I boarded a train from Klamath Falls, OR to Seattle, WA several years ago. The person next to me had a guitar on the rack above us. I asked him what he did with his guitar. “Oh, write songs,” he replied. I said, "Really? What songs have you written? He said, “Oh, Sugar Shack.” I said, “You wrote 'Sugar Shack? I LOVE that song!” He said, “Aw, that’s a crap song.” I said, “No, it’s the only song I can think of that keeps the memory of the ‘beatnicks’ alive. How did you come to write that song?” He said, “I used to have coffee in this espresso place in New York with people like Joan Baez and Bob Dylan and there were these gals with bare feet in black leotards waiting on us and delivering our coffee. So I wrote a song about it.” He told me he used to be with a band called “The Stringalongs” (kind of a “Ventures”-type group… instrumental pop tunes with guitars.)
He told me that he had been keeping all his copyrighted material in his mom’s basement in Texas and the house got flooded and destroyed all of his material. It was just about the time his royalties were all about to expire and he needed to renew them. He was living in Bend, OR at the time and was going down to Klamath to collaborate with a guy on writing new songs. He said that one concept he and the other guy were working on about “The Boogie Woman.” He said, “We’ve all heard about the boogie man… what about the boogie woman?”
He told me his guitar was a “Seagull” and he invited me to take it down and play it. It had a really nice tone.
Anyway, I thought this little tidbit about writer of “Sugar Shack” would be of interest in this string.