Berea by Rainbow Star from Berea, Ky United States

The first single on MFTRSP: Volume I. A music video featuring my lovely hometown can be found on YouTube.
Warren May, Berea's own nationally acclaimed dulcimer maker, challenged me to write "A Berea song... a Kentucky song," in his dulcimer shop one day. I walked out of the shop and ran into a friend, a constant occurrence in this teeny town. That evening, as I sat plucking my banjo dulcimer, voice ringing off the hills in my little holler, the chorus arrived.
A choir of friends joined Sam and I at the geodesic dome we recorded in, on Pine Valley Drive, mentioned in this song, which my father named in the 80's. One singer was a childhood neighbor who still lived in Pine Valley Drive.
The circles in life do get smaller and smaller as one gets older.

Lyrics
My daddy named little Pine Valley Drive
It wound round the mountain my first years alive
Well, I grew up amid the hills
Down in a valley where our mama raised our food
All in the creek all day, my sisters and me
Oh, we never knew how good, just how good
No, we never knew how good, just how good

(Chorus)
Oh, Berea
In the fertile ground is where they'll lay me down
In the place that I home
Oh, Kentucky
Don't ya know I'm feelin' pretty lucky when
I'm findin' friends on every street I roam
Oh, sweet home
Home sweet home

When I was nine, the family business got closed down
And dad heard some whispers from people in town
And I will never forget it, that hot summer day
They ed us all round the table, said we're moving away
They ed us all round the table, and we're moving away

Chorus

So I grew up in the suburbs, went to college in the city
Did some travelin' overseas, but it didn't sway me
'Cause at the end of the day I ran back to my forest
To my old Kentucky hills, and I never want to leave again

Chorus

Release date
August 18, 2018

Record label
Rainbow Sparkle Palace Studios