Flanfire

Just ask Mark Ambrose: Which was cooler? Playing guitar on the most recent Gillian Welch CD, or having Gillian and David Rawlings (who produced) play on your new CD? Put the Hammer Down, released on Redbird Records, also has photos by Gillian and Deb Ambrose, and the cover art is by Austin's own Cheryl Latimer. Mark wrote all 12 songs (Redbirds with Pam Bailey) - and, folks, you can pick up your copy at all appropriate outlets.

Anyone who has heard Mark Ambrose sing and play knows two things - first, he is a FINE guitar player; second, the twinkle in his eye reveals a man who enjoys telling a story. Those who know him well know he likes vinyl records and is not afraid to hoof it up with his pals on the dance floor - even though down deep one senses he is a little shy and self-deprecating. Yet this is a guy who belongs on a big stage in front of a big crowd -- he's every bit as good as Greg Brown as a folksinger and songwriter. Someone needs to put this guy on TV.

The songs make this CD a must have -- from "Kingsville Girl," which blends south Texas images with a little bit of the Kingstown sound, to "K-I-S-S-I-N-G," in which Mark opens with "Flowers bloom in the spring, wedding bells for lovers ring, ships that sail the seven seas, darling how about you and me?" How about you and me sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g?" Yet another unashamedly romantic ballad is "My Little Girl," which once again reminds you that this is a man in love with his woman (and for very good reason).

Then there are the epic songs - "Banks of Jordan" - with the refrain (with Gillian and David), "no no never no more, no never no more, washed upon the banks of Jordan, no no never no more." Mark's wistful harmonica ensures the timelessness of this song, as we really begin to step back in time to a simpler world that he has already revealed in the opening numbers.

"Hallelujah" - in which Mark ends with a story about finding a dog in the middle of the road and stopping to help the creature get back on its feet. At first he did not even look like a dog, he looked like an overcoat. This is another anthem that begs you to sing along on the chorus, "Hallelujah, for letting my soul know, Hallelujah, for letting the time go."

And "Old Willie the Outlaw," which recounts a legendary tale of the legendary king of Texas music found "somewhere south of Waco on a moonlit Texas road" on the side of the highway after catching a little buzz.

"Can't Lie to Mama" MUST be a hundred years ago (which is typical of many of Mark's songs - you find yourself surprised that the song is not in public domain but one of his own) -- the best place to hear songs like these is out on a grassy plain on a cool (or warm) evening as the music comes from a distant festival stage in waves that make you swing and sway - or up close and personal in a backyard song swap.

As good as all the other songs are, for me, the crowning moment of this set of music is the haunting "Redbirds," which tells of a man who will be coming home when the cardinals winter in Valero. How beautiful is a West Texas in which "To the tree outside your window, (you) don't need no telephone line, forty thousand years of painted sunsets get you there by and by." The cardinals, he tells us, have "duct-tape wings, wax and feathers, how they fly, with a sigh" that you can hear in Mark's mournful harmonica. By contrast, the funniest thing Mark ever heard "was a cottonmouth imitating a mockingbird," one of the lines in the rockin' "Uh-huh."

I spent dozens of dozens of hours in the Sixties listening to the early Bob Dylan - before he turned electric - I can spend hours upon hours listening to Mark Ambrose, whose music works its magic on the spirit better than any meaningless mantra could ever do. Listening to Put the Hammer Down three or four times through is cheaper than the finest massage and yet leaves you with a comforted heart and a satisfied mind.