Ne Robinson - Nell Robinson Music

Nell Robinson IYVVRS`U9VHK V U [ O L

Down on the farm, on the Brooklyn Road, Alabama, 1936 ˜ Grandpa Sanders Grand maN ell

Uncle Carroll

Mom (Irene) Aunt Mary Nell

^

Uncle Bill

Uncle Marc

1. Swamptalk+ :10 2. Woe is Me* 2:43 3. Mayflies 3:02 4. Red clay cr"k* 3:16 5. Babysitter+ :54 6. Don’t Light My Fire * 2:25 7. I’m Bri#iant * 3:01 8. The Sharpest Knife+ :35 9. wahatch" * 3:00 PRODUCED BY Nell Robinson & Jim Nunally 10. I’m a Honky Tonk Girl 2:33 ENGINEERED, MIXED & MASTERED BY 11. Poker Game+ 1:22 Jim Nunally, Music Hill Recording, Crockett, CA 12. I Saw the Light 2:48 EXECUT IVE PRODUC ER 13. Can’t Help Fa#ing in Love with You 3:51 A. George Battle ALBUM DESIGN 14. Radio Reception+ :56 Terra Studio, San Francisco, CA 15. Turn Your Radio On 2:52 PHOTOGRAPHY 16. The Last Old Shove l 2:26 Brenda Hough (front cover) Mike Melnyk (inside) 17. Grown Man Cry + 3:02 Hoke Perkins (back cover) 18. sw"t su$y south 3:52 © Red Level Records, Berkeley, CA Bonus Tracks: The Henrie%as Please visit Nell at nellrobinsonmusic.com 19. Crawdad Song 1:32 20. Big Ball in Texas 1:22 21. Directions+ 1:27 * written or co-written by Nell Robinson + recorded family stories

Nell Robinson VU[OL 

K H V 9  U ` S R V IYV

50 and one of my good friends characterized my new-found devotion to music as a midlife crisis. I sang by myself in my car for 30 years and ventured out to sing in public at age 45. All I can say is, if you have music in your soul, bring it out. It has changed my life. Thank you to my mother and her brothers, Uncle Bill, Uncle Marc, Uncle Carroll (who has passed already), and her sister, Aunt Mary Nell, whose stories from the farm on the Brooklyn Road have shaped my love for the south. My love and gratitude goes to my sweetheart Skip for his steadfast support; to Jim Nunally for his talent, hard work and inspiration; to the world-class musicians who performed on this album, especially Jim, John Reischman, Nick Hornbuckle, Greg Spatz, Trisha Gagnon— who also perform as John Reischman and the Jaybirds; and to my yodeling sister Cary Sheldon.

Photograph: Mike Melnyk

1. Swamp-talk

Chorus

(U N C LE MARC )

And my ‘pologies goes to all the school teachers in the family because I’m gon’ tell it the way I talk or the swamp-talk, that is the Sepulga River swamp-talk.

Oh I ran through the woods To found a hidey hole Throw my troubles in deep I won’t hurt no more

2. Woe is Me

But I woke up the rattlers Now they’re hissing at me ‘tween the people and the snakes I’m up a creek

Uncle Marc

( N E LL R O BIN S ON )

Featuring Jim Nunally (harmony, guitar), Cary Sheldon (harmony), Tony Marcus (harmony), John Reischman (mandolin), Nick Hornbuckle (banjo), Gregory Spatz (fiddle), Trisha Gagnon (string bass) Woe oh woe is me Take my burdens away Lord And set me free Well my man’s done gone And my son’s doing time My daughter ran off With the preacher’s son Got a hole in my roof And the dog’s got fleas My cow won’t milk She just stares at me Chorus

So I ran up the mountain Brought my troubles with me Laid ‘em at the top And then tried to leave But the mountain did quake Rocks thundered down Carried trees and troubles Right through the town

Chorus So took my troubles to the Lord And cried woe is me He said stop your bellyaching Get down on your knees

