falling in love – Highway 80 Stories

“Tybee Island”

LOCATION: Tybee Island, Georgia
PERIOD: Summer of 1968
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Ruthann Robison (1951); Billy Wainwright

Ruthann Robison (1951) was a paternal aunt of Pearl Robison (1973) but instead of Conyers, Georgia, Ruthann grew up in Savannah.

This song describes a weekend in the summer of 1968 when a seventeen-year-old Ruthann and her boyfriend Billy Wainwright spent a romantic night on Tybee Island. Ruthann and Billy would go on to marry and have three kids, Pearl’s cousins.

Depending upon your orientation, Tybee Island is either the terminus or starting point of Highway 80, which at one time ran continuously from Tybee Island to San Diego, California. During the 1960s, US 80 was decommissioned west of Dallas.

TYBEE ISLAND
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

Billy Wainwright was from Savannah
Ruthann Robison was his girlfriend
July ’68 they took East 80
And drove to the highway’s end

Billy built a fire near the lighthouse
As shadows began to grow
They shared a bottle of Mateus
And sang songs like “Ode to Billy Joe”

On Tybee Island, Tybee Island
The waves sparkle like diamonds
The sand on the beach
The salt and the sea
Billy picked a Georgia peach on Tybee Island

Ruthie spread out the tattered blanket
That Billy kept in that old truck
They talked underneath the starlight
Until the sun came up

On Tybee Island, Tybee Island
The waves sparkle like diamonds
The sand on the beach
The salt and the sea
Billy picked a Georgia peach on Tybee Island

Ruthann said she wanted ten children
Billy told her all his deepest dreams
They kissed and the world stopped spinning
That’s how love is when you’re seventeen

On Tybee Island, Tybee Island
The waves sparkle like diamonds
The sand on the beach
The salt and the sea
Billy picked a Georgia peach on Tybee Island
The sand on the beach
The salt and the sea
He picked a Georgia peach on Tybee Island

© 2020 Frank David Leone, Jr./Highway 80 Music (ASCAP). The songs and stories on the Highway 80 Stories website are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

“A River Runnin’ Wild”

LOCATION: North Georgia mountains
PERIOD: Early 1933
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Clara Sprague Robison (1911-1993); Johnny Campbell (1905-1944)

This story takes place in the north Georgia mountains, early 1933. Clara Sprague Robison (1911-1993) sees her future husband, Johnny Campbell (1905-1944), at church one Sunday. Clara had met Johnny before, but only briefly, and she knew he lived off the mountain. The fact that he came to her church, as opposed to the one he regularly attended, was significant to her, letting her know that he made the trip specifically to see her.

Clara is the great-grandaunt of Pearl Robison. Clara and Johnny would have three children, Marcus, Nora, and Emily, before Johnny is killed in WWII.

A RIVER RUNNIN’ WILD
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

Johnny came to Clara’s church that Sunday,
Him on the mountain was a surprise
She’d have to walk right past him
Lord she thought she just might die

She seen the look in his eye
Like there was no one, just them two
Something rose up in her heart
Like a river runnin’ wild busting loose

Johnny touched his new wool cap
As Clara hurried past him up the steps
All through the preachin’ she felt his eyes
On the back of her neck

She seen the look in his eye
Like there was no one, just them two
Something rose up in her heart
Like a river runnin’ wild busting loose

Soon as the service was over
Clara felt her face burnin’ red
Johnny took her hand, they went walkin’
She couldn’t tell you a word of what they said

She seen the look in his eye
Like there was no one, just them two
Something rose up in her heart
Like a river runnin’ wild busting loose

© 2018 Frank David Leone, Jr./Highway 80 Music (ASCAP). The songs and stories on the Highway 80 Stories website are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

“Lamar and Katherine Fall in Love”

LOCATION: Tuscaloosa, Montgomery, Alabama
PERIOD: 1928-1931
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Katherine George (1910); Lamar Hooper (1907-1969)

After Katherine pulled one of her disappearing acts, Lamar followed and found her in Tuscaloosa. She’d been partying with a bunch of college kids, living life large. This was 1928, and for a couple of years, this was their life which was typical during the “Jazz Age.”

But since all good things must come to an end, so did this in October 1929, and The Depression.

Kathy and Lamar did what most young people do when trouble finds them: they went home, to Montgomery. There Lamar went to work at his father’s mill, and Katherine settled into the life as wife and mother.

LAMAR AND KATHERINE FALL IN LOVE
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

Lamar finally found Katherine;
On a barge, partyin’
Been goin’ for a couple of weeks;
It was nineteen and twenty eight;
Th’ height of the Jazz Age;
They hardly stop’d to eat or sleep.
Ain’ the way it’s spose to happen, but it did;
They fell in love.

