Both Sides of the Riverbank
I sat on the bank of the Rio Grande River Thursday cleaning up and editing a new song, King of Duval County. On my left was my battered Gibson L-00 guitar, which is older than me. On my right was my bird dog, Finn, and a Spanish double 28 gauge bird gun. Around my neck hung my binoculars for birdwatching.
I had spent the last two days following a brace of English setter bird dogs that were searching for bobwhite quail. I had also spent the warm afternoons with Susan along the border river looking for exotic songbirds. Also on my mind was a studio date to record the song.
Three years earlier I had written Comanche Moon as we drove across the panhandle region of Texas and Oklahoma. The next year I was one thousand miles to the south when Texas inspiration hit me again. I was in the Sandsheet area of South Texas following bird dogs on a colorful character’s ranch and as usual places and people provided inspiration for the next song. King of Duval County was born from behind the gates of Rene’s compound. The conflicts and tug of war that Rene’ faces daily with La Migra and the people traveling through the underbrush, are the same in some respect that I have when writing a new song and constructing an album.
I have an extreme loyalty to the delta region and the people that I grew up with. I can and love to write a blues song or perform a song written by a long departed icon of the silty loam where I come from. That music flows through me in tandem with a singer/songwriter folk song, or a kick you in the ass rock-n-roller. Being genre unspecific has opened as many doors as it has closed. It also keeps the deadly sin of conformity away from my ranch gate. As Rene’ says in the song “Coyote just a howling, La Migra cutting the locks, Rene’ stares at the fire pit just wishing they both would knock”.
As we get to the final pages of this new album and look at the songs, they come from the same riverbanks where my writing has always led me. A ballad about a Denver/Pine Bluff BBQ Icon, a five and dime family, a character on a delta dirt road late on a summer afternoon, and a pure blues song inspired by a gig in Clarksdale, MS and the great Skip James….made so much better by a living blues Icon showing his Sherrill, Arkansas roots.
Come along on the new journey to the riverbank and enjoy the twist and turns of an untamed and unapologetic path.
Billy Jeter