Raccoon - White Horse Ranch Sessions

The White Horse Ranch / Kansas City Sessions

Raccoon

(1984)

1. Yahweh Sunshine (4:25) LISTEN - lyrics - chords

2. Sparks (7:21) LISTEN - lyrics - chords

3. Lonely Days (5:54) LISTEN - lyrics - chords

4. That Sounds So Good (Polly And Dolly) (7:32) LISTEN - lyrics - chords

5. Dumpster Diver (3:35) LISTEN - lyrics - chords

6. If I Had A Dollar In My Hand (4:04) LISTEN - lyrics - chords

7. Broken Wings (6:03) LISTEN - lyrics - chords

8. Rainbow Mountain (4:05) LISTEN - lyrics - chords

9. Hello World (2:40) LISTEN - lyrics – chords

10. The Great Compromise (3:37) LISTEN - lyrics – chords

11. Horn Of The Unicorn (5:32) LISTEN - lyrics - chords

12. Heart Of The City (4:38) LISTEN - lyrics - chords

13. Paper World (7:59) LISTEN - lyrics - chords

14. Om Shanti (6:50) LISTEN - lyrics - chords

The White Horse Ranch is in Naper, Nebraska, and is quite an historic location. We were the guest of the late Ruth Thompson, revered in equestrian circles as a great horse trainer and spouse of Cal Thompson who along with brother Hud created the “American Albino, American White, and American Crème” registry of animals which is the first registry created which is based on traits of color rather than breed. WHR supplied white Horses to Barnum and Bailey, The Lone Ranger, Gene Autry etc, made the cover of Life Magazine, and Warner Brothers made a short film called “Ride a White Horse”. It was also a model for “Boys Town” type environments for troubled kids, where Cal and Ruth took in girls who had some sort of problem fitting in elsewhere in society, usually just rambunctiousness, and put them to work on the ranch caring for and riding and touring as performers with a herd of 100 White Horses. There is amazing footage of these shows, six girls standing astride the backs of three horses, jumping through flaming rings, and so on. Ruth absolutely loved Raccoon and his music, you can hear her applauding after Sparks, “Well isn’t that something” she says if you LISTEN closely. She was every bit as much of a character as Raccoon, and another great influence in my life - another novel’s worth of great stories.

All of these songs and more coming on the outtakes reel were recorded at The White Horse Ranch courtesy of Ruth Thompson except three songs: Yahweh Sunshine, Dollar, (as Raccoon called it) and Paper World, which were recorded directly afterward in Kansas City at the Patrick McGee residence. Pat is now a well-known Chicago artist, and in fact introduced me to Raccoon at the 1983 Michigan Gathering. Pat was my college roommate at The Kansas City Art Institute. A weird twist is that I had been out of touch with Pat for years… finally tracked him down and e-mailed him on the day Raccoon died, as though Raccoon somehow was waiting around to make sure Pat and I got back in touch.

On the KC recordings:

· Flute and skin flute by Al Wayne a.k.a. “Owl Wind”.

· Percussion (pots and pans, again Raccoon’s idea,) by Angel.

· 2^nd guitar on all WHR and KC recordings by Peter Zoernig except Om Shanti and Paper World.

I had Angel move in the other room to mellow it out a little, not that it really sucked but it was not the crucial factor and was dominating the sound.

– Peter “General Junk” Zoernig