Tag: Tiki Parlour Recordings

WATCH: Hog-eyed Man, “Paddy on the Turnpike”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Hog-eyed Man
Hometown: Currently based in Athens, Georgia
Song: “Paddy on the Turnpike”
Album: Kicked Up a Devil of a Row
Release Date: July 14, 2023
Label: Tiki Parlour Recordings

In Their Words: “There are many great versions of ‘Paddy on the Turnpike,’ but this is the best one to blast with the car winows down when you’re sitting in bumper-to-bumper inter­state traffic at 5:15 p.m. on a sweltering Friday. Jason got it from his Yancey County, North Carolina, neighbor Bruce Greene, who recorded it from Sammie Dyer of Macon County,Tennessee, in the early 1970s. Dyer was near 80 at the time and had a unique repertoire of regional tunes from the upper Cumberland Plateau. Reportedly, he lamented the commercialization of traditional music and loss of the old ways. This resonates with Howard Rains’ incredible cover art for our album, which depicts a rainbow dragon swarmed by modern aircraft.

“One of the joys of playing old-time music is forging and maintaining connections with the musicians and tunes of the past even as the contexts and communities around the music continue to evolve. We typically play as a duo or trio and rarely incorporate guitar, so it was fun to go for a slightly fuller string band sound on this one with Max on banjo and David joining on his 1959 Martin D-18.” – Hog-eyed Man

Photo Credit: David Bragger

WATCH: Clinton Davis, “Curly Headed Woman”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Clinton Davis
Hometown: Carrollton, Kentucky
Song: “Curly Headed Woman”
Album: If I Live and I Don’t Get Killed
Release Date: September 10, 2021
Label: Tiki Parlour Recordings

In Their Words: “‘Curly Headed Woman’ is a rare version of one of the most common American folk songs: ‘The Hesitation Blues’ or ‘If the River Was Whisky’ as most people call it. My version is most directly inspired by a 1928 recording of Kentucky banjoist Dick Burnett and fiddler Leonard Rutherford. Their version contained some common folk lyrics — anyone with any exposure to folk and blues music has probably heard the line ‘If the river was whisky and I was a duck, I’d dive to the bottom and I’d never come up’ sung with a hedonistic, ‘let the good times roll’ kind of sentiment. But this version also held more unique lines about a curly-headed woman that had brought great pain and misfortune on the singer. And in that context, it occurred to me that the famous lyric about a river of whisky could also be a cry of pain. This thought became the center of my interpretation and my arrangement became a kind of dreamy balm. The video, shot on a beautiful spring day in an urban canyon of San Diego, features Erin Bower, who sang on the recording, and Aaron Brownwood.” — Clinton Davis

Photo credit: David Bragger