My new album, In North Carolina, is available for immediate download at CDMojo.com before its official release. Pre-orders for CDs are accepted, and CDs can be shipped by the first week in November, 2006. At that time, I will also have them for sale at my shows.

In North Carolina features just me, playing original and cover songs that are in my heart when I’m home. All of my previous recordings were made in studios or live onstage. This one has been crafted slowly over the last few years. Some are solo performances, some employ overdubbing added instruments.

Behind the songs:

1. Tell Me Why 3:04
M. Morganfield, Watertoons Music admin. by Bug Music, BMI

Tell Me Why is a Muddy Waters song originally recorded in the ‘50s and again in the ‘60s. We used to play it live onstage in the ‘70s and it really jumped. I’ve developed two guitar parts that work together -- the slide guitar is the Les Paul Goldtop that I use onstage most of the time, and the Stratocaster is my ’56 that I used to use in Muddy’s band.

2. In North Carolina 4:23
Bob Margolin, Bob Margolin Music, BMI

I wrote this song in 2000, when I was in Perth, Australia – about as far from home as I could be and still be on Earth. For more than 30 years as a touring professional musician, I was comfortable wherever I had my suitcase and guitar, but now I love my peaceful home and wish I could spend more time here. Combining that feeling with how easy it is now to track a professional-quality recording alone with was an opportunity I took to make this album.

3. You Rascal You 2:06
Sam Theard, EMI Mills Music c/o EMI Music Publishing, ASCAP

Louis Armstrong did very entertaining versions of this song, and I really like a version he cut in his later years with Louis Jordan. This version deconstructs those band arrangements to two guitar parts, with a Django Reinhart influence.

4. Just Before Dawn 3:44
Bob Margolin, Bob Margolin Music, BMI

Straight Chicago Blues recorded on a Supro Pocket Bass and matching guitar. It’s a Blues song that I wrote, never released before, about romantic and spiritual loneliness, even if you’re not alone.

5. Colleen 4:29
Bob Margolin, Bob Margolin Music, BMI

This instrumental was conceived as a demo for a song with lyrics about ten years ago, but never recorded or developed further. It was inspired by Colleen, a sweet Border Collie who always brought me a lot of joy. In May, 2006, a month before she passed, I recorded this song as an instrumental for her. She was almost completely deaf at 17, but she lay right in front of my new Victoria Regal guitar amp as I recorded each guitar part, and she could certainly hear that. When I hear this song now, Colleen and I are walking up the long driveway together.

6. Lonely Man Blues 2:30
M. Morganfield, Bob Margolin, Watertoons Music admin. by Bug Music, BMI

I wrote this song in the ‘70s and offered it to Muddy, who recorded it for his I’m Ready album. It wasn’t on the original album, but is on the expanded reissue from 2004. I used to do this song as a slow Blues, but Muddy recorded it as a shuffle. I did that here too – but more in a Texas Blues style.

7. Tears of Rage 7:26
Bob Dylan, Richard Manuel, Dwarf Music, SESAC

This is the opening song of The Band’s classic album, Music From Big Pink. It was written by Bob Dylan and Richard Manuel and sung by Richard in a tortured, very high voice. Levon Helm told me that they only performed that song when Richard was singing at his very best. I sing it in a much lower key, and have deconstructed the instruments down to acoustic guitar plus electric slide. Bob Dylan’s lyrics are usually open to personal interpretation. This song, written in the late ‘60s, strikes me as a lament of heartbroken patriotism. I was determined to record it after the 2004 presidential election, and tried many different arrangements and approaches. I think that this song is Deep Blues in spirit and my slide guitar, but it is certainly far from Blues stylistically.

8. Natural Blues 2:28
J.W. Henry, Henry Heritage Music, BMI

This T-Bone Walker song, originally arranged as a slow Blues, particularly struck my for the last line, “Give me the rainbow, and keep your pot of gold.” I recorded it as a Chicago Blues jump with influences of Howlin’ Wolf and Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, and the guitar tone is an electric arch-top guitar played through a tiny, overdriven Gibson Skylark amplifier. But the recording microphone was deliberately placed between the acoustic-sounding guitar and the crunchy little amp and picks up what I think are the best of both very different guitar tones.

