The extended double album version of Laughter & Molasses is available on vinyl in a very limited numbered collectors edition format on the Medicine Road Music label.
RB Lonetree’s association with master engineer and producer Paul “Pix’ Vane-Mason continues on Laughter & Molasses. Long term writing collaborations also continue with Jay Bishoff and finger-style guitar virtuoso Michael Fairley. Most exciting for RB has been his son Maximo Urbina’s song-writing collaboration for the first time in the recording studio. Max plays guitar on Uluwatu, but, most significantly, co-wrote and performed on four of the offerings on this album.
Gary Ward’s returns again on bass and Laughter & Molasses witnesses the commencement of new musical associations with Chontia Robinson on harmony vocals, Parris Mcleod on keys, Mal Webb on trumpet and trombone and Hugh Jones on drums.
Laughter & Molasses
Produced by: Pix Vane-Mason, RB Lonetree & Maximo Urbina
Mastered by Isaac Barter
(c) Medicine Road Music, 2021
Laughter
Side A
(1) Geronimo (Bishoff/Lonetree)…4.19
(2) Loretta (Fairley/Lonetree)…4.00
(3) Time Has No Dominion (Fairley/Lonetree)…4.57
(4) Dog Days (Fairley/Lonetree)…3.51
Side B
(5) This Monkey Won’t Dance (Not For the Man, Not For His Machine)
(Fairley/Lonetree)3.10
(6) Regina Maris (Fairley/Lonetree)…4.15
(7) Uluwatu (Bishoff/Lonetree)…3.37
(8) Diana (Bishoff/Lonetree)…3.10
(9) Birdie (Lonetree/Urbina)…2.21
Molasses
Side C
(10) Kaya (Your Love Takes Me Higher) (Fairley/Lonetree)…4.06
(11) Machine Town (Lonetree)…5.11
(12) Until the Cuckoo Calls (Lonetree/Urbina)…3.25
(13) Into the Night (Fairley/Lonetree)…3.57
Side D
(14) Calavera For Loretta (Loretta Reprise) (Fairley/Lonetree)…3.12
(15) At Least My Baby Will (Lonetree)…5.53
(16) Insomnia (Lonetree/Urbina)…4.44
(17) All The Ships Are Sailing Home (Lonetree/Urbina)…3.13
The familiar lyrical themes of transcendence, freedom, ecstasy, love, mysticism, time and timelessness are afforded further elucidation on the long play album Tanglefoot (2008). The artist’s preoccupation with such themes receives a more sophisticated appraisal here, and benefits greatly from a new musical collaboration with finger style guitar virtuoso Michael Fairley. Rb and Michael are joined by world class percussionist Greg Sheehan (of Circle of Rhythm fame), Cye Wood on violin, and Amanda Roberts singing harmonies. The album was recorded in Nimbin New South Wales by Dave Highet.
‘Shenandoah’ is a celebration of the beautiful valley of the same name in Virginia, USA. Lonetree’s enduring interest in American history perhaps explains his preoccupation with the valley, which was the scene of much fighting during the American Civil War, changing hands many times between Confederate and Union forces. ‘Run Wild Cat Run’ returns listeners to the Amazon and tells the tale of a jaguar that is always one step ahead of the cattle ranchers and their efforts to trap and kill her. Here, the cat is a metaphor for the spirit of freedom in humanity, and for the spirit of the jungle itself, ever threatened by the encroachments of the cattle industry that clears ever increasing tracts of land for grazing. ‘A Dancer, A Horse, A Song’ invokes the famous Jerry Jeff Walker song Mr. Bojangles in telling the tale of a faithful horse who carries its injured rider home to safety. Fairley’s riff in this song is memorable.
