Other parts, however, were recorded in White Plains, NY and Studio City, CA. The players I worked with in Nashville were absolutely fabulous – it was like getting a magic carpet ride!

A:

Yup, he does.

A:

Rumor has it that Roosevelt Gook was Bob Dylan, and I perhaps have not done enough to dispel that. It was, in fact, Al Kooper, who was also on the sessions as himself. Union rules were the reason for the pseudonym.
Players got paid for a 3-hour session, or any part thereof. BUT, if you played more than one instrument on the session you were supposed to get paid twice. Since this would have been a budget-breaker on many projects, and since most session players were glad of the work, they would use a second name for the second instrument. All players were supposed to be in the union, but as I recall you were allowed one session as a freebie, which is why Roosevelt has never appeared on any more recordings.
Also, “Daddy Bones” on that album was the late John Herald, for the same reasons.

A:

As far as I know nobody has ever transcribed the lyrics to my version of Panama Limited – maybe you could be the first! Booker T. White (“call me Bukka””) was a Memphis bluesman who is now buried there in an unmarked grave in the Potter’s Field section of the municipal graveyard there. He had a few train songs, and my “Panama Limited” is a commingling of his version along with some stuff from “Special Streamline.” (I have been busted by a train buff who pointed out that the Panama Limited actually ran to Panama City, Florida, hence the name, not New Orleans – that would have been the Special Streamline.) In those days the train steam-whistle was like a giant one-note harmonica, and the engineer could “bend” that note by letting more or less steam pressure through the valve, and play with cadence. Most long-run engineers had a signature whistle blast, so you really could “tell by the way that the whistle moan, the man at the throttle was Casey Jones,” for instance.

A:

Buskin & Batteau are currently playing a very active schedule of shows. More can be found on their website athttp://www.buskinandbatteau.com/

A:

Trevor is indeed still playing, although he mainly works as a producer these days. He’s living with his wife and son in CA, and I see him almost every time I go through the area, and we e-mail each other jokes on a regular basis.

A:

“All a Man Can Do” is on my studio album What I Know. I think that’s the tune you mean, featuring the line, “Take your chances, take your shot / fifty-fifty’s all you got.

A:

I don’t have any tabs for ‘Starlight,’ but I think it was part of a song book keyed to the Wrong End of the Rainbowalbum. You might find it on eBay.

A:

There is sometimes a faint rainbow circle around the moon, and the mariners of old used to say this was a predictor of bad weather. They were right. The phenomenon is caused by ice crystals in the troposphere (you can calculate the altitude by the diameter of the circle) and represents the leading edge of a low pressure system. When I was writing the song there was a verse about the weather on the day I was born. That verse was dropped, but the rainbow circle survived.

A:

I learned the song from Eric von Schmidt (who wrote Joshua Gone Barbados), who learned it from a Library of Congress recording of a man with the great name of the Reverend “Sin Killer” Griffin. He was recorded on Easter Sunday of 1942 at the Darlington State Penitentiary in Texas. If anyone was entitled to a copyright it would be Sin Killer, though I expect it would be in the Public Domain by now. What I copyrighted in my name and Eric’s was the arrangement. This is simply a device that gets “mechanical” royalties paid to the artist when they are recording PD material.

A:

Could be Murray McLauchlan’s “Old Man’s Song,” “Desperados Waiting for a Train” by Guy Clark, or if you’ve heard it recently or seen it on YouTube, you may be referring to “The Remember Song,” by Steve Walters. There are probably others. There are a lot of old guys out there.

A:

“The Remember Song”, is about a guy who can’t. Steve Walters wrote it. I recorded it on my album Trolling for Owls, and a concert version is on the Judy Collins Wildflower Festival CD (not the DVD). And it’s had almost 5 million hits on YouTube.

A:

Bruce Langhorne

A:

in 1974, Carly Simon provided backup vocals on the album Ladies Love Outlaws and co-sang on “No Regrets” and as backup on “Claim On Me”.

A:

Ed Holstein wrote the song. GOOGLE® him for more information.

A:

In that shot I’m standing in New Jersey, the river is the mighty Hudson, and the city on the far side is New York, New York. I like the shot, though, because you can’t really tell it’s New York – none of the signature skyline is visible – it’s kind of a generic train yard, generic river, generic city.

A:

There are rumors that that woman was Linda Eastman (who later married Paul McCartney), but Linda was the photographer on that shoot. The woman in the picture was my then-girlfriend, Jill Lumpkin.

A:

The Coyote Song is properly called ‘A Cowboy’s Paean on a Coyote.’ It’s been recorded on Trolling for Owls, a live performance CD which is available at shows and online.

A:

That probably would have been Irwin Fisch – I don’t think Buskin played keyboard on that one.

A:

Most likely it’s ‘Mole’s Moan,’ by Geoff Muldaur. Jefferson Kaye used it, I think, on his WBZ show. It’s on the Fantasy CD Blues, Songs and Ballads, available on this website.

