Pattonville Credits

Jim Patton: vocals, acoustic guitar

Sherry Brokus harmonies, percussion

Alice Hasen violin

Scrappy Jud Newcomb Resonator, Classical acoustic guitar, mandolin, Stella guitar, 12 String acoustic guitar,

Ron Flynt bass, piano, harmonium, acoustic guitar, background vocals, accordion

recorded and produced by Ron Flynt at Jumping Dog Studio, Austin, TX

mastered by Jerry Tubb at Terra Nova Mastering, Levelland TX

manufacturing by Affordable Sound, Austin TX

cover design by Matt Eskey

photo credits: Carl Grossman (Scotland pic), Adrienne Pacheco (live at 5 Spot, Nashville)

Spiritual Adviser R.Gene Munger

The Rest of the Band: Fletcher Clark, Cordy Lavery, John Bush, Vinnie Ambrosone, BettySoo, Oren Oubre, Richard White, John Chipman, Chip Dolan, Luke Chohany, Eric Leifert, Tomy Wright, Christina Van Norman, Royce Van Norman, Hamp Brockman

Special Thanks: Ali Holder, Rob Evanoff, Bill Wence, Lauren Zartman, Art Menius, Lee Zimmerman, Jo Rae Dimenno, Peter Holmstedt, Brian and Pam Kalinec, NeWorlDeli, 49 West, the Purgatory Players, Rich Brotherton,Wyatt Easterling’s Song Travelers, Jeff Talmadge, Steve Brooks, Linda McRae, Mark Zepp, Jenni Finlay, Georgie Jessup

1. Wouldn’t Change a Thing 4:00 (Jim Patton)

2. We’re Not So Different 3:30 (Jim Patton – Albert Keith)

3. Hard Times 3:26 (Jim Patton – Lew Morris)

4. Goodbye Joe Williams 3:26 (Jim Patton)

5. My Friends Seemed Like Strangers To Me 2:27 (Jim Patton)

6. Mean Old Man 2:58 (Jim Patton)

7. I Didn’t Stay Down 3:02 (Jim Patton – Jerry Mayer – Frank Mirenzi)

8. Everyone Needs Someone (to Look Down On) 3:22 (Jim Patton – Frank Mirenzi)

9. On a Hilltop by Old County Road 3:03 (Jim Patton)

10. Happy Family 4:01 (Jim Patton-Kate Patton)

11. Deep in My Heart 3:44 (Jim Patton)

12. Ghosts in this Room Tonight 3:11 (Jim Patton)

All Songs © 2026

Jim Patton – Independent Alligator Publishing Co. (ASCAP)

Kate Patton (BMI)

© and (p) 2026 Jim Patton and Sherry Brokus

Berkalin Records, Houston TX BRK 10099 berkalinrecords.com/

All Rights Reserved

pattonandbrokus.com

pattonbrokus@gmail.com

512-970-5520

Wouldn’t Change A Thing

If I could have another time around the wheel

If I could live my life again

If I could be anyone who I wanted to be

I’d probably end up just the same

My life’s been good to me

Kind of strange

I always wanted it that way

The goals some people may have wanted me to reach

Just weren’t for me

I couldn’t play their game

I wouldn’t change a thing

Some folks just drifted into lives they never wanted

They don’t know why; somehow they ended up that way

They wake up in the morning, trapped by circumstances

Or some bad luck that found them on the way

They’re scared they’ll find out

There’s nothing worth believing

So they hold on tight

To anything that they can

Some get religion; some get rich

Some just stay high

Some want to start all over again

I wouldn’t change a thing

Every wrong step that I took

Every mistake that I made

Put me on the road that led me here

I had regrets and then I let them go

I don’t live life in the rear view mirror

Some days I look around and wonder how I got here

Sometimes I’m sure there must be more

Some nights I sit outside with friends I can depend on

While we wonder what the future has in store

My life’s been good to me

Kind of strange

I always wanted it that way

The goals some people may have wanted me to reach

Just weren’t for me

I couldn’t play their game

I wouldn’t change a thing

© Words and music by Jim Patton

We’re Not So Different

My Daddy was an engineer

A military man

He played shortstop in college

He could fix things with his hands

While I was never handy

I gave up college for a band

Failed my Army physical

He was not my biggest fan

We talked about the Orioles

Instead of Vietnam

He taught me by example

Though I did not see it then

We argued over Nixon

He hated my long hair

But that was just the smaller stuff

That happened everywhere

You know, we’re not so different

Though we thought we were for years

Sometimes our words brought anger

Driven by our fears

But he taught me how to stand up

For whatever I believed

You know, we’re not so different

That’s just how it seemed

Then we worked on my old car

In my Daddy’s drive

I needed help, he flipped a switch,

The engine came alive

I said: “Hey Dad, Why didn’t I

Inherit that from you?”

And he said: “I don’t know, son,

How come I can’t write a tune?”

He looked at me with different eyes

Once he saw me as a man

Then he saw a lot in me

He didn’t used to understand

I never joined the Army

He never wrote a song

But we are not so different

I should have known that all along

You know, we’re not so different

Though we thought we were for years

Sometimes our words were angry

Driven by our fears

But he taught me how to stand up

For whatever I believed

No, we’re not so different

That’s just how it seemed

You know, we’re not so different

That’s just how we were perceived

© words and music by Jim Patton and Albert Keith

Hard Times

Old man McCartney finally died

Went to his grave unsatisfied

Gravedigger wishes he was under that hill

When he comes home to his stack of unpaid bills

You remember Frank who lived on Jennings Road?

Bank foreclosed, he ain’t got no home

These are hard times

New mother sneaks out in the middle of the night

Leaves her baby crying by the riverside

Night clerk says: “This town’s a joke!”

Takes the money from the register and goes for broke

Sirens screaming in the early morning rain

Times like these drive a man insane

These are hard times

Stockbroker driving his coupe de ville

Money’s rolling in to Capitol Hill

Everybody’s asking: “Which way to the top?”

Somebody always wants what somebody else has got

Some guy’s dressed up in red, white, and blue

He’s lying to me and he’s lying to you too

These are hard times

© words and music by Jim Patton and Lew Morris

Goodbye Joe Williams

If he looked like a carnival barker

He came by it honestly

Cause he used to work the midways

From Texas to Tennessee

Then he moved down to the Gulf Coast

Made his home out on the beach

With a couple of rags and a lean-to

And whatever he could scrounge to eat

I did not know him way back when

He was strung out on heroin

Or when he went to jail

For petty theft and loitering

But my life was all the richer

Because he was my friend

Goodbye to you Joe Williams

I’ll see you round the bend

He joined the music business

Where con artists fit right in

And in that world of thieves and crooks

He became an honest man

He used to book a redneck bar

Where I played with my first band

And it was after a party at his house

We played the 8X10

And while he was our manager

He ran the Club Tic Toc

Where at night the sign flashed: “Girls Girls Girls”

Off Baltimore’s famous Block

My life was all the richer

Because he was my friend

Goodbye to you Joe Williams

I’ll see you round the bend

He came to a show in Baltimore

On a cold November night

Told us he was proud of us

We didn’t know

He was saying goodbye

I saw him down a thousand times

But he always got back up

I guess he hit rock bottom

I guess the world became too much

I’ll never know just what it was

That made him quit the fight

But sometimes he saw darkness

When surrounded by the light

Maybe it had been too long

Since a friend called out his name?