In the native Australian northern community of Aurukun the Stormbird (Channel Billed Cuckoo) is an animal of major totemic significance. ‘Stormbirds’ is full of yearning; a yearning for a lost freedom, and a couple’s desire to fly free from all that binds and holds them. The spirit of the dreaming is conjured; the perennial notions of flight and liberation are invoked. In ‘The Healing’ and ‘Corazon de Mexico’ we see Lonetree again approach that favourite subject of his, shamanism and its myriad Latin American manifestations. ‘The Gift’ and ‘Horse Latitudes’ pay homage to the noblest of beasts, the horse. Horse Latitudes is another term for the doldrums, those latitudes in which ships were often becalmed for so long that water ran short and the horses had to be thrown overboard to preserve remaining stocks. This song has a triumphant outcome though. The jettisoned horses somehow manage to swim ashore and into the mythology of the astounded tribe that greets and adopts them. Fairley’s hypnotic guitar lines in ‘Song Of The Sea’ and Wood’s haunting violin provide real pathos for Lonetree’s lyrical adoration of the ocean and its emancipatory and healing capacities. ‘Rhiannon’ is a song of love, but not a love song as such. The protagonist seeks to let a woman whom he cannot love down lightly, and there is a real sensitivity in this piece, both in its lyrical content and Fairley’s guitar performance. ‘I’m Good with You’ is a love song proper, and ‘Till I heard The Laughter’, the final track, is a forceful mystical work concerning ultimate liberation in the Zen tradition. It is Lonetree’s stated favourite on the album.
The compact disc version of the album includes a full colour twenty page booklet with all lyrics, poetry and accompanying photographs. A limited edition, numbered collector vinyl edition is also available.
Lonetree explained the album title thus;
“I first found reference to the name Tanglefoot in the writings of Thomas Berger, whose books Little Big Man and The Return of Little Big Man have since become favourites of mine. He uses the name to describe an extremely high alcohol content rum or whisky beverage with a few undisclosed ingredients like rattle-snake heads and gun-powder served by dodgy caterers to the buffalo hunters on the great plains of North America in the mid to late 1800’s. It doubtless tangled up the feet of whoever drank it. The sutlers who served the Union and Confederate troops during the American Civil War also brewed some pretty nasty concoctions like Tanglefoot; ‘Old Red-eye’, ‘Oh Be Joyful’, ‘Rifle knock-knee’ to name just a few.
The name Tanglefoot derives from the pet name I give to the great sacred medicine of the four winds, known to the indigenous peoples of the Cordillera de Los Andes as Achuma, but to the Europeans as San Pedro. I have named my new album after the sacred healing cactus because many of the lyrics were written under its benevolent and loving influence. Some of these lyrics, such as those for “The Healing,” were mostly penned in the highlands of Southern Ecuador and Northern Peru over ten years ago. Some additions and alterations have been made since in the intervening years. Other song lyrics on this album were written under the influence of an equally inspiring plant teacher, known to the Huichol medicine men as Hikuri, but to the Europeans as Peyote. Both Achuma and Hikuri contain the same active alkaloid, and their teachings and spirit are somewhat similar. The lyrics for Corazon de Mexico, for example, relate directly to my time spent working with Huichol curanderos (shamans) in the pueblito of Real de Catorce, in the state of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, nearly ten years ago. We hunted the Little Deer, as the Huichol affectionately call peyote, ritually slayed it, and consumed it in sacred desert ceremonies that often lasted all night. The words I sing in these songs are inspired by these two great medicines, the amazing indigenous and mestizo teachers who taught me about them, and the wonderful times and memories I still treasure from my years in Latin America.
Other lyrics on Tanglefoot reflect my continuing obsession with that most noble of beasts, the horse, but the album’s overall theme, like much of my previous work, continues to involve my preoccupation with such concepts as time and timelessness, motion, ecstatic flight, the possibilities of freedom and transcendence, and the human dignity that is both an aim and condition of such transcendence and emancipation.
In reality, the sacred medicines I describe above are nothing like alcohol and other such drugs and poisons. They are true medicines, and more often clarify and purify the body and soul, rather than cloud and pollute it as alcohol does. But I guess the first hour or so of a strong mescaline trip can indeed tangle the feet up, so the name is kind of appropriate. But once you settle in to such a trip, the senses are typically enhanced, not dulled, as with drugs. For the sacred cacti are not drugs. They are medicines, and have been used as such for millennia by wise tribespeople”.
