Bobryanmusic.com: The Lowdown

There are new Free Downloads available on the site. Especially in the "rare and unreleased" bin.
Check it out. I mean, it's free, after all.

Well I've definitely not been keeping up here, but I'll try to bring things up to speed quickly.

First of all, The Catfish Hunters (Terry Hann & Myself,) returned in the first week of June from a whirlwind tour of Bosnia where we played in 2 venues in the city of Mostar, 2 venues in the city of Sarajevo and one venue in Breza, about 35 minutes outside Sarajevo. The trip went amazingly well and I should probably post some pics.

We put together some new material for that series of gigs, all of which came together rather well. So I have begun planning a new series of recordings, which we'll do together under the "Catfish Hunters" name.

Some of the song titles we're considering:

Susanna (a re-working of an old folk standard)
Wire in the Sky
It's the Law
Somebody Already Walked that Road
Mirror (originally intended for "The Spirit of Andy Devine")
Sleeping Through the Night
The World's Longest Train
My Lost Love's Cry
Maricopa Blues
The River And the Road (Originally appeared on the demo disk "Down Here On the Surface")
No Distance (Originally appeared on the demo disk "Down Here On the Surface")
Before the Winter Frost (Ha! Surprise, Terry! you haven't heard this one yet!)
Outlands (originally intended for "The Spirit of Andy Devine")

We hope to start recording before the end of July.

Ok club members,
Over the last couple of months I've teamed up with multi-instrumentalist Terry Hann to form the rockin' string duo "The Catfish Hunters"
New gigs are cropping up almost momentarily. Get in there and get yours.

My song "Heroes" has been featured on a compilation disk of songs about the American Civil War called "Civil War: Music in Reflection." This would be the war known by those of my lineage as The War Between the States. The disk is being marketed and distributed by Cresent Music.

The disk can be purchased and samples of the music heard at CDBaby using the following link:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/listen2me3
Cover photo:
http://cdbaby.name/l/i/listen2me3.jpg

Just recently returned from 10 days in Kunming, China (and a brief stop in Beijing) Now, I'm not a youth worker but I had the opportunity to do a couple of "Chapel" times for the International school in Kunming (thanks to Daniel Tannous and Danielle Zinn for use of their guitars...) and I ended up writing a new song for the occasion when I was there. So here's the lyrics:


You’ve Got it Wrong

You may think you know me
But you don’t really know me
You can’t see inside me
To the part of me that’s holy
Past the skin and bone

I can see you’re lonely
Though you say you don’t want to know me
I can see you feel so small
You have to pin me to the wall
So you don’t feel alone

But you’ve got it wrong; you’ve got it wrong

You may think you can deny me
Climb above me; make me nothing.
You may think you’ll prove you’re better
Laughing at me; tough and bluffing

But you’ve got it wrong; you’ve got it wrong.

There’s someone who knows me
Someone who really knows me
There’s someone who says He loves me
Says he’d pay a ransom for me
Someone who is strong
Says you’ve got it wrong

Someone who is strong says you’ve got it wrong.


March 10, 2009 / Kunming, China
© 2009 By Bob Ryan, published by Leaping Armadillo Music (ASCAP)

my myspace page now contains a video created by my sister, Amy Arend (ajarend.com) using video footage and an occasional still shot of our family -- containing some footage directly referred to in the song "All the Good Things." Some of the early video footage dates back as far as 1955. You can see the "little roadside tavern (Leslie's) my grandma counting the change, we "walking with my mother down along a river where the leaves were green and yellow," and my grandfather's old blue Buick --- The "Blue Goose."

The YouTube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X56cCTkW3w

If you've enjoyed either of the CDs you've purchased from me -- you haven't? hmmm OK that's a different sales pitch. Go buy the CDs and come back here:

If you've enjoyed either of the CDs you've purchased from me -- or both -- tell a friend. We've got lots of disks to move here and the more we sell, the faster we can crank out another.

OK that sounds a little mercenery, but I've got two disks worth of stuff percolating and new songs coming all the time. What's a guy to do?

And thanks for supporting the music!

My CD "A Prison in the Heart", which was released in 2004 to coincide with the staging of the Play "A Prison in the Heart" at the Herberger in Phoenix, has pretty much been unavailable through the last year.

It's now available through CD Baby at www.cdbaby.com/ryanbob2 There is a multiple-disk discount available to make it cheap for Christmas giveaways.

It's a little dark for that, of course. But maybe you have friends who roll that way.

Track List:
1. Stari Most ("Old Bridge" -- Soundtrack Intro)
2. Wide Miles of Mystery
3. Battleground
4. All the Ancient Hills
5. Prezivljavanje ("Surviving")
6. Balkan Ghosts
7. Shattered Dream
8. Lopov u Noci (The Thief in the Night")
9. Only in Your Love
10. No One Wins
11. Keep On Walking
12. Vrijeme Opsade ("The Time of the Siege")
13. Maja's Eyes
14. Novi Most ("New Bridge")
15. Sometimes by Faith