Wednesday, September 6, 2017

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.