Kieran Kane & Kevin Welch with Fats Kaplin
You Cant Save Everybody
Dead Reckoning Records
By Michael Hansen
 Veteran Nashville
singer / songwriters Kieran Kane and Kevin Welch both have an
impressive catalogue of acclaimed individual recordings stretching
back to Kane's 1980's partnership with Jamie O'Hara in the O'Kanes
and his subsequent solo work, and to 1990 for Welch which saw
the release of his self titled recording. In the early 1990's
the pair combined with Nashville cohorts Mike Henderson, Tammy
Rogers and Harry Stinson to set up Dead Reckoning Records with
a view to avoiding the compromises that major labels sometimes
insisted on, and to keep costs low by working on each other's
recordings.
In 2000, Kane and Welch commenced touring as a duo. "A
two man show, two guitars, two voices, and a bottle of Bushmills,
or sometimes Jameson." A live recording called "11/12/13"
was made at the long gone and much missed Continental Club in
Melbourne Australia in the same year.
You Cant Save Everybody is the first studio collaboration
for Kane and Welch and they have recruited old friend and session
wiz Fats Kaplin to add fiddles, button accordion, Danelectro
guitar and banjo to the mix.
The trio embarked on an 18 date tour of Australia in February
/ March 2005, and a special edition of "You Can't Save Everybody",
including a second disc with 7 additional live tracks from Kane
and Welch, plus a solo piece from Kaplin was released to coincide
with the tour.
When I caught up with Kevin, Kieran and Fats at the tail end
of the tour, just prior to their final Melbourne gig, Welch was
on the phone home. Home for all three is Nashville, and for Welch,
home is shared with his Norwegian girlfriend, singer-songwriter
Claudia Scott, who has only recently moved there after a long
term, long distance relationship that prompted Welch to record
a rare cover on his Millionaire album, Van Morrison's
"Queen Of The Slipstream".
RZW: "So, you're just back from The Port Fairy Folk
Festival (Australia's largest and oldest music festival). I believe
you went on stage Saturday night at the same time as Janis Ian
and the Waifs. How did that go?"
KW: "Well, we had a full house."
Fats: "The tent was full.
KW: "We couldn't have asked for more people. We
were a little too close to The Waifs' sound man, so we had some
trouble with bleed from their stage over to our stage, which
is ironic because, their drummer, Dave (David Ross McDonald)
is one of our buddies."
Fats: "And he was the one makin' the racket."
KW: "And he's opening up for us in a couple of
nights (apart from his Waifs drumming duties McDonald is an accomplished
finger style guitarist and singer), so we may make him pay then!"
RZW: "How about this tour generally, with about 5
days left?"
KW: "I think it's been really successful.
We've played in some areas we haven't been to before, attendance
has been great, and it's been great having Fats with us, which
was something that in previous years we just weren't able to
do, both logistically and financially, but now we can"
RZW: "And Kieran, did you get the "chestnut"
thing that was worrying you sorted out?" (Earlier in the
tour Kane had wondered aloud why old stories, jokes or songs
were referred to as "Old Chestnuts" rather than say
"Old Filberts"
KK: "Actually yes, I have. A friend sent
me a website which I don't remember right now but I've saved
it, where you can go to and look up that stuff, any of those
"old chestnuts". It's something to do with a famous
author in England in the 1700s, and he kept on telling a story,
and kept referring to a particular tree and his friend says,
"it's not that, it's the old chestnut tree."
RZW: "Must be a load off your mind?"
KK: "Oh yeah, you can't imagine."
RZW: "This is the first time in Australia for Fats
Kaplin. What has it meant to you Kieran and Kevin to have Fats
along, apart from all the room he takes up in the truck?"
Fats: "Well I don't take much room."
RZW: "It should be explained right here that Fats
Kaplin is in fact far from being fat. Slender would be an apt
description, but Slender Kaplin just doesn't have that ring to
it."
KW: "That, plus all the money he's costing
us, let's see ?"
Fats: "But what I'm bringing to the show you can't
really put the big bucks on! These guys, they've been coming
down here so much they need a little spark."
KW: "Fats has been great, but the main thing I
think, is that he packs so lightly, he was able to pack for one
month, and the bag was small enough to be a carry on!"
KK: "Now that's impressive."
