Correspondence | Road Notes | Press Clippings


In our travels, we’ve continued to communicate with our talented fans. These notes from the road and correspondences mean a lot to us, and we hope you’ll keep ‘em comin’. Here are a few snippets from discussion…

Dear Mustard's Retreat

I am a school teacher at a school where you have played.
Our elementary students really liked your song about the
Michigan Mosquitos.

Recently, one of the students found a reference to that
tale in a book of Paul Bunyan stories and tall tales.
Several of them were talking about it, and were excited
that they had heard it in song form. So I brought in the
cd so we could all listen to it again and discuss it.

My question is, how did you come to have a song like
that in your program? I don't remember you telling how
it came to be. If you can tell it now, some of my students
are interested.

Thanks

B.E. (a teacher)


From: Michael Hough
Subject: the Michigan Mosquitos


Well, Bridgett it's called the folk process.

David and I heard that Paul Bunyan story told by the great
Art Thieme at a festival in Wisconsin. Art Thieme is a
wonderful singer, a song collector and storyteller and a
terrible punster, so he and I are on similar wavelengths

I loved the part about the mosquitos, and put it in my pile
of things to do right away without delay absolutely without
fail immediately expedited and on deadline please rush.

"One thing drives out another," says good ol Barliman Butterbur
the innkeeper at The Prancing Pony. "My mind is like a lumber
room... the thing wanted is always under something else."

After some time, I got around to writing the song using a chord
pattern I heard from the singing of Roy Bookbinder.
The chord pattern is not original, I have heard it used
in many songs telling American Legends. Stacker Lee is one
great example... you may have heard it. A man so bad and so mean
that when he was finally executed he went down to Hell with his
Stetson Hat and his .44 gun and took over.

Stacker Lee said to the Devil
"Devil let's have some fun.
You try and stick me with your pitchfork
and I'll shoot you with my gun."

He said "Devil you take your pitchfork
and just put it up on that shelf
I'm Stacker Lee and I'm bad and mean
I think I'll run this place myself."

Etc. etc. etc. It's one of those Legends, and the chord pattern
I used for the Mosquito song fits it perfectly. I've heard that
same pattern used by David Bromberg in a song called
The Travellin Man...
"A man who could run so fast that his
feet wouldn't stay in the road...
and when a freight went past
no matter how fast,
he'd always get on board...

He went down to the spring one day
just to get himself a pail of water.
The distance that he had to haul the pail
was about three mile and a quarter.
Well, he went and filled up his bucket
but on the way back he slipped and fell down.
He ran back home, picked up another bucket
Caught the water 'fore it hit the ground..."

He was a travellin man...

etc etc etc.

So you see that mosquito song is in a tradition of
American Tall Tales. All I did was to write a poem
that fit the pattern already established by a whole raft
of earlier singers. I get credit for that part, and for
adapting the arrangement to fit my own style and
what I think sounds good, but I did it as part of
something very grand and still very cool, and something
that is still going on. American Urban legends could
be used to keep the tradition going, and yes I have a
book on them in my great pile of worthwhile things
to do.

Today
Michael Hough


"Listen"

listen:

we don't have any apple blossoms yet...
trees just waiting. this winter was so cold
for so long that lake michigan froze over.
it doesn't do that every year. david and i
just got back from the Lake Michigan Circle
tour. we started out on friday and drove
through Chicago and up into Wisconsin
saturday we played in Steven's Point
Wisconsin which is fairly far north.

driving across Wisconsin country on
that day was just gorgeous... sunny and
mild, trees just starting to swell their buds.
no leaves yet, all winter colors, subtle shades
of brown and grey, red stems on wetland
dogwoods etc, but if you look in the distance the
hills look slightly reddish instead of silvery
gray bark. buds. the farther north we drove,
the more the countryside looked like it was just
waiting. still dormant, but only just. maple
sugar time is over i think, pike fishing on the
ice is hot, but the ice is rotton.

this is the time of year when fishermen go out on
Lake Erie ice by the dozens, hoping to get lucky
and hook or spear some lunker pike. occasionally
a piece of ice maybe four miles long and half a mile
wide breaks off from the shore and starts drifting west
ward out into open water. the coast guard has to
go out in a helicopter and pick up the guys, who
sometimes don't even know they are drifting.
"just look back there, buddy, there's a mile or so
of open water between you an yer truck."

well, we played to the Wisconsin cheeseheads, and
then we drove up into the U.P. of Michigan and played
to da yoopers, eh? we have had a hard time knowing
what to say to an audience... what with a war on and
all, and us so against it and so aghast at the arrogance
and sublime complacency of the politicians who
led us into this. many times, in an urban setting or
at least an urbane setting, we sing anti war songs and
david gets on his anti corportate soap box and it's like
preaching to the faithful. we're all against the war.
but in these back country/north country areas, it ain't
that simple. plenty of retired servicemen and women.
plenty of nam vets who gravitated to the woods etc.
feelings are mixed. not so much arrogance, just a
powerful desire not to repudiate the troops. some of
them are "God Bless George Bush" types, but not all.

