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
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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