Hung ‘roun Tuscaloosa awhile
Livin’ large, goin’ wild;
Drinkin’ too much, makin’ new friends.
Katherine led and Lamar tagged along,
Out every night dusk to dawn;
Burning their candle at both ends.
They were young, just a coupla kids;
When they fell in love.

You don’t choose,
The one who’ll break your heart;
All you can do,
Is play a little part.
Tha’s why they call it fallin’ when it does;
You’re in love.

Lamar made a little bootleg shine,
But didn’t drink at all this time;
Katherine was known for her fig preserves.
She called him Pop, he called her Mother;
Had one child after another,
After three Kath still had her curves.
They were young, but no longer kids;
And they were in love.

You don’t choose,
The one who’ll break your heart;
All you can do,
Is play a little part.
Tha’s why they call it fallin’ when it does;
You’re in love.

© 2025 Frank David Leone, Jr./Highway 80 Music (ASCAP). The songs and stories on the Highway 80 Stories website are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

“Miss Lucy Keith”

LOCATION: Vicksburg, MIssissippi
PERIOD: 1853-1925
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Lucy Calhoun Keith (1864-1919); Cowan “Dusty” Cooper (1853-1925)

During the latter half of the 19th century shaped note singing became very popular. Singing schools were found all though the South, and singing conventions would be held for three days at a time, or even as long as a week. These events were part of what has been called The Great Awakening in which revivals or camp meetings were held where, along with the preaching, much singing would take place.

This song is about the great-great-grandparents of Lucy Cooper (1980-2015), Cowan “Dusty” Cooper (1843-1925) and Lucy Calhoun Keith (1859-1919). They were an unlikely match since Cowan was a ne’er-do-well and more than 15 years older, while Miss Lucy Keith was a dignified young lady, the heir to her father’s banking fortune. But they happened to meet at an opportune moment.

Because Lucy was a somewhat intimidating lady, suitors had never succeeded in winning her hand, and by now seven years had elapsed since she had attained marriageable age. At the same time, it was 1885, Cowan Cooper had become dissatisfied with his life as an itinerant gambler and con-man and was ripe for change.

After becoming aware of Miss Lucy Keith, and seeing that she was strikingly beautiful, and destined to become rich, Cowan began to make himself available wherever she might be, including one of these camp meetings. Although at first his motives might not have been exactly honorable, that changed rather quickly.

They officially met at a group singing event held by the river in Vicksburg, Mississippi. As he joined in the singing, Cowan felt himself being born again and from then on he and Lucy Keith began courting seriously. Cowan grew into a proper gentleman and eventually met with the approval of Old Man Keith, who took him on at the bank.

Cowan and Lucy married, raised three children, and lived happily together for 32 years.

MISS LUCY KEITH
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

I buried Lucy yesterday
After thirty-two years together
But I am getting ahead of myself
I mean to tell you how I met her

My name is Cowan Cooper
Been a grifter my whole life
I was making a pretty good living
With cards and dice

I come from Jackson, Mississippi
Born in 1843
But I cared nothing about
Preserving the Union or slavery

While other boys fought and died
I bought myself out of the war
Dealt poker in a Vicksburg saloon
And lived with a whore

I met Lucy in 1885
By then the war was twenty years gone
I was tired of the gambler’s life
But it’s all I’d ever known

Miss Lucy Keith was the talk of Vicksburg
Her flashing green eyes and long red hair
They said she can look right through you
Made you feel like you weren’t even there

I was intrigued by this young lady
And would appear wherever she went
Until one night I found myself
At a camp meeting, under a tent

Now I was raised up in the church
But learned more songs in less sacred places
There was a feeling in that tent
A light radiated from all the faces

I sat down next to Miss Lucy Keith
She kindly indicated to me the hymn
We shared a Sacred Harp
Leaned in close and sang “Jerusalem”

I can’t explain what came over me
The singing mixed with Miss Lucy Keith’s perfume
From the fragile scent of lilac
I felt myself rising up in the room

In the weeks after that night
I was often seen with Miss Lucy Keith
My former friends couldn’t understand
And stared at me with disbelief

I threw away my cards and dice
Having no use anymore for them
A wretch such as I had been saved
When Lucy Keith and I sang “Jerusalem”

So now you’ve heard my story
And it’s all I have to tell
I walked away that old hymn book
Somewhere, it’s sitting on my shelf

Those shaped notes may be old-fashioned
I hope there’s still some power left in them
Save your old Sacred Harps
My life was changed when I sang “Jerusalem”

“Levi Motts Is My Name”

LOCATION: Northwest Louisiana
PERIOD: 1864
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Levi Motts (1843-1864); Coleman Broussard (1842-1910); Ruby Robison (1845-1933); Pearl Robison (1864-1944)

Mustering out of Monroe, Louisiana Levi and his cousin Coleman Broussard joined up with in Colonel Henry Gray’s brigade, the Louisiana Gray’s. It did not take them long to find their way to the burgeoning red light district of Shreveport. There Levi met and took up with one of the young sporting girls there, Ruby Robison. Cole was also smitten and Ruby seeing Levi for what he was, a rake and leaky vessel for her to place her future, encouraged Cole in his romantic dreams. They were a inseparable trio, the two kinsmen and the beautiful and fragile young whore hedging her bets, so to speak.

