Blue Wing, Rustic Acoustic By Gerry Hubbard

 Blue Wing, Tom Russell, By Gerry Hubbard

He had a blue wing tattooed on his shoulder
Might have been a blue bird I don't know
He’d get stone drunk and talk about Alaska
Salmon boats and 45 below

He got that blue wing in jail in Walla Walla
And his cellmate there was Little Willy John
Willy he was once a great blues singer
And winging Willy wrote him up this song.

He said it's dark in here; can't see the sky
But I look at this blue wing and I close my eyes
And I fly away,  beyond these walls
Up above the clouds, where the rain don’t fall
On a poor man's dreams.

They paroled Blue Wing in August,  1963
And he moved on picking apples to the town of Wenatchee
Til the winter finally caught him in a run down trailer park
On the South side of Seattle,  where the days are cold and dark

And he drank and he dreamed a vision when the salmon still ran free
And his father’s father crossed that wide Bering sea
And the land belonged to everyone,  there were still old songs to sing
Now it's narrowed down to a cheap hotel and a tattooed prison wing

He said it's dark in here; can't see the sky
But I look at this blue wing and I close my eyes
And I fly away,  beyond these walls
Up above the clouds where the rain don’t fall
On a poor man's dreams.

Well he drank his way to LA, that's where he died
And no one knew his Christian name,  there was no one there to cry
But I heard  there was a funeral, with a  preacher and an old pine box
Half way through the service, Blue wing began to talk.

He said it's dark in here; can't see the sky
But I look at this blue wing and I close my eyes
And I fly away,  beyond these walls
Up above the clouds where the rain don’t fall
On a poor man's dreams.

Kicked By Cow Talking Blues, Three Chords One Take And To Hell With It

Kicked By Cow Talking Blues, Three Chords One Take And To Hell With It

Kicked, Original By Gerry Hubbard

“Paul’s been kicked”, Aunt Madeline said, through the old crank phone we had
“A window’s broke, an artery’s cut and he’s bleeding pretty bad.”

“He was in the barn just doing chores, gettin’ milk ready to send
When he got kicked through a window by that Ayeshire on the end.”

So Mom came running to our barn where we were milking cows
And said, “LaVerne, go get the car, Paul needs a doctor now!”

So we pulled off the milk machines, shut down the vacuum pump
And in a fifty-one green Chevy, both of us did jump

We made the mile to Uncle Earle’s, the peddle to the floor
And came up fast to a skidding stop beside the red barn door

Paul was there beside the barn, both arm’s were wrapped in white
We could see the bright blood seeping through and his eyes and lips were tight

“I should’ve killed her long ago”, he said with a rueful grin
“That bitch gets out and kicks like hell now see the shape I’m in.”

The nearest doc in Middleburg was twenty-miles away
And we’ve never drove that Guinea road as fast as on that day

We took him to Doc Lyons, got his bone deep cuts all stitched
And he mostly said on the ride back home, “I’m gonna kill that bitch”

But he healed fast and has the scars and he never killed that cow
But I’ll bet it all comes back to him when he thinks about it now

That summer night, the shattered glass, those bruised and bloody arms
And the times that only can be had by working on a farm

And I bet he shares with a lot of us a kind of soothing fact.
If you’re raised up on a dairy farm, life’s easy after that.

Life Is Fleeting: The Death Of Charles Hubbard, Original By Gerry Hubbard

Life Is Fleeting: The Death Of Charles Hubbard, Original By Gerry Hubbard

"Charles Hubbard of Sidney died, drawing ice from the river, caught under sleigh runners."...death notice in Sidney, NY newspaper around 1900.....

Just fourteen words complete it 
The ending of a life
No mention of a father
Of children or a wife


Chorus: About a hundred years ago
From a river hauling ice
Charles Hubbard slipped and fell
And ended then his life.

It might have been a sunny day
Or one deluged with snow 
Or just with winter’s keen cold breath
I guess we’ll never know 


Chorus: About a hundred years ago
From a river hauling ice
Charles Hubbard slipped and fell
And ended then his life.

I smell the sweating horses
Hear creaking of a sleigh
As Charles tugged and held the lines
The last time on that day


Chorus: About a hundred years ago
From a river hauling ice
Charles Hubbard slipped and fell
And ended then his life.

It might have been a patch of ice
A small uneven dip
That caused the team to buck and lunge
And start that fatal slip

Chorus: About a hundred years ago
From a river hauling ice
Charles Hubbard slipped and fell
And ended then his life.


Chorus: About a hundred years ago
From a river hauling ice
Charles Hubbard slipped and fell
And ended then his life.