There’s a lot of folks Got it worse than you Don’t run from your troubles I’ll help you through Chorus Now the wind started whipping Flew me to my door Left me wet and crying On the kitchen floor A more beautiful sight I never did see That old milk cow Just a-staring at me Chorus Woe oh woe is me Took my troubles to the Lord And He set me

Chorus I went down to the river Jumped up on the lee Lord drown me now Please set me free Well the river did swell Swept away the town Now the people are angry Gonna hunt me down

I got tired of my own self one day—avoiding a problem that needed to be resolved and whining to myself—and wrote this one. The Henriettas got to sing it with Garrison Keillor on A Prairie Home Companion and he sang the God part! The radio actors added sound effects to it too, which was so funny. Photograph: R. Parker Blackburn

Me & Jim

4. REd Clay Cr!k ( NE LL ROB INS ON & J IM NU NALLY )

Featuring Jim Nunally (harmony, guitar), John Reischman (mandolin), Nick Hornbuckle (banjo), Gregory Spatz (fiddle), Trisha Gagnon (string bass)

3. Mayflies ( RI C HA R D BR AN DE NBU R G )

Featuring Jim Nunally (harmony, guitar) By the river with a sweetheart one day There we passed through some mayflies at play Turning back with the night coming on There we noticed the mayflies were gone

Where O where have you gone darlin’ boy? The creek’s rising fast above you That red clay won’t hold all the secrets that I know Why did he let you go

And all that seems real fast fades away All that seems real fast fades away Well he told me the way it would be When he promised his love to me Life was sweet in the hours we shared Thought I had a sweetheart who cared Love seems real but it fast fades away Love seems real but it fast fades away Now I tell you the way it all goes I introduced him to a girl I know They went walking one morning and then By the evening I was lonesome again Love seems real but it fast fades away Love seems real but it fast fades away

Now I tell you the way it all seems Life ain’t nothing but a flickering dream Like the mayflies that last but a day Love seems real but it fast fades away Love seems real but it fast fades away This songwriter is one of my favorites and I have coveted this song since I first heard it. Once I heard Jim play it though, it truly came to life. Mayflies do live but a day, and the idea that people pass through our lives in fleeting moments really touches me. Photograph: Mike Melnyk

Young bride your son takes after the man Who’s been biding his time with me When I watch you bathe that child on the banks It’s not your boy I see Mine was blue-eyed just like him But forsaken and unseen That man took our secret and spirit him away And he should have taken me Where O where have you gone darlin’ boy? The creek’s rising fast above you That red clay won’t hold all the secrets that I know I saw him let you go

If your boy’s with mine, they won’t be lonesome Two brothers together, you’ll see On judgment day they’ll be by my side And I shall be set free Where O where have you gone darlin’ boy? The creeks rising fast above you That red clay won’t hold all the secrets that I know I had to let you go Your son and mine are quietly sleeping In the waters of Red Clay Creek Don’t worry now—they’re crying no more Mine and yours, they’re a family

There is a spot on a creek bank that kinfolk have pointed out now for hundreds of years, in fact, I can see it now. There was a slave, a woman, who drowned three children in the mid-1800s, down on that creek. The story has haunted me and I decided to imagine a backstory to it. The one surviving child in that family was my great-great-grandfather.

6. don’t light my fire 5. Babysitter

( NE LL ROB INS ON) (U NCLE BILL & M OM )

Their two sons Frank and ‘lijah came over to live with Grandma and Granddaddy, just like when Uncle Ed’s wife died, they had 5 or 6 kids and they came to live with Grandma. I thought the world of Grandma and everybody that knew her did—Oh, she never missed a beat! She took care of whoever Uncle Bill happened to come by. And I asked her, I said Grandma, how in the world could you fix a meal with that many kids around. What 11 kids? And she said well, all the kids up until they were about 6 years old wore dresses, boys and girls. And she said, you see that table over there, it was a great big table in the long dining room—it had big legs about that big. And she says, when I have to get busy I lift the leg of the table and put a shirt-tail under it and it’ll babysit 6 kids!

