Now that my kids are grown, Christmas has gotten easier. We're none of us rich, so we ask each other what we want, and what I usually want is gift cards to an independent book or music store. It makes for a pleasant afternoon, after the holiday mobs have subsided, to search through the discount bins for bargains with gift cards in hand. Here is a list of favorite tracks on 25 tasty used CDs that are out there waiting to be found:

"900 Miles"
on Bethany & Rufus, 900 Miles
(Hyena Records HYN 9353, 2006)

Bethany Yarrow is the daughter of Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul, and Mary. She has a lush alto voice that resonates with drama. Rufus Cappadocia, her partner, is an agile jazz cellist. He plucks a pizzicato line that drives their gripping version of the title tune, learned through her dad from Cisco Houston. Bethany performed with Peter at the Odetta memorial, and to celebrate the Obama inauguration.

"Cold Missouri Waters"
on Dar Williams, Lucy Kaplansky, and Richard Shindell, Cry Cry Cry
(Razor & Tie 7930182840-2, 1998)

Heard this song one morning on community radio while heading out to walk my dog at Magnuson Park. Bought the album that afternoon. The dog's no longer with me, but this song is. Written by Canadian songwriter James Keelaghan, the song tells the story of a doomed firefighting crew fighting to survive a 1949 blaze in northern Montana. Shindell sings lead, while Williams and Kaplansky construct surging harmonies around him. This is a great story song, perfectly constructed. Shindell writes:

I heard this at the Calgary Folk Festival at a workshop with James. He wrote this account of the first fire-fighter to create an oasis within a forest fire by deliberately scorching a circle around himself (for the full story read Norman MacLean's Young Men and Fire). It was one of my first choices for this album.

"Paper Tiger"
on Seattle Guitar Circle, Twilight
(self published BM 9901, 1999)

"Birds of Fire"
on Atomic Chamber Ensemble, King For a Day
(self published ACM001, 2004)

A few years ago, the ongoing Seattle Guitar Circle spawned the Atomic Chamber Ensemble, which in turn spawned Tuning the Air. In appearances at the NW Folklife Festival in their successive incarnations, they have given stunningly beautiful performances.

On the 1999 Seattle Guitar Circle album, "Paper Tiger" is a lovely waltz limp that rings like a miniature orchestra of glass bells. The "Ab Circulation," based on a group guitar exercise, falls like silver rain. The title track "Twilight" sounds like the theme to an imaginary eastern European sci-fi film noir. The machines scuttle undetected along the rooftops late at night on their spider legs of glass fibers, weaving our cocoon.

On the Atomic Chamber Ensemble's 2004 King For a Day album, they perform a ferocious version of John McLaughlin's "Birds of Fire," with Bob Williams playing blistering lead. "Vulcanization" by Curt Golden is also a wickedly intricate performance.

The talented performer-composers of Seattle's Guitar Craft, modeled on Robert Fripp's League of Crafty Guitarists, continue to create unique and fascinating music for guitar ensemble. Guitarist Jaxie Binder sent this friendly response: "Come see us in 2010 at www.tuningtheair.com!" I definitely will.

"Waltz for Debby"
on John McLaughlin, Time Remembered: John McLaughlin plays Bill Evans
(Verve 314519861-2, 1993)

John McLaughlin is known for his torrid speed, but on this gentle ensemble recording he serves as a patiently structured interpreter of Bill Evans' compositions for piano. After playing with Miles Davis on Kind of Blue, Evans went on to perform with a celebrated pair of jazz trios, the first in the early '60s with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian, the second in the late '70s with Marc Johnson on bass and Joe LaBarbera on drums. Evans was a heroin addict for most of his adult life, and died tragically. But the crystalline arrangements for guitar quartet on this album are testimony to the affection that players from many genres have for his beautiful compositions. "Waltz for Debby," written for Evans' niece, has a young girl's graceful enthusiasm in its step, which McLaughlin and the Aighetta Quartet capture elegantly.

"Alman / Melancholy Galliard"
on John Renbourn, The Lady and the Unicorn
(Shanachie SH 97022, 1997).

On these two tracks, Renbourn plays together with Len Nicholson on concertina. Per his liner notes, "The anonymous 'Alman' is taken from the Fitzwilliam virginal book, and is followed by 'Melancholy Galliard' by the English lutanist John Dowland." Their performance is delicate yet stately, valuable testimony from one of the founts of our music. See also the cut "Lamento di Tristan," where Renbourn doubles the guitar melody on sitar, and "Sarabande," where Renbourn finger-picks Bach on an electric guitar with the echo and tremolo turned up.