Getting The Cows Talking Blues Gerry Hubbard

Getting The Cows Talking Blues Gerry Hubbard

Getting The Cows Talking Blues  Gerry Hubbard

Getting The Cows Talking Blues  

Co’ Bos, Cooo’ Bos”, we used to call when the cows weren’t at the gate
At the hilltop just below our house, when we were running late
If they weren’t there, we’d walk and run by the “crik” bed up the hill
Through sparkling dew, wet wild flowers and the song bird’s morning trill

Getting up at six o’clock in the morning sun or rain
We had to get the cows and milk before the school bus came
Our cow dog Prince, would bark and swing his broken leg around
As we worked the cows out through the trees and brought them slowly down

The old cow path’s were there before first mule and wagon tracks
And settlers planted buckwheat all through the hills out back
Began by Indians hunting game all through those rolling hills
And I bet in just a little while, I could find them for you still

But we never thought of that back then as we strived to get chores done
Just tried to get those damned cows milked, then school and have some fun
Because the girls were miles away except for those in school
So village kids thought school a drag but rural kids thought it cool

Johnny Goodmonk rode for hours on an old gray Ford farm tractor
To court the girls out in the hills and get what he was after
And so the spring and summer days rolled smoothly into fall
And every day we brought the cows inside and milked them all

One time in school, a teacher said, trying to wound my pride
“Whoever smells like cow manure, I wish you’d go outside.”
I left the class and slowly said, “It’s true I’ve stepped in shit,”
But it’s only on the outside, but you, you’re full of it.”

Prof bounced me from the school again and this time not for smoking
To say teachers were full of it was pretty much verboten
So I got a school vacation for two late warm springtime days
When I got up each morning, guess what I had to say

You guessed it, “Co Bos, Co Bos” to get the cows to come
And then I worked for two full days hard labor on that farm
But I guess I learned a lesson as I stayed from school those days
Nothing’s often good to do, and always good to say.

Jet Trails Talking Blues: Un-empathetic Version Gerry Hubbard

Jet Trails Talking Blues: Un-empathetic Version Gerry Hubbard

Jet Trails Talking Blues: Un-empathetic Version

I was working in the milk house singing “Seven Lonely Days”
When I heard my first jet aircraft flying by
I think it was the Saber Jets from the SAC base out in Rome
That left those crisp white contrails in the sky

And after that I seemed to hear and see jet planes a lot
When the mountain skies were cloudless blue & clear
And I thought it must be always clean and cool up in that plane
While we worked in dust and grease and dirt down here.

I recall the old Case baler and a sea of seed and dust
As we pulled those “blocks” and pushed those wires through
And I’d see the long jet contrails like the white foam on the sea
And there had to be  a better job to do.

I was “Leaving On A Jet Plane” long before the song was sung
As  the summer  gnats & horse flies  buzzed my head
“Where  the rain never falls and the sun always shines”
Was a lyric still unwritten in the attic in my bed.

“Away and westward bound, high above the clouds she’ll fly”
Was a thought that seemed to help us while we toiled
In the winter in the snow, in the spring time cool & wet
In the summer when the dust & hayseed boiled.

Now when I fly and see the country roll out far below
And I think of those old hard days on the farm
I don’t look back in anger, I just always look ahead
And realize it didn’t do us harm

And I wonder if there’s not some kid who’s watching us fly by
And he’s stuck there doing some damn dirty task
And he wishes somehow someway he was up here in this plane
And then I think…

“Tough shit, son, kiss my ass.

“I got out by driving truck and digging’ lot’s of ditch,

So if you want out, just suck it up and do your own damn bit.”

Winter Mornings, Gerry Hubbard

Winter Mornings, Gerry Hubbard

Winter Mornings  Original by Gerry Hubbard

We boys slept in the attic on that Catskill Mountain Farm
And though the rain and snow blew in it seemed to cause no harm
We’d get up winter mornings, shake the snow off of our beds
Then grab our clothes and run downstairs where that old wood stove was fed

We’d dress as fast as young kids could, we pulled on several layers
And “Sword Of The Lord” from the radio blared out those Baptist prayers
Mom would bake some pancakes, fry up some ham and eggs
Then we brushed our teeth in the kitchen sink from the brushes hung on pegs

The only running water from the hand pump by the sink
We used to wash ourselves and cook and fill the pail to drink
We finally put a bathroom in when I was seventeen
But with ceiling low, you had to squat to get remotely clean

When younger, all us kids would group around the kitchen stove
And huddle by the oven, as smells of wood smoke wove
All through the house and smells of ham and pancakes filled the air
I close my eyes, recall it all, it’s like I’m standing there

Marilyn fell flat-palmed one time upon that sizzling iron
And burned her hands with blisters while the rest of us looked on
She couldn’t balance, put her hands down several times at least
Till Mother finally grabbed her and salved her hands with grease

Those winter mornings come to me in Ohio winter’s cold
And seem to keep their clarity even as I grow more old
And the fireplace that burns with gas in our modern family room
Sure a hell beats that old stove on that run-down family farm.

Orrin Hubbard's Suicide

Orrin Hubbard's Suicide

Sidney, New York. Orrin Hubbard, about 52, shot himself in Sidney, brother of Mrs. Joseph Dingman of Prattsville...Death Notice December 19, 1900


Orrin Hubbard shot himself at Sidney in New York.
I wonder what the pressures were that made him pull the cork.

Was it the booze or opium, back then the drugs of choice,
That made him do that final act to forever still his voice.

Undated is his nephew’s death ’neath runners of a sleigh.
I wonder if that accident got to him in some way.

We’ll never really know, it’s far beyond our minds to figure,
To conjure up that small last straw that made him pull the trigger.

So Orrin Hubbard ended all his pain and tears and strife,
And Orrin Hubbard took a gun, and then he took his life.

I guess man’s minds' the only thing that takes the world unleavened,
Then cooks a heaven into hell or a hell into a heaven.