Page 79 - ION Indie Magazine MayJune 2018 Issue

8. POOL MEADOW STRUT: An instrumental in a ragtime style named after not some rural paradise, but the
main bus station in Coventry.

9. DON’T DIE TILL YOU’RE DEAD: Apparently, 10. AIN’T NO JUSTICE: In the Deep South of the U.S.
when he finished a conversation with someone, in the 1950s and 60s, some of the black population

the great blues artist Mississippi John Hurt’s decided they had to do something about their

farewell was to say, “Don’t die till you’re dead.” situation; it couldn’t be allowed to go on. They did
What did he mean by that? Maybe something heroic deeds of great courage and many paid a heavy

like this. price. This might be something like how they felt.

11. REDISCOVERY BLUES: In the 1960s, recordings of the original pioneer blues artists appeared on various
compilations, and enthusiasts started to wonder what had happened to these people. What had happened
was that they’d given up music as there was no demand for theirs -- some going into the church, others doing
manual work. The enthusiast journeyed down south to find them, and if they were alive, they found them.
They were brought back to life as artists, did some nice gigs, festivals and tours, made some money for the
first time. This is how it might have felt to be one of those artists when some white kid showed up at their
door one day.

12. MESS IS EVERYWHERE: Sometimes, everything can just fall apart. You don’t have to do much of anything
for it to happen. The wheels just come off and you wind up in a ditch, wondering how you got there. No point
pretending there is no ditch.

13. JOHN THE CHINAMAN: When the transcontinental railway was built in the U.S. in the 1850s, the owner
of one of the two companies building it bet his counterpart 10,000 dollars that his workers could build 10
miles of track in one day. The workforce consisted of 3,000 Chinamen and 8 Irishmen in charge. The Chinese
workers all got called John the Chinaman, their names too hard to pronounce or decipher; no records of
them kept. At the end of the job, there was a celebration parade in Sacramento to honor…the 8 Irishmen.
This kind of thing of course goes on today, in different guises.

14. THE BIGGEST FOOL: Those things called “feelings” can lead you to all sorts of humiliations. Best to just
accept that.

15. HOOKER’S SONG: “Blues is a feeling” is a pretty common notion in the blues world. And it’s also a way

of looking at life. Many great blues artists -- like John Lee Hooker -- were astute observers. This song is maybe

the blues view of the world, but you don’t have to be into blues to see things this way.

Mark is joined on this album by long-time collaborators Charles Benfield (double bass, percussion) and Ed

Hopwood (harmonica), along with Paul Tkachenko (tuba, trumpet, trombone, mandolin), Ben Welburn
(drums, percussion), and Paddy Milner (piano). Spoken introductions are by Gail Porter.