Despite Coleman’s obvious romantic aspirations, Ruby couldn’t deny her stronger feelings for Levi. Defying the conventions of the time she and Levi made plans for marriage as soon as the war was over. However, the Louisiana Grays were called up to confront the Union troops already marching towards Louisiana after conquering Vicksburg. Gray’s brigade is one of the units in Gen. Robert Taylor’s army tasked with stopping the Trans-Mississippi Campaign of Nathaniel Bank’s invading force at Mansfield.

While the Battle of Mansfield was a Confederate victory, Levi Motts was one of only about a hundred Southern men who died there on April 8, 1864. When he went into battle, Levi knew that Ruby was pregnant with their child. This child, a girl Ruby named Pearl, is born in late December of 1864. Because of her illegitimate status Pearl chose to use the name Robison for most of her life.

LEVI MOTTS IS MY NAME
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

Levi Motts is my name
Come from Northwest Louisiana
I joined up with Colonel Gray
He said be ready to march today
Don’t know when I’ll be back again
If this war will ever end

Ruby Robison is my gal
Keeps a room down in the bottoms
We talked of gettin’ out of there
Make a new life anywhere
Don’t know when I’ll be back again
If this war will ever end

Ruby wrote me a letter
We were waitin’ outside Mansfield
Wrote there’s a baby on the way
We fought the Yankees April Eighth
Don’t know when I’ll be back again
If this war will ever end

Levi Motts is my name
Come from Northwest Louisiana
Lead ball went through my neck
That afternoon I bled to death
Don’t know when I’ll be back again
If this war will ever end

© 2017 Frank David Leone, Jr./Highway 80 Music (ASCAP). The songs and stories on the Highway 80 Stories website are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

“Pearl and Jake”

LOCATION: Shreveport, Louisiana; Fort Worth, Texas
PERIOD: January, 2010-May, 2015
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Pearl Boone Robison (1973); Jacob “Jake” Tyler McLemore (1959).

In 1973 Pearl Robison was born in Conyers, Georgia but we first meet Pearl when she is managing a dollar store in Macon. One January day in 2010, sitting in her car before opening up, she decides to leave town and head west on U.S. 80 (see song, “Between Here and Gone“).

She ends up in Shreveport, Louisiana, when she stops at an all night diner and Jake McLemore enters her life. They live together for five years before Pearl’s wanderlust overtakes her again and she leaves, this time heading for Fort Worth (see song, “Pearl + Jake“). She does not know at the time that she is pregnant, but when she discovers this fact, she waits almost two years before deciding it is best to let Jake know he is a father (see song “Terrell”)

She gives birth in 2015 to a baby girl whom she names Sadie Jo Robison, after her parents, Jason Jones Robison and Sadie Boone. Pearl and Jake get married in 2018 and raise Sadie Jo together.

PEARL AND JAKE
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

Snowed all day in Macon when Pearl left for the last time
Al’bam, Mizsippy, Luziana; Georgia felt far enough behind
Creosote, cottonseed, Shree’port – hit her like a cinder block
Lights of an all-nite diner; Pearl coasted to a stop

Jake behind the counter, white apron little paper hat
Slid some coffee before her, quiet as an alley cat
Pearl pulled a pint from somewhere, tipped it over her cup
Jake lit a cigarette; the sun came up

Lovin’ her is what he meant to do
Even if it broke his heart in two
He played life like a game of horseshoes
Ah, but, lovin’ her was what he meant to do

Jake bought this diner after selling McLemore’s
Pearl was stranded in Macon managing a dollar store
They met on Jewella Avenue both lookin’ for a new start
Jake gave her some food and every one of his scars

Lovin’ her is what he meant to do
Even if it broke his heart in two
He played life like a game of horseshoes
Ah, but, lovin’ her was what he meant to do

Jake didn’t want to come home stinkin’ of cigarettes, beer and perfume
Five years passed by as he walked from room to empty room
Pearl was runnin’ away that first day he met her
She’d been leavin’ ever since, Jake finally found a way to let her

The Raney Family, Part 2

Vernon Raney (1910-1997)

Vernon was the first Raney to grow to adulthood in Mississippi, the rest of the Raney family settled in north Georgia as early as 1748 when Thomas Rainey, Lonsom’s grandfather was born (Lonsom would later change the spelling, dropping the “i” from the name).

