In this podcast Stan discusses the newly available Ed Jackson Collection at GHS, Freddie Mercury’s handwritten lyrics to “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Ed Ames’ tomahawk throw, and college students giving up their cellphones to take a vow of silence.

In this podcast Stan discusses the newly available Ed Jackson Collection at GHS, Freddie Mercury’s handwritten lyrics to “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Ed Ames’ tomahawk throw, and college students giving up their cellphones to take a vow of silence.
“Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?”
Gordon Lightfoot died on Monday, May 1, a transcendent singer and songwriter and one of the most talented and iconic musicians in the second half of the 20th century. I have loved his music from the moment I first heard him 50 years ago. His songs, like “Sundown,” “Carefree Highway,” “If You Could Read My Mind,” “Rainy Day People,” “Early Morning Rain,” “The Watchman’s Gone,” were all lyrical and deeply poetic, sung in that rich baritone voice, so easily imitable but impossible to replicate.
“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” was nothing less than an epic poem set to music and served as the unofficial soundtrack to that time of year “when the skies of November turn gloomy.” It rose to number 2 on the American Billboard charts, defying all norms of Top 40 standards with its length and arcane references to Lake Superior, Great Lakes shipping, and the legend that “lives on from the Chippewa on down.” I have listened to the song a thousand times, with its haunting guitar riffs and the mesmerizing story of the fateful ship that sank in the “face of a hurricane west wind” on November 10, 1975, on the “big lake they call Gitche Gumee.” Lightfoot, and many others, considered it his finest work.
He described himself as a songwriter in search of the “perfect poem” and to my mind, of all his compositions, “Song for a Winter’s Night” stands alone as a supreme achievement, a beautiful portrait of the aching loneliness of a dark night of longing:
The lamp is burnin’ low upon my tabletop
The snow is softly falling
The air is still in the silence of my room
I hear your voice softly calling
If I could only have you near
To breathe a sigh or two
I would be happy just to hold the hands I love
On this winter night with you.
(You should also check out this moving rendition by the Wichita State University School of Music.)
He was often hailed as a Canadian treasure—Geddy Lee, the lead singer of the Canadian rock band Rush, called him “our poet laureate,” while musician Tom Cochrane said that “if there was a Mount Rushmore in Canada, Gordon would be on it.”
But he really belonged to the world. As one critic noted, “It is impossible to explain the huge impact of Gordon Lightfoot on 20th century music. His songs were covered by everyone from Dylan to Elvis. His writing, imagery, and ability to create mood was without parallel.”
His songs were deceptively complex, layered with symbolism that belied the lyrics about mundane relationships, wandering spirits, or the beauty of the Canadian woodlands. “Don Quixote,” the heartbreaking “Bitter Green,” “The Watchman’s Gone,” and so many others, lent themselves to deeper meanings for anyone who cared to find them.
There’s a train down at the station
It’s come to carry my bones away
Two engines on
Twenty-one coaches long…
As I leave you in the sunset
Got one more nothin’ I’d like to say
‘You don’t know me
A son of the sea am I’
As I say to you, my brother
If you live to follow the golden sun
You better beware
Knowin’ the watchman’s always there.
If you find me feedin’ daisies
Please turn my face up to the sky
And leave me be
Watchin’ the moon roll by…
Drink Your Glasses Empty to this son of Orillia, Ontario, with the unmatched voice, who brought joy to so many with the gift of his song. Farewell and Godspeed, Gordon Lightfoot. We too have followed the golden sun.
The fire is dying
Now my lamp is growing dim
The shades of night are lifting
The morning light steals across my windowpane
Where webs of snow are drifting
If I could only have you near
To breathe a sigh or two
I would be happy just to hold the hands I love
On this winter night with you
And to be once again with you.
This week Stan looks back at one of the most popular TV shows ever, a Mad magazine cartoonist who left his mark on the holidays, a critical day in the American Civil War, a milestone birthday of a legendary football coach, one of the most momentous days in Olympic history, Travis McGee novels, and much more.
