Charley SandageThe four songs featured on the current homepage playlist are all really character sketches. “The John J. Pershing Veteran’s Home,” a contemporary Nashville style song for which Doug Deforest asked me to write a new set of lyrics, pictures easily forgotten “heroes in every doorway down these halls.” “Beautiful Sally,” from the Arkansas Stories collection, and sung by Mary Gillihan of the trio, Harmony, is taken straight from an Arkansas family history. “Grandma Sarah,” from the “That Time is Here,” CD, is a combination of several Grandmas I have known and loved. “The Fiddler” is a real person, both the “grey-haired man with a homemade fiddle” I heard years ago in an Ozark community musical gathering and every fiddler who ever helped carry the tradition over to the next generation – including Tim Crouch, the masterful fiddler on this cut.
Clancey grew out of the “Wow, listen to that cute little girl play” stage quite a while ago. She’s been an important member of the Mountain View and Ozark Folk Center musical family since her years were measured in single digits, and she’s now begun to leave her leave her calling card on national stages in the bluegrass and Americana world. We’ll miss her whenever she’s off somewhere else playing over the years to come, but we’re sure she’ll never really leave us.