He believed in all of us

And we’ll never be the same

Our lives were all the richer

Because he was our friend

Goodbye to you Joe Williams

We’ll see you round the bend

We’ll see you round the bend

Goodbye to you my friend

Goodbye Joe Williams

© Words & music by Jim Patton

My Friends Seemed Like Strangers

Well I went to a party in Catonsville

My closest friends were there

Everybody talking and laughing

Good music everywhere

But I felt out of place and I wandered away

Through a cul de sac of broken dreams

I don’t know when we drifted apart

But my friends seemed like strangers to me

I don’t feel close to anyone

It’s time I left this town

They’re cynical and cold and trying to prove

They’ve reached some higher ground

They say my attitude’s wrong and it’s me that’s changed

Maybe they see what I can’t see

But all around me everybody was running scared

And my friends seemed like strangers to me

Some had just stopped trying;

Might as well have started dying

Some were telling me the only way to live

Some still wanted to be famous

Most were unhappy

Some had given all they thought they had to give

I went upstairs looking for someone

To hang out with for awhile

Somebody openhearted

To make it all worthwhile

But my friends kept talking about the end of our world

All about the days that used to be

And I never felt so low as I did that night

When my friends seemed like strangers to me

© words and music by Jim Patton

Mean Old Man

Mean old man, I won’t see you again

Mean old man, I won’t see you again

You won’t have to shake my hand

Or pretend you are my friend

Mean old man, I won’t see you again

You had everything a man could need

Everything a man could need

But you didn’t have enough

To satisfy your greed

You had everything a man could need

You chased your friends away

You chased your friends away

No one could disagree

With anything you’d say

So you chased your friends away

You treated everyone like dirt

You treated everyone like dirt

Your words were cruel and angry

And guaranteed to hurt

You treated everyone like dirt

You’ll die in Baltimore

You’ll die back in Baltimore

But I won’t shed no tears

Cause I just don’t care no more

You’ll die back in Baltimore

There’ll be no flowers on your grave

There’ll be no flowers on your grave

Your epitaph will read

“He never once forgave”

There’ll be no flowers on your grave

I wrote this song for you

I wrote this song for you

I know you’re probably wondering

If it’s worth your while to sue

I wrote this song for you

Mean old man, I won’t see you again

Mean old man, I won’t see you again

You won’t have to shake my hand

Or pretend you are my friend

Mean old man, I won’t see you again

© words and music by Jim Patton

I Didn’t Stay Down

Two big Tennessee Boys

Beat me up down by the creek

I was smallest in my class

So they figured I was weak

If youre a little too bright

In a dead end town

Some local bullies

Will start pushing you around

But I didn’t stay down

I didn’t stay down

Mouth full of mud

Face full of blood

But I, I didn’t stay down

A bunch of kids gathered round

Told me to play dead

But white hot rage

Came over me instead

I kept getting up

Though my shirt turned bloody red

The crowd shouted: leave him alone

And those bullies fled

Because I didn’t stay down

I didn’t stay down

Mouth full of mud

Face full of blood

But I didn’t stay down

They say what doesn’t kill you

Only makes you stronger

And those Tennessee boys

Couldn’t hurt me any longer

Face down in the mud

The truth that I found

Sometimes winning means just

Getting off the ground

So I didn’t stay down

I didn’t stay down

Mouth full of mud

Face full of blood

But I didn’t stay down

I didn’t stay down

I didn’t stay down

words and music by Jim Patton, Jerry Mayer, and Frank Mirenzi

Everyone Needs Someone (To Look Down On)

Well, a governor looks up to a president

And a president wants to be king

But they both have someone they can look down on

And that’s the most important thing

Everyone needs someone to look down on

A boss looks down on the people he bosses

Then one of those guys starts bossing you

So you take it out on some guy in a bar

With a weird accent or a strange tattoo

You just need someone to look down on

Everyone needs someone to look down on

A wife might look down on her husband

Cause of something he probably did

And he starts looking for somebody to blame

And he ends up with his kid

He needs someone to look down on

Someone who compared to him looks small

But it isn’t much fun when you’re on the bottom

And you don’t have anyone you can look down on at all

A rich man looks down on a poor man

And a poor man looks down on his shoes

And maybe he gets angry and picks up a gun

And says: “What the hell have I got to lose?”

He just needs someone to look down on

Everyone needs someone to look down on

Now there’s plenty of people around this town

Who might look down on what I am

But I must confess I look down on them

So I really don’t give a damn

Everyone needs someone to look down on

We like having someone underneath our feet

The secret is out!

We all need someone to look down on

Maybe you’ll excuse me for being so indiscreet

© written by Frank Mirenzi & Jim Patton

On a Hilltop by Old County Road

They sat on the ground

At the top of the hill

Where her street

Met Old County Road

He asked if she was sleeping

With that guy from Ohio

She wished she could have said no

The rest of the day

Was like a bad dream

Everything heightened and bold

That day was the loss of his innocence

On a hilltop by Old County Rd

She remembers that day so well, so well

Her loss was permanent too

From the top of the hill

Her life spiraled down

She could no longer tell what was true

A series of lovers, drinking and drugs,

A past that wouldn’t let go

Something inside her died that day

On a hilltop by Old County Rd

He fell apart

For a number of years

That seemed so dark at the time

Then he fell in love

And finally broke loose

Of the grip she had on his mind

She made amends a million years later

Catching them both by surprise

She said she was sorry

It was a drunken mistake

She’d carried it all of her life

These days she looks back

With regret but not shame

Another unchosen road

Now it’s just something that happened

On a hilltop by Old County Rd

Oh yeah, it’s just something that happened

On a hilltop by Old County Rd

© words and music by Jim Patton

Happy Family

See the family portrait

Hanging on the wall

20 people happy then

The picture says it all

Then everybody got divorced

Except for Sher and me

And that was just the first blow

To our happy family

Daddy died; then Mom got sick

Chaos everywhere

Old resentments bubbled up

I didn’t know were there

When money came around

It was followed close by greed

That’s really all you need to know

About our happy family

Who took all the silver?

Where did the piano go?

Where are all Dad’s 78s?

Were they sold on Antique Row?

That picture didn’t represent

What we all should have known

Bickering in public

Irritated tones

Now there’s no more common ground

No more fantasy

No more use pretending ‘bout

Our happy family

Who took all the silver?

Where did the piano go?

Where are all Dad’s 78s?

Were they sold on Antique Row?

See the family portrait

Now it’s history

All that’s left are memories of

Our happy family

© words and music by Jim Patton and Kate Patton

(Kate Patton is represented by BMI)

Deep in My Heart

You came up to me with your eyes open wide

You’d just flown too close to the sun

Your wings had been burned and you’d lost all your pride

Oh babe, you were a desperate one

So I gave you what comfort I could in the night

With the sweetness of love when it’s new

And we shared something deeper than darkness or light

Like you were someone I already knew

If your life is as empty and broken tonight

As a Baltimore street in the dark

You can come home to me if you’re lonely and scared

There’s a place for you deep in my heart

There’s a place somewhere deep in my heart

We burned like a comet for a moment in time

Two people spinning as one

Then it was over; I guess you got scared

The magic was suddenly gone

You went away when you thought you had healed

Guess we weren’t the permanent kind

I was too stubborn to follow your road

And you were not ready for mine

If your life is as empty and broken tonight

As a Baltimore street in the dark

You can come home to me if you’re lonely and scared

There’s a place for you deep in my heart

There’s a place somewhere deep in my heart

I wonder if you’re up in Boston tonight

Or living outside of L.A.

Or waiting on tables or raising a family

Or keeping alive an old flame

And I wonder if you ever think about me

‘Cause I never forgot about you

I hold onto that time in the back of my mind

When I need something honest and true

If your life is as empty and broken tonight

As a Baltimore street in the dark

You can come home to me if you’re lonely and scared

There’s a place for you deep in my heart

There’s a place somewhere deep in my heart

There’s a place for you deep in my heart

There’s a place somewhere deep in my heart

© words & music by Jim Patton

Ghosts In This Room Tonight

There are ghosts in this room tonight

Haunting every word I say

There are ghosts in this room tonight

Friends we lost along the way

They never left me; they’re still by my side

You just can’t see them cause they’re painfully shy

There are ghosts in this room tonight

Haunting every word I sing

There are ghosts in this room tonight

Haunting every word I speak

Every thought, every mannerism,

Everything that makes me “me”

