In 1975, I got a call from my friend Tom Lucas in Geneva, N.Y. Tom was planning a move to New York City to work with the United Farm Workers, which was led then by Cesar Chavez. The Boycott Movement was reaching its climax, in an attempt to improve the lot of migrant farm workers. After some small talk, he complained that he had no access to a piano, but he had found an old Stella guitar, abandoned in the closet of the apartment he had recently moved to. He described it to me; it was a "made for beginners" type, it had a 12 inch crack through the body, and it boasted only four strings. Tom said he was writing songs on this "new" four string.  I thought he was joking.

I had known Tom for several years by then. We first met while Tom was playing electric piano—not guitar—in the best rock and roll band I had ever encountered outside of the "civic auditorium" venues where the Stones, Hendrix and others took the stage following opening acts by whoever had the current, hot single. The musicians in Tom's band were all great. What made Geneva and the music special, though, was that all of these people were friends, so that when and if Tom ever recorded an album, he had a pool of collaborators who knew him and his work personally.

When I quit laughing about the old broken down Stella, I discovered the joke was on me. Without a piano, Tom, who had never attempted to develop even the most minimal guitar ability, had of necessity "open-tuned" the Stella (he called it "Phelps' Mountain Tuning") to two notes, taught himself to bar the semblance of a chord, and wrote "Red Letter Day" a few hours later. Two days later he wrote "One Eyed Gods." Both songs became key components of his first album.

Tom played "Red Letter Day" for me on the equivalent of his busted fruit crate, told me he felt it was time to make his first album, and asked if I would help.

I had spent many hours with Tom and the band traveling around Central New York's bars, roadhouses and campuses. I learned that Tom grew up in Willard, N.Y., a tiny hamlet on the east shore of Seneca Lake. The lake is nearly 40 miles long, cold, very deep, and nearly five miles across at Willard—its widest point. The region is incredibly beautiful, one of America's few remaining secrets, with its seven north to south lakes carved by glaciers and surrounded by hills covered with vineyards. The Iroquois believed that God had placed His hand on the site, marking it as chosen, and that the impression of that hand later filled with crystalline water to form the Finger Lakes. Beautiful in all seasons; but then and now, Willard exists in splendid isolation.

Tom was raised by his maternal grandparents in a sprawling Nineteenth century house, once a hotel, still heated by coal, containing 16 rooms and 3 pianos. His grandmother was the church organist, and taught Tom to play. Tom's mother was not around. His father had suffered a traumatic head injury when he was knocked to the pavement on a business trip to Chicago. Tom was 3, and his father would need years of hospital care. What was left of the family was forced to return to the old house in Willard.

Tom had a brother, but he was a full 5 years older; a generation for a kid. Tom also had a beautiful, athletic sister, Christine, who would swim with him in the cold lake and offer the closest semblance of playmate and companion. It was a lonely place to grow up, but Tom always said that even then, he knew that it was beautiful and full of riches.

To the north of his grandparents' house was the high-security Seneca Army Depot, off limits, patrolled by guards, and surrounded by razor-wire topped fencing. Immediately to the south, across the street, was another wire fence, 8 feet high, to discourage "patient escapes" from the oldest mental institution in the state. Tom told me about playing on the hospital's beautiful grounds and seeing groups of accompanied inmates on their outings. The beautiful sloping lawns of Willard State Hospital were one of his daily haunts, and often, he looked inside the barred windows to witness the forgotten lives confined within.

Tom, like most kids, made do. When his sister or the occasional friend was not around, he loved to fish by himself, walk the woods and hills behind his house, or play around with his Grandmother's pianos. He told me that in his time alone, on the stairs, in the coal room, or in the empty halls of the old house, he imagined he felt the presence of the past and its former inhabitants, with their tragedies and celebrations. He knew from the tales his Grandparents told at the dinner table that the Depression never left their thoughts. They still remembered death as a daily ritual in Nineteenth century farming communities, that Polio was to be feared, and that penicillin and the Salk vaccine were pure gifts from God.

