Lyrics: I’ve seen the paddlewheelers rolling south on a summer’s day I’ve seen lovers at the guard rails with stars in their lemonade And I’ve heard the hobos gather, heard the banjos grace the glade Heard them sing about the river, called it the lazy man’s parade Sing me that song about the river, green, going away I always did feel like a drifter about this time of day Last night I stood by the highway, pretended I was on my way You know a hundred thousand headlights couldn’t match the milky way And when the moonlight touches the water surely something touches me And I go reaching for the river like it’s reaching for the sea. chorus Some things go on forever, the truth don’t ever change The wind may brush the water, but the river holds her sway. chorus
Compass Rose Music, Used with permission
More information about Steve’s music is available at his website
Musician Steve Gillette
Biography:
In a musical age created by the singer-songwriter, Steve Gillette has long been considered to be one of the finest. His music has inspired glowing reviews from the critics and the deep loyalty of his fans. Since Ian and Sylvia first recorded Darcy Farrow in 1966, Steve’s songs have been sung by dozens of major artists including Garth Brooks, John Denver, Nanci Griffith, Waylon Jennings, Gordon Lightfoot, Anne Murray, Tony Rice, Kenny Rogers, Linda Ronstadt, Spanky and Our Gang, Jerry Jeff Walker, Jennifer Warnes, Don Williams, and Tammy Wynette.
Steve’s first album, STEVE GILLETTE, originally released in the Spring of 1968, has recently been reissued by Vanguard on compact disc. The album includes guest performances by Buffy Saint Marie, Bruce Langhorne and Dick Rosmini. His second album, BACK ON THE STREET AGAIN, was produced by John Ware for Outpost Records, with help from Spanky McFarland and Emmy Lou Harris’ Hot Band. Steve’s third album ALONE…DIRECT (solo voice and guitar) was recorded by the direct-to-disc process and produced by John DelGatto on Sierra Records.
Graham Nash produced Steve’s fourth album, A LITTLE WARMTH, which was released on Flying Fish Records in 1979. Appearing on this album were Johnny Barbatta and Pete Sears from The Jefferson Starship, Graham Nash, David Lindley, and Jennifer Warnes.
Since their marriage in April of 1989, Steve Gillette and Cindy Mangsen have been traveling, performing and recording together. Their album LIVE IN CONCERT, recorded at the Ark in Ann Arbor, is available from their own company, Compass Rose Music, and was on many “10 Best” lists when it was released in 1991. A second duet album called THE LIGHT OF THE DAY was named Top Folk Album of 1996 by Rich Warren (WFMT, Chicago) and Matt Watroba (WDET, Detroit).
A collection of twelve of Steve’s original songs was produced in Nashville by Jim Rooney in 1992. The album, called THE WAYS OF THE WORLD (Compass Rose), features studio performances by Stuart Duncan, Mark Howard, Roy Huskey Jr., Kenny Malone, and Mark Schatz. Steve’s latest solo recording is entitled TEXAS AND TENNESSEE (Redwing Music, 1998), with back-up from Charles Cochran, Mark Graham, Mark Schatz, Pete Sutherland, Pete Wasner, Mike Williams and others.
Biography:
Ken composes music in the tradition of Will McLean, about the preservation and protection of Florida. He’s produced two original CDs, An Empty Chair and Florida Spirit. He was the first winner of the Best Florida Song Contest at the Will McLean Festival in 1992, and served for many years as the director of the contest and a member of the Will McLean Executive Committee. Ken and his songwriting partner Leigh Goldsmith are regular performers in the Orlando area and at festivals throughout the state. They perform songs in harmony in an effort “to keep the spirit of Florida alive”
Dale Crider, a retired wildlife biologist, has been an education specialist for the Florida Game and Water Fish Commission for more than three decades. As both singer and biologist, Dale has spent his life convincing people that Florida wildlife habitats, and the plants and animals dependent on them, should be diligently preserved. Learn more about Dale by clicking here.
