After 30 years as a prize-winning science journalist and author, Andy Revkin has finally carved the time to record some of the songs he's been writing and performing in that same span. Here's how a scare from a "lucky" stroke and the help of a lot of musical friends, including Dar Williams, combined, resulting in his first CD -- "A Very Fine Line." Download: http://www.Revkin.bandcamp.com Community: http://www.Facebook.com/veryfinelinemusic Home page: http://Veryfinelines.com

1. Why Songs, Not Stories?
The Path to Andy Revkin’s “A Very Fine Line”
For three decades, my core occupation has been conveying stories about the
environment and other subjects through journalism, books and blogging. But there
are some subjects, situations and feelings that just cry out to
be sung instead of typed. That fact has led me back to one of
my first loves – music. “A Very Fine Line,” a collection of 10 of
my songs, was recorded and mixed from February through
September, 2013, in the Beacon, New York, studio of Joe
Johnson, with contributions from a batch of brilliantly
musical friends, including the songwriter Dar Williams,
mandolin wizard Mike Marshall and virtuoso fiddler Bruce
Molsky. You can learn about all of the contributing musicians
below. (You can download the album here. Hard copies late
in the year.)
My musical journey began with my parents, who both
enjoyed singing informally – mainly folk songs and sea songs they learned through
their shared love of sailing and my dad’s time in the Merchant Marine. My father’s
baritone rendition of the Banana Boat Song – “…come mister tallyman, tally me
bananas…” – echoes in my mind as I type this.
Another influence was geography. I grew up in Rhode Island, a bastion of folk music
and the blues. While in high school, my
brother and I began learning guitar, at
first sharing my mother’s nylon-stringed
instrument. I instinctively (if unwisely)
played the guitar upside down, creating
my own chord fingerings by placing
whatever fingertips felt best on the
locations indicated by the black dots in a
chord book.
And of course there was radio. I came of
age in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s,
Jamming with my brother, Jim, in the early 1970s
when you could listen to WPRO and hear,
in the span of an hour, everything from Dylan and the Beatles to the Four Seasons
and Herb Alpert. This album has traces of all those sounds and styles.
At 17, I bought my first guitar. It was in pieces – an old acoustic that was sitting half
mummified in crumbling masking tape in the corner of a music store in Halifax,
Nova Scotia. (I was visiting that city as a high school junior traveling with a friend’s
family to a youth sailing competition.) The guitar looked like it had been through a
bar fight, but I could see it was a Gibson, so I swooped.

2. At first, the shop owner said it wasn’t for sale. But then,
perhaps realizing he had a lot of work ahead of him to
restore it, he sold it to me for $35. When I got home, my dad,
a practical and thrifty man, didn’t hide his anger. How could I
pay $35 for a broken guitar? If I didn’t fix it by summer’s end,
he said, he would throw it away.
Me and my Gibson, 1998
I buckled down in his wood shop and fixed it, replacing a
shredded side with thin mahogany plywood that I steamed
into shape. I still have that beaten, bruised, but booming
1949 sunburst Southern Jumbo (yes, and a few others now).
I quickly learned basic mandolin and banjo, as well. I made my first “serious” money
as a musician (up to $100 a day!) busking in Newport during the Bicentennial
celebrations of 1976 with my friend Mike Bonaiuto, who had an attention-grabbing
hammered dulcimer. Then journalism took over for the most part.
In the early 1990’s, going through a rough patch, I began writing and performing
songs – about everything from piles of
bills to an epic fight with a bigmouth
bass, and of course love and loss. But I
never got around to recording seriously
until now. I was spurred in part by a
2011 stroke – a very lucky stroke in my
case – that for about a month deprived
me of the use of my right hand (playing
left handed, that’s the one that does
much of the work).
Performing in a WPLN songwriter showcase at
Nashville's famed Bluebird Café in 1997
As the title song of this album goes,
“Most of your life you spend walking a
very fine line.” I didn’t want to waste any more time.

