Suzy Thompson - Suzy Sings Siebel (2025)

“Suzy Sings Siebel” has been on my bucket list for nearly 50 years. A major departure from my usual traditional fiddle-based material, it features my singing and guitar playing (I do play fiddle on a few tracks) And it is, in a way, a gift of the pandemic.

Paul Siebel made two excellent LPs for Elektra in the late 1960s/early 1970s, but he had debilitating stage fright, hated the life of a touring musician, and his songwriting dried up, so in the 1980s he left the music world and disappeared. I never got to meet him in person.

A lifetime later, during the pandemic shutdown, after the rest of the household was in bed, I’d sit in a darkened room and sing and play the guitar, just like when I was a teenager. I found myself returning to material I hadn’t sung for nearly 50 years, including Paul Siebel’s songs. It was easy to do an online concert featuring all the songs from “Woodsmoke and Oranges” (Paul’s first album)

By this time, Paul was in his 80s, living in rural Maryland and in very poor health (pulmonary fibrosis.) He did not own a cell phone or computer. Friends of his somehow heard about my online show and brought Paul over to their house so he could watch it. The next day, they sent me an email: “Paul loved your concert. He laughed, he cried, he sang along. Please send your phone number, he would like to call you.”

We had four long and very intense phone conversations before he died a few months later. We talked about music, he asked me questions about my guitar playing (which astonished me as I am mostly known as a fiddler), we talked about his life, and I was able to ask some questions about the songs, although there was a lot more I wish I had asked. As you can imagine, it meant the world to me to get to know (a little bit) this person whose music I have loved for 50 years and to have him reach out to tell me that he really liked the way I was singing his songs.

This album includes a song of Paul's that hasn't been heard for at least 40 years. "You Don't Need A Gun" was recorded but never released. AFter Paul's death, Peter Siegel (who signed Paul to Elektra) found a long-forgotten reel-to-reel tape on his shelf and gave me the song for this album. My version is quite different from the way it was originally recorded and I wish Paul had gotten a chance to hear it.

I was honored to be joined by many musical heros on this project: Cindy Cashdollar (we’ve played together as side musicians on other people’s projects and in Geoff Muldaur’s Texas Sheiks band); John Sebastian (the first LP I ever bought with my own money was a Lovin’ Spoonful album so this was incredibly thrilling); Molly Mason (when we were in our early 20s, we played some of this material in a band which unfortunately never recorded); Jody Stecher (who produced in addition to playing and singing); Kate Brislin (my old pal from Any Old Time String Band); Bill Evans (legendary banjo player, we played in a band called Bluegrass Intentions); Mark Schatz (bassist to the stars who fortuitously has moved to Berkeley CA where I live); Michaelle Goerlitz (ace drummer) and of course my beloved Eric with whom I first learned these songs in the mid-1970s. This music was the soundtrack of our courtship.