(3.5) CAPT. ERIKA: 2013 Florida Folk Festival: "Crooked River With Big Old Trees, Ocklawaha, Set Her Free"

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

http://vimeo.com/101115659

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.