Featuring Jim Nunally (harmony, guitar, tambourine), Chad Manning (fiddle), Bruce Gordon (piano accordion), Kevin Hayes (percussion) Dix Bruce (electric bass) Enjoy the sparks but don’t light my fire Darlin’, can’t we just be friends? The last thing I need is another man On whom I can’t depend Don’t bother me with your bedroom eyes Take those home to your wife I’ve already got a man parked on the couch Promisin’ to change my life Chorus

No don’t kiss me with them pretty lips Let’s laugh and walk away We’ll blow on the embers of our own home fires And stay good friends another day Chorus If I were a girl I might just walk with you on the path of sin But I’ve made my mistakes, I’ve been there before There’s hell to pay when we dead-end Chorus And what I really need is another friend on whom I can depend

Well, there are a lot of songs out there in this vein and they are a lot of fun to sing and play with. One of my favorites is “We’ll Sweep Out the Ashes” by Gram Parsons, and Jim Nunally and I also sing Buck Owens’ “Loose Talk.” I put my own twist on the theme.

The Jaybirds and Me Photograph: Mike Melnyk

7. I’m Bri"iant

Sorrow wears him down – it has numbed his soul We’re tired of talking about it And nothing ever changes in this world of woe He wants the oblivion in this bottomless pit

( N EL L R O BIN SON)

Featuring Jim Nunally (guitar), John Reischman (mandola), Nick Hornbuckle (banjo), Gregory Spatz (fiddle), Trisha Gagnon (string bass)

Chorus

It’s a family tradition to bury his troubles this way I don’t know what else can I do? So we keep pretending everything’s okay And I watch him steep in that deep amber booze And he says Everything’s okay don’t you worry about me I’m brilliant, I’m in control, I’m beautiful and I’m oh so happy

8. The Sharpest Knife

Hiding in plain sight, he tastes solace in his drink He knows how to dose himself He just couldn’t bear to have anyone think That we’re drowning in our own private hell Chorus I’m brilliant, I’m in control, I’m beautiful and I’m oh so happy Many of us have alcoholism in our families and lives, mine is no exception. I knew a great-aunt and –uncle, and in my adult life several others, who suffered with this disease. As someone who loved them deeply, I felt such frustration and worry and powerlessness.

( MOM & UNCLE B I LL)

They took their prisoners out to their farm, it’s still called the Moore place—yeah—and did great farming, great farming out there, and had household help from the prison. Their cook had murdered her husband with a knife that was the sharpest knife I’ve ever seen in my life—that was great metal in that knife!—oh my goodness it tapered to a fine point, fine point. And it was still there somebody when they robbed our whole house, they took that—great knife! It was the best knife we had.

9. wahatch! ( NE LL ROB INS ON & L AURI E LE WIS )

Featuring Laurie Lewis (harmony), Jim Nunally (guitar), John Reischman (mandolin), Nick Hornbuckle (banjo), Gregory Spatz (fiddle), Trisha Gagnon (string bass) One bright morning, a mother and daughter stood On Wahatchee Creek in the Georgia colony Here come the Tories, with their coats a bloody red from the body of old James Dooley They’ve murdered old man Dooley Well Ann Hart stood as tall as any man With hair of fire and wit that cut like a knife She said “Rest yourselves and let us cook that fowl for you” They didn’t see the vengeance in the eye of that good wife The vengeance in the eye of that good wife Oh that bloody crew they didn’t see As they ate her stew and drank her brandy Ann and her daughter slipped their guns out the door All the while humming “Yankee Doodle Dandy” Just humming “Yankee Doodle Dandy”

