“Dear distributor,” began my poorly written solicitation for Friends. I have no memory as to whether we actually sent it to our distributors, but if we did, I’m not too sure it would’ve had much of an affect; the argument isn’t particularly persuasive.

We were pretty naive at Oblivion and thought our passion for the music we released would win the day. It’s certainly better than having no enthusiasm at all, but fire alone doesn’t really move the units.

…..

May 1973 

Dear distributor,

We at Oblivion Records are pleased to announce a new release and debut album by a new group from New York — FRIENDS. These four young musicians (Marc Cohen on electric saxophone, Clint Houston on bass, Jeff Williams on drums and John Abercrombie on guitars) have brought impressive critical acclaim to themselves while working with jazz groups like those of Chico Hamilton, Charles Tolliver, Herbie Mann, David Liebman, Gato Barbieri, Stan Getz and Roy Ayers with the list going on and on (also including rock groups like Dreams). These are sidemen who, while going all but unrecognized, give the power and vitality that help make the bands that they play in gain such awesome reputations. But, from these more or less traditional settings, Friends has been able to synthesize a new music that is just beginning to make itself known around. What they play is not unlike John McLaughlin’s Mahavishu Orchestra or Jimi Hendrix or Miles Davis or even Frank Zappa, but these types of comparisons are really unfair. With their own compositions and the incorporation of Marc Cohen’s electric alto saxophone (a sound that makes you realize no one has really begun to explore the possibilities of an electric horn before) — this group has a sound that is like no other’s.

Oblivion would like you to carry the Friends LP (od3) and we are ready to ship to you immediately. Our suggestions for retail price is $4.98 and the cost to you is $2.10 per record. Friends probably will most interest your accounts that sell progressive rock, jazz and the new electric jazz, and we will send you as many promotional records and fact-sheet/flyers as you need; just write and specify how many. Enjoy the record and we hope we’ll be working with you soon to help make a success of Friends in your area.

In Oblivion, Fred Seibert

Mississippi Fred McDowell: Live at the Gaslight
Recorded: November 5th, 1971, New York City
By Pete Simonelli  July 29, 2009

“Greeted by an eager and excitable crowd, McDowell takes that energy and works off it…”

After more than 40 years being involved in producing stuff for distribution out in the world, it still seems impossible to when I get direct evidence of actual people paying attention. It’s a little easier in this day and age of email, twitter and tumblr comments on my contemporary projects, but when it’s an album from decades ago it still blows my mind (to use a 40 year old phrase). 

That’s how I felt when I bumped into writer/bandleader Pete Simonelli’s 2009 review of our Oblivion album Mississippi Fred McDowell: Live in New York (on photographer Ted Barron’s blog Boogie Woogie Flu). In an email exchange I had with Pete the other day he said “It’s a seminal piece of work from a seminal performer and artist. I relish it.” That would have meant the world to Mr. McDowell and the album’s bassist and co-producer (and my partner) Tom Pomposello. It was why Tom worked so hard his entire life to make sure the album stayed available, and I’ve tried to fulfill his wishes.

As I told Pete, I guess that’s what so powerful about the whole recording medium; it allows an isolated man like Fred McDowell to find his way around the world to people forever.

Please check out Pete’s writing about the recording. He captures the mood of the night perfectly, though he was probably was an infant at the time. Thanks Pete, we all appreciate it.

“Several years, and many miles, after his discovery by the great (and sometimes controversial) Blues musicologist, Alan Lomax, Mississippi Fred McDowell’s two sets this night in New York City proved to be the culmination of a long and rich career.

“Greeted by an eager and excitable crowd, McDowell takes that energy and works off it throughout the entire recording. People gleefully heckle and cheer him on, entirely in love with him. It goes on like this throughout the show, McDowell being a consummate showman and kindly host, peppering his tuning breaks with explanations of how the Blues, “and Spirituals, too”, are conveyed to him and thus onto his listeners.”

(Read Pete Simonelli’s entire post here.)

Photograph of Fred McDowell by Lee Friedlander, Senatobia, Mississippi, 1960.

The piano @ WKCR’s Studio 3 at Columbia University saw more stars than there were in heaven during the musical upheavals of the 1970s.