I owe a debt I can never repay

But you can bet I’m gonna try to anyway

There are ghosts in this room tonight

Haunting every word I sing

There’s a ghost in this room tonight

Haunting every note I play

Even if I wanted to

I couldn’t make him go away

He’s such a part of me

After all these years

I look for his applause

And hold back my tears

There’s a ghost in this room tonight

Haunting every word I sing

There are ghosts in this room tonight

Haunting every word I sing

© words and music by Jim Patton

June 1 Release

• Jim Patton: vocals, acoustic guitar
• Sherry Brokus harmonies, percussion
• Alice Hasen violin
• Scrappy Jud Newcomb Resonator, Classical acoustic guitar, mandolin, Stella guitar, 12 String acoustic guitar,
• Ron Flynt bass, piano, harmonium, acoustic guitar, background vocals, accordion
• recorded and produced by Ron Flynt at Jumping Dog Studio, Austin, TX
• mastered by Jerry Tubb at Terra Nova Mastering, Levelland TX
• manufacturing by Affordable Sound, Austin TX
• cover design by Matt Eskey

• 1. Wouldn’t Change a Thing 4:00 (Jim Patton)
• 2. We’re Not So Different 3:30 (Jim Patton – Albert Keith)
• 3. Hard Times 3:26 (Jim Patton – Lew Morris)
• 4. Goodbye Joe Williams 3:26 (Jim Patton)
• 5. My Friends Seemed Like Strangers To Me 2:27 (Jim Patton)
• 6. Mean Old Man 2:58 (Jim Patton)
• 7. I Didn’t Stay Down 3:02 (Jim Patton – Jerry Mayer – Frank Mirenzi)
• 8. Everyone Needs Someone (to Look Down On) 3:22 (Jim Patton – Frank Mirenzi)
• 9. On a Hilltop by Old County Road 3:03 (Jim Patton)
• 10. Happy Family 4:01 (Jim Patton-Kate Patton)
• 11. Deep in My Heart 3:44 (Jim Patton)
• 12. Ghosts in this Room Tonight 3:11 (Jim Patton)
• All Songs © 2026

Dead End Town

Let’s pack up the car

And get out of this place

Let’s wake up tomorrow

Where no one knows my face

I don’t care

It could be anywhere

But this dead end town

This is a dead end town

No use hanging around

This dead end town

There’s no job in this town

That don’t make you bow down

To some bullying boss

Or some corporate clown

They make you feel small

And like you never quite fit

They make you feel scared

Of what you’ll lose if you quit

This is a dead end town

This is a dead end town

No use hanging around

In this dead end town

There’s nowhere to go

We haven’t already gone

Nothing to do

We haven’t already done

No song we can sing

That don’t make us feel old

No story to tell

We haven’t already told

About this dead end town

This is a dead end town

No use hanging around

This dead end town

And I’m getting out!

Let’s pack up the car

And get out of this place

Let’s wake up tomorrow

Where no one knows my face

This is a dead end town

This is a dead end town

No use hanging around

In a dead end town

This is a dead end town

They ought to burn it down

This is a dead end town

This dead end town

And I’m getting out!

© words and music by Jim Patton, Steve Brooks, and Jeff Talmadge

Big Red Gibson

I was painting Mama’s front porch

When I heard the Rolling Stones

Sing a song about revival

And it shook me to my bones

I bought a big red Gibson

I taught myself to play

I thought I’d found a calling

I swore that I’d obey

Now I wonder where the time goes

And I think about what might have been

I just can’t seem to let go

That big red Gibson in my hands

Big red Gibson

I moved to Music City

Didn’t work out like I’d planned

I ran into some bad luck

That’s the year I broke my hand

Then I fell in love with Rita

I moved back to Baltimore

I was tired of being lonely

I wasn’t lonely anymore

Now I wonder where the time goes

And I think about what might have been

I just can’t seem to let go

That big red Gibson in my hands

Big red Gibson

I started a new day job

Just to make it through the year

Yesterday it was a stopgap

Today it’s my career

I pour myself a tall one

And I walk out in the yard

I stare at the horizon

I pick up my guitar

Rita sits beside me

I play a little song

It’s one we both remember

So Rita sings along

Now I wonder where the time goes

And I think about what might have been

I just can’t seem to let go

That big red Gibson in my hands

Big red Gibson in my hands

Big red Gibson in my hands

Big red Gibson

© words and music by Jim Patton and Jeff Talmadge

A Road That I Never Go Down

I was born a wanderer

Always on my way

You’re the only one

Who ever made me want to stay

Some people think about

What might have been

But that’s a road that I never go down

That’s a road that I never go down

Older and wiser

I don’t know if that’s true

But I’m a better man now

Than I ever was with you

I don’t think about

What I had back then

That’s a road that I never go down

That’s a road that I never go down

So forget about me

You know you should

I’d forget about you

If I only could

I’d let it all disappear

Around the bend

Of a road that I never go down

A road that I never go down

Yeah take that wedding album

Burn it up

Put the ashes in that vase

That your mom gave us

Bury it down at the deep dark end

Of a road that I never go down

That’s a road that I’ll never go down

That I’ll never go down

© words & music by Jim Patton & Frank Mirenzi

Devil’s Highway

He put all his possessions

On a Greyhound bus

Left his family

In that small town dust

Goodbye to his friends;

Goodbye to his past

Destination:

Nowhere fast

Decent folks

Got outta his way

He had a one-way ticket

On the Devil’s Highway

He built his world

On thrills and spills,

Alcohol, white powder,

And pills

Invincible

And immortal too

The kind of guy

You can’t tell what to do

Nobody thought

He’d be alive today

Once he made his choice

On the Devil’s Highway

The Devil’s Highway

Is a downhill slide

You got no brakes

And you got no guide

Late at night

Hellhounds bay

Sirens in the dark

On the Devil’s Highway

Now he lives near Austin

Down on his luck

Life came at him

Like a pickup truck

He looks in the mirror

Doesn’t know the man

With the Halloween eyes

And the midnight tan

Maybe tomorrow he’ll change his ways

But tonight he’ll ride

On the Devil’s Highway

The Devil’s Highway

Is a downhill slide

You got no brakes

And you got no guide

Late at night

He hears hellhounds bay

Sirens in the dark

On the Devil’s Highway

He put all his possessions

On a Greyhound bus

Left his family

In that small town dust

©words and music by Jim Patton, Steve Brooks, Jeff Talmadge

Here’s To My Friends

Here’s to my friends

The ones who sing the songs

And the ones who listen

When they’ve gone away

You know I really miss ’em

So here’s to my friends

Here’s to my friends

Even when they screw up

And disappoint themselves again

Even when they break

Because they refuse to bend

Here’s to my friends

They have open minds

And open hearts

They find hope in tragedy

Over the years some faces have changed

But they’re still surrounding me

And that’s where I want them to be

Here’s to my friends

The truth is I like just

Hanging out with them

Wasting time ain’t wasted

When it helps me to mend

So here’s to my friends

Here’s to my friends

© words and music by Jim Patton

Pretty Dark World

It’s a Stephen King novel

And we wandered in

Hope we’re the heroes

Alive at the end

I’m staring out the window

As shadows descend

Cause it’s a pretty dark world

That we live in

It’s a pretty dark world

A scary place

It’s a pretty dark world

Unforgiving

I’m looking for a sign

Of better days

But it’s a pretty dark world

It’s good vs. evil

In a classic duel

Angels and devils

Wise men and fools

They never prepared me

For this at school

Cause it’s a pretty dark world

That we live in

It’s a pretty dark world

A scary place

It’s a pretty dark world

Unforgiving

I’m looking for a sign

Of better days

But it’s a pretty dark world

Don’t go in the basement

Or the mansion on the hill

Cause something’s in there waiting

And they say the monster’s real

There’s a cross-eyed jester

And a madman king

And a plague that threatens

Everything

And somewhere

A lone voice starts to sing

Cause it’s a pretty dark world

That we live in

It’s a pretty dark world

A scary place

It’s a pretty dark world

Unforgiving

I’m looking for a sign

Of better days

But it’s a pretty dark world

A pretty dark world

A pretty dark world

It’s our pretty dark world

© Words and Music by Jim Patton and Jeff Talmadge

My Heart’s Turned to Stone

Don’t send me letters

Don’t call on the phone

Don’t knock on my door

There’s nobody home

Don’t ask how I’m doing

Just leave me alone

We’re over and done with

My heart’s turned to stone

Don’t tell me you’re sorry

Don’t try to explain

Don’t talk to our friends

They know you’re to blame

‘Cause you went too far this time

Now everyone knows

We’re over and done with

My heart’s turned to stone

I won’t talk about you

I won’t mention your name

I’ll forget that I knew you

If you just go away

Don’t ask forgiveness

Some wounds don’t heal

I don’t care at all

About the way that you feel

We once were close friends

Long long ago

Now we’re over and done with

My heart’s turned to stone

We’re over and done with

My heart’s turned to stone

©words and music by Jim Patton

Janey Has a Locket

Janey has a locket

She wears on her chest

With a picture of the one

She loved the best

A drunken mistake;

