Here’s the music. The most recent recording is at the top. We have pretty wide-ranging tastes, so if the song at the top isn’t what you like, try another. We’ve been adding new songs as we record and mix them. If you want to listen to more than one song at a time, go to our Play Lists page.
Song for Ben is a meditation that Bob wrote for Ben Williams in celebration of an extraordinary and dear friend who enriched all who were fortunate to have known him – and whose passing is only softened by the memories he left with all he met. We could write volumes here about Ben and his impact on the world, but we’ll let the music speak instead. Chris plays percussion, rhythm and lead guitar; and Bob plays trumpet and trombone.
My Babe was written by Willie Dixon for Little Walter, so it’s meant as a blues harp player’s song. It was time for us to do a Chicago-style blues harp song. Even though it’s a harp-player’s song, we think that what makes the song work is the underlying rhythm created by the snare, bass, and rhythm guitar. That shuffling rhythm comes from the song’s origins that Dixon borrowed from the traditional gospel song This Train. If you know that song, you know that the rhythm mirrors a train’s cadence as it moves down track – as it gathers those who are “bound for glory.” Dixon changed the lyrics dramatically – away from promises of an afterlife and focused on a woman who tolerates “no foolin’.” The borrowed rhythm and new lyrics worked to make My Babe the most popular song that either Willie Dixon or Little Walter recorded. Our version is in their honor. Chris plays the percussion, bass, rhythm guitar and lead guitar, and Bob provides the blues harp and vocals
So Long Westland is an original song that Chris wrote in 1987 and updated for Docs’ Band. The song leaves the past. Sometimes traveling nearby can be more foreign than going to another country. And sometimes the experiences we have don’t help us to grow or learn or do anything positive. After all, the cliché of time healing all isn’t always true. It’s humanly optimistic to believe that time and distance makes any event in the past become tolerable. There are times when the past remains even more intolerable, and the best we can do is to tell that experience and place “so long.” For So Long Westland, Chris provides the vocals and plays the 12-string guitar, acoustic guitar, bass, and percussion. Bob plays the trumpet.
If you’d like to access the lyrics, click here
On Green Dolphin Street was composed in 1947 by Bronisław Kaper with lyrics by Ned Washington as the title song to the movie Green Dolphin Street. Through its exposure in the top-grossing film of that year, the song became a popular choice for musicians of the era to add into their repertoire. It’s now a standard that just about every major 20th century jazz musician recorded. The most well-known is the Miles Davis Sextet’s 1958 version. Given that pedigree, it’s been fun to explore how to make this ours. We’ve arranged the song around an Afro-Caribbean rhythm that comes from a traditional, buffalo-hide drum. The other instruments weave through that rhythm. The marimba and drum set the table for what we hope is a great jazz meal with southern-hemisphere spices.
If you have them available, we encourage you to play this song through a pair of external speakers or a headset. We’d like folks to do that with all our songs, but this one, especially. Internal computer speakers, even good ones, can’t capture the drum’s resonance that’s central to what we’d like you to hear in the recording. Chris plays rhythm and lead guitar, and Bob plays the drum, marimba, and trumpet.
Remembrances started as a song that Bob began writing in the fall of 2020. Its working title was “Pandemic Blues.” He originally intended to capture some of the feelings we were all having as we first saw the effects of what became a devastating public health catastrophe. In the months since this song began its journey, we recorded and wrote other songs; and by the time we got back to this one, there was more than the pandemic to ponder. Over the past two years, the two of us each lost dear friends and family from different causes. And the world experienced a lot of trauma and grief in addition to the pandemic. So Remembrances became about reflecting on the people who aren’t with us anymore. The song is intended to be contemplative, rather than a lamentation. We hope it evokes cherished memories of the people in your life, as it does for us. Chris plays lead guitar, and Bob plays the Hammond, trumpet, and trombone.
To see a video version of the song, click HERE. It’s a video of the scenery as Bob participates in the 2022 American Heart Association Heart Walk in the woods and on some country roads.
