American Baroque: Steel String Surprise

This album, and the music on it, almost never saw the light of day. Last fall I'd had it and l left the business-I'd just given up-I was disheartened and emotionally, physically, and financially bankrupt. As so often happens in my life, when I let go of a thing, or situation, or relationship, I gain perspective. A couple of months into my 'retirement' I became open to something happening with my music. Although I wasn't interested or capable of steering the ship so to speak, I was interested in getting the ship back in the water.

I'd heard that Loud Dust Recordings in Burlington, VT was interested in adding to their eclectic roster, so I submitted my music. Lo and behold, a couple of weeks later they offered me a record deal. We talked at first about the re-release of my solo catalogue, Mystic Morning, Homecoming, and WinterNight, but there was a world of music I'd recorded that was languishing, un-promoted, un-publicized, with almost no radio or internet presence that I was committed to releasing. After hearing the music, Patrick Shea agreed and American Baroque: Steel String Surprise is the result. This album represents my favorite tracks from several different recording sessions that took place during the past 7 years. I hope you enjoy listening to this album as I much as I enjoyed putting it together.

In addition to the following performance notes and guitar tunings several of the songs are available in tablature from my music page as pdf files; www.kenbonfield.com/music/

Ken Bonfield
October 1, 2006

The Songs

1. Renaissance

DADGBE

This is the first song I wrote after a very long dry spell. Normally I write 15-20 pieces a year, some are keepers, some aren't, but I'm usually good for a little more than one piece a month. When I wrote this I hadntt written a song in over a year! I was suffering from compositional constipation. I'd gotten used to the buzz you get when you create something new and was suffering extreme withdrawal. I cried like a baby the day I wrote it.

2. Sunday Morning

DADGAD

Something I wrote in a hotel room in Portland, OR in 1998 and never paid much attention to it until I played it for Joe Ebel who wrote and played the violin part, which is the heart and soul of the song.

3. Kadotume

DADGBE, DADGBD, or DADGAD

Since I travel so much to perform, I've learned to write songs in my head. Often, all I need to do is write 3 or 4 measures on the guitar and I'm able to picture the rest in my head. This was written on a trip that started in a car in Boston on Monday and ended on a plane in LA the next Sunday. The cool thing about this piece is that I only use 4 strings: I never touch the 1st or 2nd string, which is why you can play the song in 3 different tunings.

4. Angela's Ashes

DADGAD

Originally Joe Ebel, my writing partner for this piece, didn't like the song it all; he found it disturbing. Since I'd written it about the book of the same name I was encouraged that I'd caught the emotional timbre I was after, and shared with Joe something about the book and Frank McCourt the Pulitzer Prize winning author. Seen in that light, Joe took a second look at the piece and created a powerful, haunting, melancholy violin part.

5. And Now?

DGDGBbD (G minor Tuning)

One of the first instrumentals I ever wrote. I've had this on my 'to-do' list for over a decade. It chronicles the break-up of a very serious, long-term relationship.

6. Mesa Rag

EADGBE

It's hard to believe that the shortest piece on the album took the longest to write. I started writing this some time in the mid-70's and didn't finish until 1990 or 1991. This was another piece that has long been on my 'to-do' list. I remember playing this in my first ever guitar contest in Santa Fe, NM in 1993. It was good enough to win first prize and proved to me that you can play the guitar with your fingers shaking.

7. Summer Rain

EADGBE, Capo III

This song first appeared on the original version of Mystic Morning. I HATED the arrangement, but had no one else to blame but myself; I was the producer. I just don't know what I was thinking. When I re-issued Mystic Morning I pulled it off the record. This version was written and recorded with Joe Ebel, and is superior in all ways to the original. This may be my favorite song; I've performed it at every concert, whether I appeared as a soloist or in an ensemble. I just love it.

8. Floating

CGDGBE on high string guitar (replace the 3 lowest strings with strings tuned an octave higher)

I almost regret writing this piece. I don't have enough guitars to put one in this specialized tuning permanently so I can't perform the piece live. I love the way the high-string takes on a music-box quality. It's one of my wife's favorites, and I tried to make up for not being able to perform it by putting it on two albums: American Baroque: Steel String Surprise and Homecoming. If you're a fan of high-string guitar, my holiday album, WinterNight, has several pieces on high-string guitar.

You'd be surprised to know that I wrote this after firing a booking agent; she'd had me as an exclusive client for over 6 months without one booking. I couldn't believe how good I felt after dealing with a difficult situation, and got myself back on the road again.

9. Mirage

DADGAD

While rehearsing for this take I made a huge mistake; the kind that's so bad you laugh about it. Fortunately Michael Manring, the amazing fretless bassist, heard the mistake as a 'McCoy Tyner' moment and asked if I could incorporate the 'mistake' into an improvised section in the middle of the piece of music. This is what we came up with. There are no edits or overdubs on this piece; it was recorded live to 2-track, exactly as we played it that day. This proves yet again that most mistakes are just happy accidents.

10. Ella's Labor Day Blues

DGDGBbD

On the day Ella was born, six weeks prematurely, I played guitar while she rested in her crib; ballads mostly, really pretty stuff, very delicate. She cried so hard she looked like she was gonna POP! I decided to play something up-tempo and she stopped cold, like someone had put a hand over her mouth. I thought about that, and a week later while idly tapping out a bass-line with my left hand a song was born.

For Ella

11. Requiem

DADGAD

The title says it all.

For Jennifer.

12. Steel String Surprise

DADGAD

This is another song that originally appeared on the first version of Mystic Morning. I never liked that arrangement; I played it way too fast. My friend Darryl Purpose has a wonderful version on his Holiday Cd Gift of the Magi.

13. Centerline

EADGBE

As you may know, I love to noodle on the guitar while watching TV. In effect, creating sound tracks for movies that have already been released. Not very profitable, but it can be instructive. I wrote this for a scene in Quentin Tarantino's classic, Pulp Fiction; the scene where John Travolta shoots up heroin on his way to pick up Uma Thurman.

For Uma.

14. Freedom

CGDGAD

This is another piece that's been waiting for its moment in the sun, written in a friend's home in 1995. I've fallen in love with Michael's bass part which weaves it's way so wonderfully through the guitar and percussion, and helped me create 'my' take on World Music where East meets West.

15. Nocturne (for Brendan)

CGDGBE

On Father's Day several years ago, I received news that Joe Ebel's son Brendan was killed by a drunk driver. Brendan had just turned 21 and had received a scholarship to study music at a university in Minnesota. He was the kind of person that lit up a room when he walked in. He had so much presence, so much charisma; he was a beautiful soul. The woman who killed him received a 5-year prison term.

What a waste, what a terrible, senseless waste.

16. Zander's Folly

EbBbEbGAD

I love writing music more than anything in the world-yes, anything! More often than not it's hard work, sometimes even tedious. Sometimes it's fun, like figuring out a Rubik's Cube can be fun. But sometimes it's the most joyful, exciting thing in the world. This piece falls in the latter category, and it's as much fun to play now as it was to write!

For Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Serenity

17. Dancing with Shadows

EbBbEbGAD

Written during an 'interesting' time in my life. I'd just finished recording and mixing my second album and it sucked. I wasn't the only one who thought so; the label agreed with me, they thought it sucked too. Luckily they liked the songs enough to re-record the whole thing, and I got a song out of it. Yet another happy accident.

For Richard

American Baroque: Steel String Surprise and the complete Ken Bonfield discography is available through Loud Dust Recordings, PO Box 8521, Burlington, VT 05402 United States

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