Now her life is a mess

Janey has a locket

She wears on her chest

Janey has a locket

So she’ll never forget

Janey has a locket

She wears round her neck

It reminds her of a time

When she wasn’t a wreck

Before the drugs and the drink

And the lost self respect

Janey has a locket

She wears round her neck

Janey has a locket

So she’ll never forget

Janey has a locket

Janey has a locket

Janey has a locket

So she’ll never forget

And once in a while

She thinks about him

But she never decides to call

She knows she hurt him

And that’s all he’d remember

If he thinks about her at all

Janey keeps her locket

Near her bed at night

It’s the last thing she sees

When she turns out the light

And sometimes she prays

With all of her might

Janey keeps her locket

Near her bed at night

And sometimes she prays

When she turns out the light

Janey has a locket

Janey has a locket

Janey has a locket

So she’ll never forget

Janey has a locket

Janey has a locket

Janey has a locket

So she’ll never forget

Janey has a locket

She wears round her neck

© words and music by Jim Patton

Wild, Dumb, and Unsatisfied

Here’s what he had in his pockets:

A ticket from 8×10

Just saw the Paradise Rockers

Wanted to be just like them

He had the keys to his apartment

He had the keys to his car

He had a name on a napkin

Some girl he met in a bar

But he wasn’t really crazy, mama

He was just restless deep inside

He wasn’t looking for trouble

He was wild, dumb, and unsatisfied

He had some homegrown he’d hidden

Inside a Marlboro pack

He had a couple of dollars

He really meant to pay back

He had a Rolling Rock bottle cap

He had a blue flair pen

And he had one of those condoms

The kind they make with real skin

But he wasn’t really crazy, mama

He was just restless deep inside

He wasn’t looking for trouble

He was just wild, dumb, and unsatisfied

Here’s what he had in his pockets:

A pawn ticket from God

Yesterday’s lottery numbers

Not worth the paper they’re on

He had some Fender guitar picks

A dream he’d recently sold

He had a cross on a gold chain

In case he never got old

But he wasn’t really crazy, mama

He was just restless deep inside

He wasn’t looking for trouble

He was just wild, dumb, and unsatisfied

He was wild, dumb, and unsatisfied

He was wild, dumb, and unsatisfied

Wild, dumb, and unsatisfied

He was wild, dumb, and unsatisfied

He was wild, dumb, and unsatisfied

He was wild, dumb, and unsatisfied

© words & music by Jim Patton

Promises to Keep

Most folks I know our age

Don’t act the way we do

It’s scary out here on the edge

But it’s such a splendid view

So we’re not slowing down quite yet

It’s when we’re dead we’ll sleep

We’ve still got a couple of miles to go

And promises to keep

I swore I’d be an honest man

I swore that I’d stay true

And mostly I have done the work

That I set out to do

I turned my hand to what I love

I tried hard to be free

I’ve still got a couple of miles to go

And promises to keep

I’m going out tonight with friends

Our chosen family

Good folks, kind hearts, still trying hard

To be all they can be

Faced with disappointment

And missed opportunities

They’ve still got a couple of miles to go

And promises to keep

Cause we’re not slowing down quite yet

It’s when we’re dead we’ll sleep

We’ve still got a couple of miles to go

And promises to keep

© words and music by Jim Patton

I Still Believe in You

When this old world

Starts spinning so fast

It’s too much for me to take

When the walls start closing in

And I feel like my life’s

One big mistake

Well I look at you beside me

Standing tall

With the grace and power of the moon

When I don’t believe in nothin’

I still believe in you

When I look into the mirror

I see my past and my future

Jumbled upside down

And I try to run away

But I get no further

Than the stoplight

In my hometown

You’re waiting at the window

When I come home

Full of regret for things I did not do

When I don’t believe in nothin’

I still believe in you

Somewhere there’s a lonesome highway

That siren song begins to moan

And something calls me toward that darkness

But something stronger calls me home

Sometimes you look at me

And say: “I love you”

Like you discovered something new

When I don’t believe in nothin’

When I don’t believe in nothin’

When I don’t believe in nothin’

I still believe in you

I still believe in you

Baby, you know that it’s true

I still believe in you

© words and music by Jim Patton

1 Dead End Town 2:47
2 Big Red Gibson 4:23
3 Road That I Never Go Down 3:04
4 Devil’s Highway 2:52
5 Here’s To My Friends 2:39
6 Pretty Dark World 2:35
7 My Heart’s Turned To Stone 2:12
8 Janey Has A Locket 2:35
9 Wild, Dumb, & Unsatisfied 3:01
10 Promises To Keep 2:48
11 I Still Believe In You 3:27

Berkalin Records BRK-10057

All songs © 2023
All songs written by Jim Patton except tracks 1 and 4, written by Jim Patton, Jeff Talmadge, and Steve Brooks, 2 and 6, written by Jim Patton and Jeff Talmadge, and track 3, by Jim Patton and Frank Mirenzi

Jim Patton and Frank Mirenzi are represented by the Independent Alligator Publishing Co. (ASCAP)
Jeff Talmadge is represented by Totzien Music (BMI)
Steve Brooks is represented by Casa Del Frog Music (BMI)

Jim Patton: vocals, acoustic rhythm guitar
Sherry Brokus: vocals
BettySoo: vocals
Cordy Lavery: lead six and 12 string guitars
Ron Flynt: rhythm guitar, keyboards, bass, background vocals
Steve McCarthy: drums
Eric Hisaw: lead electric guitar on “Janey Has a Locket”

design and guitar photo: Matt Eskey
back cover and inside photos: Winker with an Eye
spiritual adviser: R. Gene Munger

engineered and produced by Ron Flynt at Jumping Dog Studios Austin TX
mastered by Jerry Tubb at Terra Nova Mastering, Austin TX

Thanks to our Panel of Experts: David Obermann, Joe Bulko, Trish Gaffney, Steve Brooks, Mary Battiata, Adam Dawson, Kevin Elliott

Special Thanks to: Bill Wence, Erik Balkey, Bill Coyle, Peter Holmstedt, 49 West, the NeWorlDeli, Georgie Jessup, Christina Van Norman, Lou & Cindy Etgen, Brian and Pam Kalinec, Luke Chohany, Charlie Irwin, Stuart Adamson, John Bush, Rich Brotherton, Jo Rae DiMenno, Julieann Banks, Rob Ellen, Andy Rubin,

Jim & Sherry would like to thank: everyone who pre-ordered the CD, everyone who played on the record, played in the band, recorded us, promoted us, gave us airplay, loaned us money, bailed us out of jail (just kidding!), came to the shows, came to our online shows, listened to the songs, bought our records, put us up for the night, or otherwise helped us on our way. You are too numerous to mention individually, too important not to mention at all.

complaints or compliments? We’re at pattonbrokus@gmail.com

first posted on Facebook July 5, 2020

My dad’s 98th birthday would have been today. For a conservative, military man he was amazingly open, as my friends could tell you. He was against my music until he wasn’t, and then he supported me wholeheartedly. The Vietnam years were rough on us, but we still had the Orioles and the Redskins to talk about until the world settled down again. He didn’t tell me until he was in his sixties that he used to play the last set on drums with a jazz band in Memphis, hitchhiking from the base during wartime. Or that he was engaged to my Mom, hadn’t seen her in months, called her from New York to tell her he’d be a few days late coming home to North Carolina because “Basie’s at the Village Vanguard for the week”. He was a good guy, and I miss him.

