Blue Monday

Bent Fender & the Moonglows 

Zoomer Roberts: vocal & guitar
Tony Custer: piano
Bill Owen: bass

Recorded 1973

Song of the Bandit

From the album "Roadhouse"
Zoomer Roberts: vocals, bass
Buddy Winston: guitars

This Bob Nolan composition, with its surreal imagery and expertly crafted harmonic structure, has long been one of my favorite Sons of the Pioneers songs. Jerry, Buddy & Zoomer performed it at the Border Folk Festival more than once. Here I overdubbed myself singing all the parts and it sounds more like three Zoomers than the Sons of the Pioneers or JBZ. Whatever the circumstances, I always come back to this one.

If I Had A Hammer

Performed by Jerry, Buddy & Zoomer
Jerry Boyer: lead vocal
Buddy Winston: guitar & tenor vocal
Zoomer Roberts: standup bass & baritone vocal
Recorded c. 1981

The name "Jerry, Buddy & Zoomer" wasn't patterned after "Peter, Paul & Mary." After initially billing ourselves as Jerry Boyer & the Zoom-Bud Band (Zoom-Bud was a take-off on Sho-Bud steel guitars), we decided to just use our names: two 5-letter names with double consonants and ending with the letter "y," followed by a 6-letter name with a double vowel. We could never have invented anything that good!

We worked up three Peter, Paul & Mary songs for a concert at the Chamizal Theatre. At the actual performance -- which was later shown on television -- the bridge on the standup bass I was playing worked loose and collapsed with a loud crash in the middle of "If I Had A Hammer." We continued singing, with me leaning on the bass from which the strings uselessly dangled. Fortunately, we always recorded our rehearsals, whence the version heard here.

I've Just Seen a Face

Matt Murdoch: Guitar & vocal
Tana Ladner: Electric bass & harmony vocal
Zoomer Roberts: Lead guitar
Recorded c. 1984

Here were three past or present members of Applejack rehearsing for a one-off gig: we were to open for Byron Berline & the L.A. Fiddle Band. To that end, we got together one afternoon and worked up some tunes, and I taped the proceedings on my Montgomery Ward boombox. It probably didn't go any farther than this (I'm certain we didn't play the job) but some things happened that day that hadn't happened before and wouldn't happen again. A third of a century after the fact, it's sweet to hear once again the long-ago sounds of those long-ago friends...

Friend of the Devil

Matthew Murdoch: Guitar & vocal
Tana Ladner: Harmony vocal
Zoomer Roberts: Acoustic bass

Don't That Road Look Rough and Rocky

Tana Ladner: Rhythm guitar & vocal
Matt Murdoch: Electric bass & harmony vocal
Zoomer Roberts: Dobro
Recorded c. 1984

(I Have No One to Love Me But) The Sailor on the Deep Blue Sea

Zoomer Roberts: Lead vocal & Dobro
Tana Ladner & Matt Murdoch: rhythm guitar, electric bass, harmony vocal 
Recorded c. 1984