Dr. Mary Crowell

Dr. Mary Crowell lives with her husband, Wesley, and their son, Simon, in Athens, Alabama. She has taught piano and composition for over twenty years. As a resident of north Alabama, she currently teaches music theory, music appreciation, class piano, and private piano lessons at Calhoun Community College in Decatur, Alabama. She is a certified YogaFit instructor. She loves playing Rachmaninov, Gershwin, and Bach, practicing yoga, gardening, and gaming with good friends.

She has a B.A. in piano performance from Huntingdon College, M.M. in musicology from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, and a D.M.A. in music composition -- also from the University of Alabama. While acquiring these degrees she accompanied ballet classes (and still twitches when she hears "Let's go. Five, six, se-ven, eight!"), helped organize receptions and run concerts as a house manager, graded many music appreciation and history papers, and taught freshmen music theory, ear training, and sight singing.

She also snuck around and performed jazz whenever her teachers weren't looking.

Mary was introduced to filk music by Karen Murphy and John Brewer who paid her way and drove her to her first filk convention -- GaFilk 2001. And now people cannot keep her away with sticks. She's written several torchy songs (Magnus Retail, and Oh Milo); blues songs (Legolas and Page Not Found Blues); and some that defy description (The Song Will Tell Me True). She enjoys making lead sheets for the GaFilk Songbook.

Mary has played concerts at many conventions over the last ten years. Most recently, she was the GoH at Conflikt 2011, and she will be the International Guest in the UK at Duple Time in February, 2012; and will perform with the Three Weird Sisters (Music GoH's) at Consonance 2012.

Poison Ivy, her octet for flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, french horn, trumpet, and trombone was performed at the UAH Local Composers Concert in March of 2004. Mary gigs in Athens, Alabama at downtown bookstores and garden markets and the greater Atlanta area.

In August, 2004, Mary accepted the invitation to join Three Weird Sisters and looks forward a long and happy collaboration with the band. She also plays with Atlanta based jazz band, Play It With Moxie. She has finished recording Courting My Muse, her solo CD with Greg Robert. Courting My Muse is available through various filk dealers, Amazon.com, and CDBaby.com. It is also available at Pablos on Market, a delightful bookstore and coffee shop on the square in Athens, Alabama!

Or, check out what other things she's up to at www.magnusretail.com!

Representative Work for the 2011 Pegasus. Note- this is NOT a song nominated for the 2011 Pegasus Awards.

Get Down Mama

Copyright © 2003 by Mary Crowell, All rights reserved
Used by permission

Simon (my son) and I went to the Huntsville Botanical Garden's Scarecrow
Trail one year. His complete fascination with the "Crowella De Ville" scare-
crow and a couple of observations (quoted directly in the lyrics) about scary
things in general led to this song. The title comes from him asking me not to
leave one evening when he was scared he would have nightmares. "Get down,
Mama, sleep your eyes down!" This song is a collaborative effort between us.

VERSE
Get down, Mama. Sleep your dark eyes down.
The scarecrow's a'comin' and he ain't no clown.
Cloak yourself in midnight; duck your head 'neath your wing.
'Crazy things we're hearing are not meant to be seen.

Ah ah hah hah! Uh huh!
Uuuh Huh! Uh huh!

CHORUS
Dead trees' bones on the hills
Wave at the tall rows of corn.
North wind howls and it chills,
Singing to the old things we mourn.
Yay, yay, yay, yay, yay!

VERSE
Get down, Mama. Dream a new sort of dream --
One with shiny metal, one that glitters and gleams.
Scarecrow man is coming; he's just clothing and sticks.
'Come to get his payment. See which one that he picks.

Ah ah hah hah! Uh huh!
Uuuh Huh! Uh huh!

CHORUS
Dead trees' bones in the shadows writhe,
Wave at the long rows of corn.
Reaps the man, with his low-slashing scythe.
Soon the summer plantings are shorn.
Yay, yay, yay, yay, yay!

INTERLUDE
Get down, Mama.
Yay, yay, yay, yay, yay! Ah ha ha ha!
Get down, Mama.
Yay, yay, yay, yay, yay! Ah ha ha ha!

VERSE
Get down, Mama. Croak your Gathering Caw.
'Plenty food for eating if you saw what you saw.
Scarecrow man is done now; he is gone for the night.
We'll feast here in the harvest 'til the dawn of the light.

Ah ah hah hah! Uh huh!
Uuuh Huh! Uh huh!

CHORUS
Dead trees' bones are our feast hall.
We'll eat the remains in the corn.
The air is black, and it's loud with our calls,
Singing to the old ones we mourn.

Get down Mama. Sleep your dark eyes down.
Scarecrow's a'comin' and he ain't no clown.