A campfire on the beach …
May be the perfect combo.
Bobby Angel sings a 3-song set
Especially just after a beautiful sunset over the water. Bobby Angel brings it on this campfire concert. His three song set includes (1) There Goes Bob Three, (2) Marsha Marsha and (3) X Marks The Spot.
All you really need …
Is one fan in life.
Opening fan mail is always exciting
Everything after that is icing on the cake.
Oh, and by the way:
Bobby Angel answers all his fan mail!
When do we know it’s the darkest hour?
Answer: See the title of this post.
If you can hang in there through the night, a new dawn is headed your way
We only know in retrospect. Let’s face it. The darkness can overwhelm us, and creep in slowly, to the point that we not only lose track of how dark it is, but that light — a new dawn — is possible at all. That’s when off on the distant horizon you catch a glimpse of a new ray of sun, or maybe a dull glow, ever so faint at first, but slowly starting to overtake the night sky. Or in other words, morning.
More about this song: I wrote it as an anthem to Candidate Burt Silver, almost on lark. Who is Burt Silver? He’s a politician in a book I co-wrote and a character I gave a second life (i.e. outside of the book) on the Campfire Park website. All politicians have mottos, and Burt Silver’s is this: “It’s a new dawn with Burt Silver … because he stayed up all night to see it.” That’s perhaps the most interesting — and paradoxical — aspect of this song. On the one hand, it is written as a personal triumph over darkness when it’s least expected. On the other hand, I wrote it on a humorous note to capture the essence of a fictitious politician who stays up all night. Or maybe the most incredible thing is that I wrote the song at all.
Moral of the story: Whenever and wherever inspiration strikes, go with it. In the end its the only thing that delivers us from the darkness closing in.
You wouldn't believe it.
In the 1850s, a man named Aaron Cloud, one of the town’s first dreamers, raised a 160-foot wooden tower at the summit.
What’s the secret …
Behind a good campfire shanty?
Bobby Angel talks Nature Folk Movement (NFM)
Answer: It all starts with the night sky, a campfire and a guitar. Oh, and you’ll need a good singer/songwriter, too. That’s where Bobby Angel fits in. Not that there aren’t other equally qualified campfire composers out there. There’s lots, actually. That’s the beautiful thing. My point is this: You probably won’t see me fill up a stadium arena anytime soon, or be invited to the Philharmonic to perform with a quartet of virtuoso violinists. (Actually, that sounds fun.) But really the place I fit best is around the campfire. A few chords, the crackle and my songs and story telling. I’m not saying I’m the perfect campfire troubadour, but the campfire is probably the place that I find my best fit.
The best thing about the campfire? Probably the copious crackling, as it goes a long way to covering up my many mistakes. Campfires are very forgiving in that way. It’s a lesson I’ve learned one campfire at a time.
The thing about being a folk star …
It doesn’t pay the bills.
Bobby Angel practicing before the campfire
For that I’ll have to rely on hydrology for the time being, if not the indefinitely into the future. But early on I also knew: It’s impossible to be a folk star first and then turn into a hydrologist later in life. And really, to be a nature-folk artist of any acclaim, I knew I needed to spend a solid twenty to thirty years (possibly forty to fifty) immersed in understanding all the ins and out of water before I could ever dare to write a song about about the watery stuff, let alone all the other societal ills that only a well-rendered folk song has any chance of making heal.
Am I serious? Probably not. Or maybe a little. The backstory on this song: I wrote it about 15 years ago, almost as an afterthought, and with barely any time to prepare. The protagonist of the song Krista gave us all of a week’s notice that she’d gotten a new job. One day after the next I put the song off until the hour before I scribbled a bunch of notes on the page with just as many cross outs as there was anything legible to read. To my shock, everyone loved it. The only problem was I couldn’t give Krista the lyrics because even I could barely read them myself. And so I typed them up and gave them to her before she left. As I said that was fifteen years ago, probably more with it not being until the last year that I found the lyrics and finally sang it again. And not just sing it, I recorded it and made a musical video. It wasn’t actually until the video that the song “really popped.”
As much as Krista was surprised by the song at the time (and happy to get a copy of the lyrics to hang on her wall), you can image her response when fifteen years later I sent her the video, plus a 15-minute follow up exclusive Bobby Angel interview about the song. Ballad of a Florida Panther would go on to be featured as the first song on Side B of my first album, New Pangaea, released on my website in 2000.
