 Good evening, folks. Good to see all of you out tonight. Nice evening, nice evening, and a mild, actually, better than usual. We are delighted to be here tonight to present a man who is to Cabot Arts that Johnny Applesey is to Apples. What about this? I really do. It bears your signature. Dana has put together an arts council in Cabot that is enviable for any community. We took one step in that direction last June, and we'll be taking another step of this coming June when we have our second Worcester Arts Festival. Yes. That time is June 8th, and I think publicity is, some publicity is already out. We're issuing a call, this is the call time, and we want to collect names of potential artists and vendors. Dana Robinson has really done a wonder at Cabot. In fact, I think it was his initial album, correct me if I'm wrong, Dana, which I know you will, was entitled The Town That Music Saved. Is that right? Yes, it's inspired by the book about Hardwick called The Town That Food Saved. Yes, yes, yes. So he has appeared here once before, and we are delighted that he's been able to come back. This is our final concert of the year. We'll be having our Christmas white ceremony coming up in December, but this is the end of the concert series, and we've been very highly entertained by some wonderful folks. So, take it away. Thank you, David. You're welcome. Thank you very much. Hi, everybody. So, my darling wife, Susan, since her regress that she can't be here tonight, she's with her parents in Manchester. Her parents are quite elderly and needing attention from time to time, so she's doing that. What's quite elderly? Well, it's mid-90s. They need help from time to time. So, I'm here, and I'm happy to see you all here, and I'm singing some songs for you. Does that sound all right? Yes. So, David's told me that we're going to do a set of music, and then we're going to have a short intermission, and then I'll have another short set of music after that, just so you know what's going on here. So, I'm going to start with a song that was written by Pete Sutherland. Pete Sutherland passed away about a year ago now, and I kicked myself for not learning more Pete songs before he passed away, but I learned a bunch in the last year, and I love them, and I'm happy to sing them, and this is one that really caught my ear. I like writing about Vermont, and all the things about Vermont, but I never would have written a song about Swanson. And he did so here from the point of view of the birds who live and migrate around Swanson, so this is called from a bird's idea. And there's a part for you to sing on this, and I don't need to teach it to you because I think you'll get the hang of it because I repeated so many times. Easy pickings from a bird's eye view, there's a lake so blue, highways and flyways we're all connected to, the haven and the humans too, that's the place we're all sponsored from a bird's eye view. A lying rock quarry's in a bog iron mine, a marble mill's boomed and the factory whistle's blue, a bustle from a bird's eye view. There's an outstair in one enormous barn, in the summer on the island where the humbleberries grew, and they watched barges passing from a bird's eye view. A bird's eye view, there's a lake so blue, highways and flyways we're all connected to, the haven and the humans too, that's the place we're all sponsored from a bird's eye view. A blue sky up in the sky, a bird's foot delta, it's a place we recognize, the bays and the wetlands, the world of greens and blues, as prey, it's a picture from a bird's eye view. Down the shaggy parking lot, that's the place to be, hot and crispy fries, someone always rocks a few. While it's worth a trip to Swanson from a bird's eye view, from a bird's eye view, there's a lake so blue, highways and flyways we're all connected to, the haven and the humans too, that's the place we're all sponsored from a bird's eye view. But mighty nervous too, full of danger from a bird's eye view, making wishes with your dimes and nickels too, well here's a wish for Swanson from a bird's eye view. From 1995 to when, soon I moved here in 2015, we basically spent our life on the road, putting on like average 50,000 miles a year, driving back and forth across the country, doing shows. And, you know, we put off going to Florida for a very long time, I thought Florida was overrated, not kind of a Northern attitude sort of person, you know, however, Florida in February is not that bad. Especially when all the state parks in Florida have some sort of entertainment, some are in a winter concert series outdoors, so we get hired to play at the state park. And so, picture this, people sitting in their lawn chairs, in shorts and t-shirts, as the sun is going down, 70 degree weather, my mind is blown. And, beautiful kind of wild forests of central Florida, believe it or not, it was so exotic, it feels so exotic, especially since I had never been there before, I thought I was in some foreign country. I wasn't a foreign country, but it was Florida, so. Anyway, to top it off, even before we started the show, this big tall, lanky, old, craggy dude with a cowboy hat kind of came up to me, thrust out his hand and said, Hi, my name is Hank Mattson. I'm a cracker cowboy, college, pleased to meet you. And I'm looking at him going, whoa. Yeah, I said, well, you know, hi, and he says, now, you don't know me from Adam, but I want you to put your music to one of my calls. And I found it difficult to say no, and I told him just to go ahead and send me something in the mail, or email me, and he said, I don't do that email stuff. But, you know, we