Plank Road Folk Music Society

Autumn - October 2023| www.plankroad.org

Fox Valley Folk Festival returns!

Live and in-person over Labor Day weekend

As we enjoy our participation in Plank Road activities, we all understand that there are people behind the scenes making these things happen. One of the most valuable of these is Bill Lemos. Much of what he does is “behind the scenes,” and some is right in front of you, like being the editor of our QuarterNotes newsletter.  

Jimmy Buffett

He was a singer, sailor, songwriter, author and entrepreneur. Jimmy Buffett, whose brand of island escapism on hits like “Margaritaville” and “Cheeseburger in Paradise” made him something of a folk hero, died September 1 at age 76.

Buffett’s genial, self-deprecating songs conjured a world of sun, salt water and nonstop parties, animated by the calypso country-rock of his Coral Reefer Band. His live shows were a perennial draw on the summer concert circuit, where he built an ardent fan base. 

No place was more important to his career than Key West. He first visited the island at the urging of Jerry Jeff Walker, his sometime songwriting and drinking partner, after a gig fell through in the early 1970s.

“When I found Key West and the Caribbean, I wasn’t really successful yet,” Buffett said. “But I found a lifestyle, and I knew that whatever I did would have to work around my lifestyle.”

Those locations also led to the creation of a tropical-themed business empire that included a restaurant franchise, a hotel chain, boutique tequila, T-shirt and footwear lines — all of which made him a millionaire many times over. Forbes has estimated his net worth at $1 billion.

Buffett was born in Mississippi. He flunked out of Auburn University and later attended the University of Southern Mississippi. He also began performing in local nightclubs. He graduated with a degree in history in 1969 before moving to New Orleans and playing in a cover band on Bourbon Street.

in 1970 He moved to Nashville, hoping to make it as a country singer while working as a journalist for Billboard magazine. (Buffett was credited with breaking the story about the disbanding of the pioneering bluegrass duo Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs.) 



In 1985 Buffett opened the first of his many Margaritaville stores. That was the year his bass player Timothy B. Schmit (who later became a member of the Eagles) coined the term “Parrot Heads” to describe Mr. Buffett’s legion of fans — most of whom were baby boomers.

Sinead O’Connor



Sinead O’Connor, who courted controversy throughout her long career, died July 26 at age 56. She rose to fame with her 1990 rendition of the Prince song “Nothing Compares 2 U,” which hit No. 1 that year. 

O'Connor, who was born in Dublin, made as many headlines for her activism and provocations as she did for her music. 

In 1991 she said she would boycott the Grammy awards, claiming the Recording Academy awarded artists based on commercial success. In October 1992, she infamously tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II and said "Fight the real enemy," as she performed as a musical guest on Saturday Night Live. She said the move was in protest of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church — and was met with an onslaught of high-profile criticism, including by the Anti-Defamation League. “I’m not sorry I did it. It was brilliant,” O’Connor said in 2021. “But it was very traumatizing.”

In her lengthy career, she released 10 studio albums, kicking off with her 1987 alternative rock debut, “The Lion and the Cobra.” Even though she declared that she was not a mainstream pop star, she was nominated for several Grammys and won for best alternative music performance for “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got” in 1991. 

Her 17-year-old son, Shane O’Connor, died of an apparent suicide last year. She announced his passing in January 2022. For much of her career, she spoke candidly and openly about her spiritual life, political views and struggles with mental health, which she detailed in her 2021 memoir, Rememberings. 

In 2018, O'Connor converted to Islam and changed her name to Shuhada.

Robbie Robertson

The Band’s lead guitarist and songwriter, Robbie Robertson, died August 9 at age 80. His classic songs, including “The Weight,” “Up On Cripple Creek” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” helped reshape American music.

Robertson was born Jaime Royal Robertson in Toronto in 1943. His mother was a member of the Mohawk Indian tribe, and Robertson became interested in playing music as a child on the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario.

He played guitar in high school bands in his early teens, and at age 16 joined The Hawks, the backup band for American rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins. It was there Robertson met the band’s drummer and musical director, American Levon Helm, and fellow Canadian bandmembers, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson

In 1964, they struck out on their own. And a year later legendary manager Albert Grossman signed Robertson to be guitarist for Bob Dylan. The group soon became Dylan’s touring band (minus Helm for most dates) during Dylan’s tumultuous first electric tour.

Following the tour, Dylan went into seclusion with his family in Woodstock, NY after a serious motorcycle accident. In early 1967, the group, still minus Helm, rented a pink ranch house in Woodstock where they began informal recording sessions with Dylan, known as the “basement tapes,” at “Big Pink” and at Dylan’s nearby home.

In 1967 they reunited with Helm and the “Hawks” became “The Band.” They signed with Capital Records and in 1968, shot to fame with their first two albums, Music From Big Pink and The Band.

The music was “distinctly at odds with the commercial currents of the day.” Their second album, climbed to No. 9 and solidified the group’s reputation. The rollicking “Up On Cripple Creek” (sung by Helm), became a No. 25 hit, while the Civil War narrative, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” was taken to No. 3 by Joan Baez in 1971. 

Drawing from a stream of genres it had a huge influence on American roots musicians. The mood of their music was “intimate, the lyrics alternately playful, cryptic and yearning, drawn from blues, gospel, folk and country music.” 

However, The Band began to flag creatively in the mid-70s due to its members’ escalating substance abuse problems, and Robertson effectively disbanded the group with The Last Waltz, an extravagant, all-star 1976 concert in San Francisco — captured on film by Martin Scorsese and released as a documentary in 1978.   

Robertson continued to perform as a solo artist, and worked with Scorsese as composer, music supervisor, and music producer on many other Scorsese films, including the soon-to-be-released Killers of the Flower Moon. 

Robertson and The Band were inducted into Canada's Music Hall of Fame in 1989 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. They received a lifetime achievement award in 2008.

Garth Hudson is the only surviving member. Manuel committed suicide during a 1986 tour, Danko died in 1999, and Helm in 2012.  

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Plank Road Folk Music Society

Questions? Please send us an email at:

plankroadfolk@hotmail.com