Tobacco and Songs

Source from:  fayobserver.com Meredith Jacobs 06/16/2008

For generations of North Carolinians, summertime meant rising before dawn and working beyond sundown to "put in tobacco." Farm families still spend their summers in the fields and heat. But far fewer of the state's farmers are growing tobacco, compared to years when the state's economy was wrapped inside that golden leaf. Billy Yeargin writes about that not-so-distant past in "North Carolina Tobacco: A History & Remembering." He tells how the tobacco culture was born and how tobacco-industry traditions "would shape the course of the state." The 160-page book was published by The History Press of Charleston and is $21.99. Mayon Weeks of Fayetteville is a songwriter, musician and actor who has collected lyrics of his orginal songs in a book to be read as "song poems." His book is "Life, Death & Other Temporary Conditions: A Collection of Original Song Lyrics," which is published through AuthorHouse. Below are lines from "Heaven Touched Me Tonight": I saw stars all around Felt my feet leave the ground Was it only a dream Or just what it seemed Was it heaven that touched me tonight? Another song, "The Best Place of Me," is a tribute to North Carolina: "I don't care if it don't rain On me in Oklahoma Or if the Colorado sun Never shines on me again Sometimes you can find a place So special it can own you to my mind it's in Carolina That's the best place for me. Weeks' book is 99 pages and can be ordered for $18 from AuthorHouse.com or from online sites, such as Amazon.com. Enditem