Conch shell in hand young Sukey to the river ran Calling to her father who sped home from the wood To find six drunk Red Coats all ready for slaughter At the end of Ann’s musket they cowered and they stood At the wrong end of Ann’s musket they stood “Shoot the bastards down!” cried old Colonel Hart “That’s too good an end for such as them,” says Ann “They bragged about killing good ole James Dooley I say we string a noose from that oak for each of them A rope on that oak for each man.” As Red Ann stood grim judge and jury They strung up those Red Coats quite handy Until one by one they lifeless hung And all the while she hummed “Yankee Doodle Dandy” She was humming that “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” Based on a true historical figure Nancy Hart, whom we think is a relation of ours. Yes, the story goes that she did hum Yankee Doodle Dandy as she hung them up. She was 6 feet tall, reportedly, with red hair and one crossed eye, and she spied on the Tories.

10. i’m a honky tonk girl ( LO R ET TA L Y N N)

Featuring Jim Nunally (harmony, guitar), Rob Ickes (dobro)

So turn that jukebox way up high And fill my glass up while I cry I’ve lost everything in this world And now I’m a honky tonk girl All he ever gave me was a reason to go bad And it’s not hard to see just what I am I’m ashamed and I’m sorry for everything you see But losing him has made a fool of me So fill my glass up to the brim To lose my memory of him I’ve lost everything in this world And now I’m a honky tonk girl I’ve lost everything in this world And now I’m a honky tonk girl What can I say? I love Loretta. I grew up listening to a lot of different kinds of music, but we were especially fond of Loretta, Dolly, Johnny and Hank.

Cary and Me, Honky Tonk Girls Photograph: Mike Melnyk

Me in Okinawa in 1964

Ever since he left me I’ve done nothing but wrong Many nights I laid awake and cried We once were happy, my heart was in a whirl But now I’m a honky tonk girl

Cumbie family down at the farm. Rocky, Sue, Grandpa, Annell, Sandy, Aunt Opal, Dad, Aunt Mary Nell, Uncle Jim w/Jimmy, David, Hoke, Grandma, Mom, Aunt Laura, Uncle Marc

12. I saw the light (H ANK WILL IAM S )

11. Poker Game

(U NCLE BILL & M O M )

Grandad had a couple of sawmills, and he sawed rough cut timber. One was a squaring mill and they took logs that big, and he would just make square logs out of ‘em, they didn’t cut ‘em into board. In his squaring mill, which was at the mill place which was the south end of Aunt Ruth’s land that lived down there, well they got shutting the mill down at dark and they’d build a fire and start playing poker, and he wouldn’t get home. But he had a hog-leg pistol that laid up above the mantelpiece in the front room and Grandma had to get a ladder to get up to get it and she had to carry it in the crook of her arm because she was so short the barrel woulda drug on the ground. And she got tired of that poker games and so she went down there and she snuck through the brush there until she got to where she could see it and she didn’t let on like she was in the country. They was busy playing poker and then she worked herself around ‘til she could find a good clear shot and she shot in the fire, and she says the next one is at the players! And she turned around and went home. And that broke up the poker club. Granddaddy never stayed to play poker late again.

Featuring Nell Robinson (lead, tenor vocals), Jim Nunally (harmony, guitar, tambourine), Tony Marcus (harmony), Keith Little (banjo), Chad Manning (fiddle), Tomas Enguidanos (dobro), Bill Amatneek (string bass)

Hank Williams was from the area near our family farm in lower Alabama and just about all the older folks you meet down there knew him or his family. My Dad followed him around to the roadhouses and this was one of his favorite Hank songs.

