MUSIC IN THE AIR - ZERX 058

THE TUNE LIST
MUSIC IN THE AIR * High Desert Dreams and Dances
Bayou Seco Duo Zerx 58
1. Music in the Air 2:35
2. Lucia 3:45
3. Billy (Bob Dylan) Ram’s Horn Music ASCAP 4:31
4. Frijole Symphony - Frijole Beans/ Frijolitos Pintos 2:41
5. Valse à Chataigner/ Rabbit Stole the Pumpkin 3:44
6. Lazy Heart (Tom Mitchell) Yabut Music BMI 3:48
7. Barretero 2-Step 3:16
8. Fair Lady of the Plains/ Bell Breakdown 3:20
9. Corrido de Wingate/La Indita 4:21
10. Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow (A.P.Carter) Ralph Peer Int. ASCAP 2:29
11. Three-Way Hornpipe/ Texas 2:43
12. Crooked Trail to Holbrook/ Doumé the Cowboy 5:37
13. Cleofes Ortiz Medley (Munequita Linda/Portalito/4x4 ) 3:09
14. Mignonne Allons Si Voir la Rose 2:52
15. Polka a la Leña (Ken Keppeler) Buvette Music BMI 2:05
16. Sweet Jane 2:34
17. Tarahumara Tune 1:45 Total Time: 56:06
All titles Public Domain except where noted.
All Rights Reserved © BAYOU SECO 2003

Ken Keppeler and Jeanie McLerie have been playing music together for a quarter of a century. “Often backed up by our band members and friends, we decided it was time to record a disc of just us two. We are lucky to have worked with some of the best musicians and rhythm sections over all those years,and we feel their presence even when it is just us two.THANKS.!!! We live a full and wonderful life, collecting and playing traditional American music, teaching, building violins, building a house and traveling and visiting friends.

