Ragtime Wranglers - Fifteen Smoking Tracks - Vinyl LP

SIDE ONE

Harissa A song with a surf mood about Moroccan hot-sauce. Benjamin Herman (Paul Weller / New Cool Collective) joined the Ragtime Wranglers at numerous gigs. At this song his tasteful tenor-saxophone work is captured live in the studio.

Firewater Stomp Kawliga alike but not alternating between minor and major scale. Featuring non-pedal steel guitar wizzard Jeremy Wakefield (Lucky Stars) from Los angeles USA. He is one of the busiest and best players in the world and, by the way, to be heard in most Sponge Bop cartoons as well.

Thunder Reef (Bobby Fuller) The only cover this album holds. Originally from The Bobby Fuller Four. We play it a little less surfy and a little more rocking. This song is always in our live set because it's such a good jiver.

Red Rod Race An up-tempo instrumental tune about red rods: hot-rods without atmospheric protection get rusty and colour red. In the tradition of hot-rod instrumentals we put accelerating car sounds in the accelerating part of the song.

Sin City Serenade The band played Las Vegas at 3 different occasions the last few years. The afterparties at the event site always get wild. This song is to remember our adventures overthere. Gabriel Gort plays acordeon in the distance and Joe Rivera with his trumpet joins in at the end.

Resaca Another song with Benjamin Herman on tenor-saxophone, playing a beautiful solo part in A-minor. Some listeners might recognize the voice of Miss Mary Ann, saying "hangover" in Catelan.

The Sky’s Gone Out Just a simple picking song to remember Joe’s brother. Recorded live on at 2-track Telefunken with some vintage RCA, Altec microphones and the legendary Neumann U47. No drums here, so the acoustic mandolin sounds from Jeroen Jongsma are captured perfectly.

SIDE TWO

Amor Perdido Amor Perdido means Lost Love. Some people say this song has a hit-potention. One of our less rockabilly flavoured tunes. The excellent Mariachi Horns played by Joe Rivera (Anouk) will give you goose pimps. Will this be our new 45rpm single record?

Mojo Bag Bop Inspired by all the great dance floor filling blues-boppers we hear at all the roots festivals. We hope we captured some spirit of our favourites like "Dance To It" (Hop Wilson), “Boogie Chillun” (John Lee Hooker), You’re Gonna Miss Me (Muddy waters) and so on…..

The Mexican Standoff The Mexican Standoff is a well known movie theme; f.e. present in many Tarantino movies; we tried to create some standoff tention at a few silent parts in the middle of the song. At the end the tension solves with gunshots from left, middle and right.

Drivin' all Nite The title of this song came up after a long nightly drive from a late show in the South of the UK to the South of France where we had to arrive the next day in the afternoon to do a sound check. At the evening gig it seemed we play better after skipping a night sleep; scary touring schedules!

Lullaby for Louis A walz (actually 6/8) for Joe's little baby with Accordeon of Gabriel Gort in the distance. Superb quality recording with vintage RCA and Altec microphones and Studer recorder. Besides amp miking we aimed one mike at the guitarpick to capture the acoustic sounds of stroking strings. One take, no editing here.

Buck 'n Rich A tribute song for Buck Owens and his guitarist Don Rich; actually a tribute to all the instrumental albums the Buckaroos left us. Like Firewater Stomp this song features the only foreign session-player at this album: Jeremy "JW" Wakefield from Los angeles USA.

The Chicken Room Chicken Room means brothel in fifties American Hep Cat slang. It’s a nervous fast chicken picking instrumental. This song has been in the set for a while but we didn’t got the chance to record it sooner.

Smoke ‘em Out This “fiddle tune” with mandoline and Mosrite guitar is recorded live with a 2-track Telefunken. Inspired by the twin guitars of Joe Maphis & Larry Collins for Columbia records back in the fifties. The Ragtime Wranglers have been playing live with Larry Collins on many occasions in Germany, France, Spain, USA and the UK. To say he is a major inspiration would be an understatement..