In my post the other day about recording pianist Lee Roy Little on Blues from the Apple I needed to jog my recollection about exactly how we recorded our Sohmer upright some 40 years ago. So I leaned on the equally foggy memories of some of my WKCR buddies. It opened up a round robin of conversation more about the studio and some of our estimable piano guests. Though not strictly about Oblivion, it was an inspiration for me to recall how we all participated in sharing our passions with New Yorkers during a furiously creative time in world music. So, with my friends’ kind permission, I wanted to let you in on some of our virtual confab.

My original email: Does anyone remember how we used to record that upright piano at WKCR? Where we put the microphones? I seem to have a hazy flash of pulling the front off and exposing the strings, but I don’t think that was it.

Roy Langbord: I think we took the top off and put the mike over and sometimes inside the box holding the strings.  But then, like all of us my memory is kind of short these days.

Alan Goodman: Hi — I am this very moment holding a tape box titled “Nation Time” recorded in Studio 3 of WKCR on April 26, 1974. Featuring Richard “Pappalardi” Scheinin on tenor sax, Joseph “Katumba” Walker on alto sax, James “The Master” Carroll on piano, and Alan “Humble” Goodman on trumpet. Which is frankly the only proof I have, given my memory, that there WAS a piano at WKCR.

Jim Carroll: Yes, there definitely was a piano (an upright) at WKCR, although it might have been one we borrowed from time to time from elsewhere in Ferris Booth Hall.  Fred Kameny—a vastly better pianist—and I used it to record what were, at the time, unrecorded short pieces (by Leo Ornstein, Charles Tomlinson Griffes, and possibly Carl Ruggles and Conlon Nancarrow) to use in composer festivals.

I do recall that at one point we recorded a solo performance by Abdullah Ibrahim—then still known as Dollar Brand—and I’m fairly certain the piano was used for some other live and pre-recorded sessions.  I believe Fred’s recollection is correct—we used to remove the front panel (and maybe the lid) and position the mics in front of the soundboard (which would have been a problem with pianists who shared the vocal propensities of Glenn Gould and Keith Jarrett). Still scratching in the dust of my memory for other names—Dave Burrell?

I’m afraid I can’t shed any light on the tape Alan has unearthed, though I suspect the contents are probably best characterized as a youthful indiscretion.

David Reitman: My memory is hazy, too, but I think Roy is about right. I also remember miking the piano in stereo, top removed, over the strings. I also remember trying one mike inside, above the strings, and one mike behind the sounding board. But I’m really straining to remember and may be combining other recording sessions I was involved in.

I remember Dollar Brand, but we recorded other pianists, Hubert Eaves and Steve Robbins come immediately to mind. Plus there was Lee Roy “Bluebird” Little on Seibert’s ”Blues from the Apple” LP recorded at WKCR. Yes, Dave Burrell.

One night when no one was around, Mark Seiden sat down at that upright piano and played the first movement of the Schumann Piano Concerto from memory. Sure, he made mistakes, but I was amazed. I had no idea Mark was that good a pianist. Mark also engineered some sessions with that piano.

That piano was fixture, not a loaner.

Nick Moy: And also Stanley Cowell, maybe with Charles Tolliver and Music Inc.?

Rich Scheinin:  I don’t remember the all-star “Nation Time” session, but I remember the upright piano, which was always in Studio A by the time I got to the station. At least that’s my recollection. I remember that Joe [Walker] (who must have learned from Fred) used to flip open its top (can’t remember the part about the front) and kind of hang the mikes over or into the piano.

Loads of pianists recorded on it: I can remember Frank Foster sitting in the Studio A control room during a Hilton Ruiz session, and another with — I think it was Jim McNeely, who was part of the early band(s) with Angela Bofill (it’s true) and I think Andy Gonzalez and others, who’d come down to the station from the Bronx… and Les Walker played it multiple times, usually with Arthur Blythe… and Sun Ra recorded on it, solo.

And we took it downstairs in Ferris Booth and Ellington played on it when he got his doctorate, circa ‘74… and, wow, so many others, though a lot of the sessions in those days were piano-less, because a lot of the horn players weren’t using pianos. I think Onaje Gumbs played it when “Khalil’s Pyramid” (remember that?) was in the basement; the piano would be moved down? And I think the Tolliver session had Lonnie Liston Smith on it; Fred engineered that before I got to the station, but I can kind of remember the names on the box.  