"Twice"
on Leo Kottke, Standing in My Shoes
(Private Music 0100582146-2, 1997).

Guest artist Chet Atkins plays lovely, fluid lead on this cheerful Tennessee afternoon's lope, which choogles along on train wheels underneath him just fine. On the following track, "Across the Street," Kottke makes eloquent use of a tuned-down 6-string guitar's lower register.

"So What"
on Jerry Garcia, David Grisman and Tony Rice, The Pizza Tapes
(Acoustic Disc ACD-41, 1987).

All of the recordings of Garcia and Grisman playing together are treasures, as is the film by Gillian Grisman (David's daughter), Grateful Dawg. The Pizza Tapes is a fascinating collection, because it includes casual jams and conversations from David's home studio. In February of 1993, David was recording the album Tone Poems with guitarist Tony Rice. He invited Garcia over to his studio, and the three of them jammed for two nights. Tapes of this jam became popular bootlegs, much to Grisman's disgruntlement. Finally the sessions got an "official" release on Grisman's Acoustic Disc label. Their jam on the Miles Davis/Bill Evans tune "So What" is amazingly dense and complex. The level of skill at work in these "casual" sessions was scary. Some tasty pizza!

"Two White Boys Watching James Brown at The Apollo"
on David Grisman and Andy Statman, Mandolin Abstractions
(Rounder Records CD 11540, 1982).

This cut is a hilariously exact moment of mandolin humor. The thirteen tracks of Mandolin Abstractions were recorded in August of 1982. According to the liner notes, the music "was composed spontaneously in the studio as it was being recorded. There were no overdubs or edits." This particular track was included in a fine Rykodisk anthology called New Acoustic Music (RCD 20002) in 1985, which is where I first heard it. Statman, heard on the right channel, begins playing a funky rhythm riff with a wicked b5 straight out of the Bootsy Collins rhythm section. What the hell? But Grisman comes in over top with a matching high part, and they're off. This was going on during the first Reagan administration? No shit...

"Casey Jones"
on Joe Hickerson, Drive Dull Care Away, Vol. 1
(Folk-Legacy CD-58, 2002).

The Seattle Folklore Society puts on folk music concerts at the Phinney Neighborhood Center. Peggy Seeger played in their Saturday Nights on Phinney Ridge series. I saw Joe Hickerson perform there a couple of years ago on a double bill with banjo player Dick Weissman of the Journeymen. After their concert, I picked up Joe's CDs Drive Dull Care Away Vol. I and Vol. II (on Sandy Paton's Folk-Legacy Records). Joe restores an old version of "Casey Jones" that dates from sixty years before the Grateful Dead tune, and sends it rumbling down the tracks, celebrating engineer Casey as "a good old rounder, but he's dead and gone."

The list of recordings on Joe's Web site makes interesting mention of another well-known tune:

F-2407 We've Got Some Singing to Do: The Folksmiths Travelling Folk Workshop.
I lead on several songs and otherwise perform on this [Folkways] recording of eight Oberlin College students, originally issued on LP in 1958. This was the first published recording containing "Kum Ba Yah." Includes 6-page booklet with texts.

"Cherokee Gentleman"
on Dick Weissman, Dick Weissman Solo
(Long Bridge Recording, 2005).

That night at the Phinney Neighborhood Center when banjo player Dick Weissman was on the bill with Joe Hickerson, I also picked up Dick's informed and gossipy book about the 'folk revival,' Which Side Are You On?, and this CD. On the cut "Cherokee Gentleman," Dick puts down his banjo to play 12 string guitar, and he tunes the 4th and 3rd pairs of strings in a way that I've never heard anyone else use: EE AA DA GD BB EE. Dick writes that he "picked some of the strings individually rather than in pairs." How did he do that? In his liner notes, he gives this account of the song's title:

During the '60s I was in a band called The Journeymen with Scott McKenzie and John Phillips, who later started the Mamas and the Papas. A mutual friend named Bill Cleary once explained to Scott that despite some rough edges, John remained a "southern gentleman." John was also part Cherokee.

"I'd Rather Be Dancing"
on Jim Page, Head Full of Pictures
(self published, 2006).