Long time song-writing partner Jay Bishoff rejoins Lonetree on Paint The Pony (2007) in their most successful collaboration to date. The album was recorded in the old farmhouse studios of Resin Records near Woodford in South East Queensland by Paul “Pix” Vane-Mason. Lonetree and Bishoff are in very capable hands with Vane-Mason, and the relaxed rural setting where the album was recorded seems to permeate the performances. The mandolin playing of Steve Cook (Tulca Mor) features heavily on this album, and lends it sublime and attractive textures. Tracks like ‘Not The Singer But The Song’ and ‘The Moon In The Water’ pay homage to the artist’s attraction to Zen, transcendence and emancipation, whist such songs as ‘A Pony For Sad-eyed Maria’, ‘American Girl’ and ‘Sun-dancer’ indulge Lonetree’s perennial preoccupation with shamanism and tribal culture. The Sundance ceremony of the Lakota and other Sioux bands of the Great Plains comes alive in all its bloody and glorious austerity and bravery, and serves as a metaphor for the suffering of Native Americans in general. ‘Lorelei’, a provocative murder ballad duet features the voice of Amanda Roberts and retells the age old mythological German tale of the malevolent siren who lures unwary sailors to their doom beneath the dark waters of the river Rhine. Equally provocative and sanguinary is ‘Such Is Life’, a tribute to the famous Victorian Bush ranger Ned Kelly who has ascended to the luminous hights of national folk hero in the popular Australian imagination; “Bail up, bail up! Or these pistols will start talking.” Another of Lonetree’s chief preoccupations, that of sailing and the ocean, is revisited on the track ‘Southern Lights’, and the horse is again invoked on ‘Wind rider’. The sweet bass playing of Gary Ward is another feature of this album, and is perhaps best exemplified in the love song If You fall. The album is available in a limited 2007 edition in a plastic case or in the new 2010 digi pack edition with differing and additional images and artwork. Extra poetry is included in the 2010 edition. A limited, numbered collectors edition is available on vinyl.
All Fools Day (2004) has been remastered, retitled and re released with new artwork, all song lyrics and added poetry in a gatefold vinyl limited edition, numbered collectors edition. All Fools Day embodies early articulations and explorations of now familiar lyrical themes of interest to Lonetree that are further developed in later albums. Such themes as the ocean and sailing, horses, love, shamanism, mysticism, ecstasy, soul flight, transcendence and freedom permeate the album. Soul Boat is reminiscent of a poem by D.H Lawrence in which readers are entreated to “build their ship of death,” to be ever-ready to make the great voyage to the spirit world. The song is ultimately concerned with emancipation and spirituality, themes upon which Lonetreee elaborates in later work. Bishoff’s driving guitar lines in ‘Soul Boat’ really carry this song and it is a worthy opening track to the album. ‘The Flying Dutchman’ also evokes images of the ocean, sailing and freedom. It is inspired by the well known original ghost story that concerns the unearthly fate of the ship of the same name found stricken and unmanned off the Cape Of Good Hope. ‘Sailor’s Song (This Is Not A Country Song)’ yet again indulges Lonetree’s love of the ocean and the freedom he doubtless finds in sailing; “There are no fences out here….only miles of deep blue sea.” ‘Idle Talk’ is a concise, brooding anti-love song blues track featuring some sweet slide guitar from Neil Gibson. ‘Saint Vincent de Paul’ finds a poor man pleading to his woman to stay the course in the face of material poverty. ‘The Girl She’s Crazy Just Not About Me’ is a humorous and poetic abridged version of the same song that appears on the deleted rarity LP ‘Shadowland.’ Like ‘Let Her’ on The Somnambulist, there are mythological motifs here, and the same praise of the archetypal goddess figure. ‘Albatross’ is also mythic in nature; the journeyman on his universal pilgrimage, wandering and rambling the seas and continents. ‘Hands Upon The Plough’ is an indulgent and humorous bluegrass piece, a good counter-weight to the more serious ‘What If’, a song foretelling environmental doom. The ‘Cootchie Man’ embodies an early lyrical exploration of witchcraft and shamanism, a lyrical theme revisited later in the work of Lonetree on such tracks as ‘Yage’ and ‘Old Man Featherfoot’.