My dad was a fine baseball player, played against major leaguers during the war. He washed out of flight school because he broke his nose illegally playing baseball on the weekends for $5 a game. The way I finally reached him about music was like this: “Would you have played minor league baseball if it wasn’t for the war?” “Yes, I’d already been scouted by the Pirates.” “Would you have made the majors?” “Probably not, I could field, but I was small and never would have been more than a banjo hitter.” “But you would have played anyway?” He looked at me for a long time and then said: “Yes, I would have.” He never bugged me about music again.

He was an engineer, and well, I’m not. We did not see things the same way. In addition I was undiagnosed ADD and I remember “Son, pay attention!” as a mantra of my childhood. But eventually he figured it out. We were working on my car one day, something I’m completely inept at, and I was struggling with something and he reached over and flipped a switch or something and it was working. I said: “How come I didn’t inherit that from you?” and he said: “I don’t know, son. How come I can’t write a damn song!”

These albums are not necessarily my favorites or even the best albums by these bands, but they are albums that affected me so profoundly that I can actually remember thinking differently before and after I heard them. They’ll be listed roughly in the order they came to my attention.

1. Rubber Soul – The Beatles I was 15 and had just moved and was at a church social my parents made me go to with people I hated, and then somebody put Rubber Soul on the stereo and my life changed. I kept putting it on the stack even after somebody said: “Who’s the jerk that keeps putting that album on?” I bought it the next day and I was no longer alone. I like the British version better because it has more songs, but it doesn’t start with “I’ve Just Seen a Face”

2. HighTide and Green Grass – The Rolling Stones my friend Larry Prather sat behind me in Chemistry. When I told him I didn’t really like the Stones, he loaned me this to take home for the weekend. I had bought my own copy by the time I gave it back.

Larry and I also began writing our own lyrics, about things in our own lives, and putting them to Beatles and Stones and other pop songs of the day, the first time I had ever done that, and while we were doing it mostly for humour, it was great practice for the rest of my life.

The second band I was in played mostly Rolling Stones songs, or as many as we could fit in. I always tell people I learned electric guitar listening to the Stones.

3. Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles Somebody told us that the Old Beatles were good and the new Beatles weren’t, so Bill McKay and I talked John Ranes into buying it first and then we went over to his house and listened to it every day after cross country practice. We played it from side one to side two every day for months, a ritual, the Sgt Pepper cult. Mom said: “Coach Preston is working you extra hard, you’re getting home so late.” We had never heard anything like it.

To be honest, while I still like the album, it’s hard for me to hear what we heard then. The songs are good, but only a couple are among my favorite Beatles tunes. But it opened our minds up to possiblities.

4. Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits I was part of the “Dylan can write, but he can’t sing” school. Then one day I went to the Naval Academy to get my college physical and this album was in the hospital’s tiny BX for 99 cents. I couldn’t pass it up, and found out I loved just about everything about Dylan. I thought one way before listening to him, and another after.

There’s actually more to the story. I didn’t have any friends who liked Dylan to turn me onto him. Every weekend we used to drive to EJ Korvette’s on Ritchie Hwy because they had a record department and weekly sales that were the best deal in town. And every couple of months, they’d have an All Label sale. I was there one Saturday Morning just after “John Wesley Harding” had come out and Dylan’s face kept staring at me from the cover. And I loved the story on the back. But it was his face that kept me coming back until I bought it, feeling stupid because I was buying something I was sure I wouldn’t like. And I loved it, every bit of it. It was all mysterious and wonderful.

But even then, I was convinced that the ‘new Dylan’ was good but not the rest. And then I saw that album for 99 cents and I was hooked for life. So an Honorable Mention Most Influential to “John Wesley Harding”.

I hadn’t owned Greatest Hits for many years, had bought everything else and didn’t need it, until about 15 years later I bought what I thought was a used Tim Buckley album that instead had Dylan’s GH inside. I put it on that night and I swear I could remember thinking one way before I first heard it and another afterwards.

5. The Psychedelic Explosion (several records) We were at least a year behind the West Coast in pop culture, and when Gene Munger went to visit family in Seattle, Gene came back with albums full of the new psychedelic music that was different than what we were hearing on Top Forty Radio, our only outlet (that we knew of) at the time. I could list any of four or five albums here, but the first song to break through to me was Moby Grape’s “8:05” and it was the first album I bought from the West Coast wave. I still love “8:05”.

After playing Moby Grape over and over, I bought Quicksilver Messenger Service’s first album and loved it too, especially side one with “Pride of Man” and “Dino’s Song”, written for their lead singer Dino Valente, who was in jail when the record was made. You might remember “Get Together” which Dino wrote for the Youngbloods under an assumed name (or maybe his real name). The funny thing is when Dino eventually rejoined the band, I lost interest, mostly because I hated his voice. Nicky Hopkins played in this band for a while. When I moved into my first place of my own, we played their 27 minute version of “Who Do You Love” from their next album as the first song as we moved in, always an important choice.

Gene Munger then tried to convince me to like the Dead’s first album, which I hated then (and many people still do). He was so convinced it would kick in that he gave me his copy to take to college with me where I played it at first out of obligation to Gene, and then because I did indeed fall in love with it. You have to like a garagey kind of rock, but I do, and “Cold Rain and Snow”, “Golden Road”, and “Morning Dew” still knock me out.

6. The Byrds Greatest Hits Still one of my favorite albums, even though I own all the other Byrd albums too. Pure pop with Dylanish lyrics. Great songs, singing, guitars, lyrics, all made for the radio and my heart.

Honorable mention to Retrospective, the Buffalo Springfield, who were influencing me at about the same time.

7. 64 Motown Greatest Hits is a cheat chronologically because it didn’t come out until 1975, but it’s a stand-in for the radio, which I still listened to, especially in the car. And the radio of my youth was filled with Motown. I had a Temptations best in high school, later a Miracles best, a Marvin Gaye best, a Stevie Wonder best, a Four Tops Best. And at Davidson when I first got there, soul reigned supreme and they hated Dylan and psychedelic. Individually, none of those albums had a particular influence, cumulatively the songs sure did. So here’s to Motown! (I wore this one out when I did buy it. Hitsville USA is a great box CD from many years later.)

Dylan once said that Smokey Robinson was our greatest living poet and I thought he was just blowing smoke at the interviewers. That was before I really listened. I might have argued for Chuck Berry instead, but I got Dylan’s point.

The only reason I wasn’t more of a fan earlier was that all the cool kids at my high school liked Motown, which immediately made me suspicious. But the songs were too good to deny.

Gene Munger (who talked me into playing acoustic guitar and writing) used to play folk-rock versions of “Tracks of My Tears” and “You Can’t Hurry Love” at our first shows. Also “Wouldn’t It Be Nice?” but that’s another band and another story.

8. Who Knows Where The Time Goes – Judy Collins This was my introduction to Sandy Denny’s “Who Knows Where the Time Goes”, still one of my favorite songs, as well as Leonard Cohen (“Bird on the Wire” and “Story of Isaac”) and Ian Tyson (the wonderful “Someday Soon”) and her own great “My Father”. I was a freshman at college and missing my friends and played “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” over and over. I can remember thinking how fast time went by. Hah.

“Wildflowers” has her pop hit of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now”, then my introduction to Joni’s music, and Cohen’s “Suzanne”. It came before “Who Knows Where The Time Goes” but I didn’t get it until later.

9. The Band I bought “The Band” the same day I bought “Abbey Road”, a good day in my life. I had “Music From Big Pink” and liked it and of course they had backed Dylan, but they inhabited the songs of this album, one of, if not the, first Americana albums. It’s another album I played so much that I have to separate the songs from their original context or I don’t hear them anymore, I know them so well.

10. Sweet Baby James – James Taylor “Fire and Rain” still knocks me out. The whole album is clean and focused. I was a sophomore in college, about to drop out, not yet playing guitar or singing, but writing lots of lyrics that I thought were poems and Taylor’s spare, honest lyrics spoke directly to me.