Deireadh Fomhair can be translated from Irish as “October,” or “end of harvest.” Listening to this traditional tune, you can hear the wistful sounds of a spent summer that hasn’t yet transitioned to a stark winter. There’s still the life and brightness of colorful leaves, but the days have lost their heat to autumn’s breezes. Different instrumental groups play Deireadh Fomhair, and it’s not unusual to have a guitar and flutes, pipes, or fiddles perform it. But we haven’t heard a combination that included brass, and we think the right brass sound fits this song. The mellow tone of a slightly muted cornet blends with the rolling rhythms of an acoustic guitar; and the flageolet provides a counterpoint to them both. We’ve heard in others’ versions how Deireadh Fomhair gets a unique melody variation from each interpretation, and we’ve added ours to the collection. Come and take a stroll with us through a brisk, Irish autumn afternoon. Chris plays the guitar, and Bob plays the cornet and the flageolet.
John Barleycorn Must Die is most widely known as the title track from Traffic’s fourth album in 1970. But it’s actually an English harvest-time folksong that probably goes back to the 16th Century. If you only hear the first verse, you think it’s going to be pretty grim with solemn oaths, plots to kill, and death. Then as you hear what happens to John in subsequent verses, you hear a song that’s as much about the cycles of life as anything else. It’s a great song for a couple of musicians who are looking toward the end of a worldwide pandemic that’s kept everyone separated. After all, we first developed our partnership while enjoying a little barleycorn after a workday and “setting the world to rights,” as the British sometimes say. We recorded this song in the hope of playing it to a live audience. When we do, it’ll sound pretty much like what we’ve recorded. We thought the sparse combination of vocals, acoustic guitar, and unmuted trumpet was the best sound to tell John Barleycorn’s woeful tale. Chris is on acoustic guitar and vocals, and Bob plays the trumpet.
B’s Shuffle is an original song that Bob started when he wanted to showcase the Blows Me Away custom blues harp mic that was made for him. Check out the maker’s site at the link to see the master craftsmanship that went into it. We generally don’t include pictures of our instruments, and most people don’t think of a mic as an instrument. But blues harp players do and this is an exceptional piece of art. It generates an even more impressive sound profile, so it deserved a new song. The song takes its cues from Chicago blues players like Little Walter, composers and arrangers like Willie Dixon, and the great Memphis Stax artists like Duck Dunn, Booker Jones, and Steve Cropper. It’s a song you can dance to – always a good idea. We hope that you’re at least tapping your foot or nodding your head as you listen. If not, the docs have a diagnosis and prescription: To get your soul tuned, go listen to some great R&B to begin the healing. Start your treatment with Sister Rosetta Tharpe and T-Bone Walker. Then take a pilgrimage with the three Kings (BB, Freddie, and Albert). Finally, work your way to the recordings of the other great players who travelled from Texas and New Orleans and Mississippi through Memphis and Chicago. Eventually, let your journey bring you back to our humble offering, B’s Shuffle. Chris plays bass and lead guitar, and Bob plays the blues harp, trumpet, trombone, and Hammond.
The Diary of John Day is our second original song. It’s written and arranged by Chris. John Day was a settler and trapper who arrived in the Oregon Territory in the early 1800s. There is a lot of conjecture about him, and it’s challenging for historians to separate fact from fiction. His name is attached to multiple place names in eastern Oregon: two towns (John Day & Dayville), two rivers (one in Clatsop County and the second, a tributary of the Columbia, near Astoria), and a national monument (John Day Fossil Beds National Monument). This song doesn’t try to recount a historical narrative. Instead, it takes elements from multiple stories about John Day to ask what happens to a man who becomes aware of the effects of his legacy. What happens if that early settler could also reflect back on the results of western settlement over the past 150 years? The song explores the madness that some accounts suggest befell the historical John Day. Chris provides the percussion parts, bass, the vocals, the acoustic guitar, and the electric guitar. Bob plays the trumpet parts.
If you’d like to access the lyrics, click here
Cristo Redentor is an expression of reverence. According to all accounts we’ve found, it came to Duke Pearson in 1961 as he flew into Rio de Janeiro over the Cristo Redentor statue that stands above the city. Clearly the sight put Pearson into a pensive and reverential mood. The song resonates with faith, awe, and devotion. We’ve tried to capture that, as well as a little of its Latin American ancestry. It’s not a surprise that in 1964 Pearson arranged the song’s most popular version for his friend, the great trumpeter Donald Byrd. Pearson began his musical journey as a trumpet player and may have had a trumpet’s ethereal ringing echo in mind as he wrote it. We’ve not tried to mimic the Pearson-Byrd arrangement which is gospel influenced and even features a choir. But we do include the sound of a Hammond organ, a sound that bridges jazz, blues, and the sanctified church. We picked up that sound from Charlie Musselwhite’s initial recording that’s become a signature piece for him. We also include a marimba to take the song back to the southern hemisphere. The guitar and trumpet ensure that our version doesn’t stray too far into the choir loft. Chris plays lead guitar, and Bob is on the Hammond, marimba, and trumpet.
