Jorma Kaukonen "Reno Road" (2024 Record Store Day Black Friday release)
For Record Store Day Black Friday in 2024, Jorma Kaukonen released a limited edition album titled Reno Road, issued in both CD and vinyl double-LP formats. The album contains previously unreleased blues recordings made in 1960 by the future guitarist of Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna. The double-LP was pressed in translucent gold vinyl, and limited to 2,000 copies. The CD, limited to 500 copies, was designed to resemble a gold vinyl record.
The album's acoustic blues tracks were recorded in the summer of 1960, when Kaukonen was a 19-year-old student at Antioch College, and had been recently taught to play fingerstyle blues guitar by Ian Buchanan. These recordings were made in the home of his friend Jack Casady on Reno Road in Chevy Chase, MD. Casady, as you probably know, has been Kaukonen's lifelong musical collaborator, in the Airplane, Tuna, and elsewhere. Casady recorded these homemade tracks on his Wollensak tape recorder. 60-odd years later, Casady rediscovered these long-forgotten tapes, which were restored for this release by sound engineer Rick Sanchez. For such a long-dormant home recording that was apparently not meant to be heard by the public, Reno Road sounds remarkably good.
According to Kaukonen's liner notes, he had spent that entire season constantly playing his guitar whenever he was not working at his summer job, and he played these recorded songs to show Casady what he had learned. He certainly sounds like he was well-practiced with his guitar, and passionate about the Piedmont-style blues music he was playing. Kaukonen's adept guitar picking is a pleasure to hear throughout these 23 acoustic blues cuts, many of which he would revisit with Hot Tuna and on his solo records. Vocally, the young man sounds as though he was emulating older blues singers, and sometimes -- though not always -- succeeded at giving his singing a sense of beyond-his-years wisdom, particularly on dark tracks such as "Death Don't Have No Mercy" and "Another Man Done Gone". Although these recordings were made before the escalation of America's involvement in the Vietnam War, "Questionnaire Blues" comes across much like the type of anti-war song that was common during the decade that followed. The first of the two vinyl discs is the stronger one, but the final track, a rendition of Leroy Carr's 1928 blues standard "How Long Blues", manages to leave a fairly haunting impression at the album's end.
An amusing note: "Keep On Truckin'" bears an obvious musical similarity to Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant Massacree", which was recorded seven years after these tapes were made. The reason: The guitar part from Guthrie's song was inspired by the same style of Piedmont fingerstyle blues.
Reno Road is a pleasant surprise, thankfully excavated from a deep dig into the origins of '60's folk rock.
Jorma Kaukonen "Reno Road" (Culture Factory CFUO1274) 2024
Track Listing:
1. Trouble In Mind (3:23) -- Richard M. Jones
2. True Religion (3:44) -- Rev. Edward Clayborn / arr. Ian Buchanan
3. Keep On Truckin' (3:44) -- Trad. arr. Jorma Kaukonen
4. Five Foot Two Eyes Of Blue (1:43) -- Ray Henderson / arr. Jorma Kaukonen
5. Don't You Leave Me Here (2:56) -- Jelly Roll Morton
6. Another Man Done Gone (2:53) -- Trad. arr. Jorma Kaukonen
7. Talkin' Blues (1:15) -- Trad. arr. Jorma Kaukonen
8. Blues In E (5:14) -- Jorma Kaukonen
9. West Coast Blues (1:59) -- Blind Arthur Blake
10. Questionnaire Blues (3:53) -- Snooks Eaglin
11. Death Don't Have No Mercy (6:17) -- Rev. Gary Davis
12. Candy Man (2:58) -- Rev. Gary Davis
13. 99 Year Blues (2:21) -- Julius Daniels
14. I Belong To The Band (3:22) -- Rev. Gary Davis
15. Whinin' Boy Blues (4:42) -- Jelly Roll Morton
16. Hesitation Blues (2:58) -- Rev. Gary Davis
17. Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning (2:39) -- Rev. Gary Davis
18. Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out (2:32) -- Jimmie Cox
19. Bottle Up And Go (1:37) -- Tommy McClennan
20. That'll Never Happen No More (2:58) -- Blind Arthur Blake
21. Great Change Since I Been Gone (3:44) -- Rev. Gary Davis
22. Women Used To Drive Me Crazy (3:05) -- Trad. arr. Jorma Kaukonen
23. How Long Blues (2:54) -- Leroy Carr
The album's acoustic blues tracks were recorded in the summer of 1960, when Kaukonen was a 19-year-old student at Antioch College, and had been recently taught to play fingerstyle blues guitar by Ian Buchanan. These recordings were made in the home of his friend Jack Casady on Reno Road in Chevy Chase, MD. Casady, as you probably know, has been Kaukonen's lifelong musical collaborator, in the Airplane, Tuna, and elsewhere. Casady recorded these homemade tracks on his Wollensak tape recorder. 60-odd years later, Casady rediscovered these long-forgotten tapes, which were restored for this release by sound engineer Rick Sanchez. For such a long-dormant home recording that was apparently not meant to be heard by the public, Reno Road sounds remarkably good.
