Dog Paw Tea
(Colin Kenny & Pete Gallagher, Raiford Starke Music, BMI)

Up in Live Oak we got a lot of dogs
We use them for huntin’ deer and hogs
You see ’em on the roadside barkin’ at cars
Asleep in the mud outside the bars
Pictures on the poles "Lost and found"
Reward if you find my blue tick hound
But when we get thirsty, don’t you see
We need ’em for brewin’ up dog paw tea
Dog paw tea...Dog paw tea

When the family meets for the holidays
We eat wild turkey with a fatback glaze
Boiled chicken wings from a pheasant bird
Mushrooms plucked from a fresh cow turd
Ol’ Whitey Markle’s boiled peanut pie
And grandma’s eggplant surprise, oh my
Turnip greens and taters, honey from a bee
And we wash it all down with-a dog paw tea
Dog paw tea

Dog paw tea, dog paw tea
Made from a Live Oak recipe
Sassafras, cinnamon and pekoe raw
Well we don’t kill the dog, we just use the paw
for dog paw tea

Well you brew up sassafras, dip cinnamon root
Peel some raw pekoe and sprinkle a toot
And just before you add ice to the jug
You call ol’ Shep asleep on the rug
That old dog shudders to family’s applause
Starts licking the hell out of each of his paws
The most important part of the recipe
Is you got to have a dog to make dog paw tea
Dog paw tea

Now that ol’ dog knows what he has to do
He strolls up to the jug like Mr. Boogaloo
He scopes out the scene like Tiger Woods
And we hold our breath while he delivers the goods
Dips his paw in the tea and gives it a shake
And grandma hands him his Alpo bake
Ain’t nothin’ in this life that I’d rather see
Then a fresh pawed jug of that dog paw tea
Dog paw tea

Dog paw tea, dog paw tea
Made from a Live Oak recipe
Sassafras, cinnamon and pekoe raw
Well we don’t kill the dog we just use the paw
for dog paw tea

Now up in Live Oak it’s after five
The whole damn town is barely alive
every so often there’s a truck haulin’ logs
Always in the distance there’s the barking of dogs
They bark at coyotes, they bark at coons
When there’s nothing left to bark at, they bark at the moon
When I hear those dogs I have the memory
Of my dear ol’ granny
Great Aunt Nanny
My ex-uncle Danny and the family
Drinking dog paw tea

Dog paw tea, dog paw tea
Made from a Live Oak recipe
Sassafras, cinnamon and pekoe raw
Well we don’t kill the dog we just use the paw
for dog paw tea

Since the release of his debut album Speak Me (which featured hit Florida anthem "Girl From Immokolee"), outlaw singer/guitarist Raiford Starke has earned a rep for high powered roots rocking live performances. Guitarist/producer Jack Shawde decided to capture some of that energy one night and recorded a live Raiford Starke set from the stage at The Poorhouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It’s now Raiford Starke’s new release!

"Texas Dust & Florida Rust" is not just the name of the title track but could serve as a possible description of the Raiford Starke sound (if only for the choice of not one but two Doug Sahm covers in the set). The title tune is an autobiographical drive over Gulf Coast highways, from the Lone Star state (where he kicked up dust with late songwriting mentor Dicky Wilson, whose poignant "Gentle Breeze" from Speak Me gets a reprise here as the set’s stillest moment) to the Florida swamps where rust never sleeps and the rambling Raiford now abides.

Camped along that trail is the Bo Diddley mambo "Crackin’ Up", with its copious quotes creating a beach party jam suitable for any Redneck Riviera. Harder drinking takes place at Hoyt Axton’s "Lightning Bar" and the band strips down Alabama’s "Song of The South" only to recast it as a classic rock anthem. The sojourn comes full circle with another Dicky Wilson original "West Virginia Line," which expresses the kind of wanderlust that propelled young Virginia native Colin Kenny, the man who would be Raiford Starke, on his dusty rusty path through life and music.

Fundamental to the sonic impact of this recording are the players, starting with Raiford’s long time cohort Stevie Grandmaison, legendary Tampa Bay musician of groups like 90’s cult act Deloris Telescope. Stevie’s harmony vocals hone tight like a Don Rich to Starke’s Buck Owens, while his sinewy low slung bass uplifts the grooves as much as anchors them. Veteran picker Jack Shawde (Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Paul Butterfield) is among the few with the guts and finesse to compliment Raiford on guitar, employing a quiver of artisanal instruments and dexterous licks to silk line the denim jacket of Starke’s signature Silvertone. While it might seem like this interlocking guitar attack is what pushes a couple of the album’s tracks past the ten minute mark, it is renowned drummer John Yarling pulling the group up to its most frenzied heights, his masterful playing a real tour de force throughout.

Texas Dust & Florida Rust opens with the Raiford Starke band’s upgrading of the Georgia Satellites’ John Fogerty cover, "Almost Saturday Night," a chiming call to arms that really sets the tone for the rest of the album and is the perfect introduction to a rocking set from this guitar slinging American hero! Download right now on Bandcamp, iTunes and elsewhere. Compact discs are available for mail order online, in select retail outlets as well as at every Raiford Starke show.

(John Stacey, Big Cypress Records)

"This is the kind of music you’d expect to hear as you drive into the crushed oyster shell parking lot of a cypress wood bayou roadhouse, or a coastal sailors dive turned biker bar. It’s good, old-fashioned homemade music, worn at the seams and wearing the tattoo of experience prominently on its shoulder. "Speak Me," the lead track of the disc, is street slang for "talk to me" and is used as the conceit in a surprisingly spiritual and compassionate song about the importance of saying what’s in your heart to the people close to you while you still have the time. It has a musical similarity at times to Marshall Tucker, but it is also the perfect introduction to the deep baritone of Raiford Starke that sounds like a combination of Townes Van Zandt, Kris Kristofferson, and Tony Joe White." - Rockzilla Magazine