Amy Carol Webb: Music

• MP3 short clip, hi-fi play (broadband)
• MP3 short clip, lo-fi play (modem)

This banjo found me in Orlando at Florida Faux Fest 2007 – the year the community created music all over the state when our beloved Florida Folk Festival was postponed by fires. She called my name – and though I’d never played the banjo before, she gave me this song inside of thirty minutes on the way home in the van. Thank you, Elizabeth. ACW: Banjo & vocals.

Listen to this story, as it’s told, as it’s told
Of a way-farin’ woman with her old banjo
Singin’ truth to power, singin’ hope to pain
And never for one penny’s gain

Folks offered bed and breakfast, for her songs, for her songs
Though she never tarried still or lingered long
With her banjo in her hand and a voice well in command
She played Florida to Alabam’

Come every Sunday mornin’ when the spirit stirred
Folks gathered ‘round to hear her play
Songs of gratitude and grace, of mercy and of praise
Then in a blink she would just drift away


She could weave a spell around you, so they say so they say
I can tell you she’s still doin’ it today
Callin’ from the 1920’s, I can hear her plain
And Elizabeth Lineweaver is her name

As I’m standin’ here before you, listen for her voice
Bringin’ music on the Southeast wind
For this hundred-year-old banjo I now cradle in my hands
Is the one she cradled way back then

So when I first held this banjo, this I swear, this I swear
I could feel the music comin’ through the air
As you bear witness to my tale, hear her voice beyond the pale
It’s Elizabeth Lineweaver singin’ still

As you bear witness to my tale, hear her voice beyond the pale
It’s Elizabeth Lineweaver singin’ still

“Farther along we’ll know all about it
Farther along we’ll understand why
Cheer up my brother, live in the sunshine
We’ll understand it all bye and bye.”