RZW: "Your solo fiddle piece in the live sets Fats,
"Wolves A Howlin" has received a tremendous
audience response. That must be satisfying?"
Fats: "Oh yeah, it sure is, but at the
same time it's kinda goofy because I've been working in Nashville
on a duo record with my wife Kristy Rose, and simultaneously
I'm doing instrumental stuff which is principally me doing everything
with my friend George Bradhew, you know he's the engineer, and
that song, which is on the tour edition of the record and on
my instrumental CD was just a complete throwaway thing. We're
going, let's just do an old fiddle tune or something and I said
why don't we do this old tune "Wolves A Howlin?" And
I worked in some lyrics and just did it, and it was one take
and I considered it a throwaway, we just did it as a goof. And
now I have to play it NIGHT, AFTER NIGHT, AFTER NIGHT!"
KW: "Probably a good thing you didn't do Stand
By Your Man."
RZW: "And where did you learn that tune?"
Fats: "Well it's just an old time tune.
But actually, someone down here I ran into told me, and I can't
remember now, I'm so spaced out at the end of the tour, but he
told me that the Stripling Brothers had recorded that, and until
he told me that I had no real memory of that, but I'd listened
to all that stuff as a kid, and when it was mentioned, I'm like
that's right, they did, and I hadn't heard it for I can't even
tell you how long. So I don't even know if they're the same.
Like a lot of old time tunes there are completely different versions
and I just probably learned it from somebody, but the Striplings
were certainly a major influence.
RZW: Note (Charlie and Ira Stripling were Alabama's most
popular and well recorded fiddle/guitar duo in the early days
of recorded country music. Between 1928 and 1936 they recorded
some of the finest old-time dance music to come out of western
Alabama.)
RZW: "OK, let's talk about "You Can't Save Everybody".
Kevin, you're on record as saying that this record is "the
best work any of us has ever done". What is it about this
recording that lifts it into this best ever category?"
KW: "Well, for one thing that Kieran has
pointed out many times, we can cheerfully play almost everything
on the record live, whereas most of the time, when one goes into
the studio and makes a record, out of that maybe there will be
three or four songs that will work out well in a live situation
and actually end up adding to your show. With this we've got
basically a full set's worth of stuff. I like the fact that it
was so totally live. Most of what we do is live but this had
fewer tweaks and fewer overdubs than probably anything, just
a couple of hand-drums here and there, that kind of thing, and
the whole lot was recorded and mixed in just three days. We just
kinda went boom, and there it was."
RZW: "Kieran, the title track, Hillbilly Blue
and Callin' Me are all co-written by yourself and Sean
Locke.
KK: "Yeah, Sean"
RZW: "Can you tell us a little about him?"
KK: "I met Sean about three years ago,
he's about 31, young guy, and he was writing at a publishing
company I used to work with a few years ago and we just became
friends. He's a great country singer and is actually sort of
nosing around making a record and we just got together and started
working. He kinda helps me get kick started, does stuff very
quickly.
He has a similar sensibility that I have, in that I'm sort
of an instant gratification man. Like, I don't want to go back
and re-write, I don't want to go back and fix things. So this
recording process Kevin was just talking about suits me very
well, I mean the record I put out before this one "Shadows
On The Ground", that record is entirely live from top
to bottom, vocals, everything, there's no fixes, no overdubs,
nothing."
KW: "And that's a damn good record too."
KK: "And so, that just feels good to me to work
like that. And Sean, yeah, he's very similar and he also has
great time, he really has excellent time"
KW: "He's a great groove player"
KK: "He's a real good writer, a nice fellow, and
hopefully things will open up for him, and he'll get a few more
tunes cut here and there.
Fats: "When he was just first around town I did
a showcase with Sean at Planet Hollywood."
KW: "Planet Hollywood. That must have been a hoot."
Fats: "It was a hoot."
RZW: "Those three songs, particularly "You
Can't Save Everybody" have a brooding, eerie feel about
them, and the vocals remind me of that keening, testifying style
that we hear in old recordings by Dock Boggs or Clarence Ashley.
Is that the kind of sound you were seeking, that high and lonesome
sound?"
