Sunday Concert: Both Shall Row

When Sheila and I merged our record collections in 1971 we found a number of duplications. We both had some PP&M I remember. We also both had James Taylor albums. Here is James singing an ancient folk song that we often sing at our occasional "hoots". "The Water is Wide"


This beautiful tune is now used for a wonderful hymn based on the 13th chapter of First Corinthians. Here is a children's choir singing "The Gift of Love".

Sunday Concert: Are you more amazed at how things change

Are you more amazed at how things change Or how they stay the same?



75 Septembers
Words and music by Cheryl Wheeler

In the year of the yellow cab
Shadow of the great world war
The third kid grandmom had
Came into this world
On a rolling farm in Maryland
When Wilson was the president
As summer blew her goodbye through the trees

A child of changing times
Growing up between the wars
Fords rolled off the lines
And bars all closed their doors
and I imagine you back then
With snap brim hat and farmer’s tan
Where horses drew their wagons through the fields

Now the fields are all four lanes
and the moon’s not just a name
Are you more amazed at how things change
Or how they stay the same
And do you sit here on this porch and wonder
How the time flies by
Or does it seem to barely creep along
With 75 Septembers come and gone

Were the fields all gold and fawn
Was the spring house dark and cool
Did the rooster crow at dawn
When they got you up for school
And would you tell me once again
The tales of granddad’s hired men
And how they drove the old dirt road to town

Cause now the fields are all four lanes
And the moon’s not just a name
Are you more amazed at how things change
Or how they stay the same
And do you sit here on this porch and wonder
How the times flies by
Or does it seem to barely creep along
With 75 Septembers come and gone

In the year of the yellow cab
Shadow of the great world war

Sunday Concert: The Chad Michell Trio

The Chad Mitchell Trio

What serious fellows! It was a different time. Chad Mitchell, Joe Frazier, and Mike Kobluk, could be very funny and irreverent, but they could take themselves a bit seriously too. What gorgeous harmony they produced.

I always enjoyed the Chad Mitchell Trio. When I joined the "Columbia Record Club" in the early sixties I bought a Mitchell Trio album or two. Here they sing the folk classic, "Dona, Dona, Dona". Notice the guitarist? That's Jim (later Roger) McQuinn who would found the legendary Byrds.

In 1965 Chad went off on his on and the group held nationwide auditions to replace him. Singer/songwriter John Deutschendorf, who had renamed himself John Denver, took Chad's place in what was now The Mitchell Trio.


Enjoy.



Later note:
[I replaced the orininal clip with a longer one from the same TV show - The Bell Telephone Hour.]

One night back in 1969, Don Baird, my intrepid first cousin and radio journalist, was dispatched from WSB in Atlanta to interview the popular folk trio, Peter, Paul, and Mary. He says he regularly conducted three interviews a night -- fewer after the Braves moved to town and "...gobbled up all the airtime." Often Don would dash over to the airport waiting area to talk with a celebrity or politician passing through. This night he met up with PP&M backstage at the old Altanta City Auditorium. Mary was the expansive one, Don says. She talked up a storm. Among the nuggets she tossed him for that night's edition of WSB's "Nightbeat" was this tidbit:

"We're debuting a new song tonight, "Leaving on a Jet Plane". It's by a young German fellow named John Deutschendorf." - Mary Travers

That song got John Denver noticed and soon he was a chart-topping one man act. Sheila and I saw him at the new (now long gone) Omni arena. He sang for a couple of hours straight on a revolving stage in the center of what would be, on other nights, the Flames hockey rink or the Hawks basketball court. John Denver knew how to do a concert! It was one of the best concerts I have ever attended.

Sheila and I bought all his records and a songbook or two and his "Matthew's Song" became part of my own repertoire.

A Peter, Paul, and Mary Weekend

It started out to be a Friday night outdoor concert at lovely Chastain Amphitheater in Atlanta, where Peter, Paul, and Mary were scheduled to present another of their wonderful concerts.

I first heard PP&M person in Cincinatti about 1966 0r 67. We had nosebleed seats, but what a concert. Nobody does it better. And when they assigned parts to sections of the audience and led us in "Rock My Soul" that huge theater rocked! I suppose the statute of limitations is in effect so I'll admit that I snuck a very poor quality recording on my little portable reel-to-reel tape recorder.

Now they are back together. We have seen them several times at Chastain during the last few years. What a treat. So when we heard they were coming back this year, we called up our friends, Richard and Teresa. Richard, a renowned botanist in Georgia was planning to present, the day after the concert, a slideshow on the flora of the Floyd County prairies (another link) and Berry College flatwoods to the Georgia Botanical Society. Sounded like a hoot to me, so Sheila and I decided to just stay over in the big city for the slideshow. We reserved rooms for ourselves and for Richard and Teresa for Friday night.

Then we got the word, Mary's back surgery is not healing as fast as she had hoped and the concert was cancelled. The hotel reservations cound not be. So...

Friday night we took the leisurely route to the Big City stopping along the way to feast on good barbecue. We gathered in our hotel room and Richard accompanied us on the guitar as we sang PP&M songs for an hour and a half. Our rendition of "If I Had My Way" had to be toned down a bit, so the other guests wouldn't complain.



Next morning up and out to a Mickey D's for Egg McMuffins then on to the Dunwoody library to set up for the slide show. And what a show. Richard flipped through slides of gorgeous wildflowers for about 90 minutes as the group of 25 botanical enthusiasts chimed in with questions about the unique environment of the strange remnant prairies of western Floyd County Georgia and their bounty of plants found nowhere else in Georgia.

Meanwhile we bought a beautiful new book of Favorite Wildflower Walks of Georgia from Hugh and Carol Nourse, the authors, who were in attendance and graciously inscribed our copy. If you enjoy wildflowers, and especially if you ever venture to Georgia, you ought to check out this book. I have previously written about two of the walks (one, two) from here on the Limb.

Afterwards about half of the group accompanied us to a Mexican restaurant for more botanical talk over salsa and chips and quesadillas and such.

Our weekend was not over yet. The four of us drove on to the IMAX theater at the huge Mall of Georgia to see the new Harry Potter movie with the climatic scenes in 3D.

So, Mary, I hope you recover soon and return south with the boys. We'd love to have you right here in Rome, Georgia -- I'll bet we could fill up the Forum. It would have been awful hot (over 100ºF that day!) listening to you at Chastain Friday night. It was cool in the hotel room, and despite the unfortunate fact that at 60 I have lost a step or so off the top of my range, we had a hoot singing your songs!

Sunday Concert: PP&M, 1963/2007

PP&M, 1963
If I Had a Hammer

Peter, Paul, and Mary appear at Chastain Park Amphitheater in Atlanta often. On several occasions our family - along with our friends, the Wares - have made the trip down to witness one of PP&M's outstanding outdoor concerts. So when we learned they were scheduled to sing there again this year we got online and made our reservations -- for Richard and Teresa and ourselves.

Then Richard mentioned that he was doing a slide presentation for a botany group in Atlanta on Saturday following the Friday concert, we suggested that we get a couple of hotel rooms in the big city, and stay over so Sheila and I could also see the slide show. Richard made the non-refundable hotel reservations for us.

Then we got the word. Mary's healing from back surgery has taken longer than she had hoped and the Chastain concert is cancelled!

Anybody know of great Friday evening entertainment in Atlanta?

Well, here's PP&M as they are supposed to look and sound in 1963, introduced by Pete Seeger in the present age.