Morale of the story: Try to not wait 15 years before playing a song for a second time. On the other hand, in this case, it worked pretty good.
When does an album become an album?
Answer: When suddenly it clicks.
Listen to full album (above) or individual songs/interviews (below)
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On my most recent album that happened with the song Time to Retire. Although, to be honest, it took another month after that for me to realize that Time to Retire was the anchor (i.e. final) song. The reason? Sometimes things take a little while to sink in. Time to Retire is an ode to a long time botanist, ecologist, high seas explorer and my boss for the last three years that I’ve spent circling around the orb of hydrogen combustion better known as the sun. I was eternally grateful for the time I spent working with him, as he was what others often called as a “legend of the swamp.” But for me he was nothing other than a good friend, and someone who was as easy to connect with as he knew knew worlds beyond what I could ever comprehend. Or in other words, we we appreciated each other for what we knew, what we could bring to the table, and our potential — individually and collectively — for making a difference.
More about this album: It’s a dedication to a place and a journey. Getting there, staying, and moving away. I’m not saying that every song is about the Big Cypress. But what I can say is that every song was written and sun with the Big Cypress looming in my mind.
Special thanks to Geeta for helping bring it all together with a final campfire at the end. Hashtag: #PalletsWillBeBurned!
Stuck Inside of Oasis
A farewell song to Rudi Heinrich Words and music by Bobby Angel Live at the The Brass Tap July 27, 2019
Gators are splashing wildly down the end of the boardwalk I try to see what the problem is but a tourist stops me to talk. And the visitors politely ask me questions that can’t seem to wait, like “Do you keep those alligators in a cage?” to which I answer “No ma’am it’s me that can’t escape”
Oh, Joe Lord, can this really be the end to be stuck inside of Oasis with the cypress blues again
Well Campfire Charlie he’s up at the Alley, not too far from the Florida Trail speaking to wildcat geologist about some old abandoned wells.“ Just two miles down” says the wildcatter, “Is the age when the dinosaurs played” to which Charlie responds, “yes I fondly remember those days.”
Oh Guy Bradley can this really be the end, to be stuck inside of an old gas station with the cypress blues again
Airboaters glide south to Coconuts, buggies north to Calstones, while I’m stuck behind the front desk answering a landline phone. So me I sit so patiently, opening the cash register for change. The people are all from so many different places, but my job’s always the same
Oh, Sig Walker, can this really be the end to be stuck inside a glass cube with stuffed panther and the cypress blues again.
“Nobody owns the water man,” I heard that said before, if they gave me the keys to the kingdom I’d open up the water doors. And so I posted a message on the old social media line that went viral with a thousand nasty comments, maybe I’ll just post a photo of a bird the next time
Oh shit, I somehow did it again, all the while being stuck inside of the VC with the cypress blues again.
The skunk ape gave me two tips for living off the land: One was to lather up with Ochopee mosquitoes the other was to double fist water moccasins in both hands. And like a fool they bit me and it jumbled up my mind. Now the decades are all out of order which as a historian actually suites me fine
Oh, Joe Browder, can this really be the end, to be stuck inside an old hangar with the cypress blues again
The senator came down here to let everyone to kiss his ring and posing for a few group photo after a speech that promises everything. After all the confetti had fallen, and wouldn’t it be Rudi’s fate, to have been caught without a flat hat and not even get a piece of cake
Oh Art Marshall is this really the end, to be stuck around a bunch of dollar knickknacks with the cypress blues again
All the books upstairs in the Library, I’ve read them all twice or more, once for the information and the other times ‘cause I was bored. Yes, Reynold’s Sawmill Mill may look like ruins and Monroe Station burned the floor, but me I can see them so clearly just like in the good old days of yore
Oh Cap’n Turner can this really be the end to be stuck at the air conditioning with the cypress blues again
Five years passes in Orlando so Rudi returns to say hello. The cypress trees look the same, but most of the faces he no longer knows. And so he cried a tear that soaked deep into the peat and turned into sheet flow of understanding that the march of time is a one way street
Oh mama, no, it wasn’t the end and I miss being stuck Oasis, those were some of the best days I ever had!
Listen to the Stuck Inside of Oasis
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