A beloved local songwriter, Jim grew up in San Jose, California, and moved to Seattle in 1971. He has been on the scene ever since, and his reputation here continues to grow. Often cited for his biting political content, he is in constant demand at progressive events. As I wrote in "Both Ends of the Rope: On Audiences and Venues" (Victory Review, Oct. 2009), a Jim Page song "travels with you":

When you hear Tom Waits cry out in "The Day After Tomorrow" as a vet who longs to come home from Iraq, you might recall how Jim's friend "Bobby Cortez" got taken by his futile war. The listener extends the meaning of both songs by making the connection.

Jim's heartfelt ballad "I'd Rather Be Dancing" in the voice of martyred Evergreen College activist Rachel Corrie has a similar power. It once again demonstrates that the rich tradition of topical song writing is alive and well in his capable hands. My daughter recently began playing acoustic guitar, and this is one of the first songs that she wants to learn.

"Nothing Makes Me Feel Good"
on Lincoln Crockett, Angels & Devils Alike
(self published, 2007).

I heard Portland mandolinist-guitarist-songwriter Lincoln Crockett play this one on Thursday, October 1st at Conor Byrne Pub, for a $5 cover. He and singer-songwriter-fiddler Chris Kokesh were on the tail end of a regional tour celebrating her upcoming release October Valentine and his going on "hiatus." Later, I was glad that I'd picked up his solo album. It's a fine piece of work, meticulously self-produced and masterfully played, full of intricate arrangements that speak of long hours woodshedding to get the fingerings and mixes right.

For several years, Crockett and his friends have played a circuit of little clubs on either side of the Columbia river, with occasional forays up here. I heard him give a workshop on songwriting at the 2006 Northwest Folklife Festival, and got on his mailing list. Three years later, between sets that October night at Conor Byrne, he was saying wearily that "trying to make a living as a traveling musician is crazy." Yes it is. The two of them were lucky if they made $500 that night. From the stage, he joked while introducing this song that "depression is an occupational hazard, but songwriter gold." Yes, "There is clinical help for you. It's called music..."

"Spanish Johnny"
on David Bromberg, My Own House / You Should See the Rest of the Band
(Fantasy FCD-24752-2, 1999).

Fantasy released these two albums from 1978 and 1979 on a single CD in 1999, and if you can find it, it's a real bargain. After spending two decades making violins in Chicago, Bromberg moved to Delaware, and lately has begun touring again, along with the Angel Band. My Own House was a solo album full of calm and graceful arrangements for acoustic guitar. I liked "Spanish Johnny" so much that I made my own arrangement of the song. David Bromberg writes this about its origins:

"Spanish Johnny" comes from a song in an Alan Lomax book which came from a poem by Willa Cather. Paul Siebel rewrote words and melody but never recorded it. I learned the song from Paul when I was his accompanist. He doesn't sing it anymore, but here it is.

"The Moscow Hold"
on Utah Phillips, The Moscow Hold & Other Stories
(Red House Records RHR CD 118, 1999).

Utah was a national treasure, a master storyteller, devoted Wobbly, and "ne'er-do-well" of the highest water. He was his own creation, tossed out of Utah after running Eldridge Cleaver for President in 1968 and getting him 8,000 votes. The Latter-Day Saints must have been astounded. Of his many albums, this one has some of the best storytelling. Utah's sense of comedic timing was lethal. The laugh for the punch line of the title story is as loud and blessed an explosion as you will ever hear at a folk venue. I love to slip this one into my van's CD player on the way to a gig, and have several times nearly driven off the road laughing, even though by now I know these stories by heart. Utah's heart eventually failed him, but it was a big one, loyal to the end to the common working people he clearly loved.

"She Moved Through The Fair"
on Art Garfunkel, Watermark
(Columbia CK 34975, 1978).

On this album devoted mostly to Jimmy Webb ballads (Paul Simon and James Taylor appear on a cover of Sam Cooke's "What a Wonderful World"), the track "She Moved Through The Fair" stands out. Paddy Moloney wrote this ghostly arrangement, The Chieftains play on it, and David Crosby provides subtle background harmonies. As I mentioned in "She Who Knows All Your B.S." (Victory Review, Nov. 2009), "Odetta also recorded this song, in which the spirit of a girl about to become a bride makes a frank suggestion to her beloved boy."

"I Can't Wait to Get Off Work"
on Tom Waits, Small Change
(Asylum 1078-2, 1976).

Everyone who loves Tom Waits' scratchy poetry has a favorite from his early albums. Small Change is mine. It includes the post-apocalyptic salesman growling "Step Right Up," and the love-struck hustler too late for "The One That Got Away," and the somber, spoken elegy for "Small Change" who "got rained on with his own .38." But my favorite cut is the last one, "I Can't Wait to Get Off Work."