Out-takes Volume III implies two earlier Out-takes albums but they have never being re released. A few hundred copies of Out-takes Volume III remain and are also available through the Medicine Road Music label. The album was once entitled ‘Bone Masonry’ and, besides Shadowland, which enjoyed only a very limited release, contains the earliest known Lonetree recordings. The album is a collaborative effort with Jay Bishoff and offers listeners some interesting examples of their earliest work. There are sixteen tracks, some of which exist on no other authorised releases, including “I Remember You”, the first track Lonetree ever recorded, Wednesday, Persephone, Down The Line, Many Lives, the cheeky “Little Black Cat” and “Repentance Creek”. Wednesday has mythological overtones and is a quaint acoustic piece that deserves to be re-recorded. Black-bird, about the stolen generation of Australia’s first peoples, has been re-recorded by Jay Bishoff, a full band version of which appears on his first solo album, The Mercy Of The Road. The early version on Out-takes is raw and acoustic, and the essence of the song is all there. “Many Lives” is a spiritual song that displays Bruce’s early interest in Zen that we find extrapolated upon in later work. The recording of Saint Vincent de Paul on Out-takes Volume III is widely regarded as better than the more polished version that appears on All Fools Day. Distant Voices is none other than Spirit Voices, re-named and re-recorded for The Somnambulist. Down The Line provides a fine early example of Bishoff’s open tuning finger style guitaring.
All in all there is much on Out-takes of interest to followers of the Bishoff/Lonetree collaborative team, and one can better understand the development of their music throughout the years from a listening of this early rarity. The album has little other instrumentation than the guitars of Bishoff and Lonetree. There are overdubs, aside from San Luis Potosi they are not single take live recordings, but they are raw and simple, and this accounts for much of the album’s charm.
Letters From Bug-town
Side A
(1) Jokers Are Wild
(2) The Devil Needs A friend
(3) Butterfly
(4) Until the Cuckoo Calls
(5) Birdie (Extended version)
Side B
(6) For The Love Of Simple Things
(7) All The World
(8) Devil Winds
(9) All The Ships Are Sailing Home
(10) The Lights Of San Jose
Side A
(1) Jokers Are Wild
(Lonetree/Urbina)
The stars are running overhead
The diamond sky is shining bright
The moon is rising full and red
And jokers are wild tonight
I am anything you want, my love
Your Jack of Hearts, your willing fool
The night belongs to you and I
And we were made to break the rules
Chorus
Jokers are wild, Aces are high
And who can tell what we might do?
Let’s break this cage and fly
Out of the night into the blue
Out of the night into the blue
I’m your joker I’m your fool
Baby I’m your anything
Wild-hearts don’t play by the rules
The jester laughs. The jester sings
Tonight we are king and queen
And all the world is yours and mine
Baby wrap me up inside a dream
And wind me through the wheels of time
Chorus
Jokers are wild, aces are high
Count em up and lay em down
Lets break this cage and fly
Lets bust this stand and blow this town
We build it up to wreck it down
Two hearts, one soul. One diamond sky
Rolling on forever
Jokers are wild, aces are high
Here in the wild Never Never
(2) The Devil Needs A Friend
(Bishoff/Lonetree)
Chorus
The devil needs a friend and a little love
If he’s ever gonna find the light
Find his way out of the darkness
Of his endless night
I said the devil needs a friend and a little love
A little love to move his heart
This world’s troubles ain’t all his fault
They’ve been there from the start
The devil needs a friend and a little love
A little love, and don’t we all
He was an angel once you know
Before he had his fall
Hate breeds hate
But love conquers all
Break the bread, poor the wine
You know it… Forgiveness is divine
Chorus
The devil needs a friend and a little love
If he’s ever gonna find the light
Repeat 3 times
So if you see him on the road in your travels tonight
Show a little kindness, shine a little light
