How did a teacher and a mother, who had never sung outside of her bathroom, become a country music singer-songwriter?
The Story
One day, Aunt Lorrie and I went to a local swap meet inside an old drive-in movie theatre. I saw a man sitting in an open trunk of a 1957 Chevy. He was playing an old guitar. He asked me if I wanted to play beautiful music. He added it was only ten dollars.
Ten dollars! Maybe I could learn enough guitar to play some simple songs for my students.
I bought the guitar and then a book called “Beginning Rock Guitar.” Its first song was “What Can You Do with a Drunken Sailor.” I learned a few songs more songs, and a few more chords. I wasn’t ready to go on to the next song in the book, so I wrote my first songs. They were about my family: Mother’s Song, Sister Song, My Daddy was the best, and three songs dedicated to my grandmother. This eventually became a part of my first album, “Family Man.”
At the same time I started writing my family song at home, and I started writing songs in my classroom with my students. These students in this class had serious behave issues, and were seriously behind academically. I was looking for the keys to help them.
I remembered some advertising jingles from my childhood: Brycream-a little dab will do ya! Brycream, you look so debonaire, Brycream, a little dab will do ya: I loved to run my fingers through your hair, And Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is- Alka Seltzer! Why would I remember these songs. I also remembered many folk songs I learned in the 4th grade, and some I hadn’t sung since then.
It is because of the rhymes. Our mind’s mind loves rhymes.
So it appeared to me that if we wrote songs about not teasing, not bullying, not stealing, not taking drugs, having fun, finding friendship and the kids learned them, they might remember the messages. Here is an example of one of the early songs.
The other piglets teased me, they say that I’m a runt.
My daddy took one look at me and just gave a grunt. Oink.
The horses they just laugh, the sheep won’t talk to me at all.
Oh why was I born so very, very small?
My mother, well, she held me, said without a doubt.
That I would grow up big and strong if I would just pig out.
Oink Oink Oink
But if I grow up big, as big as big can be,
I’ll never tease anyone the way that they tease me.
Oink Oink Oink.
Early on, I got the idea that if I brought in a puppet as a prop,
it would be an easier and more concrete teaching experience.
This is because puppets almost always come with a character, and
generally from a specific location, and, of course, an identity.
Blue is the color of the blue sky.
Blue is the color of the sea.
Blue is the color of blueberries,
and blue is the color of me.
Blue is the color of blue birds flying high about the trees,
and blue is the color of Mommy and Daddy,
and Blue is the color of me.
Blue is the color of Mommy and Daddy,
and blue is the color of me.
This is the first of a number of children’s ecological and character-themed
CD’s: The Rain is Coming, a rainforest musical; Out in Outer Space, a space ecology musical; Under the Blue Blue Sea, an ocean ecology musical; Dinosaur Dance, how not to become extinct; Sing the Calendar Songs; Guardians of the Earth, ecology songs for young children. I continued to help develop imagination and thinking like a writer in classrooms and on stage.
What does this have to do with Hard Country Music?
I was performing in my classroom. I was singing and playing guitar. I was constantly writing songs, at home and in school, and this prepared me to step into performing for various audience.
Next came my step into more traditional country music story songwriting.
One day Aunt Lorrie came to the house. She was sad because the husband of one of her friends just walked away, leaving her with four children. Lorrie asked me to write a song for her. Suddenly Single was my entry into traditional sounding country story songs writing.
I never looked at another man, not even in my dreams.
And I ain't held a nother's hand since I was seventeen.
But he left me a month ago, said he needed to be free,
and I found myself a single woman, single suddenly.
Meeting Otis Roy, The Pomona Blues Yodeler.
I was now dipping into the country music scene.
I met a man in blue and white striped overalls, with red
handkerchief tied aroud his neck, and a blue and white
striped brakeman's cap, at the Mule Lip. He told me
he was an imitator of his idol, Jimmie Rogers, the original
Jimmie Rogers. The Jimmie Rogers who was not only in
The Country Music Hall of Fame, but also The Rock and
Role Hall of Fame.
I didn't know about Jimmie Rogers, but that was about to change.
Otis met his idol The Singing Brakeman, when he was 15 years old.
He worked in the cotton fields during the depression, starting at nine years
old. Jimmie Rogers’ song lightened his load, and Otis had a lot of stories.
Otis who has now passed, was a good singer, he knew
almost every one of Jimmie Rogers’ songs by heart, over 104 blue yodels, and he was a good
Jimmie Rodgers’ yodeler. And I must add a great friend.
Otis and I were popular performers at farmers’ markets, country and folk festivals,
universities, local country clubs, and cable TV. It was frequently said that my songs were in the spirit of Jimmie Rogers songs. This is because I write story songs, generally songs from real life.
Otis also introduced me to a group of about ten musicians. We met at a car repair shop, in Pomona. We all played guitar and sang. It was so much fun. Some of these people, like Otis, knew Jimmie Rogers when they were young, working in the cotton fields.
I produced a wonderful video called “Now That’s Country” with four of these musicians, Otis Roy, Babe Sims, Carl Walden, and Lee Dacus. They sang and played guitar, sang great stories about early country music.
I will put Jimmie Roger’s story on the Otis Roy and Jimmie Roger’s page and I will add some interesting stories.
My next story is about the forming of the band, Penelope and a Little Bit of Gold. I never stopped teaching, even when I was playing five night a week.
Contact Penelope at penelope1world@mac.com