One beautiful summer, Christine complained of being tired, and showed symptoms of a bad cold. After about two weeks of this, returning home to fix Christine's lunch, Tom's mother found her unconscious in bed, with an open prayer book by her side. She was rushed to the hospital and given a spinal tap. Diagnosed with acute leukemia, she died forty five minutes later. After a year of mourning, with only the empty house and the three pianos as companions, Tom wrote his first song, "Days Numbered," which takes its place appropriately on the first album: "See the sunlight of this broken day, lying torn and frayed, in the kitchen. All the cups and saucers cold and still, as this new death, as this woman gone."

I learned all of these things about Tom before that telephone call. I know much more, but too much for here and now and this brief introduction. Some of the "much more" includes his service in the jungle in Vietnam when still a boy of 18, two novels to be published in the coming year, a large volume of poetry, a career as a scholar and college instructor of Creative Writing and American Literature, the sudden passing of his beloved son Jeremiah in 1998, severe injuries from careless drivers -- you get the idea. But during the call that day, we spoke only of the album project, the 10 songs we would somehow record, the musicians we would re-assemble, and my surprise that Tom was now writing songs with his broken, discarded, almost-guitar.

There were several meetings and practices in the Finger Lakes, the exchange of "part-tapes", and details addressed concerning recording, logistics, etc. When we assembled in New York to record "Red Letter Day," we could afford only 10 hours of studio time, and only if we recorded at night. The studio manager assumed we were recording one, maybe two "demo" songs— "no, ten songs, an album," we told him. Whether through some sense of paternalism or, more likely, utter cynicism, the proprietor nearly refused to let us even begin recording—but we had paid in advance.

Several years after "Red Letter Day," Tom and friends recorded "Lifeboats" in the same (albeit renamed) studio in New York. This time 1,000 vinyl albums would be pressed – twice the number of the 1979 "Red Letter Day" release. As I look back, I suppose that we all hoped to be "discovered" in some way, and of course, we were very young and very idealistic. But, whether discovered or not, at least we had "proof" of our legitimacy in the form of the two records; our own small handprint on the earth, marking our passing.

In early 2007, several of us learned that, in fact, we had been discovered. A British company had somehow acquired a rare copy of "Red Letter Day", and manufactured CD's using the lowest quality "needle-drop" method, since they had no access to Tom's Master. Nobody had contacted Tom. It appears that thousands of copies of "Red Letter Day" were made and sold without Tom's knowledge, permission or participation. Sales were apparently helped immensely by the June 2004 "pre-release review" in SPIN magazine declaring, "… it is the consistently high standard of just about everything to do with this superb…album that leaves the listener gasping in disbelief that any record this good has only been heard by the 500 people…who were fortunate enough to acquire a copy… Here, then is the first opportunity for a great album to be enjoyed by the wider audience it surely deserves."

Tom was nearly the last to know that "Red Letter Day" had become something of an international, "underground" hit. I too was surprised when I received a call from my son, away at college in Boston, informing me that "Red Letter Day" was being played by a Cambridge radio station, and that CD's were available over the internet. All of this was in reaction to a low quality pirate, absent the lyric sheet, and without the 10th song which Tom had previously held back from the release of the 500 vinyl albums in early 1979.

The authorized release of the complete "Red Letter Day", recorded from the original 15 inch Master reel tape, and "Lifeboats," is our first response to our ironic, prior "discovery." Again, Tom has "paid in advance," through his life and music, and he deserves whatever recognition, reward—or criticism—that may result. The rest of us, his friends from the project, are in it with him.

I wanted to tell you something here about Tom Lucas. There is no need to discuss, explain or extol his music. Like he says, the songs are his statement, and “the story of my life.” I may have a fact here or there misplaced or incorrect, but these are my memories of Tom and the process that produced “Red Letter Day.” There is obviously much more to say and to be written, and there probably will be. But while Tom’s songs may indeed say enough to introduce you to him and the great musicians who made these albums, on their own, I wanted you to know at least a little of the back-story. I hope you like the music, and the third album, – “City of Art” - promised to follow in 2008, from New Fate Productions.

— Pat Pike ©