In 1991 Mark, Mary and I performed live on the nationally syndicated radio show River City Folk, hosted by Tom May from Omaha, Nebraska. A tape of that performance has survived (meaning I just found it when I was digging through my old tapes looking for a copy of Maid Live), and in fairly good condition. I’m just putting up clips of our performance – the show usually intermixes the featured guest performing live and recordings of artists who have influenced them. I should also warn any listeners that the recording quality varies greatly from song to song. There was really no mixing or anything else – just stand at the mics and sing and play. So the balance isn’t always perfect. Be warned.
The Banks of Sicily
Mason’s Apron/Jude’s Bush
Massacre at Glencoe
Witches of Llandhona/Bronwyn’s Heath (Cock of the North)
Hangman
Roddy McCorley
Tom May joined us on this song – he sang the first verse and all the choruses.
The Whistling Gypsy
Unfortunately, the beginning of this song was damaged on the tape, so I just started where it was good. Too bad, because this is the only decent recording we ever did of this song, which was quite popular in our live shows. Sorry about dropping the beginning, but I hope you’ll all enjoy it anyway.
The Bonnie House of Arlie
The following videos are from a local Kansas City cable program that featured us in 1988.
Here are two promo performances for Channel 5 News, from around August of 1988. The tape was damaged, and kept skipping, so the quality is not the best.
And here are some clips from the Kansas City Renaissance Festival in October of 1988, including the only example I can find of something we did a lot of in the early days – children’s songs.
Here are some videos from the Colorado Renaissance Festival in 1988 and 1989. There are some from a stage show and some from the lanes.
The second incarnation of Maid in the Myddle, with Mark Clavey and Mary Strobl in the world premiere of our reggae version of What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor, performed at the 1991 Scarborough Faire Talent Show in Waxahachie, Texas. This was done more than three hours into the show, so everyone was having a really good time by then. Hope you enjoy it too!
I actually have a tape of the concert we gave in Dallas, Texas in May of 1992. Unfortunately, there were problems with the guitar pickup which made the sound on most songs completely useless. There was also an audiotape made which had much better sound, but I don’t have a copy of it. It’s too bad, since this concert is the only recorded record we have of many of our songs. In any case, I’ve salvaged three songs and present them to you here. The guitar problem was pointed out to us at intermission and we tried to adjust it in the second half. It helped, but was still a problem.
Hangman is a capella, so the guitar sound was not a problem. Then an instrumental, Rattlin’, Roarin’ Willie. Finally, a version of Bonnie House of Airlie. The balance was pretty good at the beginning, but got worse toward the end. Still, it was one of the few times the song was recorded, so I thought it was worth preserving.
I’ll be happy to put more songs out here, if no one objects to the sound quality. Just drop me an email and let me know.
Now for some videos from the third incarnation of Maid in the Myddle, with Jonathon Ramsey, Mary Strobl, and Joe Simunac. These are all from the Bristol Renaissance Festival in 1993. The first set is from a performance at the Pig ‘n Whistle Pub, where we usually did a set of Irish drinking songs. It also has the only video (or audio) of one of our best tape spiels – Popiel’s Pocket Troubador – at the end of Johnny Booger.
Here are some songs from a set we did at the gazebo. Front row of the audience is our old friend Curt Duval, who came to most of our shows.
Finally, a couple of songs from one of our all-request shows. Three Fishers was one of the requested songs – a song we rarely performed in public. As you can tell, from the forgotten words in the second verse.