With the reopening of the Georgia Historical Society’s newly expanded and renovated Research Center, GHS is again getting visits from scholars, students, and researchers from all over the world researching and studying a wide variety of topics. Off the Deaton Path would like to introduce our readers to some of these visiting scholars and share with you what they’re working on and what they’re finding at GHS.
This week we’ll spotlight Dr. Robert Stephens, a Professor of World Music at the University of Connecticut.
Tell Us About Yourself: I was born in Savannah and spent my formative years there, graduating from A. E. Beach High School and Savannah State, where I received my B.S. degree. After graduation, I spent several years teaching public schools in Florida and Georgia, intersected by a tour in Vietnam. Who could have known that Army service would alter the trajectory of my career path? I certainly did not, because my service allowed me to pursue an M.A. in music education and M. Ed. in Educational Administration from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from Indiana University in Music and Ethnomusicology.
My teaching career ranges from public school marching bands, the introductory course in World Music, guided student research experiences on the Hopi reservation in Northern Arizona, Havana, Matanzas, and Santiago de, Cuba. I have taught various graduate courses and courses exploring African-American History and Culture. My teaching at Montclair State University and the University of Connecticut helped forge my research interest in the sacred drumming of Santeria, spending some ten years studying and writing about the tradition in Cuba and the United States.
My current interest includes collaborating with the Balinese scholar Dr. I. Made Bandem on a work focused on the Balinese Gamelan. My most recent research on sound, movement, and word, looks to tie Gullah expressive culture to divine contact, social commentary, and psychological battles won during enslavement, not with force but with the most potent tools available, resilience and creativity. This work grows from five competitive awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Landmarks in American History funding “Gullah Voices: Traditions and Transformations,” a workshop for elementary-secondary school teachers I led with my colleague Dr. Mary Ellen Junda.
Tell Us About Your Current Project: My work explores new ground using creative expression. My role is to examine the history, stories, beliefs, and creative practice of the Gullah, critical antecedents to a subsequent African-American culture, and its role in the broader American mosaic.
A barbershop on West 45th street operated by Mr. Ulysses Davis sparked my interest in a culture widely known in the area but rarely discussed in depth. Other young men in our community and I received the “scriptures from a Savannah Barbershop.” He was the storyteller/ artist, and we, the listener/learners. This was not an ordinary barbershop. But getting a haircut was one piece of the pie. Other tasty slices include the stories he told of Africa, its kingdoms, rulers, and beauty supplemented by his hand-carved sculptures. It was a remarkable contrast to the Africa portrayed in Tarzan movies. My friends and I always looked for the same thing in his stories, to learn new things and bask in the pride of an Africa we could barely imagine. Mr. Davis knew that. And he was always ready to reveal his carefully gathered evidence for doubters at a moment’s notice. Mr. Davis lit my Gullah/Geechee fire, and for that, I will forever be grateful.
Research at the Georgia Historical Society has helped me probe connections between context and function in African and Gullah creativity. To put it another way, as my investigation unfolds, I am beginning to see how external factors fueled seen and unseen changes in Gullah life. For instance, how expressive space built around sorrow, joy, hope, and fear fades the line between the real and imagined; how sound, image, gesture, movement, and material objects communicate their interrelatedness and give voice to the emotions of the lived experience. There is little doubt that the relationship between sound structure and social structure is key to understanding Gullah’s expression, a point that has not received wide scholarly attention.
Cultural survival relies on compliance with the authority of customs, ways of life, and tradition. A heavy responsibility hangs over those who use sound to translate customs and life depicting feeling into expression. Because “words under words,” as the poet Naomi Shihab Nye describes them, carry meaning resting in meaning and can instigate or change decisions. Material culture—where people create objects and images and attach importance—like words, unravel the complex lives of those who make them. No matter the tool, the creative voice of the Gullah community is as encompassing and as powerful.
