Uncle Johnny’s Workshop
1. Good Cornbread (J. Kirtland)
2. Cash Prizes
3. Uncle Chester’s Pants
4. Goin’ Down Slow
5. Hundred Thousand Miles
6. Motel Maid Song
7. When My Time Has Come
8. Working With The Wood
9. Perry’s Flatbed
Songs by S. Beckwith (except ”Good Cornbread” written by Uncle Johnny himself)
Recorded (mostly 2007) & not really produced at all by Scott Beckwith
A few of these tunes show up in different versions on other albums.
Album available for listening and free download at:
https://soundcloud.com/parking-lot-music/sets/uncle-johnnys-workshop
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PayPal to: wingfeathermusic@yahoo.com
THE STORY
Sometime between the day he died and the week or so I spent cutting it into pickup-sized pieces and hauling it home to my place, I took a slide guitar and an old 4-track setup and went out to Johnny’s workshop. He wasn’t my uncle but he was everybody’s uncle they wish they’d had, even the guys older than he was. Since we’re talking relative things there may or may not have been some Old Grandad involved. And I don’t remember exactly which basic songs were sung in there, as that was a crazy year full of busy and changes… and I forgot about the tape for 12 years.
I don’t know why I did it but it was a big sudden loss and, at least in my life, music rushes in to fill an empty space. And that place needed a ceremony, and I was the guy. We had laughed ‘til we cried, then I cried ‘til I laughed again and decided to go sing a few songs in his honor. The other songs and overdubs were done out in my shack in the woods and the scrawlings on the cassette J card note it was finished up for around the first year anniversary of his departure. There were 8 complete songs and I got one decent mix off that old tape in the spring of 2020, adding to it “Working With the Wood”, the true story of Johnny and that workshop.
I’d showed up in town in the spring of 2000 needing a place to build a few guitars, since that looked like it was going to work into my future, and met Johnny at a little town open mic night. We became fast friends and before long -probably right at 20 years ago as I write this - I had a key and a dusty corner, showing him how to turn his woodcraft into guitars… while he showed me how to turn my guitars into woodcraft. With his guidance my instruments became what they are and with his example I became who I am.
So here they are – splinters and all. The first one’s his and the rest mine. It’s a good listen for a quiet afternoon, a country drive in an old truck, maybe you got your day done in the morning and it’s nap time. But not all three at the same time. Johnny filled our little Texas town with woodcraft out of the shop, and I’m doing my best to fill the world with guitars out of it. I hope this album fills your heart.
Scott Beckwith
May 9, 2020
Wimberley, TX
THE MAN
THE WORKSHOP
To see what comes out of Uncle Johnny’s workshop in recent years, visit www.birdsongguitars.com.