Martin, Bogan & Armstrong


This record was issued as an LP in 1974 by Flying Fish and is long out-of-print in its original form, although nine of the eleven tracks are included in an expanded CD re-issue of the same group's That Old Gang of Mine. The CD packaging uses the original cover art from the latter, painted by band member Howard Armstrong, but I have a sentimental fondness for this photo, which is reproduced inside, and so I keep the insert folded so that it faces out instead. Carl Martin is the man with the the mandolin, Howard Armstrong holds the bow of the fiddle, and Ted Bogan kneels behind the guitar; the younger man on the left is Howard's son, Tom, who plays bass.

There's some enjoyable singing and playing on the cuts that were originally on the LP version of That Old Gang of Mine, which features a number of guests — none of them credited on the CD insert — in addition to the band, but it's the self-titled record that is truly one of a kind. (I've never heard the group's other LP, Barnyard Dance, which is currently unavailable.) The three senior musicians had been playing professionally, by themselves or in combination, for more than forty years when they reunited, and had been captured on 78s in the mid-1930s, Martin as a solo bluesman, Bogan and Armstrong as a duo. Their repertoire, however, defied all the stereotypes of what being a “bluesman” has come to imply, beginning with the fact that although they certainly performed blues they were just as comfortable playing just about any other kind of pop music, from jazz to old time country to ethnic songs to old chestnuts like “Sheik of Araby” and “Sweetheart of Sigma Chi.” Add to that Armstrong's ability to speak and sing in Italian, Chinese, and several other languages and you had a uniquely versatile group, one that hearkened back to an earlier era, when musicians would readily cross genres to play anything that they enjoyed, or that their audience wanted to hear, or that would get them a payday.

On his 78s Martin had accompanied himself on guitar, but with the group he concentrated on the mandolin, playing melody lines. Bogan supplies the steady rhythm guitar, while Howard Armstrong, who could apparently play anything, mostly plays fiddle. I can pick out Armstrong's voice, most of the time, when he sings lead. Among other things, he sings a verse of “Chinatown” in Chinese and a verse of “You'll Never Find Another Kanaka Like Me” in something that may be Hawaiian but sounds suspiciously like a pidgin. I'm less sure about identifying the other two, or if Bogan even sang lead at all. Martin — if that is him and not Bogan — ad libs to hilarious effect on several songs, including these otherwise unrecorded lyrics to “Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out”:

Now back comes cold, rain, sleet, and snow
The rent man he keeps knockin' on your front door
The weather's cold
It's below zero
You know how it is in Chicago
If you ain't got that money it's out in the streets you go

You can be blind, lame, and can not see
Both your legs can be cut off up above your knee
You can have the tuberculosis
or the German flu
Death can be on your body
Playing Yankee Doodly-doo

As I walked down the streets of old Chicago
While the moon was riding high and lights aglow
Memories flickered by just like phantoms in the sky
Of other feet who walked these streets so long ago

...

They have vanished from the streets of old Chicago
It seems that I can hear their laughter and their song
It seems that I can hear their voices loud and clear
But like the fading wind they all are gone