2013 Florida Folk Festival:
"Crooked River With Big Old Trees, Ocklawaha, Set Her Free"
Sung live on 26 May 2013 by Ocklawahaman at the Folklife Stage of the Florida Folk Festival,
Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park in White Springs, Florida (Way Down Upon the Suwannee River)
Ocklawahaman Paul Nosca:
"[E]ven though I seen Elvis Presley alive and had the same job in the Army as George Strait, 'The King of Country Music',
I can't sing a lick!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LHfXQR7Cpg&feature=youtu.be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5Hf5f4Ol7M
OR
CLICK-ON download arrow of the MP3 file attached at the bottom of this webpage, then open to listen!
This Webpage Created: 28 May 2013
Last Revised: 30 May 2015
"Crooked River With Big Old Trees, Ocklawaha, Set Her Free"
By Ocklawahaman Paul Nosca (11 July 2012)
Silver Springs to that St. Johns wide
A fifty-six-mile canoeing ride
She lost her freedom at Rodman Dam
Blocking striped bass wasn't Nature's plan
Crooked river, big old trees
Ocklawaha, set her free
That crooked river with them big old trees
The Ocklawaha, let's set her free
Virgin cypress and tall tupelo grow
Artesian springs enter her shaded flow
Catch largemouth bass from my canoe
Remove that Dam, there'll be stripers too
Crooked river, big old trees
Ocklawaha, set her free
That crooked river with them big old trees
The Ocklawaha, let's set her free
Bellowing gators and drake wood ducks
Wild hogs, turkeys, and whitetail bucks
Manatees, black bears, and sandhill cranes
Reckon river water runs through my veins
Crooked river, big old trees
Ocklawaha, set her free
That crooked river with them big old trees
The Ocklawaha, let's set her free
Cry the ghosts of ivorybills--haunting them virgin cypress trees
The Ocklawaha, let's set her free
ANOTHER PERFORMANCE OF THE SONG: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJvaP8nbzz0
NOTE: Of course "ivorybills" (above) refers to that iconic symbol of the wilderness swamplands of the South--the IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER (Campephilus principalis). Also known as the "Lord God Bird", the last credible ivory-billed woodpecker sighting in the Ocklawaha River basin was in 1951. Many of the Ocklawaha River swamp's remaining ancient baldcypress trees exhibit old & somewhat large nest-cavity holes--quite possibly used in the distant past by ivorybills.
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ivory/pdf/IBWDraftRecoveryPlan.pdf
http://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/profiles/birds/woodpeckers/ivory-billed-woodpecker/
http://myfwc.com/research/wildlife/birds/ivory-billed-woodpecker/history/
http://training.fws.gov/history/articles/ivorybilledwoodpecker.html
Email: ocklawahaman1@gmail.com
End.