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"As They Lay Sleeping" © 1979 Lee Ruth |
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Photo: Warren Winter |
Chris Vallillo |
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Vocal |
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 MP3
Sample of Lee's Original |
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| Song Lyrics: |
Lee's Lyrics:
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| As they lay sleeping In their father's bed He played his guitar Soft words that said Night watch I'm keeping While my daughters dream And their easy breathing Also makes it seem They've been here all along And it is true As the sun it passes From me to you Soon he will wake them break: No one can lead them Here where they will not stay |
As they
lay sleeping, in their father's bed He played his guitar, sang words that said "Night watch I'm keeping, while my daughters dream And their easy breathing, almost makes it seem They've been here all along, and it is true As the song it passes, from me to you" Soon he will wake them, take them to their beds Here where they will not stay, here where this
night |
| Artist on the Song: |
Lee on the Song:
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| By the time I heard
about the Lee Ruth CD, most of the songs of his I'd known were spoken for
but Lee kindly sent me a cassette of some of his additional songs to listen
to and consider. I knew the first time I heard"As They Lay Sleeping"
it was the song I should record. It had an intimacy that seemed almost sacred.
I connected with it instantly. As the new father of a little girl myself,
I've lived the moments he wrote about firsthand. What father hasn't watched
his sleeping child and felt those feelings of love and hope?
Rearranging the song for slide guitar proved challenging. It's a deceptively complex piece, and the rhythm is tricky. Lee's original version was fingerstyle guitar accompanied by fiddle with no instrumental break. After trying many variations, I broke the second verse for the instrumental and used the remainder of that verse as a bridge. I tried out many different parts with this song, but they all just got in the way. In the end, I kept coming back to the "less is more" concept of a simple, straight ahead arrangement. Classic Lee, simple, but complicated! |
When my daughters Jennifer and Sally came to visit me, it was always a special occasion, and on one of those occasions, of an evening, in 1979, when they were fourteen and eleven years old, they fell asleep listening to a radio drama called "Moon over Morocco." I sat in my easy chair looking at them and listening to Mustapha, the master storyteller, who told stories so well they came true, and I was overwhelmed with a sense of my own meager gifts as storyteller, song-maker, and occasional parent. Turning off Mustapha, I gazed at the sleeping beauties and thought, "What story, however large or small, can I tell that begins in and is absolutely true to this moment, and that projects--however briefly, dimly, narrowly--some course of action that will come to pass?" Picking up my guitar and beginning to play, I wrote this song, which both begins and ends in that moment: "As they lay sleeping; in their father's bed; he played his guitar; sang words that said…" |
| Artist on Lee Ruth: |
Lee on the Artist:
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| I first
met Lee Ruth in the early 90s at the Salt River Folk Life Festival in Florida,
MO. This wonderful down home festival takes place at the Mark Twain Birthplace
and always features a pot luck dinner and jam session for the musicians
on Saturday night. I had seen Lee perform on stage, but it wasn't until
I actually sat down and started playing with him that night that I began
to appreciate the depth of his music. His beautiful simple but complex guitar
playing was a delight to see and hear up close, and the starlight sky of
a Missouri summer night was the perfect backdrop for his songs: intimate
songs of places and people brought to life with a gentle, yet determined sense of purpose. His ability to craft a lyric and melody together is second to none. Over the years, I've shared many similar nights with Lee, playing and singing, swapping songs and stories of the music and the lives we've led pursuing it. Those nights remain some of my favorite musical experiences. Lee's generosity with his talents both with me and the countless people he has taught and performed to over the years is the best tribute to the man he is. |
Every first weekend in August for a few years, starting in the early 1990s, I had the pleasure of playing at the Salt River Folk-Life Festival at Mark Twain Lake in northeastern Missouri. Chris Vallillo, who hails from over in western Illinois, was another performer who also played Salt River most of those same years. They kept us pretty busy, alternating between playing on the main stage and over in the children's area, so it wasn't always possible to sit and listen with a careful ear to the other performers, but Saturday evening we had a chance to make up for that. The musicians and crafts-persons would pool their food resources into a great pot-luck picnic, followed by a music-making session that often lasted long into the night, and it was during these picking and singing sessions that Chris and I had the opportunity to listen closely to each other and play music together and with other music-making friends. We connected well, with parallel lives lived in rural Illinois and rural Missouri, each of us doing regular radio shows in our respective communities, each of us living and making our music with a sense of the place we live in and the people and history of that place. Several times since then Chris has played in Columbia, and we've had a brief window of opportunity to renew our friendship, and I look forward to that unknown future musical rendezvous. Hope it's soon. |
| Producer's Notes: |
Recording Credits:
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| I met Chris only once, at KOPN radio back in the early 1990s. He was in town and was producing "Rural Rt. 3" for the radio station in Macomb, Illinois. The show reminded me of one of the first shows I produced at KOPN, a Sunday night live music show called "Boone County Live." It was clear to me that music was our common passion and bond. Lee Ruth suggested that Chris might like to contribute a song to the project. When Lee told me Chris had a new baby in his life and he had chosen "As they Lay Sleeping," I knew right then we had the perfect guy for the song. |
All vocals and instruments played by Recorded at Studio 13, Macomb, Illinois, in the summer of 2003 Performance copyright 2003 |
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