When I was nine years old, my parents gave me a ukulele. I fiddled around with it for a few weeks, and all of a sudden I could play a chord or two. That was my instrument of choice until my Mother came home from an antique auction with a beautiful old Martin ¾ guitar. By the time I was ten I could fumble my way through a few simple songs, singing as I went.
I was given a few records that had a profound effect on my life, notably Burl Ives Wayfaring Stranger and his other albums. In Santa Fe one summer I met and hung out a bit with Terry Gilkyson (Cry of the Wild Goose, On Top of Old Smokey – with the Weavers, Marianne, Memories Are Made of This, The Bare Necessities, and many others. I was sixteen and he was about forty at the time: an enormously nice guy who wrote some great folk-type songs you probably never have heard of, like Solitary Singer, Fast Freight, and others. At that time I also heard Trio Los Panchos for the first time and immediately bought a couple of their records.
The upshot is I became a folksinger of sorts – while I was in the Army in Germany and later while I was attending The University of Oklahoma – and have continued to sing and play as a hobby ever since. I’ve never really been an accomplished guitar player – just used it mainly for accompaniment. And for the last few years I haven’t played at all, since my Goya G-30 went when our house burned down. Even so, I’m going to try to play and sing a lot of the songs in here, mainly for the sake of history, and to give the group three generations down the opportunity to hear them – possibly even want to pick up a ukulele and start picking.
Roger McGuckin, a great friend from college, was kind of inspired by the idea, and is pitching in. Others may pop up, like Budd Davisson, Steve Foreman, Gary Price, Bill Caswell, and who knows who else. We will welcome them (and anyone else of their ilk) with open arms.
So far our list contains 283 songs. I have posted it here. I intend to add my (or someone else’s) informally performed version of each one We could add a couple of hundred more, and probably will as time goes by.
We hope you will enjoy the site at least as much as we did putting it together.
Bill Davidson
NOTE: There is much original material on this site. Please note that material is all copyrighted by William A. Davidson.
