NOW AVAILABLE! Random Factors 1008 Available on CD Wholesale and Retail orders: Random Factors 3754 W 170th St Torrance, CA, USA 90504-1204 Album review from ConNotations Magazine! Much of my musical education came from sitting around with my family listening to each other sing and play. Mom was a pretty hot ragtime piano player, and Granddad was an old-time Ozark fiddler. My father just sings... and I have umpty-ump cousins who bash about on guitars, too. I also heard a lot of music in the Carolinas...bluegrass and old-time mountain music, played by the people who live the tradition. People like Bascom Lamar Lunsford, and "Doc" Watson, and an old black gentleman who shined shoes in Fayetteville. When I first read the series of short stories called "Who Fears The Devil," I read it in one sitting, completely entranced. Here was someone else who loved the mountains and their people, and who knew the stories and legends....who truly knew the people....and who crafted their magic into something that the whole world could share. I looked with wide eyes on an old copy of "The Long-Lost Friend" that I had sitting on my shelf....one of the books that the family had always had laying around the house. I still carry a copy of it in one of my banjo cases. I read the lyrics to the songs within the tales; the songs that Silver John would sing, and I heard the melodies....because I recognized the original songs that Mr. Wellmann had used as models. I sang them quietly to myself, there in the dark of my bedroom (I was quite young at the time), and swore that if I ever "made it" as a musician, I'd record them. This CD is the result of that vow. It took us several years to make it, just recording when we had the chance, piece by piece. I gave the book "Who Fears The Devil" (re-released as "Silver John The Balladeer" Baen Books, ISBN 0-671-65418-7) to the engineer, and he caught fire with the idea, too. This CD is dedicated to Elizabeth Scarborough, for her Phantom Banjo novels and stories, and to all the wandering Bards out there who are keeping the music alive....Jim Conner, "Big Jim" Griffith, Steve Goodman, Pete and Mike Seeger, Leslie Fish, Trooper, and many others, more than I have room to name. It's also dedicated to Manly Wade Wellmann, the author of the Silver John stories, who brought me an ideal, and who helped to show me that the old music -really was- worth much more than I thought it was. It's also dedicated to John Benson, who is the best sound engineer in the known MultiVerse, bar none, and a good friend. We could have made a very polished, very "entertainment" kind of thing, but I realized such a CD would not be true to the feel of the stories, nor to the music as I heard it in the hills. So, we recorded it with the intention of making a CD that would sound like it had been recorded on-the-spot, almost a "field recording" of Silver John playing music with a bunch of his friends after a days work. I think we succeeded. "I'll Fly Away / I Saw The Light" sounds exactly like the hymns I heard in the little mountain churches. I threw in some songs that are just traditional mountain things that Silver John would have known, including "Pretty Polly," (which is mentioned in one of the stories) and "Lonesome Water," which probably encapsulates the whole "feel" of Mr. Wellmann's stories the best of any song I know. ( Interestingly, the original lyrics of "Lonesome Water" and the version I sing are not quite the same. Go here for a side-by-side comparison. ) The CD version includes HTML versions of the Appalachian book of spells that figures prominently in the stories, "The Long Lost Friend," and, with the gracious permission of David Drake, one of the Silver John short stories. They can be read with any good web browser on your computer. We also tried to use as near to the actual instruments as possible. Thus, you will hear a handmade fretless banjo, a guitar (Martin New Yorker) that I outfitted with real silver strings, of the type most often found in the hills in the 1940's, and a Whyte Ladye #2 banjo, among others. Our fiddler on the CD is Austin Brooks, and extra voices were provided by Cher Bethancourt, Coleen Parker, Sharon Bradford and Laura Trimble. Welcome to the world of my childhood. Pull up here and set a spell on the porch, and give a listen. Might even be able to find a little "blockader," too, if we look hard enough. (You can have it if you want it. I don't touch the stuff.) And no, my dog don't bite........ Joe Bethancourt Phoenix, AZ Side One: Silver John 4:08 all lyrics by Manly Wade Wellman, from: "The Lost and the Lurking" and "After Dark" (click here to listen to the song in MP3 format) Becky Til Hoppard 2:05 verses 1,2 and 3 by Manly Wade Wellman, from: "Where Did She Wander?" Nine Yards Of Other Cloth 2:05 verses 1,2,5,and 6 by Manly Wade Wellman, verses 3 and 4 by Joe Bethancourt, from: "Nine Yards Of Other Cloth" (click here to listen to the song in MP3 format) Mole In The Ground (Trad.) 2:14 from the singing of Bascom Lamar Lunsford Oh Ugly Bird 2:02 verses 1-6 by Manly Wade Wellman, verse 7 by Joe Bethancourt, from: "O Ugly Bird" Pretty Polly (Trad.) 5:29 from the singing of my grandmother Little Black Train 2:03 melody: © copyright 1988 W.J. Bethancourt III, lyrics by Manly Wade Wellman from: "The Little Black Train" Interestingly enough, after we finished up the CD version I found that "Little Black Train" was in fact a real Gospel song that Mr. Wellman had revised for the story. This means that my tune for it is not the original, but I feel it fits that circumstances and descriptions in the storyline a little bit better. If you want to hear an MP3 of the original tune, click here. Side Two: Old Devlins 2:17 lyrics by Manly Wade Wellman from: "Old Devlins Was A-Waiting" Hark Mountain 4:19 lyrics by Manly Wade Wellman, from: "One Other" Vandy, Vandy 2:00 lyrics by Manly Wade Wellman, from: "Vandy, Vandy" Mr. Wellman may have had the tune for "Drowsy Sleeper" in mind here, but I found that "Oh No John" ftted better to the lyrics. Eva Dare's Song 1:19 lyrics by Manly Wade Wellman, from: various stories I'll Fly Away (Trad)/I Saw The Light (Hank Williams © copyright 1948 Fred Rose Music Inc.) 3:53 Lonesome Water (Roy Helton 1885 - 1960) (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1930) 5:31 Producer: Joe Bethancourt Engineer: John Benson Recorded at: Juniper Productions, Phoenix, AZ Remastered for CD at: Creative Noise Digital Audio, Scottsdale, AZ Engineer: Dennis Putscher Graphic Design: Cher Bethancourt Thanks to: Bill W. & David Drake © (p) 1994 White Tree Productions, PO Box 35190, Phoenix, AZ 85069 Joe Bethancourt: vocals, guitar(s), banjo(s), mandolin, harmonica, etc. Austin Brooks: fiddle Cher Bethancourt: vocals Coleen Parker: vocals Sharon Bradford: vocals Lora Trimble: vocals

A CUSTOMER WRITES:

"What a great CD. You really captured the essense of Silver John on it. I especially like your treatment of Little Black Train-it brought the whole story back to me."

"I first read Who Fears the Devil back in the mid 70's, then lost the book. But it had a great affect on me-I bought first a mountain dulcimer, then a mandolin, and gained a great appreciation for bluegrass and the Appalacian music. Mind you, I had the usual rock and roll upbringing, so this was quite a change for me. I forgot the title and author of the book, and have looked for it periodically over the years at used book stores and after the advent of the World Wide Web, on the internet. For some reason I thought Wellman's stories had been published in the Atlantic Monthly, so I contacted them with of course, no result. Then I googled "John silver guitar strings" (I really didn't remember either title or author) and your web site came up. Halleluiah! I went to amazon and repurchased Who Fears The Devil, and also John the Balladeer. It was a welcome reunion with an old friend. And your CD brings the music home to me!"

"Thanks so very much!"

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