LEGENDARY MAINE SINGER - SONGWRITER DAVE MALLETT DIED AT AGE SEVENTY-THREE

 

Coincidences, creating a strange connection with a person you don’t actually know, at pivotal times in your lifetime, can leave you with a feeling of kinship.

 

At forty-one years of age, my wife at twenty-eight, we bought an old farmhouse for ten thousand dollars.  We had no electricity, we carried our water from the creek behind the house, read by lamplight and heated with firewood – and became freshmen at the University of Maine.

One night after a late class we found there was to be entertainment at the commons.    That was the first time we heard Dave Mallett.

 

 

Just before graduation, we blanketed Alaska rural school districts with applications for teaching positions.  A week before graduation, we celebrated by making dinner reservations at 1 Stanley Avenue in Kingfield, Maine.  A historic old house, the owners prepared gourmet meals by reservation only for a limited number of guests.  After the meal, we went into the parlor and Dave Mallett and his bass player performed for ten of us.

A week later we loaded up in our small Toyota pickup, and as we pulled out of our yard headed for Alaska, I popped in a tape of Dave Mallett singing North to Alaska.

 

One summer we returned to New England on vacation and found Dave Mallett performing at a bar in Bar Harbor, Maine.

 

After teaching for eight years in the Alaska bush, we decided to return to the lower-forty-eight.   As we approached the border between Alaska and Yukon’s Alcan Highway, Alaska Public Radio announced a song by the Maine artist Dave Mallett, and as we physically left Alaska Dave Mallett was singing on our radio.

 

Several years later we returned to Maine.   The first summer back we attended the Common Ground Fair, one of the largest organic farming fairs in New England.  On the events list, we found that Dave Mallett was going to play that night.  So that night we got a blanket from our car, sat on the ground, and listened to Dave Mallet.

 

CELEBRATION

We have attended two other Dave Mallett concerts when he performed in our area.

 

Two nights ago, Dave Mallett died at his home at the age of seventy-three.

NOTHING BUT A LONG GOODBY

 

Though we never actually knew him, it has come as a shock to both my wife and I.

GOOD BY DAVE 

the Ol’Buzzard

 

THE PEOPLE IN CHARGE

 

 

 

Show me the people who control the money, the land and the weapons

and I will show you the people in charge

George Carlin

 

 

Put on your headphones 

the Ol'Buzzard

A BREAK FROM INSANITY

Dave Mallett is Maine's own ballad singer and song writer.   

My wife and I have a karmic experience with Dave Mallet.   We first heard him in 1982 when he played a concert at the University of Maine,where we were students.   

 In 1985 we were due to graduate, and to celebrate we went to an exclusive dinner at One Stanley Avenue, the home of the man who invented the Stanley Steamer.   After the dinner we went into the small living room and Dave Mallett and his base player played for our small group - a very personal experience.

A few weeks later we loaded our small Toyota truck and headed for Alaska.  As we pulled out of the driveway I plugged in a tape we had purchased at One Stanley Avenue and Dave Mallet sang us off with North to Alaska.   

Eight years later we left Alaska.   We were listening to Alaska Public Radio and at the exact moment we crossed the border from Alaska to North West Territory Dave Mallett came on the radio - my wife and I looked at each other in amazement.

Our first summer back in Maine we attended the Common Ground Fair, and that night, to our surprise, Dave Mallett was playing at the Fair Grounds.

Since that time we have attended concerts when ever Mallett played in our area.








We have all aged.






The music of Dave Mallett has marks some important moments in our life.
the Ol'Buzzard

CAPITALISM: THE DEATH OF THE ENVIRONMENT

GLOBAL WARMING: THERE IS NO ANSWER

BECAUSE

the Ol'Buzzard

GEORGE CARLIN IS SPEAKING FOR ME

He says exactly what I feel better than I can express it.



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Nothing can ever change for us - because we don't have control.

"It's a big club - and we're not in it." 

But in the end, the earth will out; and our puny little existence, and the Gods we have created in our image will all pass, and the earth will heal itself as if we never existed.

I don't have a dog in this fight any longer - I'm just an observer.
the Ol'Buzzard

FOR EVERYTHING THERE IS SEASON – AND A COST

Maine just ended one of the mildest winters in recorded weather history.   On January first I took my motorcycle out for a run, just to be able to say I have done it.    This winter I uses only a half tank of fuel oil and no more than one cord of wood for heat, saving me a grunch of money. 

But there is a price yet to be paid.  

Usually deep snow and zero and below temperatures kill off bug eggs and larva that were laid in the fall, somewhat moderating the spring hatch of midges, black flies, mosquitoes and now ticks (ticks are a new insect pest that have moved into Maine over the last thirty years.)

Even the normal bug season is a trial of endurance for anyone working or living in or near the woods.   But, this mild winter heralds a bug season of fearful proportion. 

 

An old Maine joke:   Two mosquitoes are carrying off a moose and one turns to the other and says ‘let’s not carry him into the woods or the big ones will take him.’

