Baby Gramps

"Cape Cod girls, they don't use no combs...they comb their hair on the codfish bones" -- so goes the first line of Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys, a two-CD album out this month from the adventurous and storied rock producer Hal Willner. With the backing of Johnny Depp and Pirates of the Caribbean series director, Gore Verbinski, Captain Willner pressed willing friends like Bono, Sting, Nick Cave, Bryan Ferry, Lou Reed, Lucinda Williams, Teddy Thompson, Ralph Steadman, Van Dyke Parks, and Rufus Wainwright to come aboard his pirate ship and sing traditional sea chanteys in their particular styles. The 43 songs collected here tell evocative stories of the sea - of cruel captains, scuppered vessels, distant homes, drunken sailors and wenches. "There's something very familiar in the songs," says the producer. "Even if we don't know sea songs, they've influenced every type of music - you can hear them in Wagner, in country music, in the Beatles." Some obvious crew members were left ashore - Keith Richards fell from a tree; Shane MacGowan was indisposed - so others came aboard for them, including the unknown Baby Gramps, who offers "Cape Cod Girls" in a fashion as arresting and strange as any you are likely to hear.

- Vanity Fair - September 2006 ~ Review by Edward Helmore

This long-overdue CD from a post-Luddite codger who prefers 78s features a unique guitar style only other folkies can hear and not a one of his endless supply of Dylan covers. Instead we get blatant blues and welcome Wobbly songs, cartoon heroes, throat-singing techniques learned from Popeye or a pet frog, and loving versions of "Teddy Bears' Picnic," "Let's All Be Fairies," and "I'm Gonna Eat Some Worms." Also eight minutes of palindromes (damned if I can make the "Margy" in his sobriquet do such tricks) and a recitation utilizing but a single vowel (not counting—can't fool me, Bearded Wonder—"Don Juans" and "ironical"). Inspirational uncontrovertible (sic) facts: "Rooks do not roost on spoons nor woodcocks snort/No dog on snowdrop rolls/Nor common frogs concoct long protocols." A MINUS

- Village Voice ~ Review by Robert Christgau; Jan. 26 - Feb. 1, 2000

A healthy visual dose of just some of the delightfully eccentric facets and niches of Baby Gramps’ mainly manic musical personality. Out of the Pacific Northwest, he’s part ragtime, hokum and country bluesman, poet, medicine show minstrel, songster and professional boxcar bum with a fondness for old (and often forgotten) folk, vaudeville and novelty numbers, corny jokes and the dictionary. Imagine a combination of Uncle Dave Macon, Captain Beefheart, Charley Patton, Smoky Stover, Blind Boy Fuller and Popeye and you’d be in the park. Recorded recently at New York City’s Terra Blues club, the bearded, foot-stomping Gramps is as animated as ever, supporting his raspy, gravelly, mannerism-loaded vocal gymnastics with a National steel guitar approach that seems to contain a theatrical exploration of all the notes between the cracks, often employing a percussive finger-picking technique that involves elbows and palms, scribbling, telepathic tempos and angled off-notes. Dazzlers include the set opening instrumental “Ankle Wrench Rag,” a sing-a-long take-off on Mack McClintock’s “Big Rock Candy Mountain” (that he topically refits for the Greenwich Village audience), his vibrant original “Charge It to the Dust and Let the Rain Settle It” and a wily ragtime version of the 1930 standard “Dream a Little Dream of Me.” Also noted is another quirky original, “Skillets of Snakes” and an extended encore segment from his Possum Opera work-in-progress. Lots of close-ups, clean split-screen shots and fine sound that picks up all the happy-go-lucky vocal conjurations. An American musical treasure, Gramps is one of those rare performers who has to be seen to be believed. An earlier West Coast concert DVD is also available. — GvonT
- Sing Out! The Folk Magazine ~ Review by GvonT

Baby Gramps finger picks an old steel national guitar and sings in a wild, extemporaneous gravel vocal style with phenomenal vocal rhythmic improves and a guitar technique that borders on early ragtime. He combines early jazz, blues, ragtime, and good-time novelty music… Most important for Gramps is not his obvious musical genius, but the ability for having fun; and this is all pure delight… This is one of the most important recordings of this decade and hopefully the beginning of a series of recordings to document and expose this most amazing creator, performer, and humorist to ever grace a concert hall or festival stage…

- VICTORY MUSIC REVIEW ~ Chris Lunn,