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Yes -- it helps! --Absolutely! - much more than I expected.
Thank you!!!
~ Here's why I wanted to know:
I put up some 'rare live' Leonard Cohen mp3s --note: apparently Cohen is aware that these are up and doesn't mind: - they're from a couple of cbuttette tapes of tapes of tapes of tapes... ... from small concert performances etc, in very bad condition, that I tried to 'clean up'...)
Anyway, - one of them is "Regina".
It's apparently a back-stage rehearsal for an 'improvisation' for a French tv show. Joan Baez sings on it.
And it's not surprising that Cohen would sing a country (or bluegrbutt, -although not done that way,) song.
-- He greatly admired Hank Williams:
I said to Hank Williams: how lonely does it get? Hank Williams hasn't answered yet But I hear him coughing all night long A hundred floors above me In the Tower of Song -- Tower of Song -- LC.
-- and he has a 'Tennessee Waltz' on his latest album,
-- and his first band was a country band (called 'The Buckskin Boys'.)
Well, I tried to include notes for all the mp3s.
"Regina" was the hardest to track down. The lyrics aren't up anywhere on the net. And "Regina' gets about ten thousand false positives.
- and I've been looking for almost a year for anything about it!
I knew a long time that Lester Flatt did a 'Regina'. But only a couple of days ago found small snippet of it that shows that it's the same 'Regina'. That's when I posted the query here.
When I saw your session musicians list, --Kenneth Buttrey stood out. He died just a few months ago. (Anyone who knows anything about Bob Dylan has heard of Kenneth Buttrey.)
However, closer inspection tells more.
Buttrey wasn't one of the musicians (aka 'The Army') on Leonard Cohen's first (1970) European tour.
But three of the other session musicians you've listed for Lester Flatt were: Ron Cornelius, Charlie Daniels, Bubba Fowler,
Which undoubtedly explains why they were trying to sing "Regina" with Cohen! --they'd just done the Lester Flatt session a few months before!
This is a very satisfying result for me, --for my search, --but maybe shouldn't be so surprising.
-- all the 'country revival' of the late 1960s (distant precursor to the MTV unplugged "phenomenon") - came out of Nashville. ( apparently, historically, ultimately due to Dylan's use of Nashville session musicians.)
" Scruggs and Lester Flatt parted company in 1968 plus 1 because of artistic differences, with Flatt pursuing more traditional sounds .... "
If this is the Bear Family Records box set ("Flatt On Victor Plus More") that you're talking about, - then it looks like a fantastic set! (maybe even at $125.00!) (--eg, with its Delaney and Bonnie's "Never Ending Song of Love"! ) (--although, far as I know, I've only heard that one little snippet of "Regina" (cf the other one i'm talking about:
- the word that comes to mind is: --"fun". )
~greg.
ps: I added your response to my notes for "Regina",
--hope that's ok with you.
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