I wandered so aimless life filled with sin I wouldn’t let my dear Savior in Then Jesus came like a stranger in the night Praise the Lord I saw the light I saw the light I saw the light No more darkness no more night Now I’m so happy no sorrow in sight Praise the Lord I saw the light Just like a blind man I wandered alone Worries and fears I claimed for my own Then like the blind man that God gave back his sight Praise the Lord I saw the light Chorus I was a fool to wander and stray For straight is the gate and narrow’s the way Now I have traded the wrong for the right Praise the Lord I saw the light Chorus

Grandma, circa 1906

13. can’t help fa"ing in love with you

14. Radio Reception

( G E OR GE WEIS S , H U GO P ER ETTI & L U I GI CR E A TO RE )

After awhile Daddy bought him a radio and it worked off a car battery, a wet cell battery. And there were several different brands of radio that people was buying back there in the ‘30s and some of em were dry cell batteries and some em were wet cell they called em. And the boys and young ‘uns would sit around and argue over the merits of different brands of radio and the type battery they had just like they would over a Ford and

( UNC LE M ARC )

Featuring Jim Nunally (guitar), John Reischman (mandolin), Nick Hornbuckle (banjo), Gregory Spatz (fiddle), Trisha Gagnon (string bass) Wise men say only fools rush in But I can’t help falling in love with you Shall I stay, would it be a sin If I can’t help falling in love with you Like a river flows surely to the sea Darling so it goes Some things are meant to be

Chevrolet. That was a big conversation thing with boys was taking sides over which one of piece of machinery was best. But this radio was good and he put up two poles and stretched a wire across it and then another wire to the ground and the wire to the antenna coming into the house. Dry weather you’d have to go out there and pour water on that ground wire so it would pick up better offa that antenna. Us boys found out we could go out there and pee on it and it’d work just about as well.

Take my hand, take my whole life too For I can’t help falling in love with you Chorus

Leslie, me, Dad, Mom, Lynne and Hoke Montgomery, Alabama

Take my hand, take my whole life too For I can’t help falling in love with you For I can’t help falling in love with you I can still see my mother and her best friend mooning over this Elvis 45 on the turntable. I think I was 8, and it made such an impression on me, the way these beautiful women responded to music.

Mom and Dad married 55 years

15. turn your radio on ( A LB ER T BR UML E Y )

Featuring Jim Nunally (guitar), Keith Little (harmony) Come and listen in to my radio station Where the mighty hosts of heaven sing Turn your radio on (turn your radio on) Turn your radio on (turn your radio on) If you want to hear the songs of Zion Coming from the land of endless spring Get in touch with God (get in touch with God) Turn your radio on Turn your radio on (turn your radio on) And listen to the music in the air Turn your radio on (turn your radio on) Heaven’s glory to share Turn your lights down low (turn your lights down low) And listen to the Master’s radio Get in touch with God (get in touch with God) Turn your radio on Brother listen in to the gloryland chorus Listen to the glad hosannas roll Turn your radio on (turn your radio on) Turn your radio on (turn your radio on)

Get a little taste of joys awaiting Get a little heaven in your soul Get in touch with God (get in touch with God) Turn your radio on Chorus Listen to the songs of the fathers and mothers And the many friends gone on before Turn your radio on (turn your radio on) Turn your radio on (turn your radio on) Some eternal morning we shall meet them Over on the hallelujah shore Get in touch with God (get in touch with God) Turn your radio on

16. the last old shovel ( J IM SCO T T )

Featuring Jim Nunally (harmony, guitar), John Reischman (harmony, mandolin), Nick Hornbuckle (banjo), Gregory Spatz (fiddle), Trisha Gagnon (string bass) They buried him on the side of the mountain Yes my darlin’ sleeps in the ground

Till the last old shovel was laid down Till the last old shovel was laid down I stayed right there and I cried and I cried Til the last old shovel was laid down I think of him when it’s stormy and raining In that mountain far away I long to be laid by the side of my darlin’ There’ll be rest for me on that day There’ll be rest for me on that day There’ll be rest for me on that day I long to be laid by the side of my darlin’ There’ll be rest for me on that day Oh bury me where my true love is sleeping Where he lies in that cold lonesome ground I’ll find sweet peace by the side of my darlin’ When the last old shovel is laid down

Chorus Get in touch with God (get in touch with God) Turn your radio on

The day my father died I was on the radio singing on A Prairie Home Companion. I learned of his death after I left the stage and thought of this song and of Dad tuning in to me from up above. I like to think that freed from his mind and body, which had been so altered by Parkinson’s, he could sit back and enjoy the show

I stayed right there ‘til they covered him over And the last old shovel was laid down

When the last old shovel is laid down When the last old shovel is laid down I’ll find sweet peace by the side of my darlin’ When the last old shovel is laid down

I love the Delmore Brothers version of this song, but Hazel Dickens sure did it up right too. It has been a favorite since I first heard it.