The first Raney, Lonegan, a Scots-Irish immigrant, entered colonial America in 1741 at Virginia as an indentured servant. As soon as he was released from his labor, five years later, he traveled, with his pregnant wife, through the Appalachian mountains eventually settling in the north Georgia mountains. His first son, Thomas, was born in a small log cabin in December 1748. The Raney family always made whiskey and in fact the copper bowl still they used was brought to America by Lonegan (see song, “Lonsom Raney 1828“).

Vernon made one major change in the moonshine, he began to age it in oak barrels, producing a more refined product which he sold to Memphis big shots at a premium price. Vernon remained a bachelor until the age of 49 when he married Molly Motts, just 23 years old, and pregnant with their first son, Lonsom, or Lonnie as he was known.

Molly Raney was an ambitious young woman, seeing that the bootlegging business was doomed as liquor laws were repealed making it easy to purchase whiskey. She also realized that the younger generation was interested in marijuana and other recreational drugs. Her oldest, Lonnie, became the county sheriff, the other son, Ronnie became Maggie’s right hand man in their drug distribution business. Molly oversaw the entire distribution network as Ronnie handled the day-to-day operations. They moved large amounts of pot, pills, and narcotics all through Mississippi and Memphis, with Lonnie responsible for insulating the enterprise from law enforcement (see song, “Louanne in Vicksburg“).

Over the decades from 1957 through the ‘70s Vernon became more and more detached from day-to-day reality, turning a blind eye to Molly’s drug business while he continued to make small batches of his whiskey and selling a little but mainly giving it away to a group of his old friends who would gather at his old mountain cabin drinking, playing cards or dominoes; smoking cigars or spitting tobacco juice on pot-bellied stove and telling tall tales.

In the spring of 1997, at the age of 87 Vernon Raney died in his sleep after producing the last of his tobacco gold whiskey.

’57 Fleetwood to Memphis
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

Vernon took pride in his small batch corn whiskey
Made it in his great-great-granddaddy‘s copper bowl
He would age it five years in oak barrels
It came out tobacco gold

He sold it to Memphis judges and politicians
Hundred dollar bottles in back alley deals
Come a long way from his great-great-granddaddy
And those Ulster hills

On and on and on and on it goes
They are tryin’ to get somewhere
On and on and on and on it goes
They just know they ain’ quite there

1741 his people came to Virginia
Indentured servants just tryin’ to stay alive
Seven long years they learned one hard lesson
Do what you have to: survive

On and on and on and on it goes
They are tryin’ to get somewhere
On and on and on and on it goes
They just know they ain’ quite there

Vern drove a ’57 Fleetwood to Memphis
Tailgate riding low with gallon cans and Mason jars
Coming back empty he’d open up that Caddy
Just to hear the V8 roar

On and on and on and on it goes
They are tryin’ to get somewhere
On and on and on and on it goes
They just know they ain’ quite there

Vernon Raney and Molly Motts

Vernon Raney was 49 years old when he met Molly Motts, and didn’t need to get married, but that is just what he ended up doing; to a girl less than half his age.

The Raney family were bootleggers, had been making clear whiskey for more than a century before Vernon took over the still (see song, “Lonsom Raney 1828“). He made a change, though, from the family recipe, he began to age the distilled product in charred oak barrels, turning the clear shine to a golden tobacco color, and mellowing the taste considerably (see song, “’57 Fleetwood to Memphis“).

Molly Motts, from Delta, Louisiana, just across the river from Vicksburg, was a precocious young woman, who was looking for any way out of Delta when she met Vernon at a party on the Mississippi bank of the river, just outside Vicksburg (see song, “When Molly Motts Married Vernon Raney“).

Long story short, Vernon and Molly got married; Molly took over the moonshine business and turned it into a drug enterprise. With the help of her two sons, they established a distribution network from Natchez to Memphis (see songs, “Louanne in Vicksburg” and “Molly on the Mountain“).

You could say that Vernon never knew what he was getting into when he married Molly, but then again, he was never known to say a cross word about Molly or their life together.