Tom Rush’s eponymous album at least should get an assist because it introduced me to the music of both James Taylor and Jackson Browne, as well as two fine Canadian songwriters: David Wiffen (Driving Wheel, covered later by Roger McGuinn) and Murray Mclauchlan’s great “Child’s Song”, my favorite song about leaving home.

11. Blue – Joni Mitchell “A Case of You” and “The Last Time I Saw Richard” still speak to me, as does the sentiment of “All I Want”: “All I really really want our love to do/Is to bring out the best in me/ and in you too”. A major influence on me lyrically.

12. Astral Weeks – Van Morrison The first time I heard “Madame George” (or anything from Astral Weeks) I was lying on the floor of a friend’s house listening to WGTB late at night, and as I let the music wash over me, I thought it was too short at 9:46. I already had “Moondance” and loved it, but this was different, not pop music, but mesmerizing. A great album as Van reveres his past and predicts his future in simple songs brilliantly played. No hits here, though my friend Frank Mirenzi once came home and played “Madame George” 8 straight times, trying to decipher its meaning to him.

13. Young Man’s Fancy – Neil Young The year I was 21 and learning to play guitar and sing, Lee (Daktari) Cadorette and I shared a cottage in Arnold, MD, the first time any of our friends had a place of our own. Lee bought this bootleg, still one of my favorite albums, but especially then, between “After the Goldrush” and “Harvest”. I never liked “Harvest” much because I liked the versions from “Young Man’s Fancy” so much better.

I already had all of Neil’s albums, plus CSN&Y and the Springfield stuff. After “After the Goldrush” and “Young Man’s Fancy” all my lyrics sounded like Neil for a long while.

I learned to play guitar and joined a band simultaneously when Kevin Ranes taught me the three chords to “Helpless”. We spent the whole first practice on that song, Kevin being very picky so the rest of the band wouldn’t know I knew one song. The next week was Traffic’s “Feelin’ Alright”, with two of the same three chords, and after that I was off.

Meanwhile, I bought 2 songbooks, a Dylan and a Neil Young, and used them as instruction manuals, while Gene Munger and I started playing together, Gene using my lyrics to write songs at first before I added my own music.

14. Lou Reed I learned to play guitar at 20, and I didn’t sing between the ages of 12 and 20, when Gene Munger talked me into forming a duo with him and beginning to sing some of my own songs. But after that amount of time, I really couldn’t sing. And then one day I had this album on and I had an epiphany: “I can do that!” I thought as I listened to his form of talk/singing and then I did.

I already had all of the Velvet Underground albums, so Lou Reed had been influencing me for some time. As a freshman in college in summer school, I roomed next door to an arch-conservative senior who turned me on to at least two albums that summer: Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited,” which I still didn’t have, and “The Velvet Underground & Nico” (the one with the Warhol Banana Peel cover.

My voice changed when I was 12, only I didn’t know it. Before that I sang in choirs and choruses, did solos occasionally, and probably would have stayed in it for life. My music teacher at school also didn’t notice my voice had changed, and she had me do our class solo soprano, which I wasn’t anymore. I was so embarrassed. I couldn’t find the notes and I didn’t know why. As I sat down, she said: “It’s ok. Some people aren’t meant to sing.” Devastating. I didn’t really believe her, I always knew I could sing, but I didn’t sing another note until I was 20, just to spite her. My stubbornness sometimes works for me, sometimes against.

This is what Gene Munger did for me. He would get a show at the local coffeehouse, play the first few songs himself, then play a couple of songs we wrote together, bring me up to sing 2-3 songs in my new Lou Reed-like voice, and then I’d leave Gene alone on stage before the audience figured out I couldn’t sing. And then he’d play another one we wrote together before returning to his own songs. I was protected and I got better and I”m forever grateful.

15. Aquashow – Elliott Murphy I bought Elliott Murphy’s “Aquashow” and Springsteen’s “Wild, Innocent, and E Street Shuffle” the same day, and after listening, walked to my room and wrote “By the Water,” an 8 min. song in about the time it takes to sing it. It was good enough to record with Lloyd Maines 25 years later and was once listed among the “Best Songs You’ve Never Heard” on Amazon.uk. That’s inspiration.

What these guys did was complete my lyric education by showing me what was missing in my writing. They wrote about their friends. When I was in high school, I had written short stories and a novel about my friends, the secret to their popularity. So far, I had learned to write about the end of relationships well, now I added my friends to the mix and “write about what you know” became wider.

Aquashow influenced me at the time more than Wild because Bruce was writing about a more urban setting, and Elliott had the “White Middle Class Blues” like I did.

“Last of the Rock Stars”, “Hometown”, “Don’t Go Away”, “Sandy”, “Incident on 57th St”, “Rosalita”!!! I heard all those songs for the first time the same day, in the same hour! It was an overload but an epiphany for my writing.

16. Late for the Sky – Jackson Browne Jackson Browne had been influencing me for some time before this came out, from listening to “These Days” on the Tom Rush album. Trish Gaffney and I went to see him at the Cellar Door in DC about the time “Saturate Before Using” was released, and sat about 5 feet away from Browne and David Lindley, his sole accompanist that night. I decided to get a job when I lived in LA because Jackson’s “For Everyman” and the new one from the Dead came out the same day and I had to have them. But this album spoke to me the most. I was brokenhearted from love, had lost my closest friend to a car wreck when we were 22, and was writing songs about my past while trying to figure out my future, or something like that. And Jackson had either gone through or was going through the same things. I played it to death.

17. Winterland Night – Bruce Springsteen In 1978 Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band made a series of radio broadcasts across the country. I taped “Passaic Night” from 98 Rock on my Teac A3340S the night he played there, and we played it a lot on the reel to reel (there was a break in the middle of “Rosalita”), but it was when Joe Mirenzi bought “Winterland” on a more convenient LP that it replaced Springsteen’s first three albums for me. It’s about 4 hours worth of music, so we used to have parties where it was the only album played.

Sherry and I played this on the way home from our first Edge City show ever, at Wesley College in Delaware, and it sure sounded great driving home at night on empty roads in the dark. We used to play the version of “Darkness on the Edge of Town” from Winterland before every show, just to remind us what was at stake.

18. Road to Ruin – The Ramones This was the first Ramones album I bought or even heard, as far as I can remember and it just wiped much of the music of the time out of my mind. I loved the Beach Boys melodies, the Spectorish sound, the great cover of “Needles and Pins”, the three great chords, the fuzzy guitar, the energy, “I Wanna Be Sedated” and more. At our first Kerrville, we still didn’t know if we belonged until the first night, very late, we heard “I Wanna Be Sedated” coming through the camp on acoustic guitars.

One of the great pleasures of Sherry’s and my life was getting to know Tommy Ramone (Erdelyi), the drummer before “Road to Ruin”, and the co-producer of “Road to Ruin”. He was playing mandolin in his own group Uncle Monk at the time, and looked like a small Jerry Garcia. He played ‘percussion’ on his knees when we played “27 Voices” and told us it was “cathartic”. He also produced “Tim”, one of my favorite Replacement albums.

19. The Sun Sessions – Elvis Presley When I was growing up, Elvis was just a fat old man who had squandered whatever talent he had. I didn’t like his songs, or him. Then one night Sherry and I were at the 930 Club in DC, early and waiting for the show and instead of the usual headbanging videos, they played Elvis from the 50s and I got it immediately, was riveted to the screen, sorry when the real show started. We bought “The Sun Sessions” and for a few years I used it to warm up my hands every morning. It’s so clean and simple and breathtakingly beautiful. And it has a groove. I now believe that music doesn’t get any better than this (it can, and has, been as good).

After that, I worked my way through his catalog and found there were still good songs in the 60s and 70s, and a couple of good albums, especially from the early 60s. I made a CD called “Elvis for Dummies” to convince my friends.

There’s no nostalgia involved here on my part, since I was too young for his Sun days, and my parents didn’t like him, and I didn’t like him during the most formative days of my music listening. No, I just think it’s great music that sounds timeless to me.

John Fogerty and Creedence were able to capture this sound perfectly on a couple of songs.

My friend Bob Baugh tried to tell me about Elvis in high school, but I wouldn’t listen!

