Theme Thursday - Mystery

Newport has a mystery, albeit a manufactured one. There's a mysterious stone tower atop the hill overlooking the harbor in what is now Touro Park.

Documentary and archaeological evidence pretty much points to this being the remains of a grain mill built by Benedict Arnold (the original Benedict Arnold, 1615 - 1678, the first governor of the colony of Rhode Island under the royal charter). But there have been many romantic theories concocted before the current scientific methodology made things clearer. The most prevalent theory was that it was built by Vikings, followed closely by the theory that it was built as a signal beacon by Portuguese navigator Miguel Corte-Real, who was shipwrecked in the area in 1501 - 1502; we have a large Portuguese population here, so that one got popular fast! And of course there are a ton of descendants of Irish immigrants here, so St. Brendan is another popular candidate for architect of the tower. But archaeological evidence, especially carbon dating of the mortar between the stones, pretty much backs up the documentary evidence that this was Benedict Arnold's flour mill. Still, it's a striking presence there in the middle of the park.

Music time! I couldn't pass up "Mystery Train", written by Junior Parker and Sam Phillips and made famous by Elvis Presley. But I really like this live version by Brian Setzer a whole lot better!

One of my favorite "mystery" songs is "Let the Mystery Be" by Iris DeMent. I'm a huge Iris fan, going back to her days as a regular on A Prairie Home Companion back in the 1980s. She has such an old soul voice; it sounds like every time she opens her mouth to sing she's channeling the souls of all those Scots-Irish women who settled in the Appalachian and Ozark mountains with their menfolk, voices molded by the hard life of pioneer families with no amenities but what they could conjure up or manufacture themselves. Please excuse the quality of this video; the really good one I used when I did a post on the song in the Just A Song blog last year seems to have been made "private" since then, and this was the only other video on YouTube (or anywhere else online) of this song from the Transatlantic Sessions DVD.

Okay, now I'm gonna get self-indulgent and revel in some more Iris DeMent. I really do love this woman's voice and songwriting talent! One of the first songs I ever heard her sing was her own "Mama's Opry" on A Prairie Home Companion; it's the story of her mother's dream to sing at the Ryman when the old Opry was still playing there. Iris has since sung that one both at the Ryman theater and at the new Opry; Mama must really be smiling! The only version on YouTube has embedding disabled, so please go here to watch it; it's well worth the click. Meanwhile, here's another favorite, her duet with Emmylou Harris on her (DeMent's) "Our Town", again from the Transatlantic Sessions DVD.

And one last indulgence. Nanci Griffith did a version of the Carter Family tune "Are You Tired of Me Darling" on her 1993 recording Other Voices, Other Rooms; she sang it in a vocal trio with Iris and Emmylou. Now that's a "choir of angels" if there ever was one! Unfortunately the live version with all three ladies which is posted on YouTube has lousy sound, so I had to make an mp3 file off the CD so you could hear these three voices in all their wondrous glory. Enjoy!

Photos & text © 2007, 2009, & 2010 by A. Roy Hilbinger