Vernon and Molly
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

Vernon had his whiskey business
And his V-8 coupe
But he felt something was missing
He wasn’t sure just what to do
Wasn’t sure what to do

There was a party at the river
Vernon drove by real slow
Molly was tall and slender
He felt something inside let go
Something inside let go

Vernon was old enough to be her daddy
Molly was wiser than her years
She wanted more than what a small town could deliver
Vernon was her ticket out of there
Her ticket out of there

Once a month he went to Memphis
Delivering a load of shine
He did okay with his whiskey business
And showed Molly a real good time
They had a real good time

They were always seen together
Then her belly began to show
Vernon said let’s put it on paper
She said I’m ready, let’s go
I’m ready, let’s go

Vernon was old enough to be her daddy
Molly was wiser than her years
She wanted more than what a small town could deliver
Vernon was her ticket out of there
Her ticket out of there

Molly gave him three kids
Two sons and a daughter
She had plans beyond his
Vernon never fought her
He never fought her

Molly took over the business
Began selling pot and more
Vernon stopped going to Memphis
Spent his time down at the store
Spent his time down at the store

Vernon was old enough to be her daddy
Molly was wiser than her years
She wanted more than what a small town could deliver
Vernon was her ticket out of there
Her ticket out of there

© 2019 Frank David Leone, Jr./Highway 80 Music (ASCAP). The songs and stories on the Highway 80 Stories website are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Margaret “Molly” Motts (1937-2015)

Molly Motts was sexually molested by her step-father in Delta, Louisiana from the age of 12. But Molly is resilient and refuses to identify herself as a victim. As soon as she was grown up enough she crossed the river to Vicksburg and attracted the attention of a prominent Mississippi man, Vernon Raney. Molly marries him and over time becomes the matriarchal figure of the Raney family whose criminal enterprises began with bootlegging and under Molly’s leadership branched out into marijuana and pills.

Molly’s Got a Secret
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

Molly’s got a secret, a deep dark secret
She ain’t told, but don’t know if she can keep it
It’s burn’d a hole in her heart, all the way up to the skin
Once it’s out, it can’t be put back again

She’s protected him for so long
She knows he hurt her, knows it was wrong
She still feels guilty all the same
Even though she knows he’s the only one to blame

Molly’s got a secret from years before
She can’t forget it, can’t live with it no more
She drinks a little too much, laughs a little too loud
When his name comes up she don’t wanna be around

First chance she got she put Delta behind her
Won’t let what that man did define her
What happened in Delta she’s buried it deep
Her skin is thicker now, it’s a secret she can keep

Otis Odom (1914-1960)

Donald Motts (1911-1977) and Bessie Ferguson (1914-1966) married in 1928, and then had a daughter, Molly, in 1931. However by this time Donald had begun an affair with another woman, and ended his marriage to Bessie shortly after Molly was born.

Not long after, Bessie married Otis Odom (1914-1960), a decent enough guy, but one with a nasty streak. Bessie thought he was a good man,. to raise a daughter by another man as his own. And because of this she was prone to accept behavior from Otis that otherwise would be unacceptable. Hence she looked the other way when she had suspicions that Otis paid a little too much attention to Molly as she grew older.

As soon as she was old enough, around the age of 15 or 16, Molly ran away from home in Delta, Louisiana, across the river to Vicksburg, Mississippi. Here she attracted the attention of one of the larger land-owners, Vernon Raney (1910-1997). The Raneys were an old Mississippi family, known primarily for their moonshine, but also as a large farming family.

Vernon loved Molly dearly and when she told him of the abuse she had suffered from Otis Odom, Vernon knew immediately that he would kill Odom, which he did in August, 1960.

When Vernon Raney Put Otis Odom Down
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

When Vernon learned about,
How Molly had been abused;
He swore to himself what he’d do.
He knew the one who done it,
Though it could not be proved;
He was sure, Molly told the truth.
Was an August afternoon,
Molly and Vern at the river;
When she began to talk.
Vernon did not interrupt her,
Just let Molly surrender
The whole sordid story as they walked.

Then she just stopped talkin’,
They stood at the shore;
The still air held her last words.
They turned for home and supper,
The scratch of knife and fork;
Was the only sound that they heard.
Vernon asked around Vicksburg,
Got the dope on Otis Odom;
He’d choose the right time and place.
Make it look like self defense,
Wouldn’t take much to goad him;
Knowin’ Otis, he’d wanna save face.

Vernon cleaned his .45,
Said, “I’ll be gone an hour;”
Set his jaw, an’ walked out to his truck.
Molly finished washin’ dishes,
It was full dark now;
Sat down wi’ th’ corn she’d set aside to husk.
Vern caught up with Odom,
At a dive bar in Vicksburg;
Vern smiled at his good luck.
“You’re Otis Odom, ain’t ya?”
“Yep, since my birth;”
“I’ve got somp’n for ya in my truck.”

