John Train

I’m pretty sure it was 1994 when I found myself in London, sort of poking around.  I wandered into an old folk club called the Mean Fiddler where a guy called Terry Clarke was playing.  At first, I thought he was doing Van Morrison covers but then I realized he was playing his own songs.  Like Van the Man, his stuff was really expansive, both deeply personal and drawing on tradition.  As I left the Fiddler, tricked out in my bin liners, stove pipes, and winkle pickers, headed for a curry, mate, I filed away the name Terry Clarke for future investigation.  Just kidding, of course, about my kit:  I was donning my then and still usual Canadian standard.  All denim, all the time.

It took me a while to actually find any of Terry’s records.  Back then – when music actually had a value attached to it – finding stuff that didn’t have US distribution was tricky.  But eventually I picked up a couple of Terry’s releases and my memory from London proved accurate.  This guy could really play (a giant 12 string), sing, and, especially, write songs.  I urge you to track down Terry’s Shelly River, whose title track really struck me that night at the Fiddler.  Terry was a native of England but, in terms of family history and what he wrote about, Irish through and through.

I later found out that Butch Hancock (who all roads lead back to in my world) had covered a song of Terry’s called “American Lipstick” which also featured on the Shelly River lp.  That was enough for me to learn it and I had the pleasure of singing it back to Butch along the banks of the Green River in Utah during the summer of 2022.  And, then, again, on the banks of the Chama River in New Mexico this past summer.  “Is it too early for a Christmas song, Butch?”  “Never!”

When Slo-Mo suggested that John Train cut a xmas single, given my preterite status (cf. Pynchon), I knew I better outsource it and “American Lipstick” immediately came to mind.  Here Clarke so beautifully tells the story of Christmas through the lens of an Irish mother thinking of her son in America, proud but mourning his absence around the old home place.

Some thanks are in order:  If it weren’t for legendary Philadelphia engineer, John Anthony, hosting John Train at the wonderful Gradwell Studios in South Jersey, there’d be no American Lipstick … or Cowboy Dreams for that matter.  Thank you, John!!!!  Thanks as always to all of the guys in the band for their wonderful playing and service to the song.  Terry originally cut American Lipstick as a duet with Texan powerhouse Rosie Flores (while Terry is almost completely unknown in America, he was sort of an honorary Austinite in the late 80s and early 90s).  Not to be outdone, we pulled in our frequent collaborator Shannon McGill whose amazing singing helped us give Lipstick a sort of MacGowan/MacColl feel.  Longtime friend and former Low Roader, Rosie McNamara-Jones, pitched in on fiddle as did Jay Ansill.  Jay, of course, was a big part of John Train’s early years and we are thankful for the lovely string arrangement he came up with here.  I must also thank John Train drummer, Mark Schreiber, for the cool video he put together in support of the song.

So in the spirit of the holidays, we offer up American Lipstick free of charge.  You (I mean, we) wouldn’t have it any other way.  Enjoy!

We dedicate this recording to the late great Terry Clarke

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Jon