ABOUT THE TUNES
1. Music in the Air - The tune is an old favorite of ours “Cher Ici, Cher La-bas” from Bois Sec Ardoin and Canray Fontenot, and we wrote the words to fit in with where we live now.
2. Lucia - A Haitien Meringue we learned from a 1950’s 10” Folkways recording called “Haitien Piano” by Les Freres Duroseau- Fabre, Antoine and Emmanuel. We recently found out they had been shot by Papa Doc shortly after the recording was made. Thanks to Hoyle Osborne for giving us the music.
3. Billy - Bob Dylan wrote this for the Sam Peckinpah movie, “Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid” in 1973. We live in Billy the Kid Country and like the song very much, and all the references to New Mexico places.
4. Frijole Medley - Frijole Beans/ Frijolitos Pintos - The poem is by Jack Thorpe from his collection of cowboy poems first published in Estancia N.M. in 1908. The song is an old favorite around here. We learned it from Ramona Ortiz, Cleo’s wife. Antonia Apodaca also sings it.
5. Valse à Chataigner/ Rabbit Stole the Pumpkin - We learned the first tune from Dennis McGee and wrote these words because we used to live near Chataigner, Louisiana and added the turn(B part). The second tune we learned from Varise Connar in Lac Arthur Louisiana. He called it “Le Lapin qui a vole le giramoin”.
6. Lazy Heart - Tom Mitchell of Nashville, Tenn. wrote this gem and it has long been a favorite of mine.
7. Barretero 2-Step - This 3 part tune is from Elliott Johnson and the Gu-Achi fiddlers, the great Tohono O’odham band from the Quijotoa area near Sells, Arizona.
8. Fair Lady of the Plains/ Bell Breakdown - The song was collected in Farmington, Arkansas from Mrs. Gladys McCarty in 1941 by Vance Randolph, but Jeanie put a new tune to it, and the Breakdown was collected in the 1940’s by R.P. Christensen from the Bell Family near Alamogordo, N.M. It has
an Irish flavor, and it was transcribed in the key of E and we like it there, even though it is difficult on the accordeon and fiddle in that key.
9. Corrido de Wingate/La Indita - We found this song in John Donald Robb’s fine collection of “Hispanic Folk Music In New Mexico and the Southwest” And then we were able to hear Francisco Leyba sing it as recorded in 1951 by Robb, thanks to the UNM Archives of Southwestern Music. The song, a true story, was written by Eustacio Espinosa of Galisteo N.M., about taking 100,000 pounds of flour from the wheat growing area near Leyba (west of Villanueva) to Ft. Wingate near Gallup in 1889. The old wagon route went from La Bajada to Cabezon and west to La Nutria, south of Ft.Wingate. La Indita is a Spanish- Colonial dance tune that we learned from Cleofes Ortiz. We thought it followed the song well.
10. Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow - A Carter Family song I like very much and have sung for years. It isn’t true for us, because musicians never retire.
11. Three-Way Hornpipe/ Texas - The first tune was recorded by John Sharpe for the Library of Congress in the 1930’s. The second tune is one we have both known since the early 1970’s and we don’t know the origin.
12. Crooked Trail to Holbrook/ Doumé the Cowboy - I asked my mother’s cousin, Walter Walker, about the The Crooked Trail and he remembered it as one that they knew when he and his father, Ed, drove cattle on this very trail. The words are from Jack Thorpe’s collection, “Banjo In The Cow Camp”. Ken wrote Doume the Cowboy for our Breton friend Dominique Parent, a cowboysailor.
13. Cleofes Ortiz Medley (Munequita Linda/Portalito/4x4) These wonderful chotises and polka were played by Ken on Cleofes’ old fiddle (see photo) made in Santa Fe by someone named Olie. The label says: Olie’s Oleon. S.F. AD 1935.
14. Mignonne Allons Si Voir la Rose - Pierre de Ronsard wrote this poem (Ode à Cassandre) in the 16th century, and I learned the lovely tune from Arrigo d’Albert in Mendocino, Calif in the early 1970’s. Gather the roses while they bloom, and don’t let them wither on the vine.
15. Polka a la Leña - Ken dreamed up this cool polka one day when we were in Canada at a festival called the Woods. Ken saw all those trees as an amazing amount of firewood (so scarce in NM) and wanted to pay hommage to them. Some times we call it Beep-Beep. You are encourged to join in on the beeping.
16. Sweet Jane - I first sang this song about the Gold Rush when I lived in England in 1964-67. I learned it from Jean Ritchie. This is a more complete version from Maude Thacker of Pickens County, Georgia.
17. Tarahumara Tune - I learned this tune from a tape that Will Spires made in Basihuare, Copper Canyon, Mexico on Dec 12, 1980 at a Tarahumara fiesta. I played it on a fiddle made by Patrocinio Lopez, from Batopilas, Chihuahua, Mexico (see photo) and Ken played his great grandfather’s pump organ for backup. This organ, a Mason Hamlin made in 1861, and given to Charles William Moore in 1871, has criss-crossed the USA on covered wagons and accompanied the Moore Family when they lived on a co-operative colony in Topolobampo, near Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico in the late 1800’s where we conjecture they might have jammed with some Tarahumara fiddlers from nearby Copper Cañon.

POEM BY MARK WEBER
what is a duet
but ham & eggs --
what is ham & eggs
but milk like honey --
honey like song --
song in heaven the sky
and a duet like two peas in a pod
because they do-it so well. Mark Weber

SONG WORDS
FRIJOLITOS PINTOS

Frijolitos Pintos, blancos y morados.
¡ Ay, cómo sufren los enamorados!

Una perra pinta, pinta y orejona,
Se busca la cola, la tiene rabona.

le dió la virhuela, le dió (el) zarampión
Le quedó la cara como un chicharrón.

¡Ay! Viene mi suegra, bajando la loma
Brinca la leña, y hecha la maroma.

Mamacita linda, ahí viene Vicente
Sacale un banquito, para que se siente.

VALSE Á CHATAIGNER
Words © Jeanie McLerie, Melody: Trad.