got home a couple weeks later, and there was an envelope in the mailbox, and I opened it up, and it was a poem he wrote, and he conversed it, and said it was called, When This Old Hat Was New. I'm usually dubious when people send me their poems to put music to, but with this one, it was good. And it ticked a box for me. It was about, you know, the history of Florida, the cattle history. This takes place around Civil War times, and it was just sort of a sweeping, epic thing. And I thought, well, I'll give it a try. So I really just sat down at my desk and kind of bashed this out, and it worked. And I sent it to Hank, and Hank was very pleased, and I got a phone call from him, like, maybe a year later, saying, hey, there's this Florida song contest. Do you mind if I submit our little song? And I say, go, knock yourself out, Hank, go for it. And I didn't hear anything. I didn't hear anything. Like, six months went by, and then I heard it won first prize. So I was like, how did these things even happen, you know? So I'll sing it for you here. It's from the point of view of an old cracker cowboy poet, a factual, a real person by the name of Jake Summerlin. And I'll just let you tell this tale here. It's called, When This Old Hat Was New. In 18th, Sue and I were on tour in California, and, you know, we've had rain lately, or they've had rain lately. California is basically in a state of chronic drought. I left there when I was 16, and I never went back to live. I've been through there for touring, but, I mean, I grew up, in my mind, seeing lakes and reservoirs pretty full. And then on this particular tour, it was just astounding seeing them, just almost empty, absolutely, parts looking, and just really scary, dry. And we spent some time in the Semite, where, of course, we're always inspired by John Muir, and the work that he did establishing the park and just his legend. So that kind of came together to make this song here. It's called, John Muir's Walking Blues. Number two is Vermont. Vermont's had dry ears, right? We have shallower wells, at most. Just because it's the green state, it doesn't... you can take our water at the brink. Valley's forever staying, you can damn hedge, hedgey. Let's do it! That was equivalent to a light flashing. Yes! Let's see, it was... In 2019, I wrote a grant to the Vermont Arts Council with an idea for an album. And I had some... Vermont... Well, the idea was to write an entire album with Vermont-inspired songs. I had a couple... I had a few ideas. And for the rest of the ideas, I thought, well, around the state, looking for stories. The fact of the matter is, I didn't have to drive anywhere. All the stories were like within spitting distance of cabbage. And I think that you could probably do the same for Worcester, Middlesex. Any of the towns got just a trove of great stories and things specific to the nature of just a little micro-reach. I've got a great one for you. I've got a totally good one. Go ahead and tell me now. Not later, okay. So, well, one of the ideas I came to this project with was, okay, so you know, when you're driving into Vermont from out of state, all of a sudden it feels different. You could have a blindfold on. You would still know it. Well, the roads are worse. That too. So, this has just been on my mind for years. And I thought, okay, I'm going to try to figure it out. Why is it? It's still a mystery, but this song kind of has helped me kind of work through the different ideas. I'm not going to tell you the title of it because that would give it away. But I'll just go ahead and sing it. All right, ready, go. The air picks up their scent, Cross the fast, And verdant hill, Vertel of lost, And older, I guess things just change more slowly here. Watching the cows graze, Is nothing. This is another one I wrote for that. With a good scenery. Windows at the house. Beautiful hill in the back. Often Paul's horses go running by. Moveable scenery. It's a beautiful thing. I was happy to mention that, sort of, Obliquely mentioned the horses in this song. Also, the song is kind of about the Wenduski River, Which is about a hundred yards from our house. I wrote this, started writing this song on the day that Ciri's got lifted on top of the state house. So, you know, this is a statue that was lifted up by a big crane put there. But there's something about it that was just so moving. I don't really understand what it was. How many of you were there? My thought was, you know, the last one, The one that they took down was getting to be a hundred-ish years old, And that one was made of pine. And it was time to, I heard it was rotten through. It was time to replace it. But this one now is made of mahogany. It's all these new tech paint that will help restore it for years and years. So, can you imagine things, that Ciri's, I'm anthropomorphicizing here a bit, But can you imagine what that Ciri's will witness in the next hundred or more years? Of the Wenduski River going by, Montpelier sort of changing before our eyes. It just, you know, it really kind of moved me. Driving up to, towards Cabot going home, It's like, there's this watershed, there's this valley. I guess I'll just, I'll try to sing this and I'll try to remember the words. It's this very seasonal song here too, so. Thanksgiving day, we went tromping through woods. The green man had just shed his clothes. The bounty of leaves made a blanket of gold or silver. The ancient grey storms. This is the land where the storms come to die. Here's where they run out of steam. There's nothing around here for to brighten their eyes. Nothing to sustain their