20. Shoot Out the Lights – Richard and Linda Thompson Though I had a Fairport Convention Best Of, I didn’t really listen to Richard Thompson until this album. Then I bought all the rest. One of the influences on our vocal sound. A great breakup album.

21. The Great Twenty Eight – Chuck Berry I’d been influenced by Chuck my whole life, because you can’t play or love rock and roll without him. Or the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. He’s the one who wrote the lick everybody knows. But this album was the first time I studied him, as I continued to step backwards as well as forward for my influences. He writes as well about America as anybody, and after Chuck, you’ll never hear “Subterranean Homesick Blues” the same way again.

If you like Chuck as much as I do, you’ll want to have the Chess Box. He wrote a lot of great songs after his heyday (i.e. came out of prison) though a little darker and you do have to skip “My Ding a Ling”, his last ‘hit’, but it’s great stuff.

22. 20 Golden Greats- Buddy Holly and the Crickets This isn’t the best compilation (that would be “The Buddy Holly Collection” unless you want to go the box set route with “Not Fade Away”), but I sure played it to death in my early 30s. I always liked him, his songs were catchy and covered by the Beatles and the Stones and the Dead, but after my deep dive into Chuck Berry, I dove into the 50s for a while and discovered how much I really love his music.

I also loved the usual suspects: Jerry Lee Lewis, Eddie Cochran, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Carl Perkins, Little Richard. Mostly there are greatest hits that serve them well; all are building blocks for a writer. But there are a couple of others I’d like to recommend: Charlie Feathers (who lived in Severna Park, for all you Severna Parkers out there), Johnny Burnette and The Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio (who blaze through songs like “Train Keep a Rollin”, covered by the Yardbirds), and most of all, Bobby Fuller, who you probably mostly know for “I Fought the Law”. But “Never To Be Forgotten” and “Let Her Dance” (both covered by Marshall Crenshaw) are just as good.

I like “Never To Be Forgotten: The Mustang Years” (2 CDs), the most, but this single Rhino disc has the songs I mentioned above and more.

23. Places that are Gone EP – Tommy Keene Tommy Keene’s 6 song EP was named “EP of the Year” by the Village Voice. It was perfect power pop and he was from DC, so my friends and I used to go see him a lot. We liked it so much that we used Steve Carr at Hit and Run Studios where Tommy had recorded his record for all our released music from Maryland. And his lawyer/record co. president, Josh Grier, showed me a lot about record companies and how they work when he came to see us at CBGB’s in NYC. Also, our guitarist Rob Martin liked the guitar work of both Tommy and Billy Connelly and brought that to some songs we were working out together. So this EP influenced me in a lot of ways.

This CD contains all of the “Places that Are Gone” EP and more. It’s the one to look for because it has the Steve Carr recordings plus his other early indie work.. But “Tommy Keene You Hear Me?” has some of the same songs plus his Geffen stuff and some of his later work, and it’s great, too!

“Places that Are Gone” (the original, on Dolphin, recorded by Steve Carr) is one of my favorite songs. Period. He’s got a lot of others that are favorites of mine, too, but “Places” was the hit in my alternate world. It’s why I recommend “The Real Underground” over “Tommy Keene You Hear Me”. “Tommy” goes with the Geffen version, and it’s fine, but the original has a spark.

Tommy got the big push for awhile with Geffen, recording on the Isle of Montserrat in George Martin’s studio with Geoff Emerick (the Beatles engineer) producing. He continued making CDs, all at least worth a listen for the sound alone. (Very electric guitars, my folkie friends.) And worth it for some of the titles, considering his past. “Long Time Missing”, “I’m Alive”, “Never Really Been Gone”, all wonderful songs. My DC friends know the story better than I do, so I’ll leave that to them, but I was a fan, and I still play his music.

Little known fact: Tommy Keene auditioned for Ron Flynt’s band 20/20 in L.A. Ron would have to tell you more.

Here’s how good he was: one night many years ago a friend was staying at my house while he worked out his marital difficulties. (Sherry used to call my place “Jim’s Home For Wayward Boys.”) They talked all afternoon, and finally reached a point of reconciliation. Then he found out Tommy Keene was playing that night and we were all going. He called her and explained that now that they’d worked things out, one more night apart might be good for their overall relationship, to think about what they’d accomplished. Or something like that. She thought it was romantic and he went to see Tommy Keene with us.

24. Let it Be – The Replacements; Native Sons – Long Ryders; Gas, Food, & Lodging – Green on Red; The Days of Wine and Roses – The Dream Syndicate

It’s cheating to name four, but the influence on me came not from one album, but a movement, all at once. These four were influential, but so were a lot of others. There were two kinds of bands I liked a lot during this period, punk bands who had moved toward more classic sounds, and classic sounding bands who moved into punk clubs and filtered their music toward punk. I met Troy Campbell of the Highwaymen during this period and we exchanged our EPs.

The Replacements‘ album would be here if only for Paul Westerberg’s stunning “Unsatisfied”, the anthem of a generation in my alternate world. I’m also a big fan of the albums “Tim” (produced by Tommy Ramone) and “Pleased to Meet Me”.

I liked every album The Long Ryders ever put out, including a reunion one a year or so ago. On this one, “Final Wild Son”, “Ivory Tower” (with Gene Clark), and “I Have a Dream” blow me away, but it’s all good. On a future album, they cover NRBQ’s “I Want You So Bad” like the Byrds would have. One of the great pleasures of my life came when The Long Ryders’ Sid Griffin and members of his band The Coal Porters backed us for a couple of songs in a hotel room in Canada (or was it Memphis?) at Folk Alliance. The Coal Porters are different, but great, and anything Sid does on his own is worth getting. In his solo career (I think) he does a great cover of the Flamin’ Groovies’ “You Tore Me Down”, one of the best songs you probably don’t know.

The Coal Porters have done great bluegrassy versions of “Paint it Black” and “Like a Hurricane”.

We used to cover “That’s What Dreams” from this Green on Red album. Also loved the albums “Gravity Talks” and “No Free Lunch”. When we played the Austin Music Network, it was Willie day, and we needed a Willie song, so we borrowed Green on Red’s arrangement of “Funny How Time Slips Away”. We also used to use the electrified version of Danny & Dusty’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” as our ‘guide’. Danny and Dusty were made up of members of Green on Red, Dream Syndicate, and The Long Ryders. Danny Stuart, Green on Red’s main songwriter and singer, was living in Austin in the mid 80s and invited Sherry and me to visit and stay at his apartment. If we had, we’d have moved here sooner. Danny also introduced us to his booking agent, who helped us get into a couple of clubs we’d been struggling with, so more influence.

My pal Steve Buschel gave me some tapes of Green on Red live in Europe in the 2000’s, and they were great and worth searching out. Leaned more than previously on Chuck Prophet’s great guitar.

This is not my favorite Dream Syndicate album, but they had me with “Tell Me When It’s Over”, the first song on the album, where Steve Wynn channels Lou Reed. As albums, I like “Medicine Show” and “Out of the Grey” and the ‘best of’ does a fairly good job. Steve Wynn has continued recording, both solo and with bands. Start with “What I Did After My Band Broke Up”, which leads off with the great “Amphetamine”.

Other bands that I could have used: NYC’s The Del Lords (rockin’ Woody Guthries), LA’s The Blasters (rockabilly filtered through punk), LA’s Los Lobos (like a Hispanic version of The Band), Australia’s The Saints, (where Chris Bailey channels Van Morrison/ Mick Jagger), and more. REM and the Clash were the forerunners, and “London Calling” is one of my favorite albums.

25. Southern Accents – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers I could have picked “Damn the Torpedos” because it’s almost a perfect album, or “The Waiting” because the title song was Sherry’s and my “song”, but I picked “Southern Accents” for its slightly flawed ambitions, its insightful songs about Petty’s home, and the great Petty/Dave Stewart collaboration on the psychedelic “Don’t Come Around Here No More”.

There was a record store in Pikesville run by a guy named Howie and he used to like to bet he could play me one song from a record and get me to buy it. Two I remember are Elvis Costello’s ‘Alison’ and Petty’s “American Girl”.