3. Life is a Band
I was mainly a solo performer from high school on
beyond college, but shifted increasingly to playing
with other musicians, particularly after moving from
Brooklyn to the Hudson Highlands north of New
York City in 1991. It’d be hard to live in this region
and not play with others, given that the others
include Pete Seeger and the galaxy of talented
singers and players for whom he has been a
lodestone. You can get a taste of this scene on the
first Friday evening of any month on the Beacon
waterfront at the Beacon Sloop Club. Pete wrote out
the musical notation for “A Very Fine Line” for me
after he first heard that tune at the club years ago.
Click this link to see his scribbled ideas for some
Playing with David Bernz and Pete
suggested tweaks to “Arlington,” my song about the
Seeger, Beacon Strawberry Festival.
uncertain future of the national cemetery. From this
same musical circle came David Bernz, a longtime Seeger accompanist who recently
produced two of the folk singer’s Grammy-winning albums. David offered valuable
ideas on several of my tunes. More important, he introduced me to Lisa Mechaley in
1993. We married not long afterward, and this album is dedicated to her.
In the early 2000’s, when I was commuting to The New York Times regularly on the
Hudson line, I got to know several musicians frequenting the Garrison train
platform. Peter Rundquist, a great guitarist and blues singer, was a jingle composer.
Jerry Krenach, who’d drummed
with the likes of Lou Reed and
Chris Whitley, was a music
arranger, producer and
supervisor. Art Labriola, a
piano virtuoso, was scoring
films. We all craved twangy
delta blues and country tunes
and began regularly jamming
and then performing what we
Playing with Uncle Wade at Philipstown.info in Cold Spring, N.Y. ended up calling “simple music
for complicated times.” Our band was called Uncle Wade, after the stage name of
Wade Ward, a frailing banjo player. (We never played any of his music as a band; we
just liked his name.)
The rule of thumb was that we’d each mainly play the instrument we were least
good at. For me that was mandolin and screechy fiddle. Soon we were joined by Al

4. Hemberger, a bass player, songwriter and owner of a reknowned Bronxville studio,
The Loft. Our favorite gig was playing each June on the Hudson River Sloop
Clearwater during the Clearwater Festival. You can see and hear us here and here.
Click here for a show we did in the cozy back room of Philipstown.info, a
homegrown newspaper. Uncle Wade is no more, but the mixes of “Bills, Bills, Bills”
and “Arlington” on the album are built around a couple of Uncle Wade recording
sessions. “Black Bird,” my song about a miner’s death, was inspired by the true story
of the untimely death of Jerry Krenach’s great grandfather.
I sing “Between the River and the Rails” with the
Guinan's musical gang in 2009. (Journal-News photo)
Another influence on the texture of this
album was the monthly musical
gatherings at Guinan’s, a family-run
store and vest-pocket pub that graced
the Garrison waterfront for many
decades but is now a memory. You can
learn about Guinan’s in “Little Chapel on
the River,” a fine book by my friend
Gwendolyn Bounds.
The sessions there ranged from ragged
to remarkable, but were always profoundly musical and heartfelt. They were mostly
led by Jack McAndrew, an accountant by day but an earnest and passionate lover of
Irish tunes on those Thursday evenings. His inconsistent tempos were more than
compensated for by his spirit and smile. Like Jim and John Guinan, the father and
son who were the cornerstones of the place, Jack has passed on. My song “Between
the River and the Rails” is dedicated to these three fine souls.
The Songs and Musicians
A Very Fine Line (hear/download), a song about life’s close calls, features Joe
Johnson, who’s much more than a mix master, on electric guitar (the whimsical slide
licks were recorded on George Harrison’s birthday).
Joe has a great ear for the right note at the right time,
whether tweaking tracks or playing his own guitar
lines. Al Hemberger played bass and Eric Starr is on
drums. Harmonies are by my friends from
Motherlode Trio – Stacy Labriola, Patti Pelican and
Terry Textor Platz. I play guitar.
This song and three others derive their energy in
large part from the keyboard tracks contributed by
Joel Diamond, a composer and longtime session
player who was introduced to me by Joe Johnson.
There’s a fun short film about him by Anne Trauben.

5. Arlington (hear/download), my ballad about the fabled past and uncertain future of
the national cemetery, features Dar Williams as
guest vocalist, Ben Neill on trumpet and Motherlode
Trio on harmonies. Also playing are Art Labriola on
piano and organ, Mark Murphy on upright bass,
Jerry Krenach on drums and Peter Rundquist on
guitar. I play guitar and banjo.
Blame it On Biology (hear/download) became something of a tribute to Herb
Alpert after Ben Neill started experimenting with some fun trumpet
lines. Also playing: Joel Diamond on keyboards, Joe Johnson guitar,
Eric Starr on drums, Mark Murphy on upright bass. Motherlode Trio
and Al Hemberger sing harmonies. I play guitar. Ben, best known for
his pioneering digital “mutantrumpet” compositions, can play with
simple grace, too. Listen closely to Arlington when I sing “bugles
blow.” Thanks to Ben, it feels like you’re standing in the misty hills
there.
Breakneck Ridge (hear/download) is my ode to the Hudson Highlands, featuring
master pipe maker (and player) Seth Gallagher on
uilleann pipes, Steve Kent on bansuri flute, Al
Hemberger on bass, Joe Johnson on guitar and
synthesizer, Eric Starr on drums and Al Hemberger and
Motherlode on harmonies. I play guitar, mandolin, banjo
and fiddle. There are a couple of magical notes in the
“breakdown” section that, to me, have all the growl and
bend of a great rock guitar riff.
Black Bird (hear/download), inspired by a true mining tragedy, was initially
recorded by Joe Johnson as a solo live
performance by me at a Cold Spring songwriters’
circle, with Ken Veltz providing light percussion
on cajon. I invited the great fiddler Bruce Molsky
and bassist Mark Murphy to enrich this
recording in the studio. I hope you don’t mind
having a live performance with studio tracks
added after the fact. I pledge we’ll do this tune
live together soon!

