Lost in the Rhythms

Going Down to "Big Mary’s House", by the Paladins. I love the swing of this song, and the mid-groove tempo shifts. Whenever Carlyn Lindsey & Snakedoctor got around to doing this number, I was always grateful for the chance to get lost in its rhythms. This recording was made at an early Encore Café gig--the Snakedoctor line up: Tim Hass on drums, Larry Vessily on keyboards, Dave Witherd on sax, Scot Halpin on bass, and Carlyn Lindsey providing the vocals.

This is a song that wasn’t on everyone in town's set list. Snakedoctor has a lot of material like that. Scot had turned he focus back and was really enjoying looking through a lot of older material that he hadn’t previously encountered. He really had to work at learning some of the 'standards' that the band set out to tackle—“Stormy Monday”, “Elevator Boogie”, “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby”. He would be certain to complain if a song had more than four chords.

Once again on this track you are going to hear some phenomenal sax--courtesy of Dave Witherd. Dave has some handle on his music--full of grace and ease. Larry Vessily is another one. He knows. Tim brings his own unique style. Scot used to liken his rolls to the same effect you’d get throwing the drums down the stairs. Carlyn’s voice—pure pleasure, wrapped up in velvet, with a little prickle thrown in for interest.

The other day I closed feeling like I was talking about all these other people, and that really this is supposed to be the T. Scot Halpin Memorial Blog, and so I ask you to hone in and take a really good listen to Scot’s bass work in this piece, especially around 2:31 on the player. I can still see his hands move across the frets.

Today’s artwork--yes, another moon. I had to go with this piece because of all the fun, colorful blast coming out of the sax. This is another Claris works piece, drawn with the mouse, done circa 1997?