A:

I’m happy to tell you that your mind is not lost, just wandering a bit. I think the footage you’re referring to was on a PBS special from Symphony Hall in Boston in, I believe, 1982. I don’t recall ever having done anything for MTV, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t”

A:

No, it’s semi-legit. With the psychedelic craze sweeping the nation, Prestige decided to re-package “Got A Mind To Ramble,” neglecting to consult me and forgetting that contractually I had approval of all artwork. I made them take it off the market (though I imagine they sold off whatever stock they had) and go back to the original art. So it’s “highly collectable.”

A:

“Making the Best of a Bad Situation” was written by Dick Feller. It was recorded by Ray Stevens. Tom includes it in his show once in a while and has recorded it on his Trolling for Owls CD, available at shows and online.

A:

There are so many categories, that labeling has become a pointless exercise. For example: On the Ladies Love Outlaws album I made the strategic mistake of putting both a saxophone and a pedal steel on the same song (can’t recall which one – maybe the title track). It got no airplay because pop radio wouldn’t play anything with a pedal steel (“too country”) and country radio wouldn’t play anything with a sax (“too pop”). I don’t know if the same mindset still obtains, but the point is that there seems to be a very subjective, personal and ever-changing list of qualifying and disqualifying features for the genre. I suspect that if George Jones did a rap number backed by a polka band (a scary thought) it would be deemed “Country” because anything by George has to be Country. On the other hand if Elton John put on a big hat and laid on the fiddles, banjos, mandolins and had the Sons of the Pioneers doing background vocals, it still wouldn’t be considered Country.

A:

That would be Trevor Veitch, whose name was always being misspelled in the papers. ‘Pebble Beach” was one of the more egregious errors and I decided to perpetuate it. He now has a fixed address.

A:

The BS&B CD is actually a compilation of my first (“Got A Mind To Ramble”) and second (“Blues, Songs & Ballads”) LPs for Prestige.

The first was cut at Steve Fasset’s studio on Beacon Hill in Boston. Fritz Richmond on washtub, no other accompaniment. The music room was Steve’s living room and the “control room” was the kitchen downstairs. One mic in the middle of the room — if you wanted more washtub you moved Fritz closer to the mic. No EQ — if you wanted a brighter sound, Steve would come upstairs and roll the rug back a bit. The one wire from the mic ran down the stairs and was plugged directly into the single input of the Ampex 601 monaural recorder. I had one knob: “Volume.” Steve sat there with headphones and watched the single VU meter intensely. I “wrote” Julie’s Blues” for that one, though it’s actually just a mashup of a bunch of previously-existing blues verses (but then so were most of the blues songs out there).

The “Blues, Songs & Ballads” LP was cut somewhere in New York, again with Fritz on the tub. Paul Rothchild had brought me to Prestige, but then he’d been wooed away to Elektra. I wanted to follow him, but had a multi-album deal with Prestige. Bluffing, I told Bob Weinstock, the boss, that I wanted out and I had a Harvard diploma and would simply quit show biz if he didn’t release me. He insisted on one more album, I said OK, as long as Rothschild produced it. Well, he hated Paul for having walked out on him, but he said OK, confident that Jac Holzman at Elektra would never allow it.

I then went to Holzman and said if he wanted me at his label this was how it had to go down. Apparently he did, because he gave Paul permission. We then went in the studio and cut Blues, Songs and Ballads, turned around and went back in a better studio the next week and made my first, eponymous album for Elektra with a crack crew of sidemen (John Sebastian, Bill Lee, Felix Pappalardi, John Herald under the name “Daddy Bones,” and Fritz.)

Having written this up for you, I then went on line to see if I had the sidemen right, and found this: http://www.richieunterberger.com/rush.html It’s a sad day when a musician has to look himself up on the net to see if things were as he remembers them!

A:

The landscape is vastly different now than it was in the ‘60s when I started out down this path. The conventional record companies are largely irrelevant now, except to the chosen few willing to sell their futures for a shot at the Big Time, which is much less Big than it used to be and is getting smaller by the year. But the internet has made it possible for just about anybody to get their wares out in front of an audience, so it’s all good.

Of course, your music is a part of you, and you are different from me or anyone else, so it’s hard to give specific advice. Of course you have to work hard to be the best you can, make the best music you can and as much of it as you can. That’s where it starts.

My generic advice would be to:

1. Play in front of a live audience as much as possible — you will learn more in 30 minutes of live performance than you will in a month of rehearsing in the garage. The great thing about this art-form is that the feedback is instantaneous. And . . .
2. Do your best to form a personal bond with your audience. Try to engage them from the stage (tell them stories, make them laugh, make them care about you), talk to them after the show, build an email list and send them updates on things coming up. Answer their emails. If you can build a core audience of 1000 loyal fans willing to spend $100 a year on you, you can make a living.