so what to say when you're onstage? we don't want
to split the audience into those for the war and those
against it and then leave. so we mostly just entertain
them so they can forget about it for awhile. we did a
great show last night, and got our hosts (a four piece
family band) onstage with us to play our last song:
There's a Dance Tonight. After that, the audience
all stood up. we don't get standing ovations every night.
so what to do with six talented musicians onstage and
the audience on their feet? Well, the goddess of inspirations
said to ask everyone to imagine that the war was over
and the troops were coming home on a ship. what would
we sing to them as they come into the harbor?
"This land is your land, this land is my land..."

as corny as that sounds, it worked. they ate it up.
it unified the room and everybody went home
happy. i told them that we were against the war
before we sang that song, but didn't bludgeon them
with that and they came up later and thanked us.

what a life. we left there in the evening and drove
home, all the way across the upper penninsula, over
the Big Mac bridge and downstate on the freeway.
i slept while david drove east across the U.P.
it's two lane all the way... little towns and a few
stop lights, mostly yellow flashers at that time of night.
i slept while david drove that part. he did almost
three hundred miles powered by adreneline from
that ovation, or something. i woke up when he
said, "can i have a reciept please?" i knew he was
paying the toll on the Mackinac Bridge. that meant
he was fried. three hundred miles, david? get outa
the drivers seat!

we drove over the Big Mac in the moonlight.
the straits looked very strange covered in ice
with only a half mile or so of open water in
the middle. seeing all that ice is pretty awesome,
and the moonlight makes it more so.

well, i drove a couple hundred miles my damn self.
home down I-75 was pretty painless. the main hazard
was deer, who have a tooth for the grass on the side of
the freeway. i have learned that if you see one, don't
look at it. look for three more on the side of the road.
the one you see probably isn't the one you'll hit.
cruise control, an empty freeway, good music to listen
to, no construction delays, no snow, no black ice,
three quarters of a moon above to light the country,
good coffee in the thermos and a good woman to come
home to.

hard to beat.

now i'm looking forward to a couple weeks at home,
maybe a road trip with mac.

love to all
and peace... let's not give up on peace.

there it is

michael



"Song"

Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 11:47:58 -0600
Subject: song
From: Nancy
To: Mustards Retreat

Last Sunday I heard the last half of your song, "The Water is Wide"
on the Folk Sampler (broadcast in Omaha, NE on Feb 16) I went on
their website to find out the name of your album, but cannot find it
anywhere on the web. The Folk Sampler says your new album is "A
Resolution of Something." Is this correct? and where can I get this
incredible rendition? I was speechless while it was playing!
Nancy


From: Michael Hough
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2003 10:03:48 +0000
To: Nancy
Subject: the water is wide

hello nancy

thank you for your e'mail about our song. we are
proud of it and felt pretty sure we had a good version
but your response (and others) really validates that.

it's on our newest recording, which is why it's a little
hard to get. we are a folk oriented duo (singer songwriters
mostly) who have been plugging away for years.
we have five other recordings, but this one
(A Resolution of Something) is the best ever.

if you want one, you can mail us a check made out to
Mustard's Retreat. $15 for the cd, and $2.00 to mail
it ought to cover it. this recording is so new that we
haven't recouped our expenses on it yet, so everyone
who gets one becomes a BACKER!

here's my address for snail mail:

Michael Hough/ Mustard's Retreat
606 S. Main
Ann Arbor, Mi 48104

i'll tell you a couple more things about that particular
song, hopefully to pique your interest. it's a song i have
always loved, but hated the verses. i have heard many
other versions recorded by various artists, with lovely
arrangements and knock you dead vocals but the same
gronky eighteenth century lyrics. it's one of the oldest
folk songs extant.

nothing is too sacred for new love however...
i have always thought i might some day get around to
writing new lyrics for that song. being in the luminous
phase of new love during the summer of 2002, Heather
Macfarland and i found ourselves working on it in a
tent at a festival. we fussed with it and tweaked it
and gave it to David Tamulevich (my singing partner)
for input.

when it was done, we sent it to Garnet Rogers, who you
may know is a Canadian singer songwriter. He produced
our last recording, and was thinking about working with us
on this new one. he loved the song and wanted to produce
that one even if he didn't have time to work on the whole
cd with us. he said, "come up to toronto, i have an idea about
how this should sound..."

so we did. Garnet tapped David Woodhead ( with whom he has
worked for years, including touring with Stan Rogers before he
died) to play the piano. He set it up very simply, with a mike
for me to sing into, one for himself (Garnet) to play the guitar
into and the piano in another room. we did it in three takes
which i thought was amazing, but these guys are so good...

sorry to go on so. we ended up with a great arrangement
and you apparently liked it enough to seek us out.
just wait till you hear the rest of it.

we don't tour in the West very much, so it isn't likely we'll
be in your area any time soon. thanks for your response...
it's fun to be able to say this cd is our best effort yet.


sincerely
michael hough