That’s Great Grandpa Bates, WW1 veteran and poet, with Dad

17. Grown Man Cry

(UNC LE MARC )

Along this time we had seen misery, death, hard times, sickness, just about everything you’d want to see in times like that. But one thing rarely did you ever see a grown man cry. One time, the first time, I ever saw a grown man cry stands out in my mind and it was on over in the late winter or early spring, this man from up in the hills from us came to our house and he was standing out in the yard talking, and course Carroll, Bill and I were standing out there with him and Mama was on the porch. And they were talking and passing the time of day just carrying on a conversation, but then Bruce asked Daddy if he had any syrup he’d sell and Daddy said he had only three gallons he was kinda saving for the rest of the year and Bruce said, well we’ve got a little lard and enough cornmeal and a little flour up at our house and nothing else. And then he said would you consider selling me a gallon, Daddy didn’t say a word and just went back of the house toward the smokehouse got a gallon of syrup. Bruce says I ain’t got anything but this last 50 cent piece would you

take that and Daddy says yeah. As we were standing there, and Daddy and Bruce still talking, young ‘uns standing around there watching, Bruce had that can of syrup by the bail. And as he was standing there he was just unconsciously twisting his arm and twisting that bucket in about a halfcircle and back again. All at once that bail came out and that syrup can hit the ground, the lid popped open and every bit of the syrup went out on the ground. It seemed forever before anyone else could move. We all looked at Bruce and tears was streaming down his face on the bib of his overalls. Daddy didn’t say a word, he just walked back to behind the house and got another gallon of syrup, put it in a corn sack and brought it to Bruce who still had not moved. Daddy patted Bruce on the back and told him to be careful with that one, Bruce finally could say only thank you. When he left, we looked at each other, didn’t none of us have a dry eye. And that was the first time I ever saw a grown man cry.

18. sw!t su#y south ( T RADIT I ONA L)

Featuring Jim Nunally (harmony, guitar), John Reischman (harmony, mandolin), Nick Hornbuckle (banjo), Gregory Spatz (fiddle), Trisha Gagnon (string bass) Take me back to the place where I first saw the light To my sweet sunny south take me home Where the mockingbird sings me to sleep every night Oh why was I tempted to roam I think with regret of the dear ones I left Of the warm hearts that sheltered me then Of kin and of children of whom I’m bereft I long for the old place again Take me back to the place where the orange trees grow To my cot in the evergreen shade Where the flowers from the river’s green margins may flow They are sweet on the banks where we played The path to our cottage they say has grown green And the place is quite lonely around I know that the smiles and the forms I have seen Now lie deep in the soft mossy ground

On the Brooklyn Road Photograph: Hoke Perkins

Take me back let me see what is left that I know Could it be that the old house is gone Dear friends from my childhood indeed must be few And I must lament all alone But yet I return to the place of my birth Where my children have played ‘round the door Where they pulled the white blossoms that garnished the earth Which will echo their footsteps no more Repeat Verse 1 This song evokes all my love for the south and my family roots on the Brooklyn Road—I am overwhelmed with memories of days playing in the creeks, in the pines, eating boiled peanuts, picking blueberries, playing in Grandma’s closet, walking down the red clay roads and sandy banks, sitting with kin while they spun yarns. I am so grateful to have these people and that very special place in my life.