To see a video version of the song, click HERE. It’s a video of the scenery as Bob participates in the 2021 American Heart Association Heart Walk on some country roads.
Round Midnight is a song that stays and keeps you pleasant company after you hear it. According to different accounts, Thelonious Monk wrote it sometime between 1935 to 1941 when he was in his late teens or early 20s. Cootie Williams made the first recorded version in 1944 when he adapted it for his big band. As a result, Williams shared the writing credits with Monk for the song on the original copyright in 1943, along with Bernie Hanighen who wrote lyrics. Those lyrics are rarely sung, however, as the song is a powerfully evocative instrumental (though Ella Fitzgerald sings the lyrics equally powerfully). Over the years, it’s evolved from a big band staple to bebop and beyond. It’s been recorded by every major jazz musician since 1944. We decided to record it because it has as much mood and feeling to it as any song we know. If you hear that melody playing in your mind after hearing us play it, then we arranged and performed it as we hoped to have. Rather than copying any one of the versions, we tried to make the song ours after having heard many versions over time. We’ve also arranged it differently with traded-off solos rather than the extended solos that are typically played. We wanted you to hear a new story about what happens ’round midnight as you listen to each verse. Chris is on rhythm and lead guitars, and Bob plays trumpet and trombone.
Dirty Old Town was written in 1949 by Ewan MacColl (née James Henry Miller), a Scotsman who was born and raised in Northwest England. Many folks think of it as an Irish song because it was first made popular by The Dubliners. Subsequent recordings have retained a pan-Celtic feel to them, as has ours. However, the “dirty old town” is McColl’s hometown of Salford, a part of Greater Manchester that’s just north of Manchester, England. Bob briefly lived in Stockport, about 20 miles south of Salford, and he appreciates how the song captures the feel of the region. The song reminds him especially of the “early leavers” at the all-boys public school where he taught – those 15-year-olds who left school at that age with no intention of continuing. It’s a very working-class song from a working-class region. It was important for us to include a tin whistle in our version. Robert Clarke, whom his eponymous company identifies as the inventor of the tin whistle, first mass produced them in the 1800s in Manchester and eventually in the village of New Moston, just seven miles from Salford. Chris plays the bass, rhythm guitar, and banjo. He also provides the vocals. Bob plays the blues harp and tin whistle, a Clarke “Original” model, of course.
The Mojave Green is our first original composition. Chris grew up on the south side of the San Gabriel Mountains near Pasadena, and the Mojave Desert starts on the north side of the mountains. In his 20s, he used to spend a lot of time in that desert during the winter. It’s a fascinating place with lots of mountain ranges, each one geologically different than the others. Chris wrote Mojave Green when he was in his early 30s. It’s an ironic, black-humor song about getting bitten by a snake from the rattlesnake family native to the Mojave San Gabriel foothills. It’s the most toxic rattlesnake there is, and a victim has a half hour to live once bitten. The song captures the sounds of the desert and allows us to consider how beauty and danger and the mundane all intersect. Chris plays all of the percussion, guitars, bass, and provides the vocals; Bob plays the blues harp.
If you’d like to access the lyrics, click here
Blues for Madeleine is one of those songs that echoes in memory. It was written by Johnny Hodges and Madeleine Panassié (née Gautier) in the early 60s and recorded by Hodges and Wild Bill Davis on their Blue Pyramid album. Panassié was a French jazz critic who was active during the 1940s and beyond when few women were journalists or critics. She wrote the liner notes for many of the French versions of albums that are now considered foundational to jazz history. She also co-authored a definitive French jazz dictionary.
Blues for Madeleine was originally written and performed as an instrumental that takes advantage of the prodigious skills of Davis (on organ) and Hodges (on alto sax). It’s often said and written that Duke Ellington never needed a regular vocalist in his band because he had Johnny Hodges. Hodges’ mastery of the soprano and alto saxophone squeezed emotion from every note, and his playing comes as close to the emotive sounds of singing as you can get. Since we didn’t have Hodges to play the melody, Bob wrote lyrics to the song, and we’ve added them. Chris plays bass, rhythm guitar, and lead guitar, and Bob provides the vocals, trombone, and trumpet parts.