6. Grandpa’s Cadillac, (hear/download) a celebration of an amazing car, features Joe
Johnson on electric guitar, Art Labriola on pedal steel guitar and
Joel Diamond on keyboards. Also playing are Al Hemberger on
bass, the versatile Eric Starr on drums and yours truly on guitar.
In this photo, Eric is working out his part on Breakneck Ridge.
You can check out his jazz side here.
Bills Bills Bills (hear/download) features Art Labriola on dobro, with Peter
Rundquist on guitar, Mark Murphy on bass and
Jerry Krenach on drums. Al Hemberger and Peter
Rundquist sing harmonies. I play mandolin and
guitar. This was a standard tune from our days in
Uncle Wade and was in part recorded in a kitchen
session by Joe Johnson several years before this full
recording was completed. Every time I hear it, I
miss that band.
A rare Uncle Wade New York City gig.
Liberated Carbon (hear/download), a three-minute history of humanity’s energy
choices, features Joe Johnson on electric guitar and Joel
Diamond on keyboards. Also playing are Al Hemberger on
bass and Ted Hemberger on drums. Al Hemberger and
Motherlode provide harmonies. I play guitar. Terry, Patti
and Stacy really brought this song, and five others, to life.
Between the River and the Rails (hear/download), recalling the splendors of a
bygone Irish pub, features
Steve Kent on penny whistle,
Bruce Molsky on fiddle, Seth
Gallagher on uilleann pipes
and the climate scientist
Raymond Pierrehumbert on
accordion. Joe Johnson added
guitar and keyboards. Al
Hemberger played bass and Eric Starr drums. The grand chorus is Motherlode Trio
along with Al Hemberger, Russ Cusick and the singer-songwriter Derek A. Dempsey.
I play guitar, mandolin and banjo. That green neon shamrock still glows in a lot of
people’s memories.

7. Song for Lisa (hear/download) features the amazing Mike Marshall on mandolin
and Mark Murphy on upright bass, with yours truly on
guitar and Eric Starr on drums. I met Mike in 2008, when
we both attended a meeting in Woods Hole, Mass., on the
role of the Internet in fostering global progress. I brought
my guitar of course and he ended up joining me, with
hardly a warm-up, on this instrumental.
I explored various options for mastering the album,
considering engineers from Los Angeles to Nashville,
but kept things local in the end after I found Matthew
Agoglia, a talented émigré to Beacon from New York
City and alum of the major-league mastering outfit
Masterdisk.
Gratitude: This album owes much to Joe Johnson, who worked with me from
February through September on every sonic detail, and also to each of the musicians
above. Many gentle listeners helped me refine these
songs and productions, including Pete Seeger, David
Bernz, David Bayer, Dean Friedman, Steve Gillette,
Cindy Mangsen, Vince Bell, Susan Werner and Leo Sacks
– and my patient wife, Lisa Mechaley. Any remaining
warts and glitches are my doing. I snapped this picture
when Joe and I wrapped the final tweak on the last
song. That’s a wrap – for now.
- Andy Revkin, Garrison, New York, October, 2013
The Cover Art
I found the cover art while searching images on the Web
related to walking a tightrope (the “very fine line,” of course).
The image, dating from 1574, is from the Symbolicarum
quaestionum, a catalog of Italian emblems by Achille Bocchi.
Thanks to the Special Collections section of the University of
Glasgow Library, you can explore this remarkable work online
here.
I had trouble at first tracking down its origins, but – through
the magic of Twitter – quickly got help from Tracey Evans and
John Fleck. After I received permission to use the art, I was

8. eager to translate the Latin title and Greek phrases being held by the acrobat. I went
to my nephew, Ben Revkin, who teaches Latin at East Greenwich High School (my
alma mater). It turned out the art was a better fit for me than I’d imagined.
After consulting with friends who are Greek scholars, he decrypted the placards for
me: “ἀνέχου / ἀπέχου translates to ‘hold on’ versus ‘give up.’ In Stoic context,
maybe ‘indulge’ versus ‘abstain.’” Ben provided a helpful link at which the
translation is “bear and forbear.”
The title above the illustration – Tenere medium semper est prudentiae – translates
to “To hold the middle is always of prudence.” This is particularly apt given that my
style of blogging and commentary is to seek points of agreement rather than
accentuate differences – a rare trait, perhaps, but possibly an unavoidable result of
my being a middle child.
Album info:
Download: Revkin.bandcamp.com
Community: Facebook.com/veryfinelinemusic
Home page: Veryfinelines.com
Contact: revkin+music@gmail.com
Twitter: @revkin #veryfineline
My journalism: http://www.nytimes.com/dotearth