1. M’en aller à Chataigner
C’est pour voir mon cher ‘tit monde
Il est après m’ésperer à la buvette
Au Prairie Ficataique pour faire la musique.

2. Nous avons quitter la belle Louisiane
Pour pousser les racines a Nouveau Mexique
Nous avons construit une jolie maison
Pour vivre et travailler, et jouer d’la musique.

CORRIDO DE WINGATE
1. Para Wingate salimos
con cien mil libras de flor
para Wingate salimos
de cien mil libras de flor

2, Nos dice el gobernador
-Echen buñuelos muchachos
echen buñuelos muchachos
que será en su favor.-

Coro: Ayai (Ahi) dirán que sí
y después que no,
para Wingate conflete,
les da consejos que no

3. Nos dice don Manuel Chávez
-con miel melados a mí.
que enmelados son mehores
y agarraron mejor sabor-

4. Como a las once del día
llegamos a La Parida.
se volvió Francisco Chávez
malo de la rabadilla

5. Como a las tres de la tarde
llegamos a La Jornada,
se volvió Francisco Chavez
porque le entró la forzada.

6. La cuestacita (de) La Nutria
tiene cosa de una milla,
que cortándose une manea
pierden los hombres la vida.

1. We started out for Wingate
With a thousand pounds of flour.
We started out for Wingate
With a thousand pounds of flour.

2. The boss says to us;
“Make fritters, boys;
Make fritters boys
That will be to your credit.”

Chorus: Now you say yes,
Later you'll say no.
On to Wingate with the freight,
Despite those who advised us.

3. Don Manuel Chávez tells us
“Put honey on mine,
They’re better that way
And they taste better.”

4. At about eleven in the morning
We came to La Parida.
Francisco Chávez showed up
With a bad backache.

5. At about three in the afternoon
We came to La Jornada,
Francisco Chávez turned up
With a case of loose bowels.

6. The little hill of La Nutria
Is about a mile long,
If the brakes (hobbles) fail here,
Men may loose their lives.

This is adapted from the original transcription in John Donald Robb’s, Hispanic Folk Music of New Mexico and and the Southwest,
Univ. of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK 1980 (Out of Print)
This song is Robb, R738. A recording of Francisco S. Leyva, age 81,recorded in Leyva, NM, 1951, can be found in the John Donald Robb Archive at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
Dean Robb was a friend of ours and performed an invaluable service to the state by collecting traditional New Mexican music. From the
1940’s through the 1980’s, he collected all over the state.
You can also find a version of Frijolitos Pintos, as sung by Edwin Berry, as Robb, R2479.

MIGNONNE, ALLONS VOIR SI LA ROSE
Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585)

Mignonne, allons voir si la rose
Qui ce matin avait déclose
Sa robe de pourpre au soleil,
A point perdu, cette vêprée,
Les plis de sa robe pourprée
Et son teint au vôtre pareil.

Las, voyez comme en peu d’espace,
Mignonne, elle a dessus la place
Las, las, ses beautés laissé choir!
Ô vraiment marâtre Nature,
Puisqu’une telle fleur ne dure
Que du matin jusques au soir.

Donc si vous me croyez, Mignonne,
Tandis que votre âge fleuronne
En sa plus verte nouveauté,
Cueillez, cueillez votre jeunesse;
Comme à cette fleur, la vieillesse
Fera ternir votre beauté.

Recorded by Ken Keppeler at Fiddle Hill Studios, Silver City
in Jan, Feb. and March, 2003
Recorded through a Mackie mixer to a Denon DAT machine.
using Audio Technica, AKG, Shure and RÖde mics.
Mastered by Quincy at Q! Productions, Albuquerque
Notes: Jeanie McLerie and Ken Keppeler
Cover Art: Henry Hutchinson
Cover design: Howell Graphics, Silver City
Layout and printing: Unicorn Press, Silver City
Zerx Records, Albuquerque, N.M.: Zerxpress@aol.com