EdLittlefield,Jr. MyWesternHome Ed Littlefield, Jr.'s self-proclaimed objective is to reach the kind of transcendence in his music that brings him to tears. He sings cowboy songs, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, mandolin, fiddle, mandocello, pedal steel guitar, dobro, piano, bass, and backing vocals. My Western Home is his second solo album and features cowboy classics both traditional (“Get Along, Little Doggies” and “Red River Valley”) and modern (“Darcy Farrow” and “Four Strong Winds”).! ! ! ! ! ! “The way I play the songs, the way I arrange them, is how I imagine cowboys would have, just sitting around the camp fire playing for fun, with no thought to whether they would get airplay.” ! As evidence, listen to his version of “Spanish Is A Loving Tongue,” running 15 minutes. The acoustic lead guitar was re- corded in one long first take without edits. " You gotta figure there's more going on here than a rehash of out takes from some old Sons of The Pioneers chestnuts volume pedals immediately. The intona- extracted from a Roy Rogers matinee tion, I could hear it right away.” shoot-em-up. In a voice that's weathered, ! Born into a family which became one wistful and a little weary, he brings to of the largest holders of ranch land in the traditional cowboy songs a new vibrancy west, Ed and his brother fell in love with like rain drops dancing in desert dust. the land and ultimately chose to live in ! Grateful Dead drummer Mickey the country. That family business, the Hart says Ed's music “ just glistens. It ra- Utah Construction Company, was respon- diates the true spirit of back porch sible for building half the tunnels and American music … I can't stop listening … railroad trestles west of the Mississippi. ! Is this some kind of sonic voodoo?” ! By the time he was eight, Ed had " It may just be. Ed's pedal steel play- memorized most of the songs on his dad's ing conjures the psychedelic spirit of collection of Burl Ives 78s. The Saturday Jerry Garcia as readily as it does the night square dances he attended in his Western Swing stylings of Buddy Em- youth at Eaton's Ranch in Wyoming were mons, aspects of a musical voice that's indelible experiences and more than a greater than the sum of its parts and half century later he can still vividly re- uniquely his own. call the cast of characters who populated ! “The first time I touched those four them: Pat, the pipe-smoking caller; the chord pedals on a pedal steel guitar I went little old lady in a floral print dress who right to heaven,” he says. “I was born to played piano; a guitarist, a fiddle player, do it. No doubt about it. I understood the an accordionist. “They did a whole bunch ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! C o n t a c t : L a n c e C o w a n • ! L C M e d i a • ( 6 1 5 ) 3 3 1 - 1 7 1 0 • l c m e d i a @ c o m c a s t . n e t ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! " " " " " " " " ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! " " " " " " " " ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! " " " " " " " " ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! " " " " " " " " ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! " " " " " " " " ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! " " " " " " " " of tunes that in those days were still whose work with Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis common knowledge traditionally. If you Presley, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, spoke English in America you would and countless others, is the stuff of music probably know these songs. Some of these history. He produced Ghost Town for the fiddle tunes you hear on the Warner band, as well as its upcoming release, Brothers cartoons. That's why music di- which features Emmylou Harris, John rector Carl Stalling chose the tunes he did Prine, Old Crow Medicine Show, and - they were part of our culture.”!! ! Marty Stuart. Clement has declared on ! In the mid-1970s, Ed played for five stage more than once that Ed is his favor- years with Lance Romance, a six-piece, ite pedal steel guitar player and you can country-western band that traveled to a be certain he's heard plenty." " " new bar every week all over the Pacific " Ed's early love of the land eventually Northwest. “Later, we got down to four led him to build his own farm in north- nights a week, playing three, one-hour ern Washington, starting from unim- sets with half-hour breaks for 'attitude proved wilderness, plowing the virgin adjustment.' We played up-tempo, truck ground with horses, logging, blacksmith- driving hillbilly barroom music for ing, and building his Western home with working-class folks - loggers and cowboys his own hands and a little help from his - in bars, saloons, roadhouses, and honky- friends. Amidst the woods, fields, and tonks. In the Northwest, cowboys and log- streams, he also designed and built a gers are pretty much the same guys with state-of-the-art recording studio, where different hats and boots - one ropes cows, he's produced an array of recordings the other logs. Both are known to drink, with exceptional sonic clarity. use quaint language, and chew snoose. ! “There's a whole bunch of stuff in And all of them like working outdoors.” the popular culture that doesn't speak to " In 1986, Ed became a member of many of us,” says Ed. “I do know what I'm Marley's Ghost, a beyond-eclectic roots looking for in my music, and what I seek band possessed of multi-instrumental is transcendence where the music ac- chops, multi-part harmonies, and a music quires a special kind of magic that with vocabulary that runs deep and wide. Still any luck reduces people to tears in a good vital and playing 25 years later, the band way. This transcendence is timeless; the has a more-than-respectable amount of recording does not grow old. You listen to mud on its boots. Its recent albums have it a hundred years from now, and if the been produced by the likes of Nick For- music was played with passion, it still ster, Van Dyke Parks, and Nashville leg" jumps out at you and seriously moves end Cowboy Jack Clement, the latter of " your soul.” " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " C o n t a c t : L a n c e C o w a n • ! L C M e d i a • ( 6 1 5 ) 3 3 1 - 1 7 1 0 • l c m e d i a @ c o m c a s t . n e t.