I have live in the southern swamps and in the arctic, and I can testify that the farther north you go the worse and more numerous the blood sucking bugs become. 

Henry David Thoreau visited Maine and wrote a book entitled The Maine Woods.   It is said he had to cut his trip short because of the ravenous Maine insects in the woods during the summer time. 

Dave Mallett (Maine’s folk singer) recently put out an album called Fable Truth, where he reads excerpts from Thoreau’s The Maine Woods – placing it to music.

Here is a selection called Camping.

There is a bug here in Maine we call a no-see-um.   It is often mistakenly classified as a midge.   They are so small they can come through a screen.   When you do see them they appear as a speck of ash floating in the air.   They are small but venomous little bastards - I have had bites from no-see-us swelled up like a hornet sting.  I swear if no-see-ums were the size of bumble bees the human race would be extinct in the north country.

I dedicate this post to No-see-ums.
the Ol'Buzzard

CRUM'S POST ON LOST IN THE BOZONE

Crum's post on Lost in the Bozone is about the real America and who actually runs everything.

I think Dave Mallett ( Maine's song writer/singer)  also voiced it well.  Check out the link below


TEN MEN

IF YOU LIKE MALLET'S  FIRST CUT THEN STAY CONNECTED FOR THE NEXT, AND NEXT, AND ...

the Ol'Buzzard

BILLIONAIRES

THIS IS WHO REALLY RUNS THIS COUNTRY

They bought it a long time ago. 

Dave Mallett Maine Folk singer.

You might want to watch it once, then close your eyes and listen to it.

I couldn't say it any better
 the Ol'Buzzard

THE MEETING OF THE BILLIONAIRES

the Ol'Buzzard

THE NORTH MEETS SOUTH

Dave Mallett is the Maine troubadour.  He is a ballad writer and singer probably best known for the Garden song:  Inch by inch – Row by row – gonna make this garden grow….

When President Obama was elected in 2009 Dave wrote a song of hope – of coming together and working together – putting aside partisanship for the good of the country – a new beginning.   

Unfortunately this didn’t happen.   The worst in man reared its head and determined to obscure the milestone of the election of our first African American President

Now President Obama has been re-elected resoundingly, and we can only hope that inroads to cooperation can be reached: and the North can finally meet the South.

Check out Dave Mallett's web site

the Ol'Buzzard

ONE MORE FROM DAVE MALLETT

In this song  Mallett sings about the greed and avarice that drives our economy and destroys our ecosystem.

Enjoy

the Ol'Buzzard

THE STRANGE CONNECTION TO DAVE MALLETT

When I retired from the Navy my military background didn't translate to a civilian job.  I had to retrain or begin working manual labor at age 42.   My wife and I decided that we would both attend college and major in education.   As there was no GI Bill available for me at that time, the only way this was possible was to down-scale our life style.  

We bought a house in the woods in north-western Maine for $9,999 (the sellers came down one dollar.)   It was an old, run down – but structurally sound 1832 farmhouse at the end of a two mile dirt road.   The house had been used off and on as a hunting camp for over forty years and there was no electricity, running water or sewerage.   We had to let our Chevy van go but kept the motorcycle which was paid for.  We worked on the house over the summer to make it livable.  

The garden was our second year

When we started school in the spring we were heating with wood, hauling water from the creek behind the house for drinking, cooking and bathing.   At night we would come home, gather standing dead wood from the woods in front of the house, start the fire , cook supper and then zip up in sleeping bags to study by lamp light for our classes.  

The old house and our winter transportation

 

During that first year Dave Mallett played at the commons area at the university, and my wife and I attended.   We were immediately hooked.   Dave Mallett is the quintessential Mainer and his music speaks to life in rural Maine.  

Four years later  (still living in the farmhouse - much improved, but still without lights, water or plumbing) to celebrate our graduation we made reservations for dinner  at a historic, in-home restaurant in a village 25 miles north of the college.   We were surprised when we arrived that Dave Mallet had been booked to play.   There were only twelve guest and Dave played for us in the small living room while we guest sat in the few chairs and on the floor – a very intimate setting.

The day we pulled out for Alaska in our new Toyota truck I had a cassette of Dave Mallett cued for his rendition of North to Alaska. 

North to Alaska

Four years later we vacationed back in Maine, traveling up to Bangor and then to Bar Harbor.   Our first night in Bar Harbor we went to a bar and restaurant and Dave Mallett was entertaining.    

We left Alaska after teaching for nine years in the Eskimo and Indian villages, and as we crossed the border into Canada they were playing Dave Mallett on the PBS radio station.  

After living for six years in Kentucky we returned to Maine.  In that first September we attended the Common Ground Fair, and that night Dave Mallett was playing.   We have seen him a half a dozen time since then at small performances around Maine. 

Most of Mallett’s songs are about Maine; however, after Obama was elected President Dave released this song: This is Where the North Meets South. 

It is a song of hope and healing – a new beginning for the country – but unfortunately it didn’t evolve.

 the Ol'Buzzard