Cornelia Bailey, the matriarch of Sapelo Island, was fond of saying, “if you don’t know where you come from, you don’t know where you’re going.” That “come from” history informs my interest. Knowing “where you’re going” not only prevents getting lost on the way, but it also explains religion, art, music, and movement, prescriptions for living. At the same time, the imagination creates alternative geographies in mind-broadening perspective and informing practice. These collected factors are the foundation for the book that will emerge from this research. The uniqueness of this approach, in my view, not only explains how different we are but also how much we are alike while simultaneously encouraging a fuller understanding of the American experience.
What Are you Finding at GHS? Tell us here what collections you’re looking at, what you’re finding in them, and how it relates to your project. The Lydia Austin Parrish Letters, 1947-1952 (MS 607) have been informative and allow today’s readers to visit another place differently. They paint a picture of a woman of means fascinated by old songs of the enslaved. The letters reveal many Parrish relationships whose backstories wander into the conversation, often with their sentimental views. Particularly fascinating is the structure of these conversations and what they tell about the writers and their social interactions. But Parrish is best known for her work with “The Spiritual Singers Society of Coastal Georgia” in the 1920s, later known as the Georgia Sea Island Singers. Parrish’s actions enabled the singers and others to transmit ordered bits and pieces of memory to those who follow both inside and outside the Gullah community. Generational inheritance.
Her research efforts began when she heard her housekeeper, Julia Armstrong, singing one of the old songs. That experience prompted Parrish to visit former plantations searching for other people who knew similar old songs. These efforts led to the formation of the group. The letters offer a fascinating insight into Parrish, what motivated her, and how she used the group in her social settings.
Another essential collection is the archives of Muriel Barrow Bell and Malcolm Bell Jr. (MS 1283). The Bells are best known for their work with the Works Progress Administration in 1939, documenting African Americans in coastal Georgia through photographs. These files provide essential detail on the people interviewed for the writer’s project. Malcolm Bell published important work on “Major Butler’s legacy,” where his interest is not academic categories but stories of people.
Also, the Dancy and Woods Family Papers, 1836-1940 (MS 1305), and the Keith M. Read Collection, 1770-1907 (MS 648), both provide insight into life in the compounds. William Brown Hodgson’s Notes on Northern Africa (1844) for language, and the Richard Leake Plantation Journal and Business Records, 1785-1802 (MS 485), have all been beneficial.
Item: In this column on September 24 I noted that a very rare original copy of the US Constitution was coming up for auction at Sotheby’s and that it would likely sell for $20 million. Those estimates were wrong by half. As GHS President Dr. Todd Groce noted in the AJC, the document sold for an astounding and record-setting $43.2 million. GHS owns a draft copy of the Constitution, one of only 12 in existence, that is annotated and signed by Georgia delegate Abraham Baldwin. The copy at auction was bought by hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin, who will lend the document to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, for public exhibition. The museum, founded by Alice Walton, the daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton, opened in 2011. And in case you were wondering, Bill Gates set the previous auction record for a book or manuscript in 1994 when he purchased the Codex Leicester by Leonardo da Vinci at Christie’s for $30.8 million.
Item: As you no doubt heard, the Georgia Bulldogs—thanks to their undefeated regular season—have made the College Football Playoff for the second time, despite losing to Alabama in the SEC Championship in Atlanta on December 4. Yes, we all hoped this might be the year we finally beat Nick Satan and his Crimson Tide, but there’s no denying that Bama’s had Georgia’s number for a while now—seven straight losses since the last Georgia win in the series 14 years ago in 2007.
Who can blame Dog fans for thinking this was the year? Bama had looked positively human against all its SEC foes, scraping out wins over Arkansas, LSU, and Florida, taking four overtimes to beat Auburn (on the same field where Georgia crushed the Tigers), while actually losing to Texas A&M. In the week leading up to the game, the press in typical fashion dished out what Bama coach Nick Saban calls “rat poison”—hyping Georgia’s defense, yammering about Bama’s porous offensive line, even the threat that Georgia’s Jordan Davis might eat Bama QB Bryce Young like a Varsity chili dog. None of that happened. Georgia’s defense received a good-ol-fashioned butt whipping, Young looked like the Heisman Trophy winner he is, and overall Bama played like the New England Patriots.