KK: "No, I'm never looking for anything
really. Just what is, what happens to happen. That song, you
know I could probably sit down and go through it, but I don't
entirely know what it's about, except it has this kind of stream
of consciousness thing about it. Talking about it we realize
that it and this new song we're playing on this trip ("Monkey
Jump"), the thing is that they really are throwbacks to
some early stuff, some great influences of mine like Bo Diddely,
and talking about that we've been reading the Dylan book on this
trip and what he's been through (as a songwriter)."
"In some ways the song is a little like listening to
"Who Do You Love", which is largely a series of unrelated
images to the title of the song, and about how that appears to
the listener, I'm totally oblivious."
"Old dirty dog walking down the street
No shadow did he cast
Clock on the wall
No hands at all
No present, no future, no past
You can't save everybody
No word, no deed, no praise
You can't save everybody
Everybody don't want to be saved"
Fats: "It's like a piece of art, and it's
up there and you go "what is this?" And the reply is,
it's whatever you make of it."
RZW: "Kevin, Dark Eyed Gal is the only track
on the record that wasn't written by yourself or Kieran. It's
a beautiful love song written by the late Ron Davies.
"She never told me if she was coming with me
Or if she only meant to say her last farewell
Never was one to let me know her mind
So I'll stay right here, keep doing my time
Just sitting here thinkin',
Waiting on a dark eyed gal."
In October 2003 you were on tour here in Australia, and on the
same day that you learned of Ron's death, you stood up and showed
us that song. It was a courageous, moving performance. How did
you feel at the time?"
KW: "Well, you know, it was a real surprise.
There was no indication that Ron was ill, it just came out of
nowhere. Like, the day before I left for Australia, I ran into
Ron at Brown's Diner in Nashville, and had a pretty good opportunity
to sit there with him for a good solid hour. You know we just
caught up with each other."
RZW: "And that's not something that happens much in
your world?"
KW: "No it's not, because I travel so much.
So I was really grateful that that happened, and he was so warm
and real happy, and he ran to the car to get a copy of his new
record for me.
RZW: "That would be "Where Does The Time Go"?"
KW: "Yeah, that's right. I have always
had a soft spot for Ron as has everyone else, and if you go to
Brown's Diner now, and go into the men's room, his children all
went in there and wrote graffiti on the walls about their Dad
and how much they love him and nobody's touched it. If anyone
touches it now they will probably get shot!"
RZW: "How long had it been since you last played Dark
Eyed Gal?"
KW: "It's probably one of the only songs that
I haven't written that I know, and I'd been doing it off and
on over the years. I've always loved that song and every now
and then I would pull it out, it had probably been two years
since I'd played it, and I didn't do it regular, but I always
loved it. He wrote an awful lot of important songs. Ron was intensely
good in terms of the craft of song writing. That guy, he was
one of the best craftsmen I have ever heard.
RZW: Jersey Devil. It's a legendary 18th century
creature that goes about scaring folks in the New Jersey Pine
Barrens, and Kevin Welch is at the ready with a baseball bat.
The Devil is "Hissin' outside your back door, and you ain't
gonna fool with him no more!!" What exactly is it that you
propose to do?
Fats: "Slap him upside the head!"
KW: "What kinda got me interested in that story
was that a family had apparently hired an exorcist to get rid
of this critter, but the exorcist only did a hundred year exorcism
on him so after a hundred years he started popping up again,
and I just thought that was an unnecessarily complicated way
to deal with the problem. So that's what the song's about."
Fats: "And it's true. I grew up in New York, and
I used to hear about it all the time, and there's the sports
team the New Jersey Devils are named after the Jersey Devil."
RZW: "The hockey team, the 2003 Stanley Cup winners."
KW: "The last recorded sighting of the
Jersey Devil he was by the train station and he was up on the
telephone wires, and that's another thing??????
RZW: "I've heard that he's joined the Green movement
and his job is to protect the Pine Barrens from development,
because that's one of the last wilderness areas in that part
of the world."
KW: "Is that right!! Well, there's also
another story where he'd come down out of the woods and knock
on the back door of the local judge and go on in and argue politics
with him."
RZW: "Flycatcher Jack and The Whippoorwill's Song".
This is a Kevin Welch special. One of a long line of narrative
story songs like "Witness" and "Waiting For The
Assassins". What can you tell us about Flycatcher Jack?"