And I thought of a couple of others; it got into my head, the whole piano thing. I remember Anthony Davis there in a quartet with Oliver Lake. Can’t remember the rest of the band. And then do you remember the John Foster session? He was Mingus’s pianist, great guy, kind of roll-polly. It was an excellent solo session; I believe Joe recorded it. And John died not long after. He went on some kind of crazy crash diet to drop a lot of weight, fast, had a heart attack and died.

I used to sit on the piano bench in Studio A with my alto saxophone, practicing the circles of fifths exercises that Marc Cohen (now Copland), my saxophone teacher for a while, would give me. Marc of Friends fame. And one night, middle of the night, Joe and I sat on that bench in Studio A, playing along with “Neffertiti” on the speakers. We were totally out of tune, and frustrated by that, so we turned off the record and tried scales. Still completely out of tune. I think I quit playing almost immediately after that. 

Fred Seibert: My own swiss cheese memory knows that we also recorded these pianists:  Gunter Hampel, Ray McKinley (with Joe Lee Wilson), and Jan Hammer (on Fender Rhodes). And many, many more. 

Polaroid Big Shot portrait of Lee Roy LIttle with the WKCR Sohmer upright piano. Studio 3, Ferris Booth Hall, Columbia University, 115th Street & Broadway, New York City, 1974.

Recording Charles Walker & the New York City Blues Band. Part 4 (of 4).

I left this track, “Fast, Fast Women and A Slow Race Horse,” for last. For sure, I always got a kick out of the lyrics* (it truly might have been Charles’ story), but the torturous editing process is what I’ve remembered most. And honestly, as I played in back in headphones the other day, my ear didn’t the seemingly hundreds Tom and I made in the original.

This one was tricky for a number of reasons. First and foremost I think is that while Charles had all the requisite narcissism to lead a band (and con us into making an album) he wasn’t a particular strong musical leader. So generally, it was always the rhythm sections that kept the band together.

But, on this session the rhythm had an interesting sub. Instead of the drums being wo-manned by the rock solid traps of Ola Dixon, snare drummer extraordinaire Bobby King** (Larry Johnson’s acoustic accompanist) was sitting in. Bobby produced an awesome sound with one, small drum, but alone he was no match for Charles and Lee Roy and the pushing of the tempos up and down. The result was we must have printed 15 takes of this song during the session.

Now, add in my producing partner Tom Pomposello and his desire for the perfect track. He couldn’t let this one go. We did the editing for this album all during the days and nights in his one bedroom apartment in Commack, New York, with his five year old son Travis and wife Christine trying to live their lives and get a little sleep. That didn’t deter Tom from insisting that we take four bars from this take, one bar from that one. Every verse was a pastiche and amalgam of magnetic tape, carefully cut and spliced into the final take. And remember, all of these takes were mixed live, directly to two track tape, not only with variations in speed, but with subtle distinctions of mix too!

Oh! And isn’t there a spoken intro somewhere around here we can use? 

Ah, youth. We had a great time recording Blues from the Apple, all trials tribulations aside. While it wasn’t fast women or a slow race horse that made us lose all our cash, blues and jazz recording made our lives pretty damn good at the time.

(Click here for all four parts of this post.)

…..

* Tom said the song was Charles’ adaption of one by one Sonny Moore (not the one from Skrillex), but my Google research turns nothing up on Sonny or his fast women. 

Fast, Fast Women and A Slow Race Horse 
by Charles Walker and Sonny Moore 

Take a little while ago I was doing all right 
Workin’ hard, savin’ my money 
Getting my rest at night. 
Let me tell what (now) happened Jack:
Fast woman took me to the race horse track 
Bet my money like it wasn’t no good 
Finally broke me like they said she would.

Fast, fast women and a slow race horse 
Got me in the shape I’m in Lord, Lord 
Ain’t got a dime about to lose my mind 
Don’t even have no friends 
Let me tell you the natural facts: 
Women and horses made me blow all my cash! 

Ridin’ around in my big Cadillac 
Finance man come and take it back 
Takin’ those chicks out to wine and dine 
Didn’t make my pay note on due time<
Let me tell you a natural fact: 
Women and horses made me blow all my cash!

Fast, fast women and a slow race horse 
Got me in the shape I’m in Lord, Lord 
Ain’t got a dime about to lose my mind 
Don’t even have no friends 
Let me tell you the natural facts: 
Women and horses made me blow my Cadillac! 