One could legitimately ask, where had this Bama team been all season long? Which is the real Crimson Tide: the one that played with razor-thin margins all season, or the Super Bowl champs who dominated in Atlanta? Looming over it all is this: should Georgia get by Michigan in the Orange Bowl, and Bama beats Cincinnati in the Cotton, the two teams will meet yet again for a national championship. Could Bama really do that to us again? Surely, they can’t channel the Patriots twice in one season. Can they? All I can say is, no one of sane mind should ever underestimate Satan and the Tide. The question of the year: how much misery can Georgia fans be expected to endure in one single season? I don’t know about you, but maybe this is the year to record the game and sign up for that New Year’s Eve pinochle tournament down at the Mason’s lodge.
Item: December is upon us, and at some point this month you’re bound to hear Andy Williams’s classic Christmas song, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” Williams recorded the song, written in triple time, on September 10, 1963, and released it on his Christmas album that October. It has become a seasonal staple and has been enormously popular since its first release 58 years ago, appearing in commercials, movies, and TV shows, including in the trailer for the new Disney/Marvel series Hawkeye. But here’s the interesting part to me–the song was co-written by George Wyle, who also co-wrote the theme song to Gilligan’s Island. How’d you like to have those royalty checks? By the way, Wyle’s grandson, Aaron Levy, plays in Norah Jones’s band. Now you know.
Item: December means Dickens, and this year I’m reading the first book he ever published, Sketches by Boz: Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day People. Pre-dating Dickens’s first novel, The Pickwick Papers, Sketches is a collection of short essays that Boz (Dickens’s nickname) published in various newspapers and magazines between 1833 and 1836, when he was ages 21 to 24. I’m reading the Oxford Illustrated Dickens edition with illustrations by George Cruikshank, first published in February and August 1836. It’s still astonishing to me that anyone could write with this level of maturity and insight into the human condition at the equivalent age of a freshly minted college graduate. Though it lacks the appeal of a full-fledged Dickens novel, there are still some vintage Dickensian character sketches here. You can see him limbering up, stretching himself for the great novels to come.
Item: Speaking of Dickens, as the Season is upon us, if you’ve not seen the 1984 film version of A Christmas Carol, starring George C. Scott, check it out. It’s the best of all the theatrical versions of the Dickens classic, from the location setting in Shrewsbury to the perfect casting, right down to Old Fezziwig. Frank Finlay’s Marley is the best you’ll ever see, though Edward Woodward’s (of The Equalizer fame) Ghost of Christmas Present is a strong runner-up. David Warner as Bob Cratchit, Roger Rees as Scrooge’s nephew, and Angela Pleasence as the Ghost of Christmas Past top off a stellar cast. And for good measure, director Clive Donner worked on the 1951 rendition, Scrooge. Now you know that too.
Item: Speaking of A Christmas Carol, fans of audio books who want to experience the original 1843 novella in a new way should check out the versions read by Simon Prebble (whose father, historian John Prebble, authored the famous Fire and Sword Trilogy of Scottish history) and the version narrated by Dr. Frank-n-Furter himself, Tim Curry.
Item: Speaking of Old Fezziwig—and this will be the last Dickens reference in this post—if you’re a fan of great seasonal Christmas brews, you’ll be happy to hear that Sam Adams has brought back in its holiday pack both Holiday Porter (“inspired by the famous drink of London’s Victorian era luggage porters. Brewed with generous portions of Caramel, Munich and Chocolate malt, this hearty porter finishes with traditional English Fuggles and East Kent Goldings”) and—joy to the world—Old Fezziwig Ale (“Like the character that inspired it, this beer is festive and worthy of a celebration all its own. Bursting with spices of the season, its full body accompanies a deep malt character, with notes of sweet toffee and rich, dark caramel”). Old Fezziwig was missing from last year’s holiday pack, turning festive ale lovers everywhere into small-hearted grumpy grinches who refused to bang their slew-slunkers. And no, I’m not getting paid to write this, nor is Sam Adams a sponsor of this blog, but I and they should be.
Hoist a glass and enjoy the holidays. See you in 2022.