Vern followed Otis out,
Grabbed a hay hook on some lumber;
Split th’ bastard’s skull in two.
Pulled Odom to his truck,
Chained him to the bumper;
Dragged th’ body to the bayou.
Tossed the hay hook out th’ windah,
Put his truck in reverse;
Then jus’ sat there, the engine runnin’.
After two weeks of lookin’,
Vern talked t’ th’ Shurf;
“This August heat sure is somp’n’.”

© 2023 Frank David Leone, Jr./Highway 80 Music (ASCAP). The songs and stories on the Highway 80 Stories website are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Molly Motts Raney Looks Back With Regret

Molly Motts was born in Delta, Louisiana, a tiny hamlet at the Louisiana-Mississippi border, just across the river from Vicksburg. Because of a difficult home life, she often dreamed of getting out of Delta. Vicksburg just across the river looked like a dream garden to her and she thought she’d do anything to get there. She did: marrying Vernon Raney, bootlegger, more than twice her age; but a good husband to her (see song, “When Molly Motts Married Vernon Raney“) .

They had three children, Lonnie, Ronnie and Ginny. Molly was an ambitious girl and decided early on to piggy-back a drug distribution business onto Vernon’s already prospering bootlegging enterprise (see song, “’57 Fleetwood to Memphis“).

Despite the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, many states continued to outlaw alcohol for several more decades. But bootleg whiskey began going out of style in the mid-‘60s, by which time liquor by the drink had become legal in most states, and there was less and less demand for moonshine except out of nostalgia. Transitioning, first, to marijuana and then harder drugs, seemed to make good business sense to Molly.

Molly got her oldest son, Lonnie elected sheriff as a way to offer protection to her and her second son, Ronnie, as they operating the drug business with little interference from law enforcement. This they did and quickly established a lucrative distribution network of dealers from Natchez to Memphis (see song, “Louanne in Vicksburg“).

Molly lived to see both of her sons die violent deaths: Ronnie was murdered by his wife, Louanne Bowden, and Lonnie was killed in a stand-off with U.S. Marshalls and DEA agents. As the drug network wound down, Molly grew into her role as grandmother to Ginny’s children, living a quiet life in Vicksburg.

The second summer after they were married, Vernon built Molly a small cabin in the north Georgia mountains, on a section of the old Raney homestead (see song “Lonsom Raney 1828“). Molly would often go there as a retreat. This song describes her last visit there, when she looks back on her life and contemplates the impact on her family of the choices she has made.

Molly On the Mountain
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

Molly was at her cabin on the mountain
Thinking ‘bout her life, and all she’d done
A jelly glass of Vernon’s tobacco whiskey
Sparkled in the late October sun
She thought back to the day she married Vernon Raney
Not yet 21, June of ‘58
Three months pregnant, walking down the aisle
To a man more than twice her age

Molly on the mountain, don’t wanna come down
Molly on the mountain, don’t wanna be found
Molly on the mountain, gonna leave it all behind
Molly on the mountain, knows it’s time

The cabin had a chill, she built a fire
With the last of the wood Lonnie’d split
Lonnie’s gone, his brother Ronnie too
Molly blamed herself for all of it
She’d grown harder through the years from that life
Harder, than she could describe
The pot and drugs, the men she fought, some she killed
All she’d ever done was survive

Molly on the mountain, don’t wanna come down
Molly on the mountain, don’t wanna be found
Molly on the mountain, gonna leave it all behind
Molly on the mountain, knows it’s time

Ginny was the one who turned out okay
Molly sure loves those three grandkids
She made sure to keep Ginny away from it all
That’s one good thing that she did
Lonnie’s Donald and Vern, went to East Mississippi
Took off when things got hot in Vicksburg
They’re selling pills and meth to the kids at Starkville
That’s what they learned from her

Molly on the mountain, don’t wanna come down
Molly on the mountain, don’t wanna be found
Molly on the mountain, gonna leave it all behind
Molly on the mountain, knows it’s time

Molly’s great grandma, Mamie, was a conjure woman
She knew plants for curing or killing dead
Mamie passed it down to Molly’s grandpa Motts
That’s where Molly got it, was what they said
Molly pressed the jelly glass against her cheek
It was time to drink that whiskey down
She looked into the woods, found that old maple tree
Watched a yellow leaf drift to the ground

Molly on the mountain, don’t wanna come down
Molly on the mountain, don’t wanna be found
Molly on the mountain, gonna leave it all behind
Molly on the mountain, knows it’s time

_{© 2019 Frank David Leone, Jr./Highway 80 Music (ASCAP). The songs and stories on the Highway 80 Stories website are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.}

Forrest Patton (1930-1963)

Charlotte Raney Patton (1902-1994) was the only daughter of Wyatt Raney (1874-1934) and Belinda Barnes (1880-1902), who died giving birth to Charlotte. Wyatt raised her alone and would tell her stories about the South including the Civil War, or as he called it, The War of Yankee Aggression. Wyatt was embittered because of the losses he’d suffered in his life: the loss of his leg in the Spanish American War; the loss of his closest cousin August Raney; the loss of his wife in childbirth. Then his son enlisted in WWI against his father’s wishes, only to be killed in action in 1918.

