Snow on the Wineglass Track Liner Notes

A WANDERING STRAY
John - Guitar & lead vocal; Hailey Sandoz - Fiddle; Dave Thompson - Bass & harmony vocal; Ben Winship - Mandolin & harmony vocal

I tried to write this using the theme of an old cowboy song about the carefree, range riding cowboy. I wrote it over the course of a couple of mornings in the Little Belt Mountains of south central Montana. The decision to include internal rhymes came along on the second day, and I’m glad it did.

AIN’T DONE NOTHING LATELY
John - Guitar & lead vocal; Joe Newberry - fingerstyle guitar & harmony vocal; Ben Somers - Bass

The title of this one came from a B western that I was wasting time watching one night. In addition, one day I overheard an old rancher in the check out line at the grocery store telling the young cashier that he’d spent two hours that morning trying to figure out if he’d lost a horse or found a rope. That seemed worthy of remembering.

OLD PARD
John - Guitar & lead vocal; Joe Newberry - Harmony vocal; Ben Winship - Harmonica

This one is about change, which is the only constant. During one of our video writing sessions, Joe wassaying that he was headed to Fort Benton, MT for an Arts Council showcase soon. I was filling him in about the rich history of Fort Benton (look it up if you don’t know), and this song was the end result. I have to admit that it’s not historically chronologically accurate, but the message is clear.

STEP IT OUT NANCY
John - Guitar & lead vocal; Chris Coole - banjo; Ben Somers - Bass; Linda Williams - Harmony vocal; Robin Williams - Harmony vocal; Ben Winship - Mandolin

Robin & Linda Williams were at our house in the fall of 2023, while I was gone to Europe on tour. When my wife Joanne told them about this recording project, they suggested this song. I tried to give it a different arrangement/treatment than the way they originally recorded it, & I’m honored to have them sing on it.

SNOW ON THE WINEGLASS
John - Guitar, lead & harmony vocals; Phil Aaberg - Piano; Joanne Gardner Lowell - Harmony vocal; Natalie Padilla - Violin; Ben Somers - Bass

The Wineglass is a mountain that is on full display from our backyard, and I’ve yet to hear a good explanation on how it got it’s name. Regardless, one spring morning after a nighttime snowfall, the sun was shining bright on the new snow on the Wineglass and the line “there’s snow on the Wineglass” popped into my mind.

THE ROAD THAT NEVER ENDS
John - Guitar & lead vocal; Natalie Padilla - Violin; Ben Somers - Bass & harmony vocal; Ben Windship - Mandolin & harmony vocal

I usually offer to write a song for the highest bidder in the auction at the Montana Fiddle Camp. A couple from Missoula won this one and pretty much a true story about them.

THE ROAD AGENT’S LAMENT
John - Guitar & vocals; Todd Livingston - Resophonic guitar; Ben Somers - Bass

The discovery of gold always brought folks from all walks of life together, the bad ones included. The road agents of the early 1860s in Montana (which was the territory of Idaho at the time), were ruthless highwaymen. The popular history is that the miners formed a vigilance committee and either hung or ran the bad guys out of the country during the winter of 1864/64. I wrote this one 30(!) years ago.

TIMES ARE GETTING HARDER EVERYDAY
John - Guitar, lead & harmony vocals; Ben Somers - Bass & harmony vocal; Mark Stoffel - Mandolin; Brian Wicklund - Fiddle

I started this one in the back seat of a car on the way to a gig in Frutigen, Switzerland, got to the hotel and “finished” it - or so I thought. I think songs go through a metamorphic process during their entire existence. Sometimes fast and sometimes slow, and this one is no exeception. It’s a different song now than it was when it started, but I like it.

HALF A MILE FROM WATER
John - Guitar (left channel) & lead vocal; Thomm Jutz - Guitar (right channel); Ben Somers - Bass & harmony vocal

An old photograph that I saw of a sign that a homesteader left at his place in Montana when he abandoned it inspired this song. It said something like, “10 miles to town, 15 miles to church, half a mile from water and a quarter mile from hell. Gone back to Manitoba”.

ALWAYS ON THE BORDER
John - Guitar (left channel) & lead vocal; Tim Stafford - Guitar (right channel) & harmony vocal

Tim and I are both students of history and particularly history of the old west. There are many instances of men in the 1800s who would cross the “border” to different sides of the law, depending how it suited them. Ben Thompson and Henry Plummer, Bob & Emmett “Grat” Dalton are just a few examples.

THE PRIDE OF THE TRAIL/OLD SCHULZ
John - Guitar (left channel), lead & harmony vocals; Jim Schulz - Guitar (right channel), lead & harmony vocals; Ben Somers - Bass

Jim Schulz was at my house recording some of his songs, and presented me with the lyrics to this one. I came up with a melody, and we recorded it the next time he was visiting. Jim came up with the melody of the tune at the end, which is reminiscent of a fiddle tune called Old Grimes, so the name of this one was obvious to me.