The Jammeister

The big news is that I have started this website.  I feel a like a pharaoh building a pyramid to honor myself, but at least I'm doing all the building myself instead of forcing thousands of unfortunates to do it for me. Hopefully, this pyramid will give some family, friends and the occasional stranger some pleasure.  It features a lot of music making in which I have been involved. Most of the inspiration and work took place many years ago, and I was pleasantly surprised when listening back to the music and looking at the photographs of the quality and variety of experiences I have had. I am grateful to all the people with whom I made this music. 

One could start with my music bio which is incomplete, and  then move on to the old recordings.  The streams begin  on this page with my tune, You Can't Keep a Man Down, being played by twenty two or so year old me with my wife at the time, Rene Weisse.  I found it on an old cassette. The introduction of the portable cassette player which became readily availalble at a reasonable price in the early 1970s made home recording very easy. Most of my early home recordings were made on one of those inexpensive Panasonic machines.

This website is not only a retrospective. I have pages dedicated to The Bumper Crop Boys and Le Nozze di Carlo, both groups that still perform around town.  The Bumper Crop Boys are working on a new collection of recordings and have recently played on the Farley Steps at Moynihan Train Hall on 8th Avenue circa 34th Street. We also won the Jalopy Theatre Jug Band Contest in March.  Here's a photo with some of us celebrating our victory.

In addition I have started to compile a  list of all the shows I have coming up.  You can scroll down to see where I'll be playing next. I'll keep adding  music here as well as photos, stories, press and the latest news.  If you want to stay in touch, please add your e-mail address to the sign-up box at the top of this page. 

As for credits, the photos of The Bumper Crop Boys are by Patrick Merino, photos of  Lips-O-Facto are by Paule Diamond.  The ancient photo of me as a kid is from a photo booth at Woolworths.  The photo of wiseass, 1979 me with my guitar on the Home page is by my old buddy Jim George.  There are photos  by other folks.  I will properly credit all of them. Thanks for stopping in.

This is a protest song I wrote when James Brown was imprisoned back 1988. He definitely seemed to be in need of help, but he should not have been put in jail in my opinion. Lips-O-Facto recorded it with the help of Manny Boyd and Marcel  Van Rootselaar.