©1974, By Full Co, BMI

** From the Blues from the Apple liner notes: 
Originally from New Orleans, Bobby [King] has spent a good deal of time on the road always looking for a gig. He has previously recorded with Charles and nowadays is associated with Larry Johnson. The fact that he works with a single instrument is as much a statement of the financial plight of a musician who makes his living from playing blues as it is a tribute to a percussionist who can create as much sound with a rigged snare and brushes as many drummers do with full paraphernalia.

Recording Charles Walker & the New York City Blues Band. Part 3 (of 4). 

Recording Lee Roy (Bluebird) Little*, the pianist and second vocalist in Charles Walker’s blues band, had its own challenges, the least of which were technical. But, let’s start with those.

The WKCR “house piano” was an well kept upright Sohmer. It comfortably fit in our 20’x40’ studio, but recording it could tough. Forty years on, my brain is getting pretty hazy, so even though I placed the microphones on the sessions, I surveyed my WKCR colleagues Alan Goodman, Roy Langbord, Nick Moy, David Reitman, and Joe Walker as to how we recorded piano on our sessions in those day.

For the two solo tracks there were two mikes low on the soundboard, capturing the piano in stereo. On the group tracks, we’d slightly open the top of the instrument and record right in front of the strings. Of course, there’s be a condenser microphone with a windscreen for Lee Roy’s vocals.  

Lee Roy was a wonderful bluesman, who performed with incredible emotion. But, the bigger issue in his suppressing his career was Lee Roy’s personal habits, as he was known to be quite a tippler (Tom knew his brands; unfortunately, lost to our past). His singing was never less than eloquent, and you can hear a solid blues piano technique in everything he plays although the runs are a little jagged. 

The repertoire he had in his head was wide and varied, and he was a prolific composer. But, try as we could to get it all down on tape, each take would inevitably end in a breakdown. We kept the reels running though, and during 1973 and 1974 we got enough that one one true skill, music editing, came into play when we were able to stitch together “Bluebird’s Blues,” a studio constructed medley of some of Lee Roy’s favorites. 

“I’m A Good Man But A Poor Man” pretty much followed the pattern of the other group recordings, with the addition of Lee Roy’s vocal mike.

(Click here for Part 4 of 4. All four posts are here.)

…..

* From the 1974 Blues from the Apple liner notes:

One of the men who has played with Charles fairly regularly since 1959 is LEE ROY LITTLE, a 48 year old Virginia born and bred piano player and composer. Everybody knows him as “Bluebird” after his song of the same title. The name stuck when both Brownie McGhee and B.B. King picked up on the tune. Beside his records with Charles, Lee Roy has also recorded under his own name for the Cee Jay label. Together Charles and Lee Roy wrote and arranged much of the material on this album, with Charles providing the impetus for everything (including Bluebird’s solo numbers).

Black Cat Bone 
(L. R. Little; By Full Co., BMI)
Lee Roy Little. Piano and vocal
(L.R.Little; By Full Co., BMI) 
Recorded April 6, 1974

I’m A Good Man But A Poor Man 
(Cecil Gant/L.R.Little; By Full Co., BMI)
Lee Roy Little. Vocal & piano
Charles Walker. Guitar
Foxy Ann Yancey. Guitar
David Lee Reitman. Bass guitar
Ola Dixon. Drums
Recorded May 17, 1973

Bluebird’s Blues (Medley) 
a.Bluebird
b.Don’t You Ever Get Tired of Hurting Poor Me
c.Your Evil Thoughts
d.Hurry Baby, Please Come Home 
(L.R. Little; By Full Co., BMI)
Lee Roy Little. Vocals and piano
Recorded April 6, 1974

Recording Charles Walker & the New York City Blues Band. Part 2 (of 4).

Listening back, my favorite tracks on Blues from the Apple featured the electric harmonica of Bill Dicey, backed by a rhythm section section of one or two guitars, electric bass, and drums.

The small, powerful trap drums of Ola Dixon were in the far left corner with four mikes and a couple of thin baffles in front, the only acoustic instrument in the room, spread in stereo across the two tracks. The harp and guitar amplifiers were close miked with no ‘gobos’. The stereo sound is primarily leakage from the sounds in the room bleeding into the drum and guitar mikes.

