There's better ways to make money than trying to sell records.  Sure wish I knew what they were...

Lightnin' Wells, Tad Walters, Boo Hanks and me made this record to give out to the people who donate money to the Floyd Council Memorial Project.  The record is called Pink and Mr. Floyd.  There are thirteen songs on the album.  Most of them were part of Floyd's repertoire...or Floyd's and Pink Anderson's.  Me and Lightnin' each took three of the six songs Floyd recorded commercially in 1937.  Tad played Bad, Bad Whiskey...

I was standing in Floyd Council Jr's driveway talking to him about the songs his Dad used to play around the house when Floyd Jr. was a kid.  He told me that his Deddy's favorite song was probably Bad, Bad Whiskey...that he played it almost every time he got his guitar out of the case.  See...a couple of months before we had this conversation Tad was telling me about playing Bad, Bad Whiskey for his little boy, Charlie.  Jen came in the room and asked if that song wasn't a little advanced for a three year old, so Tad changed the words to Bad, Bad Kool-Aid.  For weeks, Charlie'd been running around the house singing the Bad, Bad Kool-Aid song and every evening he was adamant that the Kool-Aid song be sung to him before the possibility of sleep could be considered.  The whole deal seemed like kismet to me...

So Tad recorded Bad, Bad Whiskey at Osceola Studio for the record and he did a few of the Fuller/Floyd songs (Floyd Council backed up Blind Boy Fuller on seven songs during sessions for the ARC label back in 1937).  He also contributed a lovely version of Weeping Willow - a song him and me usually do together, though I play it in a different key and with none of the flourishes Tad plays on the guitar.  He has a sweet little part on the chromatic harmonica when we play it together.  It sounds ancient and modern (you know, flappers sucking face around their long ebony cigarette holders while Rhapsody in Blue plays on a phonograph in the near distance, kind of modern) and will probably hafta wait for another record.

Lightnin' brought Pink's version of Chicken.  Tad sang the Frank Stokes version of the chorus and the two blended together beautifully.  It's a funny, charming take on the old medicine show tune and one of my favorites on the record.  He also recorded Boots and Shoes.  Some variation of this song was in every Piedmont bluesman's repertoire - Pink called it Meet Me in the Bottom.  Floyd backed Fuller on his version of the song...

Me and Clark Stern did what Clark lovingly refers to as our "delightfully drunken" version of Oozin' You off my Mind, another of the Floyd/Fuller collaborations.  Reckon it's safe to tell you that our version has precious little in common with their version.

The last song on the album is See That My Grave Is Kept Clean.  Blind Lemon Jefferson recorded it first, but Pink Anderson knew it and played it around the house.  I don't believe he ever recorded it, but his son lovingly reproduced Pink's arrangement of it on his "Carolin Bluesman" record.

You can get this record and a whole lot more HERE.