Sunday, March 1, 2009

The Preacher and the Bear

from the KTEP Folk Fury broadcast of 28 Feb. 2009
Zoomer Roberts: vocal
Buddy Winston: guitar
Doug Neal: bass


Although The Big Bopper wrote several successful songs, he got this one from Phil Harris, who salvaged it from traditional sources. It was a good vehicle for the Bopper's manic delivery. We patterned our version after that of Jerry Reed, who was also manic, but more accessibly so. There are a number of old songs about preachers hunting on the Lord's Day, and this one contains elements of "signifyin' " which is widespread in the African-American oral tradition and probably a precursor of rap. In my case, country + rap = crap, but it was fun!