Bonus Tracks: the henrie$as C A RY S H E LD ON & NE L L R OBI NSO N

My friend Cary and I have become obsessed with a 1930s sisters act, the DeZurik Sisters, who recorded maybe 50 songs with this sweet, funny, intricate yodeling they invented. They were stars of the Grand Ole Opry and the National Barn Dance. There were four of them who performed over the years. The first song we translated took almost a year to learn. Now it just takes 6 months! We listen to the song, write it down syllable by syllable and note by note, then learn our parts, and start speeding it up. We do our best to honor their spirit, though our own personalities are evident too, I think.

& Me) (Cary Sheldon The Henriettas

19. Crawdad Song

20. Big Ball in Texas

(TRADI TI ONA L)

( J .E . M AINE R)

Arrangement by Cary Sheldon & Nell Robinson, based on the DeZurik Sisters Featuring The Henriettas: Cary Sheldon (vocals), Nell Robinson (vocals), with Jim Nunally (guitar)

Arrangement by Cary Sheldon & Nell Robinson, based on the DeZurik Sisters Featuring The Henriettas: Cary Sheldon (vocals), Nell Robinson (vocals), with Jim Nunally (guitar)

You get a line an’ I’ll get a pole honey You get a line an’ I’ll get a pole, baby You get a line an’ I’ll get a pole, We’ll go down to the crawdads hole Honey, baby, mine

There’s a big ball in Texas and I’m bound to go I’m bound to go, boys, I’m bound to go There’s a big ball in Texas and I’m bound to go Nobody to go with me

Yodel Chorus Yond’r come a man with a sack on his back, honey Yond’r come a man with a sack on his back, baby Yond’r come a man with a sack on his back, He’s got crawdads in that sack Honey, baby, mine Now what you gonna do when the lake goes dry honey What you gonna do when the lake goes dry baby Now what you gonna do when the lake goes dry, Well, I’m gonna sit on the bank and watch the crawdads die Aw honey baby, mine Yodel Chorus Oh my honey, baby, mine Photograph: Mike Melnyk

Oh it’s nobody’s business, nobody’s business Nobody’s business what I do Nobody’s business, nobody’s business what I do Nobody’s business what I do All join hands, circle to the right, yeehaaw! First couple off to the couple on the right You swing the girls and I’ll swing the boys We’ll dance to the music ‘til we fall on the floor Chorus

Yodel

21. Directions

( U NC LE M ARC )

I’ll never forget one day the three of us was towards the crossroads from the house. We’d just cut down a big ole pine and we’s

sawin’ away on it and this drummer had one of those lil ole business coupes that came out the mid-or late ‘30s. Just two people could ride in it and it had a back part of it where all his business stuff would go and his samples and book. And he came there and he stopped and he says, Can you countrylookin’ boys tell me how to get to Red Level? Well Bill, bein’ a little sharper than me and Carroll on the come-backs sometimes he says, yes suh I can tell ya. He says how. And he said well you go right up here to the crossroads and you take a right, you go about 2 miles and you take another right, about 3 miles you take another’n and then the next time you come to a crossroads you take a right, and keep goin’ straight, don’t turn nowhere, and you’ll go right into Red Level. Well we begin to snicker you know after he left and we watched him up to the crossroads and he turned right so we went back to cuttin’. After awhile we heard a car comin and we stopped and looked and it was that durn drummer, he didn’t have sense enough to know if you make four right turns at the crossroads, you gon’ come back where you started. He slowed down and looked at us and shook his fist at us and just balled the jack on up, he didn’t turn right at the crossroads that time.

PRODUCED BY

Nell Robinson & Jim Nunally ENGINEERED, MIXED &

Jim Nunally, Music Hill Recording, Crockett, CA

MASTERED BY

EXECUT IVE PRODUC ER

A. George Battle ALBUM DESIGN

Terra Studio, San Francisco, CA © Red Level Records,

Berkeley, CA

Please visit Nell at nellrobinsonmusic.com