Charlotte married James “Jackson” Patton (1892-1963) in 1919. The name of Nathan Bedford Forrest was revered in the Patton home. James’s grandmother, Margaret Mary Forrest (1848-1878), was the daughter of Jesse Anderson Forrest (1834-1889), the brother of Nathan Bedford Forrest, making Nathan James’s great-granduncle.

Jesse Anderson Forrest was an American slave trader, Confederate cavalry colonel, livery stable owner, and cotton plantation owner of Tennessee and Arkansas. Before the war, the Forrest brothers were engaged in the slave trade at Memphis and up and down the Mississippi River. Jesse Forrest fought alongside his brother Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest in the American Civil War, as well as under command of other Confederates such as Gideon J. Pillow.

James and Charlotte named their three sons after Nathan B. Forrest: Nathan Patton (1920-1987); Bedford Patton (1922-1979); Forrest Patton (1930-1963), and named their daughter Jessica, or as she was called, Jessie, after the great-grandfather.

However, their youngest son, Forrest was closer to his mother’s side of the family, the Raneys, and joined up with them in their bootleg whiskey business. But all the Pattons were true sons of the South, and this song is about that culture and the specific kind of character it produced.

SONS OF DIXIE
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

By now they’d set up in Mi’sippy
Charlotte and her sons
Jack Patton was on a oil rig
Off the coast of Galveston
She named ’em for a mystic kin
Shrouded in tales of glory
Nathan, ‘n’ Bedford, ‘n’ Forrest
The subject of this story
Look away, look away
Sons of Dixie be not dismayed

Oh, there was a sister, too
But she don’t figure in this tale
Naw, Forrest is the where things went
But tonight he’s in a Vicksburg jail
No need to wonder what he did
Same as always: a still and shine
His name may’ve been Patton
But he’s a Raney by design
Look away, look away
Sons of Dixie be not dismayed

Same silent stubborn look
Same native competence
Making money outside the law
For a Raney just common sense
He was marked ‘n’ carried with him
A not so hidden indelible scar:
Like all southerners, th’ only Americans
Who ever lost a war
Look away, look away
Sons of Dixie be not dismayed

Like every southern boy Forrest held
In his sacred memory
Th’ hour before Pickett’s charge
When there was still a dream of victory
His shoulder held a permanent chip
An ancestral grudge against mankind
Bound by an old fraternal feud
His side the one maligned
Look away, look away
Sons of Dixie be not dismayed

He loved brawling, believed in God
Feared the fire of hell
Living outside the bonds of men
Closed in a personal citadel
He was born with the Depression
Came of age with bebop and beatniks
Fast cars and fast women
And always whiskey … if the shoe fits …
Look away, look away
Sons of Dixie be not dismayed

And the shoe fit very well
It’s one that’s well-worn
It’s all the Raneys held on to
Long after family ties were torn
But tonight he’s iin a Vicksburg cell
Smoking, lazy on the cot
Waiting for someone to come with bail
Maybe they would, prob’ly not
Look away, look away
Sons of Dixie be not dismayed

Donald Raney (1978) and Vern Raney (1980)

The lineage of Crawford Harper and the Donald and Vern Raney, is a little complicated. They were distantly related to each other, although they did not know it at the time of the events described in this song. In order to set the stage we have to go back to Alabama, before the Civil war.

Celsie Crawford Monroe (1844-1936) was born into slavery but was freed by Will Monroe, her father, a wealthy white planter, in 1863 as a result of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

Celsie’s mother, Jessie Crawford (1828-1905), was a slave from a neighboring plantation of whom Will Monroe had grown quite fond. Monroe made sure Jessie was provided for and also insisted that she be freed in 1863 by paying off her owner Carson Crawford.

Celsie was what was called a “yellow gal”, and quite beautiful. Once she was freed at age 19, Celsie began seeing a white man, Joshua Tate (1828-1867), and their relationship developed into a common law marriage, although the possibility of such a union being recognized was not possible at the time. They had one child, a son, Tullison Tate, “Monroe’s Tully” (see song “King Cotton“).

In 1872 Celsie’s first actual marriage was to a African-American man, Jesse Harper (1850-1922), and Celsie and Jesse enjoyed a long and happy union, raising four children, seven grandchildren, and many great-grandchildren. However, Celsie’s oldest child, Tully, was raised by his spinster Aunt Ruth, his father’s sister.

