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.