"Jeffrey Sutton Frederick (1950–1997) was a songwriter, guitarist and performer specializing in good-time Americana music—an idiosyncratic blend of folk, country and rock and roll.
He was a largely uncredited predecessor of today's alternative country music genre. Also notorious for his pranks, he was a prodigious songwriter, specializing in sly, hilarious and soulful pieces.
Frederick's tightly crafted songs and intricate guitar work were praised by the likes of Willie Nelson, Eric Clapton, and Dan Hicks"
I played once with Jeffery, around 1996, at the Belmont Inn. Jim Boyer invited me, we picked Jeffery up at his house. He rode in the back of my Toyota truck.
"Frederick moved to Portland, Oregon, in 1975 at the urging of the Holy Modal Rounders' Robin Remaily. His singing partner, Jill Gross, joined him later that year, and together they started the Clamtones on the West Coast. In an unusual arrangement, the band performed as the Clamtones when Frederick was the frontman and as the Holy Modal Rounders when Steve Weber was frontman.
These "two bands in one" often shared the same stage, with the Clamtones typically playing the opening and closing sets, as documented in Jeffrey Frederick and the Clamtones, B.C. and Steve Weber and the Holy Modal Rounders, B.C. (Frederick Productions)
In addition to Frederick and Jill, the band consisted of Dave Reisch (bass and vocals), Robin Remaily (guitar and mandolin), Teddy Deane (horns and woodwinds), Richard Tyler (piano), and R. "Willy" North (drums).
They soon gained the reputation of "the greatest... f---ing bar band in America".
"In 1976 the bands took off on a 9,000-mile Bicentennial tour of the perimeter of the United States.
During this tour, Frederick was arrested in Texas for performing in a dress, and the band was escorted out of Alabama by the state police, for singing the irreligious gospel tune, "Let Me Down"
("Take these nails right out of my hands/And I swear you will get to the promised land/All your sins are forgiven/now let me down...").
During the tour, Frederick recorded Have Moicy! ("best album of the year," Village Voice, "the top folk album of the rock era," Rolling Stone Magazine)
with Jill, Michael Hurley, Peter Stampfel, Paul Presti, Dave Reisch, Robin Remaily, Wax Iwaskiewicz and Robert Nickson.
His contribution to this groundbreaking record is widely recognized. For example, rock critic Robert Christgau has described Frederick as "the secret hero of my beloved Have Moicy"
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"The Bad Livers were an American band from Austin, Texas, United States, whose inventive musical style defied attempts to categorize them according to existing genres.
Their influences included bluegrass, folk, punk, and other musical styles. The original lineup, formed in 1990, included Danny Barnes on banjo, guitar and resonator guitar, Mark Rubin on upright bass and tuba, and Ralph White III on fiddle and accordion. Barnes composed the majority of the group's original songs. When White left the group at the end of 1996, he was briefly replaced by Bob Grant on mandolin and guitar. Barnes and Rubin then continued to perform and record as a duo until unofficially dissolving the band in 2000.
Barnes insisted that the Bad Livers were not a bluegrass band, but had created an original sound:
"This isn't bluegrass and it isn't this or that.
It's Bad Liver music. We end up making our own thing."Barnes' original compositions were featured on their first album, Delusions of Banjer, released in 1992 on Quarterstick Records and produced by Paul Leary of the Butthole Surfers.
The album was praised for "Barnes's strong material, as well as the group's tight musical interaction".Barnes credited the latter with improving the former:
"The musical telepathy is really good. I can sort of tailor-make a song to the guys' playing, make the song fit what they're doing, since I write most of the material "
"Rubin claimed that they had decided to incorporate the accordion and tuba into the band to counteract their growing popularity, but to no avail: their audience continued to widen and more critics saw beyond the gimmicky descriptions to the band's innovation and skill.
The Washington Post described them as "truly great", The Times-Picayune praised their "serious musicianship" and Barnes' "soulful, urgent lead vocals", while Rolling Stone admired their "striking blend of virtuoso flash and poignant simplicity".
Don McLeese of the Austin American-Statesman twice described the Bad Livers as "Austin's best band" and raved of one live show: "The uncommon telepathy enjoyed by Danny Barnes, Mark Rubin and Ralph White makes the band's frenetic acoustic interplay sound like the work of a six-armed, multistringed monster "
Bad Livers played Belmont Inn, Portland Oregon. That musta been 1996. Jim Boyer Band opened for them at Berbatis. I played that show.
(The seating capacity was approximately 500 people in 2009. The nightclub closed down shortly after the death of the owner Ted Papaioannou on November 8, 2010)
____
I'm recalling this as I sit in the Belmont Inn, looking out at a couple guys busking by the coffee shop across the street. The guitar player was a total jerk to me last week. Now, he's got a stand up bass player, a pile of empty cans around his set up, playing to an empty sidewalk.
" All you play is classical. Nobody likes you. You sound like the ice cream man with your amp. Play acoustic, like a pro. I ought to punch you out."
A woman put $70 in my case this morning.
Rocky Road, punk squirt.
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