V’là l’bon Vent is a French-Canadian folksong that’s at least 300 years old. There are many versions. Chris remembers the song as one of the earliest recordings his mother played for him as a child. The story and lyrics in our version tell the tale of a king’s son who kills a white duck with a silver gun while aiming for a black duck. The prince leaves the duck for the wind to scatter its feathers. Three ladies collect the feathers to make a bed for all passersby to rest. We enjoy the melody, and also the story of the high born being scorned for wanton wastefulness while common folk create good from evil. It’s an appropriate story to tell in 2021. Chris is on vocals and guitar, and Bob plays the trumpet.
If you’d like to access an English translation of the lyrics, click here.
Junior Parker first wrote and recorded Mystery Train in 1953. It’s had a lot of covers since, and many of them feature harp and guitar. Every harp and guitar duo has at least one train song, and this is one of ours. Besides, at a time when most folks aren’t traveling, we need reminders of what traveling feels like. The sounds and mood of a blues harp and country-blues finger picking just seems to fit both the sounds of a train and the mood that trains create. As you listen, we hope this gives you a ticket onto the old Panama Limited rumbling alongside the Mississippi. Chris is on bass, rhythm guitar, and lead guitar; and Bob is on the blues harp and vocals.
Sitting on Top of the World is another one of those timeless songs. It was first recorded by the Mississippi Sheiks in 1930 and written by two members of that group, Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon. While the lyrics are changed in the many covers of the song, the melody has endured. We chose to use a blues style that’s heavily influenced by the jazz of the 1940s – much like T-Bone Walker electrified country blues during that time. Chris is on both rhythm and lead guitars, and vocals. Bob is on the blues harp.
The Night Visit is an Irish ballad that’s based on the song As I Roved Out. Both the original song and the subsequent covers have lots of verse variations. Our rendition is based on lyrics that Christy Moore performed from the 1970s onward. We like his lyrics because the woman sets the terms of the relationship, unlike many traditional songs. Irish music transports Chris back to a 2002 trip he made to Galway and the west coast of Ireland when he met a lot of great people – bed and breakfast owners, Irish townsfolk, and foreign tourists from all over.
The song stretched us. Playing in 2/2 time is always challenging to get the instrumentation and vocals just right – especially at the tempo we chose. We changed it from a ballad into something more like a reel. It sounds like a simple song until the parts all need to come together. Chris is on guitar and vocals and Bob is on the blues harp.
Key to the Highway began as a 12-bar blues that most folks seem to agree was written by Charlie Segar. Jazz Gillum and Big Bill Broonzy changed it into an eight-bar blues. Broonzy’s version (with Gillum on blues harp) is the first widely known version. It’s the basis of more covers than just about any blues song of the mid-20th century. Our cover tries to keep Broonzy’s feel for the song while making it our own. The last two verses may have different words than you’ve heard if you’ve only heard the covers – we’re following Broonzy’s lyrics. His lyrics base the song in Texas, and Texas blues always provide a special connection to Bob’s roots since his father’s family was among the Black cattle ranchers and farmers who settled in Texas during Reconstruction. Chris is on guitar, and Bob is on blues harp and vocals.
To see a video version of the song, click HERE. It’s a video of Bob participating in the 2020 American Heart Association Heart Walk by walking some country roads.
Coming Back is a song written by Mitch King. We love the rhythm of the song and added the blues harp part to drive that rhythm. The song speaks of missing and yearning, and that rhythm drives the song’s sense of longing. Chris is on guitar and vocals, and Bob is on the blues harp.
Our version is posted on this page by permission of Mitch King. If you don’t know his music, check out this amazing artist and his journey as a musician at: https://mitchking.com
St. James Infirmary has been covered by a lot of folks. The earliest recording that we know was Louis Armstrong’s in 1928, but some accounts date its origins to the late 1800s. We based our version on Armstrong’s. He recorded it just eight years after the pandemic of 1918-’20, and it feels like the song contains the imprinted sorrow of that global tragedy and the hope that got folks through it. 2020 seems the right time to record this song. Chris is on the Stratocaster, and Bob is on the Hammond, vocals, and chromatic harmonica