Donald and Vernon Raney were distant descendants of Tully Tate, his daughter marrying Virgil Raney, whose son Vernon was Donald and Vernon’s grandfather. Their father Lonnie Raney, had been a crooked Warren County sheriff, who was killed in a shootout with U.S. Marshalls, during a drug raid. The Raneys were descendants of Lonsom Raney, longtime moonshiner in North Georgia (see song “Lonsom Raney 1828“).

Lonnie’s generation of Raneys had become major players in the drug trade stretching from Memphis to Natchez, with Lonnie’s mother Molly Motts Raney acting as matriarch of the family drug enterprise (see songs “When Molly Motts Married Vernon Raney” and “Louanne in Vicksburg“). Donald and Vernon were Molly’s grandchildren, who were trying to carry on the family business, albeit on a much smaller scale, in Meridian, Mississippi.

One of Celsie Monroe’s great-grandchildren, William Crawford Harper (1942-2001), had marched from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 (see song “Crossin’ the Edmund Pettus Bridge“). Crawford Harper was Willie’s grandson, and this song describes the events of Crawford’s first summer home from college, when he visited his grandpa in Meridian, Mississippi.

Meridian
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

Crawford Harper was in Starkville
Mississippi State
He’d be the first in the Harper family
Who might graduate

His Grandpa Willie lived in Meridian
Crawford spent the summer, wanting to earn
He’d heard about two fellas with a business
That’s how Crawford met Donald and Vern

The Raneys were from North Georgia
Moonshiners back in the hills
When they came down off that mountain
They were selling pot and pills

When Crawford met up with the Raneys
Vern gave him a duffle bag full of meth
Told him how much money to deliver
Crawford could keep the rest

One night Grandpa Willie found his stash
Asked him, “where’d you get this money?”
Crawford said, “don’t worry, old man,
I got it working for somebody”

Willie Harper had marched at Selma
Five miles from the same plantation
Where his ancestor had been a slave
Going back six generations

Willie asked, if that somebody
Might be named Donald and Vern
Crawford grabbed his duffel bag
Told him, “it ain’t none of your concern”

But see, Willie’d had a visit
From the Raneys late one night
Crawford owed them money
That had to be made right

Willie Harper was a welder
Vern said, “you’re gonna have a partner”
Willie looked at him with stone cold eyes
Said, “only name on that sign is Harper”

Under his welding gloves
Willie kept his service forty-five
He told Vern, “if you think I won’t use it,
You’re in for a surprise”

When Crawford came home, his grandpa told him
“The Raneys won’t be ‘round no more”
He took that duffel bag and torched it
Into a pile of ashes on the floor

Crawford Harper was back in Starkville
Mississippi State
He was the first in the Harper family
To graduate

The songs in the second part of the Raney family:

’57 Fleetwood to Memphis
Vernon and Molly
Molly’s Got a Secret
When Vernon Raney Put Otis Odum Down
Molly On The Mountain
Meridian

“Lamar and Katherine Fall in Love”

But since all good things must come to an end, so did this in October 1929, and The Depression.

Location: Tuscaloosa, Montgomery, Alabama
Period: 1928-1931
Dramatis personae: Katherine George (1910); Lamar Hooper (1907-1969)

LAMAR AND KATHERINE FALL IN LOVE
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)

You don’t choose,
The one who’ll break your heart;
All you can do,
Is play your little part.
Tha’s why they call it fallin’ when it does;
You’re in love.

Right about then the Depression hit,
These two kids hit the skids;
So they went back home to Magomry.
Lamar got a job at his daddy’s mill,
They lived in a little house on a hill;
Settled down and started a family.
Just the way it’s spose to happen, and it did;
They’re in love.

Lamar made a little bootleg shine,
But didn’t drink at all this time;
Katherine was famous for her fig preserves.
She called him Pop, he called her Mother;
Had one child after another,
After three Kath still had her curves.
They were young, but no longer kids;
And they were in love.

You don’t choose,
The one who’ll break your heart;
All you can do,
Is play your little part.
Tha’s why they call it fallin’ when it does;
You’re in love.

“Vernon and Molly”

LOCATION: Vicksburg, MIssissippi
PERIOD: 1950s-1980s
DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Vernon Raney (1903-1987); Molly Motts (1931-2014); Lonnie Raney (1958-2006); Ronnie Raney (1962-2004); Ginny Raney (1966- )

Vernon Raney was 49 years old when he met Molly Motts, and didn’t need to get married, but that is just what he ended up doing; to a girl less than half his age.

You could say that Vernon never knew what he was getting into when he married Molly, but then again, he was never known to say a cross word about Molly or their life together.

VERNON AND MOLLY
(F. D. Leone, Jr.)