Press Release
Source; Kari Estrin Mgt.
Chris Walz
All I Got and Gone, Chris Walz’s long-awaited debut recording, reflects Chris’s love of traditional music but he takes it in directions that listeners will find original, yet familiar. Chris Walz, a musician’s musician, a performer, and esteemed educator at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music for roughly the past three decades, brings his considerable talents to fruition in this new album. Influenced by legendary greats suchas Doc & Merle Watson and Tony Rice to Elizabeth Cotten, Etta Baker, Dave Van Ronk, and Woody Guthrie,
All I Got and Gone, pays homage to these and other of Chris’s most pivotal musical influences.Showcasing his instrumental prowess and deep respect he has for the songs chosen for this album, Chris breathes new life into these cherished songs. For instance, ” Alabama Bound” kicks o the record in a raucous finger picking style. Born out of the desire to take the original 1927 duet recording by Long “Cleave”Reed and Little Harvey Hull and create a solo guitar and vocal piece that is faithful to the original, and yet fresh and its approach. With bold guitar and vocals, it’s like a mule kick in the stable down.
Taking “Hard Times Come Again No More” into new realms, it becomes a flatpicking showpiece. Inspired by the solo guitarplaying and singing of Tony Rice on his album, Church Street Blues, this song draws from the well of tradition and gives a fresh taste. Chris also takes “Diamond Joe” in a unique interpretation of on an old songwith new lyrics discovered in Stephen Wade’s book, The Beautiful Music All around Us. A lovely, fingerpicked love song or a song of longing. And with “The Coo Coo” Chris takes an old-time clawhammer banjo piece andbrings it to the guitar with solid flatpicking and punchy vocals.
All the songs on All I Got and Gone are traditional public domain songs and tunes, with Chris’s original instrumental arrangements. Recorded and mastered by John Abbey at Kingsize Sound Labs – Chicago, the record is all single takes, giving it an intimate, immediate feeling. Chris’s passion in discovering the music he now plays came from listening to folk radio in upstate New York.
Radio being the window into a new musical landscape broadened the young Chris Walz’ desires, passions and indeed aptitudes, resulting in him becoming a respected and the multi-dimensional artist he is today. It was one particular night that ignited Chris to figure out how to play fingerstyle on the guitar, after hearing an entire show of Mississippi John Hurt music, the genesis of his style he plays on this album. Legends such asDave Van Ronk, Tony Rice, Doc Watson and Blind Willie McTell, to Stefan Grossman and John Renbourn, EttaBaker, Libba Cotten are some of the pivotal artists on which Chris developed his own style.
In Chris’s own words, “I wanted to make this record for a long time. The records that made their mark with me were, for the most part, one guitar and one voice. It always seemed the most direct way for me toconnect with the music, as though Etta Baker, Norman Blake, or Doc Watson was sitting across from me playing and singing. In a sense they were. Just inside the speaker. But years ago, when I started playing, I imagined them right there with me. I didn’t want to make a carbon copy of anyone’s version of any song, yet I hope the influences can be felt. Some of these songs I’ve been living with for years, others are more recent. But all of them are piecework, verses from various sources, some poetic license, plus my own arrangements. A long time ago I asked myself, “I wonder if I could do that?” I think we have our answer!
All I Got and Gone TRACK CARD:
Track 1 – ALABAMA BOUND – (3:55) Hard driving Blues infused roots fingerpicking. Solo guitar and vocal. I’ve heard various versions of Alabama bound for years. The one I recorded is inspired by a version done by two guitar players and singers named Long Cleve Reed and Little Harvey Hull. I tried to make this two guitar and vocal duet into a solo piece.
Track 2 – BLUE RIDGE MOUNTAIN BLUES – (3:01) High energy flatpicking in the style of Norman Blake or Doc Watson. Solo guitar and vocal. Written in 1924 by Cliff Hess, a pop songwriter who worked five years for Irving Berlin. I first heard this song by Doc Watson.
Track 3 – DELIA – (5:51) Soulful reflective fingerpicking in the classic folk-ballad style. Solo guitar and vocal. Folklore springing out of real events. Delia Green was shot by Moses Houston on Christmas Eve 1900 in Savannah, Georgia in a name-calling argument. They were both fourteen.
Track 4 – GOING ACROSS THE SEA – (3:19) A new take on an old fiddle tune. Sparkling solo flat pick guitar with elements of the crosspicking style thrown in for good measure. First recorded on the banjo by Uncle Dave Macon in 1924. I first heard it played on the mandolin by Bill Monroe in the documentary film “High Lonesome.” Here it is as a flatpicking solo.
Track 5 – BEEN ALL AROUND THIS WORLD – (4:25) Solid flatpicking and storytelling. A new reworking of an old classic. Solo guitar and vocal. This is one I pieced together from a bunch of different versions. The earliest recording is by Justus Begley in 1937 for the Library of Congress. That’s where I got the Memphis verse from.
Track 6 – HARD TIMES COME AGAIN NO MORE – (4:04) A fresh new reworking of this 19th century song. Sweet crosspicking guitar style. Solo guitar and vocal. Written by Stephen Foster in 1854. Foster was perhaps the first songwriter to earn a living from his work.
Track 7 – DIAMOND JOE – (3:49) A unique patchwork narrative of an old song. Soft and reflective finger picking and singing. Solo guitar and vocal. Recorded by Charlie Butler, an inmate at Parchman Farm in Mississippi in 1937. John Lomax went to Parchman and recorded Charlie Butler twice. John’s wife Ruby wrote down additional lyrics to an unrecorded “Diamond Joe.” These lyrics suggest longing, like a love song, not a field holler or a prison song.
Track 8 – ONE DIME BLUES – (4:15) Old school folk Blues finger picking. Solid thumb style playing. Solo guitar. When I was seventeen, I checked a folk record out of the public library. It introduced me to the fingerstyle guitar playing of Etta Baker. “One Dime Blues” was first recorded by Blind Lemon Jefferson in 1927. I don’t play it exactly like Etta or Blind Lemon.
Track 9 – THE COO COO – (3:04) Hard driving flat picking and singing. Up tempo guitar version of an old banjo song. Solo guitar and vocal. “The Coo Coo” is taken from Clarence Ashley’s 1929 recording, and Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “Jack O’ Diamond” from 1926.
Track 10 – SEE SEE RIDER – (4:17) Up tempo, jumping finger style ragtime and Blues picking and a righteous vocal. Solo guitar and vocal. Big Bill Broonzy remembers seeing the man for whom this song is named. Ma Rainey first recorded this song in 1924. I heard Big Bill first and went on from there.
Track 11 – SPANISH FANDANGO – (4:10) Sweet stately finger picking, echoing of an earlier time and place. Solo guitar. Written by Henry Worrall in 1860. Played the original way, it is a little parlor etude. There is a theory that this tune is one of the foundations of blues on the guitar. I first heard Norman Blake play this tune, and my arrangement owes a lot to him.