Keep your eyes wide open and his hands in sight
And everything’ll be alright
Everything’ll be alright…
(Repeat 3 times)
Cause the devil needs a friend and a little love
If he’s ever gonna find the light
I said The devil needs a friend and a little love
(Repeat)
(3) Butterfly
(Bishoff/Lonetree)
Butterfly, butterfly
Jewel of the summer sky
You know you’re the reason why
I’m smiling all the time
Butterfly, butterfly
All the little flowers sigh
Whenever you go dancing by
Upon that summer breeze
Chorus
Butterfly
Lay my body down to lie
Beside this river rushing by
Let’s sink into a dream
Let’s sink into a dream…
Teach me how to dance and fly
To summon wind, to own the sky
To be like you so natural
What is real can never die
The dance is brief but I won’t cry
I know now the music never ends
Chorus
Butterfly
Lay my body down to die
Underneath this endless sky
Let’s sink into a dream
Let’s sink into a dream
Solo
Chorus
Butterfly
Lay my body down to lie
Set my soul free to fly
Let’s sink into a dream
Let’s sink into a dream
Butterfly, butterfly
You make all the angels cry
In their heaven way on high
When they hear you sing
Spoken
Mariposa, Mariposa
Hija del viento
Te amo. Ci! Es la verdad
Puedo bailar contigo
(4) Until The Cuckoo Calls
(Lonetree/Urbina)
The Cuckoo calls the five o’clock chime
The bird cries out “boys it’s quitting time”
If I could only fly away for forever and a day
From this factory floor
Why do we work our lives away
We burn the years. We burn the days
Until we are too old and grey. Too tired to face the day
Then our children do the same
Chorus
Watching the minutes slowly turn
Waiting till that quitting bell rings
Waiting… till the cuckoo sings
Money can’t buy peace or happiness
It buys only what is cheap
I am weary let me sleep, beside some river cool and deep
Let me lose myself inside a dream
The caged bird dreams only of flight
Oh, this never-ending night
No money could replace all the years that we waste
Oh fly me far, far away
Chorus
Watching the minutes slowly turn
Working to buy so many shiny things
Waiting… till the cuckoo sings
(5) Birdie (Extended version)
(Lonetree/Urbina)
Birdie wake me from my dream
When the night is gone
Sing for me a song that I
Don’t miss the coming dawn
Birdie wake me from my dream
So that I might see
Past this world of shadows
To the Kingdom in all its glory
And when that golden dawn does break
And lights up all the land
I’ll behold the mystery
The Vista, pure and grand
This life, this dream within a dream
Where nothing’s quite the way it seems
Birdie sing a song for me
Wake me up so I might see
Side B
(6) For The Love of Simple Things
(Lonetree)
Such a simple thing
As a Boo-book calling in the night
How is something so simple
Makes everything all right
Such a simple thing
As the song of a river after rain
How is it something so simple
Can ease my every pain
Chorus
The jester laughs, the jester sings
The seasons turn the world spins
All for the love of simple things
The love of simple things
Solo
I love a simple woman
She’s so cool and she’s so fine
How is it someone so simple
Still thrills me after all this time
Chorus
Ah the joy our union brings
I am luckier than any king
Finding love in simple things
Oh for the love of simple things
(7) All The World
(Lonetree/Urbina)
I have no walls to keep the wind and cold out
No roof above my head
But I have the moon and all the stars
In the infinite sky instead
I have no bed in which to lie
But clover, lemon grass and lucern
I’m just lying here marvelling at the night sky
Watching the wood in the camp-fire burn
I have no house
But I surely have a home
Wherever I care to lay my head
Wherever I care to roam
Chorus
All that I want is all that I have
And all that I have’s all the world
All I ever want I have
All I ever want I have
I have no television
No electric light
But I have the miracle of fire to marvel at
While it warms me through the night
And I don’t need no fancy clothes
And I don’t need no other stuff
I have all the world
And all the world…well, that’s enough
I have no god in heaven
But right here inside my heart
And in all my travels in all the world
We’ve never been apart
Chorus
