Doreen by the River
This was written in May for a virtual friend, concertina Chris Drinkwater, whose wife has been bedridden for the last 16 months and will stay that way for the rest of her life. His love and realism and gentleness makes me cry. I wrote the first two measures driving up to Hot Springs, NC, where we stayed in a BnB on the bank of the French Broad river, which was in full flood - high, wide, rushing, and beautiful - and when we arrived I went outside to sit by the river and work the tune. After awhile I got an imagine of Doreen, in a large feather bed on the bank of the river, watching it flow. The tune then wrote itself in about a half hour.
Doreen died on September 25th, five days before Chris’s 75th birthday.
Doreen died on September 25th, five days before Chris’s 75th birthday.