KW: "Well, it's set in a small town in
southern Oklahoma, down near the Texas border. That guy had been
in the back of my mind; well, for close to thirty years I guess,
from when I first used to see him. And, you know, I never really
knew the guy; I never knew very much about him, I made some broad
assumptions. I did know some things about him, that he'd been
hurt and that he was, you know, a tired, kinda solitary guy,
and I used to stay in that hotel myself, so saw him around. He
actually lived there and many times was the only person staying
in the hotel.
RZW: "What is it about that part of the world that
produces brooding songs about outsiders stuck in a hostile environment
and lacking either the means or the will to move on? Songs like
James McMurtry's Levelland, and Joe Ely's Letter To Laredo come
to mind."
"This year we had no rain at all, not a single crop
came in
And nothing moves on Main street now but an Oklahoma wind
I am just a shadow of the man I used to be
I wish I had someone to sing the Long Black Veil with me"
KW: "I dunno, I guess environmentally,
that's how it feels there, so I think that when people try to
put a soundtrack to it ends up feeling like that, and there are
characters that have that experience of getting down there, and
it is harsh, and there are a lot of people who would love to
get the hell out of there. People stuck in those oil towns down
there, damn, there's some rough old towns down that way, but
at the same time it's quite beautiful, in a really weird way.
RZW: "Have you read Annie Proulx's book "That
Old Ace In The Hole"? It's set in that country, about the
land being bought up for hog farming by a corporation called
Global Pork Rinds?"
KK: "Which book was that?"
KW: "Annie Proulx's. No, I have not. But our friend
John Hadley is a big fan of her writing, he's always talking
to me about her work, but I've not sat down and read it.
Fats: "I have, I've read a couple of her books."
RZW: "Accordion Crimes?"
Fats: "Yeah, that's amazing, like, it's
a strange book and she really has researched very, very well.
Because it's about a two row diatonic button accordion, and I
play a three row button accordion, and the accordion moves through
different places, and there's bizarre things happening to different
people who have it, and it moves through Chicago/Polish to Tex-Mex
to Louisiana, snaking through all this that's going on."
RZW: "Till I'm Too Old To Die Young, Kevin. This was
a hit for Moe Bandy in the early 80's and has become something
of, well, an old chestnut."
KW: "Yeah, you probably could call it that."
RZW "Let's say a country standard. A quick check shows
that it appears on collections including, Classic Country Hits,
All Time Greatest Country Hits, 80's Country Hits Of The Decade,
Country Classics Volume 9."
KW: "They left it 'till Volume 9??"
RZW: "Yeah, and also no less than Ultimate Sentimental
Hits!"
KK: "He's looking prouder and prouder!"
RZW: "Now that's quite a pedigree. Was it written
soon after you moved to Nashville from Oklahoma?"
KW: "I'd actually been there a while; I
think I'd been there, lets see, 7 or 8, no, 6 years. I wrote
the song with John Hadley, based on a suggestion from Scott Dooley.
It took 3 years to get that song recorded you know, everybody
passed on it because of death, the word appears in the second
line. And I asked Emmylou Harris, before it was recorded by Moe
Bandy, I said do you think that's a problem, should I change
it. And she said Kevin, there's no substitute for death!"
RZW: "The hit version had an almost jaunty, sing-along
feel, whereas your cut has a more sombre, more restrained feel.
The unaccompanied chorus at the end is breathtaking. Is there
a right way to sing this song?"
"Let me watch my children grow
To see what they become
Lord don't let that cold wind blow
Till I'm too old to die young
Till I'm too old to die young
KW: "Well, that's just how I think that
I should sing it, you know. I always really appreciated Moe doing
it at a time when he was at the end of a run, you know, he'd
had a pretty good run there and he was about at the end of it.
His record label didn't want him to cut it, they didn't want
to release it as a single, they didn't help him up the charts,
but it still went to number one, although I think only in Cashbox.
KK: "And it's a great record, I mean it's a very,
very good record."
KW: "And he treated it, ahhh, he treated it real
well, especially as he'd been making a bunch of almost comedy
records with a guy named Joe Stampley, and for Moe to come along
and do it, I just really appreciated it. And I'd love to run
into him and say thanks again, and that ending literally is a
prayer for me, and maybe it is for Moe too.