At the age of 14, young Tom Waits got a job as a dishwasher and cook at Napoleone Pizza House in National City, "primarily a sailor town, a suburb of San Diego." (Interview at KPFK-FM Los Angeles 7/23/74, in Folkscene) "It was next to a mortuary and there were a lot of jokes about the food." (Interview at KBCO-FM Boulder 10/13/99) The place was run by Joe Sardo and Sal Crivello. "Every night about 4 o'clock in the morning, all the white-vinyl-booted go-go dancers and the sailors would come over...Just about that time Joe would go out in front just to check out the traffic on the street y'know?...And there'd be a cab out there combing the snake..." (Interview at WMMS-FM Cleveland 12/3/75) Tom worked this job while attending high school from 1963 to 1968. "I guess not till I was away from it for a long time I could really sit down and write something constructive about it..." (KPFK interview)

I used to play the Small Change CD while driving to work:

On the CD player, Tom Waits dances with a broom
in "I Can't Wait to Get Off Work" from Small Change

The casualties wander back to work
through the gray-green autumn rain
wishing the radio would recommend
one useful action that might
transform this Thursday into a Friday or
why not a Saturday? "Don't be ridiculous!"
Mr. Fox snorts at Howland Owl,
"They'd make two-day corrections illegal."

Meanwhile the shivering chipmunks
grow impatient for their new layer of fat
to arrive any time before Hallowe'en,
not thinking in weeks only in temperatures,
and the birds focus on the wriggly details
that a soaking rain brings to the surface,

leaving those of us up here
changing places as the sleepy traffic
crawls across the bridge
to count how many paychecks
until Christmas.

"Saving Days In A Frozen Head"
on Kaki King, Dreaming of Revenge
(Velour Recordings VEL-0804, 2008).

I heard Kaki King perform this tune at the Tractor Tavern, where she gamely went on despite running a wicked fever. "Typhoid Kaki" she called herself that night. A "making of" documentary about Dreaming of Revenge is available in five parts on YouTube. King is a deft young guitarist who has a prodigious and unusual range of techniques for picking, strumming, and whacking acoustic, electric, and slide guitars. She came to fame delighting crowds by slapping down on the neck and body of her guitar as she plays. There are a number of gloopy sound experiments on this somewhat over-produced album, but King's compositions are original and adventurous, and while she plays with loops and smears of sound, she is at root a considerable guitarist and arranger. With this release she becomes a lyricist and vocalist as well. In the song "Saving Days In A Frozen Head," she writes in sly, laconic observations that fold back on themselves:

Sunlight wakes me
just to say "Let's go to sleep now,
you work early,"
so for this hour I'll just look at you.
I don't want to go
but I can't say I've had a good time...

"Heard It Through the Grapevine"
on Fairport Convention, Who Knows where the Time Goes
(Green Linnet Records GLCD 3122, 1998).

"This track was recorded live at the Cropredy Festival 1995, and features Richard Thompson and the Roy Wood Big Band."

I'm in the minority of those who prefer the gospel-driven call and response of the original version by Gladys Knight and the Pips to Marvin Gaye's famously trench-coated cover, but the bad-assed backing vocals on this track by Sharron and Michelle Naylor are almost enough to change my mind. My, my, don't these English folkies enjoy picking up electric guitars and getting funky.

The CD also includes a stately version of the title track, written by the late Sandy Denny. Check out her original 1967 version with the Strawbs, before she joined Fairport Convention and recorded it with them. And in the final scene of the 2002 film "The Dancer Upstairs," the beleaguered Captain Rejas, played by Javier Bardem, watches through an auditorium door as his daughter dances to Nina Simone's version of this song.

"Come On In My Kitchen"
on Cassandra Wilson, Blue Light 'Til Dawn
(Blue Note CDP 07777-81357-22, 1993).

Robert Johnson thought he could talk a young woman into anything, but he never ran into Cassandra Wilson. This luxuriant funky version of his often-covered tune in which a "brash young man is telling a woman in trouble straight up that he needs somebody to keep his toes warm for the winter" (see "She Who Knows All Your B.S." in our Nov. 2009 issue) will curl your toes right around. Hey, if "a warm scoundrel beats chilly virtue as a February blanket," let him see if he can persuade this worldly woman to spend the night. More power to him.

"Atlas' Marker (The Aviator)"
on Rickie Lee Jones, Duchess of Coolsville
(Rhino R2 79715, 2005).