Lyrics: I throw a stone into the water and I watch the circles as they grow While holidays and birthdays leave footprints like soldiers in the snow The flowers and the icicles are spokes in a wheel that has no end And the passing of the seasons makes me think about circles again
The sun and the moon, circles tracing circles in the sky While old people and children look at each other in the mirror in the eye Like the turning of a waterwheel like the voice of a long lost friend When I think about my old friends I think about circles again
Round and round and round in circles we spin Over and over we end up right where we begin Those things that never change, those things that are never the same Though it looks like a straight road I’m traveling in circles again
These round coins in my hand there’s so much I do that they ask me What goes around will come around; there are wheels turning night & day right past me I had a dream long ago I was hiding but a clock always found me And now everywhere I look I see circles all around me
1991 by Harvey Reid (Quahog Music BMI) Used with permission.
Singer Songwriter and Musician Harvey Reid
Biography:
Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Harvey Reid has honed his craft since the 1970s in countless clubs, festivals, streetcorners, cafes, schools and concert halls across the nation. He has been called a “giant of the steel strings” and “one of the true treasures of American acoustic music,: and is considered to be one of the modern masters and innovators of the acoustic guitar, autoharp and 6-string banjo. He has absorbed a vast repertoire of American contemporary and roots music and woven it into his own colorful, personal and distinctive style. His 32 recordings on Woodpeckers Records showcase his mastery of many instruments and styles of acoustic music, from hip folk to slashing slide guitar blues to bluegrass, old-time, Celtic, ragtime, and even classical.
Reid is also the author of dozens of music education books as well as an important visionary and pioneer in modern troubadour education. He is the creator of the Liberty Guitar Method, a ground-breaking advance in beginning guitar.
Reid’s skills and versatility on the guitar alone mark him as an important new voice and one of the deepest artists in acoustic music.
He won the 1981 National Fingerpicking Guitar Competition and the 1982 International Autoharp competition. Yet he’s also a veteran musician with a long list of studio and band credits, a strong flatpicker who has won Bill Monroe’s Beanblossom bluegrass guitar contest, a versatile and engaging singer, a powerful lyricist, prolific composer, arranger and songwriter, a solid mandolin, mandocello and bouzouki player, and a seasoned performer and captivating entertainer.
Harvey Reid maintains an extensive website that has the lyrics, liner notes, guitar tunings and more for all of his songs.
Biography:
Michael Jurgensen has lived in the Tampa Bay area since 1968, when he moved from his native Chapel Hill, NC. Mike began playing the guitar when he was seven years old, but it was not until 1992 that he began performing in public seriously. It was then that he discovered the Iron Horse coffee house in Tarpon Springs, where he began playing open mics. Over the next two years he branched out to do open mics and feature sets at other Tampa Bay area coffee houses and restaurants, as well as regularly emceeing the Iron Horse open mics.
He has also played at several local fairs and festivals, and he has been the featured artist a number of times on various live radio shows on WMNF in Tampa. Although Mike had written several songs prior to 1992, he has only been writing seriously since 1992. Mike was a finalist in the 1994 and 1996 South Florida Folk Festival song-writing competitions, and he won the Best New Florida Song award at the 1998 Will McLean Festival.
In April of 1994 Mike joined the well-known Florida acoustic group, Myriad, which had been together for about 4 years at the time. Together with Myriad, he played concerts at coffee houses, radio shows, benefit concerts, and festivals around the state. The group also has several recordings including two CDs, “Song Circle” and “New Strings.” Mike also has a solo recording project.
In recent years he has performed as part of the trio known as 2PM featuring Mike, Pete Price and Pete Hennings. The trio has performed at a wide variety of Florida festivals and music venues and has three CDs: “Keepin’ Time,” “Let’s Just Play One More,” and their newest project, “Writing on the Wall.”
