Sittin' On Top of the World

Zoomer Roberts: vocal & harmonica
Buddy Winston: guitar

from the 2007 KTEP pledge drive

Buddy and I took aspects of every version of this song we ever heard -- Howlin' Wolf, Bob Wills, Bob Dylan and a number of bluegrass bands have done variants of it -- and put together the arrangement heard here. We originally recorded it about twenty years ago for a self-produced Applejack album. It's loosened up quite a bit since then: I typically sing whatever floating blues verses come to mind, and on this occasion I even threw in a verse of "Your Cheatin' Heart. Why not?

There's No Hiding Place Down Here

The Shade Tree Boys
recorded 1970 at the Jade Club
Hal Smith: lead vocal & rhythm guitar
Henry Beebe: banjo & harmony vocal
Zoomer Roberts: bass & harmony vocal
Perry Harrison: dobro

There was nothing bluegrass-y about the way Hal Smith did anything. He originally emerged in the late 1950s in the wake of Johnny Cash, Don Gibson and Bob Luman, belting out songs in a rangey baritone voice while beating an incessant boom-chicka-chicka-chicka rhythm on his acoustic guitar. When he teamed up with banjoist Henry Beebe in 1962 to form the Shade Tree Boys, Hal saw no reason to change anything: there would be no "G" runs, no "high lonesome," no "howdy friends and neighbors" and no concern for the way Bill Monroe did things in 1947. He correctly figured that his way of doing things was compatible with the commercial folk and bluegrass sounds of the day, and his vocals grew more unorthodox as his repertoire spread all over the map. He and Henry developed a filthy comedy routine that relied heavily on alcohol consumption and resulted in packed houses, but the first set was usually played straight. It is from those sets that this and subsequent recordings of the band are derived.

My Mother's Piano

Willie Virginia Purcell Roberts: piano
Standing on the Promises
Leaning on the Everlasting Arms
The Royal Telephone
Blessed Jesus Hold My Hand
If We Never Meet Again This Side of Heaven


There was an elderly widow named Mrs. Ruth Anderson who lived a couple of houses up the street from my parents. She boldly fought the ravages of the years, but finally capitulated and moved to a nursing home. She gave her ornate upright piano to my mother. My mother had learned the rudiments of old style church piano from her own mother, and although she hadn't played in decades, she acquired a shape-note hymn book and began to play regularly. On an unknown date in the early 1980s, I bade her play a few songs into a tape recorder, and they are presented here. Arthritis, osteoporosis and cataracts eventually brought Mother's playing days to an end, and she gave the piano to my wife in 1991. It reposes in our dining room, and on top of it, smiling sweetly, is Mother's picture.

Alone and Forsaken

Zoomer Roberts: vocal
Buddy Winston: guitar

This is one of the few songs Hank Williams did in a minor key. (Others include Kaw-Liga and Ramblin' Man.) He made a recording of it at KWKH in Shreveport in 1949. It was issued by MGM after his death, but to this day it has received little attention, so I seized the opportunity to include it in the 2003 KTEP tribute show. My feeling about tribute shows is that everybody already knows the artist's most popular songs. It's more enlightening to go spelunking through their catalogue and see what else they did.

Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas

Zoomer Roberts: vocal & guitar
recorded 19 October 1983

This is more of a genre than a song. This is the sort of thing that exists so bawdy old rhymes will have a home. Ideally, there would be 16 bars of hokum played after each verse. This version misses the mark on bawdiness and hokum, but I play some pretty good sock rhythm. An interesting variant is "They're Red Hot!" by Robert Johnson.

Frank's Wild Years

Jerry, Buddy & Zoomer
Zoomer Roberts: recitation
Jerry Boyer: scat vocal
Buddy Winston: guitar

Jerry, Buddy & Zoomer were preparing for their "1984 World Tour" (which, if memory serves, consisted of about three gigs), when Buddy suggested we work up this Tom Waits number. We did learn it -- after we stopped laughing -- but I don't remember actually performing it anywhere. This recording is from a rehearsal tape. It's horrifying and bizarre, but it has a nice groove to it.

Truck Drivin' Man

Zoomer Roberts: vocal & lead guitar
Wynn Pinkham: pedal steel guitar
Mike Bennett: bass
Bill Wilson: drums
Beverly Roberts: harmony vocal

recorded 9 December 1978

This was recorded at Whiskey River East in Horizon City, which was originally the Showboat. The new name didn't change the motif any (it was a long, narrow building with a faux paddlewheel and a smokestack to match). The acoustics of the room were such that the sound careened, ricocheted, echoed and died. The band was called Avalanche, but we often referred to it as the Mudslide Blues Band. We were all side-men. Somebody had to front it, so I did. None of the other guys sang, so we hired Beverly. The management had an overstock of Billy Beer, and they happily sold it to us for 25 cents per can, which enabled us to tie on a good one without running up a big tab. An older couple used to come out and record us, and on this night they gave me the tape. They were in the habit of pausing the tape between songs -- hence the fade-in on the introductions and the clipped ending. No matter. It was a short-lived gig. At the end of the year we all went on to other things.

Jesus Christ

Jerry, Buddy & Zoomer
Zoomer Roberts: lead vocal & guitar
Buddy Winston: banjo & harmony vocal
Jerry Boyer: harmony vocal
recorded 1985 at the Chamizal Theatre

Woody Guthrie took an old song about Jesse James, changed a few names, and had himself a "new" outlaw ballad: "Jesus Christ". I know people who don't like it because rather than proclaiming the divinity of Jesus, it deals with the opposition He encountered regularly throughout His travels and ministry, culminating in His death and burial. It's a ballad, not a hymn. The first time I ever heard Woody sing this song, I thought the line "they laid Jesus Christ in His grave" was "the late Jesus Christ in His grave." It was easy to get the lyrics wrong in the vinyl era.

Black Sheep

Zoomer Roberts: vocal & guitar
recorded 20 July 1981

This is one of many variants of an oft-told tale: the good son who falls victim to his siblings' duplicity and is disinherited by his father, but ultimately proves his loyalty and exposes their greed. I learned this from country singer Stonewall Jackson. It was already ancient when he recorded it nearly fifty years ago.

Maggie Blues

Zoomer Roberts: Dobro
Buddy Winston: guitar

Anybody who has ever played guitar has tried sliding something across the strings: a bottleneck, a piece of pipe, an empty jar, a pocket knife, a microphone stand -- anything to get that shimmering glissando. For a few years in the early 1980s, I aspired to being a Dobro player, a Dobro being an acoustic steel guitar with a metal resonator. It's a difficult instrument to play well, and this is about as good as I ever got. The song is an adaptation of the old sentimental parlour favorite, "When You and I Were Young, Maggie." Josh Graves of the Foggy Mountain Boys disposed of a couple of chords and dubbed it "Maggie Blues." The recording heard here comes from a 1984 Jerry, Buddy & Zoomer practice tape.

From A Buick Six

Don Roberts: lead vocal, rhythm guitar
Zoomer Roberts: electric guitar, bass, harmony vocal
Mike Carlton: electric guitar
Cindy Seaman: harmony vocal
recorded at TGR Studio, 1975

When I was playing guitar for Cliff Seaman and the Texas Goldrush (1974-1976), an aspiring young guitarist named Mike Carlton followed the band and absorbed everything I knew. When I left the group to join Jamie Hilliard's band, Mike got my old job. He eventually moved to California, where he played music on weekends and worked as an exterminator by day. One of his clients was Merle Haggard. Merle heard Mike's playing and was favorably impressed. They became pals and did some picking together at Merle's house. When Merle was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, one of the first people he thanked was "Mike, my bug man."

There are two guitar solos on this track. Mike plays the first one, and I play the second. My brother always preferred Mike's. The song, of course, is by Bob Dylan.

Bound to Ride

Don Roberts: lead vocal, rhythm guitar
Zoomer Roberts: harmony vocal, acoustic lead guitar, electric boom-chick guitar, bass
recorded at TGR Studio, 1975

My late brother and I played together around the house from the time he came home from the Navy in 1966 until we both got busy doing other things in the early '70s. He sounded like no one else: his singing was, in large part, shouted. His guitar playing was unrelentingly percussive. He wrote hundreds of songs, too. When I find recordings of them I'll post them. When Cliff Seaman installed recording equipment in his garage, my brother and I went over and laid down two tracks. We each got a cassette dub of the session and he all but wore his copy out, he liked it so much. This song, "Bound to Ride," came from a 1930s recording by Fiddlin' Arthur Smith. We sang it together many, many times.

Dear Mrs. Roosevelt

Zoomer Roberts: guitar & vocal
recorded 20 July 1981

Woody Guthrie wrote this song on the occasion of Franklin D. Roosevelt's death in 1945. I used to sing it for myself or for friends -- there was never any call to perform it in public. The only recording of it I've ever heard is by Bob Dylan, and consequently, it sounds like I'm "doing Dylan." The chord change from C#7 to E before resolving on A is from Dylan, too. Woody often didn't change chords at all. Irrespective of who contributed what, it's a good song.

Franklin D. Roosevelt isn't universally beloved these days, but the pendulum of public opinion will swing back in his direction eventually. That's what pendulums do.

Mississippi Mud

From the album "Jerry, Buddy & Zoomer, Volume 1" (1982)


Zoomer Roberts:
vocal, mandolin, bass
Jerry Boyer: vocal, kazoo
Buddy Winston: guitar



When Bing Crosby described "Mississippi Mud" as "an earthy anthem," and he knew whereof he spoke. He helped popularize it in the 1920s when he was a member of Paul Whiteman's Rhythm Boys. Jerry, Buddy & Zoomer delighted in digging up derelict ditties such as this and -- for whatever reason -- playing them as fast as we could. The version heard here is a studio recording from 1982. The above photograph shows us performing it live at the El Paso Civic Center, probably at the "4 Centuries '81" festival.