26. Chess Box Set – Willie Dixon When I bought this vinyl box set, I was a casual fan of the Blues, afterwards I was a fanatic, not so much because of these records (though they’re good), but because of where they led me. Willie wrote songs for Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter, Bo Diddley, Jimmy Witherspoon, Lowell Fulson, Otis Rush, and more, all favorites of mine. And so this record was my door.

I started working for my pal Geoffrey Himes, who has one of the great record collections, as well as a mini used record store in his garage (I might have bought this there). One of the perks of the job was that I could listen to his vast collection while I worked. So I worked my way through the artists on the Dixon album, and more that Geoff suggested: T Bone Walker, Big Joe Turner, BB King, Buddy Guy, Jimmy Johnson, Robert Johnson, Elmore James and more.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like blues before, I just had rarely gone to the source, where all the good stuff is. My first experience with the blues was just after high school (I think), Paul Butterfield’s “East-West” which we listened to regularly with the usual crowd: Jim Gugliotti, Lee Cadorette, John Ranes, Gene Munger. And then there were the Allman Bros. But while I eventually followed the Dead backwards into some of my favorite blues songs, I never really liked them as a blues band. And as great as Clapton is, I liked the ‘pop’ stuff better with Derek and the Dominoes. I didn’t like Chuck Berry’s blues, just his rock. So it wasn’t until much later that I really listened.

27. 24 of Hank Williams’ Greatest Hits when I bought this I wasn’t a country fan, much less a Hank one. I bought it because I knew he was a great writer and I wanted to study him. I would come home, put Hank on, and cook dinner for Sherry. One day I couldn’t find Hank, and I went crazy, going through all of my records, because I had to hear that album. That’s when I realized I wasn’t studying Hank anymore, I had fallen in love with his music. Once we were at a local club here and our friend Kenneth J. Schaffer introduced the next song as “the greatest song ever written”. I laughed out loud and said: “Pretty big claim, Ken.” He smiled and said: “It’s called ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.’” I said: “Oh well, then. Go ahead.”

28. Austin Skyline – Jimmy LaFave Sherry and I came to Austin for the first time for SXSW in March 1994 with no gig and ended up playing Butch Hancock’s Lubbock or Leave It Jam that Sunday night. The lineup was full of people who now are friends, and when Butch came over to ask if we wanted to play a couple of songs, Jimmy LaFave and Randy Glines were onstage, the first time we had ever heard of Jimmy. I can’t tell you for sure what we played that night, but Jimmy played Joe Ely’s “Because the Wind” and Dylan’s “Every Grain of Sand”. We bought one album while we were in Austin, this one, and one of my biggest memories of that summer was sitting with our friends at night in our spacious backyard, listening to Jimmy. We moved to Austin in August, five months later.

A definite Honorable Mention to this album or albums, Butch Hancock’s great “No 2 Alike”, a 14 cassette series of Butch at the Cactus, that I listened to while I was working for Geoffrey Himes. That led to me going to see Butch at the Roots Cafe Baltimore and going out to breakfast with Geoff and Butch. So I sort of knew Butch, as far as I knew the only person I knew who lived in Austin (Troy Campbell reminds me that he was here, I just didn’t know it), and that made us stop as we walked by Lubbock or Leave It and I said: “I think that’s Butch Hancock’s place.” The Lubbock gang, led by Barbara Roseman, took us in, leading to us playing that Sunday and moving to Austin five months later.

29. American Dreamer – Gene Clark I was always a Gene Clark fan, from the Byrds through “White Light” and “Roadmaster” but it was this 24 song best of that sent me back to his work with the Gosdin Brothers and The Dillard and Clark Expedition. It’s a good start, but if you fall in love with the music by this American original, it won’t be nearly enough.

Then I bought this twofer (41 songs) which began to open up the later 70s and 80s for me. After that I just bought everything I could find, some of which is still just being released. Few artists of Gene’s caliber have been so poorly treated with their catalogs.

Sid Griffin of the Long Ryders (mentioned earlier in this series) and The Coal Porters wrote the informative liner notes for both “American Dreamer” and “Flying High”.

About a decade ago, we were involved in a near death near accident in the snow in Tipton, MO, birthplace of Gene Clark. And as this jeep bore down on us, my last thoughts? “Wonder if anyone will even know we died where Gene Clark was born?” My ‘last thoughts’? Fortunately they weren’t actually my last thoughts, but when we were back in Austin, telling this story at a party at Dickie Lee Erwin’s, and Jon Sanchez walked in, listened for a minute and said: “Tipton? That’s where Gene Clark was born!”

You’ll also want PreFlyte, the Byrds when they were the Beefeaters, which has just been rereleased, remastered and sounds great. Clark’s contribution: about a dozen Beatlish pop songs including “You Showed Me”, a top 10 hit for the Turtles.

30. Live in London – Leonard Cohen How to grow old gracefully (and powerfully). Cohen combines decades of great writing into one great sound. He didn’t used to be able to sing, now his voice is resonant with character.

Leonard’s been influencing me since 1970 when I cut a quote from “Bird on the Wire” from LOOK magazine out and put it where I’d have to see it when I walked out the door. The quote’s still there, and the LOOK cutout lasted until the 2010s, when it fell apart.

“Famous Blue Raincoat”, “Everybody Knows”, “Tower of Song”, “I’m Your Man”, “Hallelujah”, “Hey That’s No Way to Say Goodbye”, “Anthem”, “Bird on the Wire”, “Suzanne”, “Sisters of Mercy” and many more. But that would still leave you needing “Joan of Arc”, “Chelsea Hotel”, “Waiting for the Miracle”, “Love Calls You By Your Name”, “Story of Isaac”, “You Know Who I Am”, “Tonight Will Be Fine” and more.

So if I were you, and I didn’t have any Cohen, I’d buy the two best ofs and three live albums, this one, Cohen Live, and Field Commander Cohen. “Essential” is another fine studio collection that could replace the two best ofs.

Our two week East Coast tour was wonderful, gave us a chance to connect with people we haven’t seen in a long time. At 1919 in Baltimore, old pals Craig Hopwood (on sound) and Lew Morris (playing a short set, including the great “Crisis to Crisis”) met with new pal Luke Chohany (on guitar and mandolin) (sent to us by Arty Hill) to turn what could have been a shaky evening into a fun one. And Craig’s friend Larry Dennis ran two blocks to his home to bring back his Telecaster to bring us electric guitar as we closed with 27 Voices.

The next night was 49 West in Annapolis, the club that comes closest to a house concert for us. A crowded gathering of old friends. Luke Chohany again joined us and the crowd loved him. David Coe and Christina Van Norman ran sound and Christina joined us on “Fortunate Man”. There were people there we had not seen in forty years, and some who come every time.

Jean Leigh‘s house concert in New Jersey had a smallish crowd, which may have worked to our advantage in this case, since we sold more CDs than donations at the door, and we made friends with just about everyone there. It was also just the two of us, and we prefer to be at least a trio, but that too, worked for the circumstances. More magic.

Jamey’s House of Music, just across the Philadelphia line, in Lansdowne, was the smallest crowd of the tour, but we managed to connect with all six of them, only two of whom we knew before, and we love playing the room. Jamey runs great sound, and here, despite the small crowd, it’s a big place and we could have benefitted from a trio sound. We accomplished that twice, when Donna Fala Mcfadden, our friend from Austin 24 years ago, joined us on “Day I Leave This World” and “Fortunate Man”.

Lou and Cindy Etgen‘s house concert was a perfect evening for us: old friends, new friends, and Luke on mandolin and guitar. We can’t thank Lou and Cindy enough for stepping up when we had a cancellation and saving our tour.

And our last stop in Frederick MD at the Brewer’s Alley Songwriter Showcase. Great crowd. Great show, with us, Jeff Talmadge, and amazing Beat poet Rod Deacey. And Ron Goad played percussion with us.

Sherry lost her voice completely the week we started the tour, sang 1 1/2 songs at 1919, had built up to 4 or 5 by the end. So if you caught this tour, you caught Jim singing more than usual, and some songs we don’t usually play.