 The whole track feels incredibly compressed. As I wrote in Part 1 of this post, our primitive radio studio had no compressors, limiters, equalizers, or echo chambers. The impression comes from the typical way Bill set up his electric harmonica. He held a cheap microphone and his harp in two hands, connected to an amp with plenty of reverb, and then would overblow. I put up my recording mike directly in front of his amp.

The final album mastering added a little equalization and echo, and then eased the stereo tracks together a bit so our hard left/right limitations wouldn’t be so jarring.

(Click here for Part 3 of 4. All four posts are here.)

…..

* From the 1974 Blues from the Apple liner notes:

[Bill] Dicey has been playing since 1950. He met Charles in the late sixties and has played with him in between gigs with Louisiana Red and john Hammond. He’s done local club dates with Johnny Winter and Muddy Waters and just about anybody else who comes to town in need of a strong harp man. He currently fronts his own group, and the fact that he is not a name familiar to many people really baffles all of us who know his musical abilities. Listen to his forceful solo lead work and beautiful phrasing on ‘Scratch My Back’ as just one example.

Scratch My Back  
(J.Moore [Slim Harpo]; Excellorec Music Co., BMI)
Bill Dicey. Harmonica
Charles Walker. Guitar
Ann Yancey. Guitar
Goody Hunt. Harmonica
Sonny Harden. Bass guitar
Ola Dixon. Drums
Recorded July 29, 1973

It’s Changin’ Time 
(A.Yancey and B.Dicey; By Full Co., BMI)
Arranged by Tom Pomposello
Bill Dicey. Harmonica
Ann Yancey. Guitar
Charles Walker. Guitar
David Lee Reitman. Bass guitar
Ola Dixon. Drums
Recorded May 17, 1973

Recording Charles Walker & the New York City Blues Band. Part 1 (of 4).

Uploading our catalog to SoundCloud over the past few weeks, and using their app to listen on my way to and from work it’s the first time in decades I’ve heard the recordings through headphones. I’ve no objectivity, of course, but the tracks sound pretty darned good. Most of the imperfections that seemed glaring to me at the time of the original editing and mastering to my ears seem to have mostly disappeared, and what’s left is the unprocessed (sometimes too raw) music. I was particularly surprised by a number of things on the Blues From The Apple recordings, and given that they were among our most complicated —the final tally had 11 musicians and seven separate sessions —out of countless more— makingx up the LP— I thought I’d lay out a number of the challenges we went through in getting all the funk down on tape in the first place.

All of the LP’s sessions were recorded in Studio 3 @ Columbia University’s WCKR-FM (there’d be no Oblivion without WCKR). The performance room was at most 20’x40’ and during the summer of 1972 had been rebuilt with a grant from the University utilizing our student labor and expertise, such as it was, in electronics. Though the studio was optimized as an alternative radio broadcast booth, former student David Reitman had been increasing the amount of live music radio shots at the station so we tried to push the limits of our budgets to take those into account. But, there were still plenty of limits.

We used brand new state of the art Scully recorders, but they were far the then industry standard of 16 tracks; they were 2-track stereo decks. The station team custom built the board with then modern sliders for our microphone inputs, but there were maybe six inputs (we had to use outboard Shure mixers to add more mikes), no equalization, no compression, no reverb or echo, and only left/center/right selectors for each mic to create a stereo “soundstage.” The station had a few older fantastic ribbon microphones, but we were able to rely on a large array of more contemporary condenser mikes a friend of ours had stolen from Ohio University the previous year. We were thrilled to have as much as we had, but, for music recording, it was almost like having a hand tied behind our backs. 

Without the most basic tools for modern band recording I tried to find out everything I could about how sound came out of acoustic instruments and guitar amplifiers, how the different kinds of microphones worked best, and how the electronics turned everything in to recorded impulses. Session after session we all experimented with the best ways to set up our room, baffle the musicians, and try and get a semblance of a decent recording. Occasionally, we got there.

(Click here for Part 2 of 4. All four posts are here.)

Left to right, from the top: Charles Walker, Bill Dicey, Ola Dixon, Fred Seibert, Foxy Ann Yancey, Charles & Bill, Goody Hunt, Sonny Harden, Honest Tom Pomposello. Photography by Roy Langbord.

A modest audio experiment using SoundCloud.

