A collection of original music
played on acoustic guitar,
mandolin, fiddle, bass and harmonica. The melody of each
piece is based on an actual bird song.
A nominee for an "Indie" award for "Best New Age Album", this beautiful recording features 11 original compositions by Joe Weed, each based on a melody taken from an American birdsong. Highly listenable and exquisitely recorded, The Waltz of the Whippoorwill has received both critical and commercial success. Featured soloists include David Grisman, Todd Phillips and Joe Weed.
"Some sweet, sweet acoustic dream. If this music came through your kitchen window it'd make rainbows" —Darol Anger
"A marvelous concept, wonderful music and superb musicianship. One of the most listenable records I've heard in years!"—Jim Hatlo, Frets
A beautiful album! A masterpiece!"—Tiny Moore
Reviewed in FRETS magazine, August, 1988:
...Weed pulls it off with flair...all acoustic pieces, featuring Weed's rich fiddle tone and sprightly mandolin. Especially high flying is his uptempo duet with Grisman on "Western Kingbird." Excellent production and recording, and some adventurous harmonies and good humor ("Chickadee Polka" and "Carolina Wren Rag"), help make this an enjoyable record.—Mark Hanson, FRETS
"The music is a great bridge between the world of nature and the world of music." — Mark Silberstein, Elkhorn Slough Foundation, Moss Landing, CA
The Tunes
1. Cardinal (4:09)
This beatiful songbird has at least 28 songs of its own. I've
chosen a simple two-note pattern as the motif for this tune, which
I wrote in memory of Alberta Barker Kendall, who loved this bird
so.
2. Carolina Wren Rag (3:37)
This saucy little bird does what most wrens do--hides in a thicket
and taunts birdwatchers. Its song seems to lend itself most fittingly
to a rag.
3. The Waltz of the Whippoorwill (3:22)
My image of the whippoorwill shall always evoke the falling star
and purple sky of Hank Williams' hauntingly beautiful waltz, "I'm
So Lonesome I Could Cry," which I first heard in 1956 as
my family crossed the Great Plains in our Ford station wagon.
When I mentioned this to an old Texan, he told me that it would
be a great day when they got rid of the whippoorwill with its
constant banter. It drives them crazy at night. Oh, well.
4. Western Kingbird Air and Reel (4:01)
My wife once spotted a western kingbird on a farm in Kansas, sharing
a fence with an eastern kingbird. The fence was running north
and south. Here's a pair of tunes from the song of the western
kingbird, who was much more musical than its eastern cousin.
5. California Quail (4:45)
Sometimes in the early morning of a cold, foggy winter day, I'll
open the door and startle a covey of 25-50 of these beautiful
birds feeding in the pines. They'll start up, and in a flurry,
fly off into the grey.
Imagine spending your life with a black tennis ball dangling between
your eyes, and you'll have an idea of what it must be like to
be a California Quail. This song evokes the peace these poor birds
will never know.
6. Chickadee Polka (2:45)
Perhaps the most readily recognized of this collection, the chickadee's
little call practically dictated the whole tune. These busy little
birds polka their way up, down, across and through a tree or bush,
singing the whole time.
7. Swainson's Thrush (3:26)
Thrushes are known for their beautiful flutey songs. This
one was named for William Swainson, a 19th Century British naturalist
and ornithologist, who in a dangeros and exciting time traveled
through North and South America studying and collecting birds.
I hope he liked waltzes.
8. Eastern Meadowlark (3:27)
Most field guides tell bird watchers that the only reliable way
to distinguish eastern from western meadowlarks in the field is
by their song. So if you don't hear the harmonica, it must be
a western.
9. Greater Prairie Chicken (3:35)
John Terres writes in his Audubon Society Encyclopedia of North
American Birds that this prairie dweller has not reacted well
to the loss of its tall grasslands to the European settlers. This
tune is a lament for a time when the bird shared the prairies
with its neighbors in a more equitable arrangement.
10. Western Bluebird (3:15)
I spotted my first western Bluebirds long after they had spotted
me. Doing their leaf imitations, they watched silent and motionless
from the branches of a tall Sycamore tree in the hills near Sunol,
California. This beatuiful bird faces an uncertain future.
11. Varied Thrush (2:29)
A solitary male sat on the top branch of a huge fir tree near
our house one evening, watching the sunset. In eight years I haven't
seen that again. But I'll continue to look
For additional copies or information on obtaining other recordings by Joe Weed, please write joe@highlandpublishing.com
or Highland Records, PO Box 554, Los Gatos, CA 95031-0554
1(800)354-5580
Thanks to Marti Kendall for love, devotion and inspiration, all the Weeds and Kendalls, Jorge and Pepin Montero, Thom and Myra Jones and family, Peter Crockett, Michael Rugg, Darol Anger, Chuck McCabe, Virg Evans, the fiddlers of North America for a beautiful and many-faceted tradition, the instrument builders who keep up happy, and the bird watchers and birds for keeping each other in line. This album is dedicated to Jeffrey Joe and Katie Elizabeth Kendall-Weed. July, 1987.
Cover design, illustration and layout: Michael Rugg, Peter Crockett and Joe Weed
Photos: Paul Schraub
Recorded analog and mixed to digital (ADD) at Highland Studio, Los Gatos, CA