I Cried Again

Zoomer Roberts: vocals, bass
Buddy Winston: guitars, banjo, harmony vocal

This song was a "weeper" until an East Coast bluegrass band called the Greenbriar Boys revved it up. The Shade Tree Boys (Hal, Henry and Whoever) did their version for years and played havoc with the lyrics. "Here's a beautiful little piece," Hal would say, " called 'I bowed my head and she crossed her legs and broke my glasses'." I resurrected it in the 1980s, and Buddy and I recorded it for one of our self-produced Applejack albums.

My Mother

Zoomer Roberts: vocal & guitar
recorded 20 May 1982

This Hank Snow number is so morbid and maudlin that most people can't stand it. I sang it in a bar one Mother's Day and the audience vacated the premises en masse. To my recollection, that was the only time I ever did it at a gig. This home recording is from a tape I made for some friends one day in 1982. My thanks to Kris Wentworth for hanging onto it for the past 26 years.

Frankie and Johnny

Zoomer Roberts:
vocal & harmonica
Buddy Winston: guitar

Yet another performance from the 2007 KTEP pledge drive. We've been kicking this old warhorse around for so long that it has a life of its own. There's no real arrangement to it: the yodels and instrumental breaks are inserted in random places, the order of the verses changes, the juxtaposition of Nellie Blye and Johnny is variable, the methods of execution range from electrocution to lethal injection, and the ladies in the audience may or may not get the final verse dedicated to them. An old pair of slippers of a song, this.

Old Fashioned Love

Zoomer Roberts: vocal & harmonica
Buddy Winston: guitar

With all due respect to Bob Wills, whom I heard do this song first, it was an old recording by Cliff "Ukulele Ike" Edwards that made me want to sing it. Buddy was already doing it as an instrumental, so it fell into place naturally. This performance is from the KTEP pledge drive of 2007. We did a lot of songs that night!

The Old Side of Town

Zoomer Roberts: vocal & harmonica
Buddy Winston: guitar

It's easy to insert myself and people I know into the scenario Tom T. Hall paints here. I sang this in the honky tonks when it was current, and dusted it off for the 2007 KTEP pledge drive.

Zoomer & Buddy Salute Elvis

Zoomer Roberts: vocal
Buddy Winston: guitar
recorded 16 August 1997

I Was the One

These performances are from a live KTEP broadcast commemorating the twentieth anniversary of Elvis Presley's death. I selected three of my favorite Elvis songs for the occasion. To my surprise, none of the other performers had ever heard of any of them (or maybe the sinus infection I had that night rendered them unrecognizable). This song was the flip side of "Heartbreak Hotel."

Long Legged Girl (With the Short Dress On)


This obscure song is from the soundtrack of Presley's 1967 film, "Double Trouble." The syllabic rhythm makes it fun to sing, but there is little else to recommend it.

(Marie's the Name) His Latest Flame

My vocal mic was off for most of the first verse of this one. Hence the fade-in. This song and "Little Sister" gave Elvis a double-sided hit single in 1961.

Where the Soul Never Dies

Barbara Jean Roberts: vocal
Zoomer Roberts: guitar & vocal

My late sister and I used to sing together for our own amusement. This is what we sounded like. I sang this old Baptist hymn as a solo at her funeral in 2004, but I prefer this version. She probably would, too.

Home of the Blues

The Lariat Cowboys

Zoomer Roberts:
vocal & lead guitar
Joe H. Leaver: guitar
Tony Quero: bass
Mark Kays: drums

When you get right down to it, nobody sang like Johnny Cash except Johnny Cash, and nobody sounded like the Tennessee Three except the Tennessee Three -- but that didn't keep the Lariat Cowboys from trying. The late Tony Quero used to record our gigs at the Lariat Lounge on Dyer Street, and if I thought we were having a good night I'd get a copy of the tape for my "archives." It has taken me 25 years to work up the nerve to go back and re-live those honky-tonk nights and bloodshot mornings.

Trouble In Mind

Zoomer Roberts: vocal & guitar
recorded October 19, 1983

Give a boy a guitar, a tape recorder and some beer, and he becomes a bluesman -- sort of.

When I Grow Too Old to Dream

Zoomer Roberts: vocal & guitar
recorded 1 May, 1982

I learned this song from an old Riley Puckett record. Puckett is best remembered as the guitarist for Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers, but he also recorded as a solo artist, and his repertoire included "pop" songs -- such as this sentimental waltz. This is one of those songs you sing for yourself when nobody's looking. Those are the best songs...