The Making of High Wide & Handsome Part 4 - Rowena

This song has quite a history. Loudon’s maternal grandfather, Walter Talbot, wrote a sheaf of love letters to Rowena Long, the woman who became Loudon’s maternal grandmother.  Evidently she found them convincing, and it’s a good thing, too, for all presently concerned.  Anyway, Loudon came upon the letters when he went through his mother’s effects after she died. They had been typed up by his Aunt Peggy, Rowena’s older sister. Loudon was so moved by the plain spoken yet passionate nature of his grandfather’s plea (not to mention the part it played in his personal history) that he wrote a song based on the language of the letters. When he played it for me, I had the temerity to suggest a line change, which, to my gratification, he incorporated. Encouraged, I later added another couple lines, but the song is really mostly Loudon out of Walter. A few years later, when we began working on High Wide & Handsome, we noticed that letters as a means of communication figured prominently in Poole’s repertoire. We immediately felt that this letter song, both dating from and in the epistolary style of Charlie’s time, fit in perfectly with the project.  

- Dick Connette

Rowena Long - ca. 1910	The Taylor family in 1928, Walter and Rowena with Loudon's mother, Martha, front, 2nd from left, and his Aunt Peggy, back, right

For more information contact Matt Hanks or Nick Loss-Eaton at Shore Fire Media (718) 522-7171
mhanks@shorefire.com nlosseaton@shorefire.com