9. Bring Me Your Blues 3:04
Bob Margolin, Bob Margolin Music, BMI

This original song put lyrics to an instrumental I recorded previously, but is the way I originally conceived the song. My mother always said just the right thing when those she loved were having problems. In this song and in life, I’d like to live up to the kindness and understanding heart that my mother had.

10. Red Hot Kisses 3:21
Lillian Shedd McMurry, Globe Music Co., BMI

When I heard this song on Alligator Records’ release of Sonny Boy Williamson’s Goin’ In Your Direction, I loved it. The background guitar part pays tribute to Robert Lockwood Jr.’s trademark playing in the key of B, and I tried to function like Sonny Boy’s expressive harp with some electric guitar pickin’. Singing the last verse in a higher register and louder is an technique I learned from legendary Chicago Bluesman Snooky Pryor, who escalates the desperate energy of his songs that way.

11. Hard Feelings 2:39
Bob Margolin, Viper Music, BMI

This is a deconstruction of an original song I recorded for Blind Pig Records in ’99 on my Hold Me To It album. The guitar parts syncopate and I recorded both my feet tapping as if walking by placing a microphone between them. It’s a life story of Blues and I wanted to offer it again.

12. Floyd’s Guitar Blues 2:06
F. Smith, C. Columbo, J. Weigand, Fort Knox Music Inc, BMI / Trio Music Co Inc, BMI

This song is perhaps the first to use electric guitar on a recording, an electrified lap steel. The melody and arrangement are beautiful, and I used to play this song as an instrumental when I was in Muddy’s band. I played it in normal guitar tuning with no slide though. In 2003, I sat in with Les Paul in New York and he invited me to lead a song. When he saw me take a slide out of my pocket, he asked me if I knew “Floyd’s Guitar Blues.” I had to smile. I told him I did indeed know it, but had played it without slide, and not at all for more than 20 years. We played a Muddy-style Blues together, but I was inspired to record this version of “Floyd’s” playing slide in open-E tuning on my Les Paul Goldtop electric guitar. I respectfully dedicate it to Les Paul, a gracious genius – and I used to watch his TV show when I was a kid in the ‘50s.

13. She And The Devil 3:21
Bob Margolin, Delay Time Music, BMI admin. Eyeball Music

I’ve recorded this original Blues many times and still play it at most of my shows. When people from the audience buy my CD’s, they often ask if this song is on the one I’m selling. Well, now it is, but I have recorded it in a strange G-minor open-tuning with slide a lonesome sound for this song, played just alone and acoustic. I am trying to get closer to the heart of this song after playing it so many times over the years.

14. Baby, Baby, Baby 3:18
Hudson Whittaker, copyright control

This was originally done by slide guitar wizard Tampa Red. His slide playing always moved and influenced me, but the lyrics are the cries from the battlefields of romance from before and after Tampa Red’s time.

Bonus Track – Spoken Word Blues Fiction
15. You Never Know 9:13
Bob Margolin, Blues Revue

This is a story that I wrote for Blues Revue magazine a few years ago. It tells of a Bluesman’s night in a club and some of both the usual and the surprising life lessons he finds there. Blues guitarist/vocalist Fiona Boyes suggested I try telling the story this way. I hope you enjoy it.

In the Summer of ’05 I was approached to write the liner notes for a DVD of three Muddy Waters concerts from 1960, ’68, and ’77, plus a bonus of interviews with Muddy from ’72 and ’78 and another song from ‘77. The DVD was produced by Reelin’ In The Years Productions, who in collaboration with Experience Hendrix, brought us the recent highly-acclaimed series of three American Folk Blues Festival 1963-’69 DVD’s, the best thing I’ve ever seen on a screen -- computer, TV, or movie.

I was very impressed by producer David Peck’s attention to detail and passion for quality. He inspired and helped me do my best to write liner notes, informed by my time in Muddy’s band and my appearance playing guitar with Muddy in the ’77 show.

As I said in the liner notes:

"Muddy Waters Classic Concerts is an important addition to what has been Muddy’s surviving and indeed immortal body of work: his sound recordings. It’s the next best thing to being at a live show “back in the day."