RZW: "Cecil's Lament is an instrumental Kieran, featuring
yourself on banjo and Fats' fiddle. Can you tell us who Cecil
is?"
KK: "Sure I can."
RZW: "And what she's lamenting?"
KK: "Well no, I can't tell you that, it's
just a title that I thought of after, I won't say writing, I'll
say after making up the melody. Actually, I was in New York when
I found that banjo in a little music store. I'd been looking
for a banjo for a long time. And I happened to be there when
it was my girlfriend's birthday and so I had the dubious distinction
of calling her and saying, "Honey I bought me a banjo for
YOUR birthday!" Her middle name is Cecil, and so I thought
maybe this will make up for that."
RZW: "Kevin, Everybody's Working For The Man Again
is an angry rant, and you place your politics squarely in the
public eye."
"The broadcasters bought off the FCC
Big oil's got the EPA
Halliburton, Halliburton, Halliburton, Halliburton
What else do you have to say"
KW: "I think a lot of people felt compelled
to go ahead, break it down and use songs as a way of saying something.
And so, you know, we've got microphones and stuff. And it was
a very rare macro kinda social political song for me to write.
I usually always write about people generally, about one or two
people.
RZW: "Clearly you felt strongly enough at the time
and had the courage to put the song out there."
KW: "I'll have to play you my song "C.
I. A - L. I. E" one of these days. It's a little dated;
it needs some more verses now.
Fats: "Oh yeah, I'd forgotten all about that song."
RZW: "Kieran, "Just Like That" The song
starts off with that dual guitar interplay that I like to call
the Kane / Welch "WIBBLE WOBBLE" Again this involves
John Hadley on the writing side."
KK: "Yes, it does"
RZW: He's a long-time collaborator with both yourself and
Kevin. Can you tell us a little more about him?"
KK: "John, let's see, John is truly a Renaissance
man. He's a great painter, a great songwriter-wordsmith, ahhh,
the art on Kevin's "Life Down Here On Earth" record
is all John's work, the cover painting on "Millionaire",
and I mean Kevin could tell you a lot more about John than I
could. John and I did some work together some time ago, but only
really started to become friends and spend time together about
only 4 or 5 years ago, and he's just a brilliant guy. He's a
troubled man, but a really nice guy and it's a total joy to work
with him. Oh, but I have to say that he works much differently
that I do. Like, I mentioned that instant gratification thing,
whereas John likes to work a thing over and over and over."
KW: "The pisser is, is that he usually actually
improves it by working that way"
KK: "Which is really, really irritating!!"
RZW: "A Prayer Like Any Other" finishes things
off, and Kevin, this is unashamedly my favourite song on the
record."
KW: "Oh really? Thanks."
RZW: "Is this the lament of the travelling musician,
constantly away and anxious about things at home?"
KW: "This is actually about leaving places
on the road more than it is about home. It's for instance when
we leave here I don't know when I'm gonna see you again. So I've
got to hope that everything will be OK while I'm gone, and one
of these days I'll be back here and we can resume our conversation,
and that's what it's all about. You know, half the time when
you travel, you make a move, you're going someplace, but you're
also leaving someplace, and that's what that song's about, it's
about the leaving."
Gotta get home the only way I know
The long old road, steady and slow
One of these days I'll come back
If the creek don't rise and stuff like that
Oh Lord, keep your eye on this place
Keep it warm, and keep it safe
You know I depend on your saving grace
So while I'm gone keep your eye on this place
Oh Lord, keep your eye on me
You know how foolish and reckless I can be
Light my way up, so I can see
Oh Lord, keep your eye on me
Oh Lord, keep your eye on my friends
Oh Lord, keep your eye on this place"
RZW: "Kieran, Kevin, Fats, congratulations on a terrific
record and thanks for your time tonight. Better get out there
and play some music. By the way Kieran, just what is a sub-sonic
drum?
*************************************************************
That night's show was recorded for a live CD release. Welch
said: "we've stopped using pickups, vocal mics and monitors,
using instead only 3 real good mics for the whole thing, like
we're mic-ing a string quartet or something. Scares the shit
out of the sound guys, but it seems to work very very well."
www.deadreckoners.com
Contact Michael Hansen at hansen-at-rockzilla.net
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