greed. Four bears said the land was good. We can build a new life. It's the water to melt our own wood. We'll sow, then we'll reap with the scythe. Winters are dark and winters are long. This place, they call it just like a lover who knows all your songs. This place, we gladly atone. Your pony's on down. Bring them up from the flood plain. The forest of my heart, soil of my soul. Hold fast to your true secret name. Please come stand for a hundred years more. Come watch us transform. We're frightened and anxious like me. Little babies will sleep, and we'll wait against the Sprout in the spray of rice from the banks of the river. Let's do something now. Our children be proud. It's time for us now to deliver. Giving day, we went chomping through woods where its camera racks beamed in their glory. Find ourselves lucky in this place. Come let us continue. When I was living in Westfield, back in 90, I've just started singing this one again because it just so rings true. Back then, it was learning how to build stuff, learning how to grow stuff, living off the grid, hauling water. My son's diapers in and out on a sled to the laundromat in Newport. They went out cold and wet. They came back light and dry. But today, it's been the past couple of days, it's been good for doing yard work, right? With Gardens Tibet, I was cutting down some of the raspberry canes. I was hauling manure, thank you Paul. So this song, like I said, I wrote back then, and it's still the same. It's called Raspberry Cane. I couldn't sing because it's my promised plan. Little sweet cream upon the raspberry cane It would make panties show me everything. It's fair where no one knows my name. I will sing the song, cast a bird along about the raspberry cane. It hurts to go and make it longer still. It's not the same. There's never been the years gone by. Kind of seasonal. I think about this from time to time because I've got a lot of friends who are traveling songwriters and they're playing all these concerts all over the country still and they mostly come from more populated places, suburbs and cities and stuff. A lot of them live in very rural areas because there ain't no money in the rural areas. And I'm thinking, well, why aren't I doing that? Maybe you might identify with this. The thing that nourishes me the most in life is feeling connected to the forest and the landscape around me. Simply put, just off the trail, just walk through the forest and just see what's happening. What's growing? What's the shape of the land? Where does the air smell like? What's the water doing? What's the sky doing? Where did the birds sound like? How's the light? All this stuff just kind of... I've become a news junkie since all this stuff that I don't want to talk about, you know? But the antidote to that is walking just in the wildness and the beauty of it. So I think I mentioned that to introduce this song because this is a gift, literally just a gift from the landscape or whatever. We did this show in this rural place and on the day off after that I just took a walk up the little valley and it was just kind of a normal fall day. It was a little bit chilly and I felt something and I stopped and I put my hand up and the air was warm, like bathtub warm up here and it was cold down there so I stood there like a fool going on. And I'm like, yep, I'm not imagining this. This is real. And so I didn't make this connection until like the next day that the very place we were staying in was called the Zephyr Valley. So was the warm Zephyr wind that was actually happening on that day. So that's where this comes from. With a dream said for any end It's held to me a riddle See willow Why my darvin' sings Harvest moon On the horizon Harvest moon Sky Harvest moon Listen You must listen Until you cannot hear a sound This soul must listen Until you cannot hear a sound Distance efferently Happened in Cabot in case you were just in case you don't know Every Sunday afternoon since September of 2017 No, yes, 17. There has been an old time jam session at Harry's Hardware. It's a great fun thing and it goes from 12 to 2 Lately it's been going from 12 to 4 because there's enough people and people don't want to stop playing and the place closes at 4 and they just let us exhaust ourselves. So it's really nice. I recommend if you haven't checked it out if you got some friends from town and it's a Sunday and you're looking for something to do head on over to Harry's. It's a cool scene. This kind of typifies the kind of well we play a lot of there's two things we play a lot of this is a song maybe there's a song every 5 or 6 or 7 tunes that we do so it's not a lot of songs but they say old time music it's better than it sounds. This one's called Down the River I Go Uncle Joe and you can sing that part with Rich Mead It's like this isn't it? It's very much in the music for this the morning that Sue and I it was good very auspicious for a tour and she wasn't there and all of a sudden I was home set I was like what is this weird feeling so in these folk clubs that we played in they say as a way of saying good night they say safe home or safe journey home and they say it in such a way with this American accent you cannot come close to saying the kind of graciousness that they say it with but I wrote this song to express that I was missing Sue and that I was looking forward to being back home but also kind of an homage to the good folk clubs there so we'll give a little bit of this to this room here in Holster and thank you all again for coming and being part of this this evening it was nice to sing for you it's called Safe Home