All that I want is all that I have
And all that I have’s all the world
All I ever want I have
All I ever want I have
Maybe tomorrow night the sand-dunes
Down beside the sounding sea
Or maybe some far, far away field
In some time-forgotten valley
But tonight, this little grove of wood
Beside this singing mountain stream
Just gazing at the flames in the camp-fire dancing
Living a happy hobo’s dream
However the cards might fall
However the coin might land
I do not need. I shall not want
I do not ask. I do not demand
Chorus
Spoken
Wherever the road might lead me
Whichever way the wind might blow
Wherever the tide might carry me
Wherever the river might flow
That’s the way I’ll go (repeat)
(8) Devil Winds
(Lonetree)
When the Devil Winds come from the Sierra Nevada
From the Mojave where they are born
Men sleep with their guns if they sleep at all
And wait for the coming fire-storm
Through Cajon Pass and the Horse-thief Canyon
Between the San Bernardino and the San Gabriel
They rode through the day and all through the night
Down into San Miguel
Down through the canyons the winds come screaming
Mothers hold their children tight
The devil winds wake them from their dreaming
For there’s murder in the air tonight
Chorus
And those Santa Ana winds keep blowing
All through the night and all through the day
Oh, sweet Marie, I’ve got to be going
If I don’t leave town I’ll have the devil to pay
There’s a wild-fire loose on the ridge tonight
Wood smoke chokes the crimson sky
Outside the boys are stirring for a fight
Sure as hell, someone’s gonna die
The sheriff’s job just ain’t worth the pay
Not while these devil winds blow
No tin star’s gonna save him today
He should stay off the streets till they go
The air is electric and one spark will do it
Mother of Mary. here it comes!
The blood and the thunder. The fire and the fury
The searing heat of a furious sun
Chorus
And those Santa Ana winds keep blowing
All through the night and all through the day
Oh, sweet Marie, I’ve got to be going
I’ve got a ride with the wind down to Monterrey
Over the plain the devil winds cry
The res dust swirls in the bleeding sky
My horse kicks the air as he rears up high
And glares at the sun with a furious eye
Chorus
And those Santa Ana winds keep blowing
All through the night and all through the day
Oh, sweet Marie, I’ve got to be going
I’ve got a ride with the wind down to Monterrey
(9) All The Ships Are Sailing Home
(Lonetree/Urbina)
I dreamed an ocean deep and wide
And one great ship to carry me
Through the ages to the other side
Into the light of eternity
I sailed across that silver sea
Into the never-setting sun
I saw you there amidst the people
Smiling and forever young
Chorus
All the ships are sailing home
Sailing home. Sailing home
All the ships are sailing home
Sailing home. Sailing home
Was it only all a dream?
Well this dreamer has awoken
All things return to dust
Now the magic spell is broken
I sailed my ship until I sank it
And, drowning between two shores
Saw there really is no drowning
No sea in which to drown at all
All the ships are sailing home
All the forms are subsiding
Only the silence…enduring
Eternal and abiding
No-one left to drown
No life left to lose
Nothing left to do
Nothing left to choose
Chorus
All the ships are sailing home
Sailing home. Sailing home
All the ships are sailing home
Sailing home. Sailing home
(10) The Lights Of San Jose
(Lonetree/Urbina)
In the western sky the fading light
Empties into grey
Across the waters like a thousand stars
In the summer night
Shine he lights of San Jose
The silver light of the rising moon
Plays on the waters of the bay
I’m coming home. I’ll be there soon
I’ll be there soon
Among the lights of San Jose
Along the Aveninda de los heroes
She held me tight and told me “Stay”
I had to leave but now I’m coming home
Home this time for to stay
In the arms of love in San Jose
It was a year ago I left her
Put to sea and sailed away
It’s been so long but now I see
Now I see
The shining lights of San Jose
She keeps a light burning for me
She knows I’m coming home today
One of those lights there across the water
Across the water
One of the lights of San Jose