"...an engaging and imaginative player"
- Guitar Player

"I've enjoyed Shinobu Sato's impressive guitar playing on two earlier albums,
but I wasn't expecting such a moving collection of songs and instrumentals on
his new recording. Sato chose specific pieces that have a great deal of meaning
for him."
- Bob Blackman, Sing Out!

Shinobu Sato was raised in Kobe, Japan, emigrating to the US in 1979. A master
guitarist, his unusual 3-part arrangements demonstrate a unique musical
sensibility. Little Signs of Autumn begins with the spiritual "Sometimes I Feel
Like a Motherless Child." There is blazing flatpicking on "Little Sadie/Soldier's Joy,"
also two Japanese pieces, medleys of Stephen Foster and Mississippi John Hurt
material, Tim Henderson's "Rusty Old Red River," and a five-handkerchief
version of "Cranes Over Hiroshima."

1. Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child (Black Spiritual)
2. Little Signs Of Autumn
3. Little Sadie-Soldier's Joy (Traditional)
4. John Hurt Medley
5. Stephen Foster Medley
6. Rusty Old Red River
7. Rights Of Man (Irish Trad.)
8. Londonderry Air (Irish Trad.)
9. I Still Can't Say Goodbye
10. The Entertainer (Scott Joplin)
  11. I Got Rhythm
  12. The Water Is Wide (Traditional)
13. Lullaby From Chugoku Region-This Path
  14. Cranes Over Hiroshima
  15. The Civil War Trilogy
16. I'll Love You Forever

CRANES OVER HIROSHIMA
by Fred Small

The baby blinks her eyes as the sun falls from the sky
She feels the stings of a thousand fires as the city around her dies
Some sleep beneath the rubble, some wake to a different world
From the crying babe will grow a laughing girl

Ten summers fade to autumn, ten winters' snows have passed
She's a child of dreams and dances, she's a racer strong and fast
But the headaches come ever more often and the dizziness always returns
And the word that she hears is leukemia and it burns

{Refrain} Cranes over Hiroshima, white and red and gold Flicker in the sunlight like a million vanished souls I will fold these cranes of paper to a thousand one by one And I'll fly away when I'm done

Her ancestors knew the legend - if you make a thousand cranes
From squares of colored paper, it will take the pain away
With loving hands she folds them, six hundred forty-four
Till the morning her stumbling fingers can't fold anymore

Her friends did not forget her - crane after crane they made
Until they reached a thousand and laid them upon her grave
People from everywhere gathered, together a prayer they said
And they wrote the words in granite so none can forget

This is our cry, this is our prayer, peace in the world