According to Kaukonen's liner notes, he had spent that entire season constantly playing his guitar whenever he was not working at his summer job, and he played these recorded songs to show Casady what he had learned. He certainly sounds like he was well-practiced with his guitar, and passionate about the Piedmont-style blues music he was playing. Kaukonen's adept guitar picking is a pleasure to hear throughout these 23 acoustic blues cuts, many of which he would revisit with Hot Tuna and on his solo records. Vocally, the young man sounds as though he was emulating older blues singers, and sometimes -- though not always -- succeeded at giving his singing a sense of beyond-his-years wisdom, particularly on dark tracks such as "Death Don't Have No Mercy" and "Another Man Done Gone". Although these recordings were made before the escalation of America's involvement in the Vietnam War, "Questionnaire Blues" comes across much like the type of anti-war song that was common during the decade that followed. The first of the two vinyl discs is the stronger one, but the final track, a rendition of Leroy Carr's 1928 blues standard "How Long Blues", manages to leave a fairly haunting impression at the album's end.
An amusing note: "Keep On Truckin'" bears an obvious musical similarity to Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant Massacree", which was recorded seven years after these tapes were made. The reason: The guitar part from Guthrie's song was inspired by the same style of Piedmont fingerstyle blues.
Reno Road is a pleasant surprise, thankfully excavated from a deep dig into the origins of '60's folk rock.
Jorma Kaukonen "Reno Road" (Culture Factory CFUO1274) 2024
Track Listing:
1. Trouble In Mind (3:23) -- Richard M. Jones
2. True Religion (3:44) -- Rev. Edward Clayborn / arr. Ian Buchanan
3. Keep On Truckin' (3:44) -- Trad. arr. Jorma Kaukonen
4. Five Foot Two Eyes Of Blue (1:43) -- Ray Henderson / arr. Jorma Kaukonen
5. Don't You Leave Me Here (2:56) -- Jelly Roll Morton
6. Another Man Done Gone (2:53) -- Trad. arr. Jorma Kaukonen
7. Talkin' Blues (1:15) -- Trad. arr. Jorma Kaukonen
8. Blues In E (5:14) -- Jorma Kaukonen
9. West Coast Blues (1:59) -- Blind Arthur Blake
10. Questionnaire Blues (3:53) -- Snooks Eaglin
11. Death Don't Have No Mercy (6:17) -- Rev. Gary Davis
12. Candy Man (2:58) -- Rev. Gary Davis
13. 99 Year Blues (2:21) -- Julius Daniels
14. I Belong To The Band (3:22) -- Rev. Gary Davis
15. Whinin' Boy Blues (4:42) -- Jelly Roll Morton
16. Hesitation Blues (2:58) -- Rev. Gary Davis
17. Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning (2:39) -- Rev. Gary Davis
18. Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out (2:32) -- Jimmie Cox
19. Bottle Up And Go (1:37) -- Tommy McClennan
20. That'll Never Happen No More (2:58) -- Blind Arthur Blake
21. Great Change Since I Been Gone (3:44) -- Rev. Gary Davis
22. Women Used To Drive Me Crazy (3:05) -- Trad. arr. Jorma Kaukonen
23. How Long Blues (2:54) -- Leroy Carr
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