Speaking of considerable women, Rickie plays piano on this one, recorded live in Germany with Bill Frisell, who was then music director of the "A Century of Song" series at the Ruhr Triennale Arts Festival. Frisell writes this of recording with Rickie for the first time, for the album The Evening of My Best Day: "I didn't know what to expect. We didn't talk about anything--just walked in and started playing. She really pulls it out of the air. She's in the moment, an improviser. She's a real musician..." Her ability to get inside the skin of a song is in full evidence here.

The third CD of this Rickie Lee boxed set also includes a juicy duet on "Makin' Whoopee!" with Dr. John, backed by a jazz orchestra.

"Don't Miss You At All"
on Norah Jones, Feels Like Home
(Blue Note 7243-5-84800, 2004).

All right, all right, so this album sold a gazillion copies. And as previously noted in a two-sentence review in our Nov. 2009 issue, I clearly have a thing for Miss Norah's "Southern Comfort voice," and how good she looks in a "little black dress." But she's also a considerable musician, as witness this haunting piano arrangement with new lyrics for a Duke Ellington tune. There are a lot more folks than me who mumble "good luck" on her current pop synth-guitar direction, wishing that she'd do a lot more of this. Adam Levy's "In the Morning" is also a fine song - "Funny how my favorite shirt smells more like you than me..."

"Love at the Five and Dime"
on Nancy Griffith, One Fair Summer Evening
(MCA MCAD-42255, 1988).

This live concert album, recorded in August 1988 at the Anderson Fair in Houston, Texas, showcases the singer-songwriter at her most gentle and charming, performing for a devoted home-state crowd. (She also gave it a lovely solo BBC performance.) I used to play this song about the ups and downs of a marriage to put my daughter to sleep, and she thought for years that I wrote it. Learning the truth was one of many disillusionments as she came of age. "No, honey, but listen, this arrangement is all mine, and nobody knows it but me and you." "Aw jeez." Good thing for me that this song was made to calm a troubled heart. Like Good Night Moon, it seldom fails.

"Jack Straw"
on The Other Ones, The Strange Remain
(Arista GDCD 4062, 1999).

Recorded just three years after the passing of Jerry Garcia, this is a thrilling track. Deadheads were not certain that they'd ever hear this sound again. Weir, Lesh and Hart went back out as "The Other Ones" for the Furthur 1998 tour, and took along two guitarists, Steve Kimock and Mark Karan, and pianist Bruce Hornsby, who drives this version of Bobby's noir Western. At the moment when the jam breaks loose, with Hornsby pumping the keys and the sax wailing, you can hear the crowd roar with joy and relief. 'They're back, all is not lost...'

"Make Peace"
on Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau, Metheny/Mehldau
(Nonesuch 79964-2, 2006).

Metheny plays baritone acoustic guitar on this gently meditative track. His picking with those long fingers is like a shore bird rising from the reeds, and Mehldau is the full shore breeze lifting him effortlessly. Together they make me remember one morning on Kauai, sitting on a driftwood log while the sun came up.

"The Prowler"
on Oregon, Live at Yoshi's
(Intuition 32992, 2002).

Oregon is my very favorite acoustic ensemble in the entire world, so whenever they pass through Seattle (typically at Dimitriou's Jazz Alley), I'm there. This great live album, recorded in August 2001 at Yoshi's in Oakland, California, is an elegant treat from start to finish. The insouciant second cut, Ralph Towner's "The Prowler," is a knockout. If any double reed players out there have the least clue how Paul McCandless gets his oboe to bend a note like Barney Bigard's clarinet, let me know. The album is full of wonderful Towner compositions for acoustic guitar, notably "Green and Golden."

Oregon at Jazz Alley

A scraping gust
chases off the fallen leaves,
fair warning to button your jacket:
a Pacific gale won't coddle you.

It's an early date on the tour
and they are still testing the charts.
A practiced riff stumbles into a clumsy fluff
saved by a move of polyphonal intrigue
where the song sprouts a new tendril
to climb the curved air that very moment.

After the musicians finish their set
I slip back to praise them
but manage only a fan's stammer:
"That was so tight!" Ralph laughs.
"You thought that was tight?"

Later that night
not yet ready to sleep
I take up my own guitar
and play awhile, listening...

Hank Davis

• Also by Hank Davis
• Dec. 2009: "Follow Marco: Chôro, Villa-Lobos, and Modal Jazz"
• Nov. 2009: "She Who Knows All Your B.S."
• Oct. 2009: "Both Ends of the Rope: On Audiences and Venues"
• Sept. 2009: "Politics and Popular Music"