MARY McCASLIN TONIGHT ~

 

℗ 1994 Rounder Records., Distributed by Concord.

MARY McCASLIN ~

 

MARY McCASLIN ~

M A R Y    M c C A S L I N

Dec. 22, 1946 ~ Oct. 2, 2022, at her home in Hemet, Calif.

 

JIM RINGER ~

Jim Ringer

Go out any where now, I dare you — cityscape, small town, village, pathway, dirt road byway, alley, bike path, motorboat, jet ski, swimming wharf, canoe, park bench, work field, train car, train rail, train yard, foyer, hallway, elevator, stairway, windowsill, schoolyard, parking lot, driveway, grass levee, and you're likely to see, now or one day soon, the people and presence of everything said and sung in this song.

 I can't imagine anyone singing this song as well as Jim Ringer.

Born 29 February 1936, Yell County, Arkansas, USA, d. 17 March 1992, California, USA. In the mid-40s Ringer’s family fled the poverty-wracked Ozarks in hope of a better life elsewhere. After a brief stay in Oklahoma, the family settled in Clovis, California. From his parents, Ringer learned folk songs and traditional music. By this time he could play guitar and he also sang. In his teenage years Ringer drifted, got into trouble with the law, and later married, had two children and then separated from his wife. He played and sang folk and bluegrass, working in bars around Berkeley and Fresno and he also toured for a period with an ad hoc folk band. He then settled into a job at Sweet’s Mill, a folk music camp near Fresno, California, where he was with Kenny Hall And The Sweet’s Mill String Band. This was in the early 70s, which is when he also made his recording debut with both Hall’s band and under his own name. Also at this time, he signed with Philo Records and met singer-guitarist-songwriter Mary McCaslin. From the mid-70s, Ringer and McCaslin worked together, she was also a Philo recording artist, and they married in 1978.

Among songs Ringer composed are ‘Waitin’ For The Hard Times To Go’, which has been recorded by the Nashville Bluegrass Band, ‘Open Door At Home’, ‘Good To Get Home’, ‘Rachel’, ‘Tramps And Hawkers’, the latter recorded by Tom Russell, ‘The Band Of Jesse James’, ‘Dusty Desert Wind’, ‘Tulsa’, ‘Linda’s On Her Own’, ‘Still Got That Look’, ‘Any Old Wind’ and ‘Rank Stranger’. In the early 80s, Ringer switched labels but although his first release for Flying Fish Records gained cult status his career was undergoing a difficult time. So too was his marriage and by the end of the decade he and McCaslin had separated. Ringer’s health was poor and he had a serious problem with alcohol. After the divorce, he returned to Fresno, apparently making no more appearances during the last few years of his life, although he did compose at least one song during this period, ‘If I Don’t Miss You’, which McCaslin would later record.

The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin

COWBOY ~

Gene Autry

"Canadian-born Robert Nobles spent part of his childhood in the Arizona desert, for which all lovers of Western music may be thankful. As "Bob Nolan", a founding member of the legendary Sons of the Pioneers, he gave us some of the finest poetry and most satisfying melodies in the history of the genre. The words to one of his early compositions, concerning the tumbling leaves of autumn, were misunderstood by 1933 radio fans of the Pioneer Trio, many of whom wrote in to request the song about the "tumbling weeds." Nolan did a quick rewrite and thus was born a cowboy classic. The Sons of the Pioneers recorded the song for Decca in 1934 as one side of their very first release, but it was Gene Autry's 1935 cover — with his slightly different arrangement — that earned the gold disc and brought Nolan's work to prominence. Later that same year it also served as the title for Gene's first starring feature film for Republic Pictures."

~ Jon Guyot Smith
from Gene Autry, Sing Cowboy Sing
(Rhino Records)



No offense, but we prefer Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers version :

The Sons of the Pioneers

Emmylou Harris

Billy the Kid

Billy Joe Shaver
© Matt Lankes

Cowboy Jack Clement

Mary McCaslin

It doesn't matter where you were born when it comes to the west — scholars have Billy the Kid born in an Irish neighborhood of New York City, as was Walter Brennan born of Irish immigrants in eastern Massachusetts; and Cisco Houston born on the east coast but raised in California ditto the Sierra Nevada climber Clarence King came out of posh Newport, Rhode Island (what's he doing here? Well, when I hear western songs I see mountains). Emmylou Harris is a southern belle; and Mary McCaslin, with a melody sure of the west, was born in Indianapolis. Patsy Montana's real name was Ruby Rose Blevins, pure Arkansas. Likewise the other Arkansas wonder Johnny Cash. Chicago's Frankie Laine was born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio, enough said. Of course both Bob Wills and Billy Joe Shaver are T-is-for-Texas; as Cowboy Jack Clement is Memphis, Peter La Farge all Southwest. June Carter Cash was born in Virginia and country music via the Carter Family at the age of ten. Marty Robbins was born outside of Phoenix, though I believe he was born with a golden voice.

EARTH ~

Mary McCaslin

When I fell in love with you know who, there was no one we played more in our cabin in the woods, besides Townes Van Zandt, than Mary McCaslin. Old record player. Repeatedly. And I believe we wore through both our separate albums of Way Out West and so bought one more out of the dollar bin. And years later when our son Carson was born, we bought him a copy.


No man should go on living without the young voice of Mary McCaslin rushing through his veins.


She was completely outside Nashville, recorded in the sticks of Vermont, born in the midwest but with a Pike's Peak knowledge of the old west. More than just the history, places, events and people; she put you there.


Mary McCaslin still tours and plays. Thirty years ago in Seattle walking with a friend on a barren side street we saw a marquee for Mary McCaslin with her then companion Jim Ringer. Their duets rival anyone's.


We never saw them together. We heard Ringer long ago in Vermont, a wee bit inebriated on stage and making fun of his dobro player (who played fine). And then we caught McCaslin years and years later on a wet night in a college town cafe, and miraculously here MM was passing through.


Her first album Way Out West remains eerily stark yet rippling with passions, and absolutely untouched.


Here we share a terrific Marty Robbins song from her album Prairie in the Sky
done all Mary ~

"my love" from the album Prairie in the Sky
philo records