In our ever expanding effort in finding the easiest way to bring you our Oblivion catalog in the modern world, I thought I’d try a new experiment with the digital music community SoundCloud. 

For several years, we’ve made the entire catalog available for free in high quality digital downloads (directly from the original mastered, digitized in WAV or AIFF formats), though I have to say it can be a bit confusing to actually do the download, depending on which browser you prefer. And, for a variety of personal reasons many people would prefer using streaming services or buying downloads, so we made those available about a year ago. 

Now, to make listening in your browser easier, and to make downloading dead simple, you’ll find our first SoundCloud track available here (above), and on the album post itself.

Why do I like the SoundCloud option so much? First off, it’ll continue make our tracks accessible for free, that’s a given. And then, it’s easier to use in every way. Effortless to listen, elementary to download, simpler to share. I also love the way listeners can put a comment right in the track (like the two I’ve left; at 14 seconds in there’s a bit of McDowell philosophy that I love).

So, my experiment isn’t the biggest deal in the world, but please try it out and let me know what you think. If everyone likes it enough I’ll upload and embed the rest of our library. You liked it enough that I went ahead; now you can listen and/or download these Oblivion releases right here in our site, powered by SoundCloud.

As of May 20, 2012, available on this site through our SoundCloud page:

• The entire remastered reissue of the 2000 edition of Mississippi Fred McDowell: Live in New York (Oblivion OD-1), with bonus tracks.

• The 1972 original mastering of the 2nd edition of Mississippi Fred McDowell: Live in New York (Oblivion OD-1).

• The 1972 original recording of the 45rpm single Johnny Woods: Mississippi Harmonica (Oblivion O#2).

• The 1974 LP release, Blues from the Apple, by Charles Walker and the NYC Blues Band (Oblivion OD-4). 

• The 1975 LP release, Livin’ High Off Nickels & Dimes, by jazz vocalist extraordinaire Joe Lee Wilson (Oblivion OD-5).

For me, the top photo of Blues from the Apple guitarist Foxy Ann Yancey has been the quintessential image of this recording. So much so, it merited one of my first posts on this blog several years ago. Everything about it —the funky quality of the print, Ann’s evening dress in the middle of a Saturday afternoon recording session in a college studio, her cigarette, and mostly, the attitude I sensed on her face— not only seemed “blues” to me, but sparked my memories of being around the woman 40 years ago. As a suburban raised white kid, I was sightly intimidated and kept my distance, usually communicating with leader Charles Walker. 

And then, a few months ago the photographer, my great friend Roy Langbord, stumbled up some of the original negatives from the session (I posted the contact sheets here) and made a discovery. You can click through them and maybe notice the same thing. 

Foxy Ann smiled.

And it reminded me how fragile, and suggestible, our memories can be. And like all of us humans, the blues has a lot of simultaneous faces.

Posting about the photograph on Tom’s LP cover the other day got me to asking his son Travis more about the history of the custom made guitar pictured (he’s promised to get me some better shots, which I’ll post as they come in). Here’s what Travis had to say about the instrument:

“Hmmmm. Well it was made for him by Dobro* in ‘74, prior to the [Dopera] brothers** selling out to Gibson.

“It’s the first electrified Dobro every made. They implanted a Gibson Firebird pickup under the bridge. It was originally a sunburst finish*** that I used to Pledge before his gigs as part of my chores. He later had it redone in jet black after he and my mother split in ‘79. You know Tom. I’m sure there is over romanticized symbolism there.

“It was hand engraved by the eldest [Dopyera] brother.

“Mandolin Brothers is on Staten Island; that’s where Tom found a tech who know resonator guitars, mandolins, and banjos. At the time they were the only alternative to Sam Ash, and where a “folkie” mecca.  But most importantly, the tech took payment in vinyl (like my dentist).

“It currently resides in my home studio where it is pledged and played 2 times a year Jan 25th and July 17th****.”

…..

* Even though it looks black, the guitar has its original sunburst finish (like this) in this photo.

** On John Dopyera’s Wikipedia page it’s explained that the family name was simplified to ‘Dopera’ on newer instruments “as he reasoned that ” Dopera ” was easier for the public to understand and pronounce.”

*** In the original post I mistakenly identified the builders as Mandolin Brothers of Staten Island, whose shop, in fact, did Tom’s repairs on the guitar.

**** The anniversaries of Tom’s birth and death.