More information on Mike’s group “2PM” is available at their website. To hear more of Mike’s music click here. Mike can also be reached by mail: 6985 Coronet Dr. / New Port Richey, Fl 34655
Lyrics:
I have seen a river, and a river has seen me
I have felt its current flowin’ to the sea
In its deep reflection are scenes from yesterday
The wisdom of the river is showin’ us the way
The landscape is the canvas…the water is the brush
Painting out a poem in the stillness and the hush
Then a whisper from a whirlpool takes a shadow for a ride
And the wisdom of the river has found its way inside
When the river talks I…wanna listen, wanna pay attention now, don’t be slow.
When the river talks I…wanna listen, cuz it might say something I wanna know
With skin of fluid motion, that paddle can caress,
It holds me like a lover unafraid to be undressed
With secrets barely hinted, not quite an open book
The wisdom of the river invites a closer look.
(repeat first verse)
Mark Smith, Used with permission
Biography:
Raised on the St. Johns River and in the salt marshes of coastal Northeast Florida, Mark developed a passion for his native Florida at an early age. Always one to find a song in seemingly obscure moments or places, Mark brings the subtleties of Florida’s landscapes and history to life in his original music.
With three albums to his credit, Mark has toured Florida since 1992 performing at numerous established folk venues. He has appeared numerous times at the prestigious Florida Folk Festival in White Springs. He lives in Gainesville.
Mark Smith is accessible via email or regular mail at 2027 NW 56th Terrace / Gainesville, FL 32605.
Biography:
From the age of thirteen, Jeanie Fitchen has enchanted concert and festival audiences from the Alaskan Arctic to the Carribbean Tropics, bringing to them her singular musical art intertwining original stories and stellar vocals in a rich musical synthesis.
Born and raised in Orlando, Florida, Jeanie grew up with the music of great masters such as Verdi, Puccini and Mozart. Her mother had hoped that she might train for the opera but Jeanie found her musical niche in the simple beauty and artistic style of folk music, viewing it as a vehicle for personal and social expression.
At age 15, Jeanie made her festival debut with appearances at the Florida Folk Festival in White Springs and the Fox Hollow Folk Festival in Petersburg, New York. She continues to be a major performer and MC at numerous festivals and acoustic venues around the country.
She is the recipient of the 2016 Florida Folk Festival Legends and Legacy Award.
In 2010 she was awarded the Fellow Man and Mother Earth Award from the Stetson Kennedy Foundation in recognition of her outstanding song contributions to Florida. The songs she has written and sung praise the defense of Florida’s natural and cultural heritage and have done much to enrich the lives of the living and insure that these treasures will be passed on for generations to come.
In 2001 she she received the Florida Folk Heritage award for outstanding folk artists and culture advocates who have made long-standing contributions to the folk cultural resources of the state. Established in 1985, the program parallels the National Heritage Fellowships.
Jeanie’s concert performances take the listener through the entire gamut of emotions as she spins yarns and tugs at the heartstrings, incorporating traditional as well as contemporary topical elements in her programs. She is a highly-acclaimed songwriter with the ability to evoke through melancholy and euphoria the wondrous resilience and vitality of life.
More information about Jeanie’s music is available at her website
The Hippodrome Mainstage turns into the Grand Ole Opry as Always …Patsy Cline, takes the stage. Based on the life of Patsy Cline, the woman who epitomized country music in the late ’50s and ’60s, Always…Patsy Cline is a song-filled evening and an intimate and uplifting look at the life of country music’s most beloved singer. The play focuses on the unusual friendship Patsy shared with star-struck housewife Louise Seger. Seger, and most of the nation, fell in love with Patsy’s voice after seeing her perform “Walkin’ After Midnight” on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts in 1957. Seger followed Cline’s career via radio and television and finally met the singer at a Houston concert in 1961. The two became pen-pals up until the 1963 plane crash that claimed Cline’s life. The play’s title refers to the manner in which Cline would close each of her letters: Love always … Patsy Cline.
Always… Patsy Cline is an intimate look at the woman behind the legend. The show includes more than 20 country standards including Cline’s hits “I Fall to Pieces,” “Crazy,” “Back in Baby’s Arms” and “She’s Got You.”
To learn more about the artists and their music for the Apalachicola Doin’ Time documentary click on the links below:
