Blue-Grass Musician Cousin: 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “Musical”

Musical Magic on Guitar and Mandolin

Lincoln Sutherland Crockett (Paternal Second Cousin)

 

Most of my blog posts focus on ancestors from the past, but every once in a while I run across a living relative who is so interesting that I do a brief post on them. In those cases, I make sure to never disclose any private information, as that is simply rude and irresponsible. I only convey information that they themselves have put out into the world of social media.

When I saw the prompt “Musical”, I immediately thought of Lincoln Crockett. While adding him to the tree years ago, I found a newspaper article about a past folk music performance he gave. Curious, I googled him and discovered YouTube videos of some of his music. I really enjoyed it. My favorite piece was “Sawdust Settler”, a solo piece for mandolin and voice. It was lovely. I have included the link to the YouTube video of that piece below.

Gibson Mandolin Orchestra. Wikimedia Commons Photo by Gregg Miner.

Lincoln is the son of Margaret Sutherland Shields and Stephen Crockett, and the grandson of Great-Uncle Archie Shields and Ruth Patterson Shields. Lincoln lives and performs in the Portland, Oregon area. He also works as an energy healer.

I am including a portion from a bio Lincoln posted (see citation below) that helps to describe his music:

“Lincoln Crockett is the real deal, a talented performer singing standout originals on mandolin & guitar, all while playing leads, rhythms and chords all at the same time. He holds audiences’ attention with the expansiveness in his voice and his ability to move a mountain of music through his instruments. Crockett has a style all his own he sometimes calls “progfolk.”  He twists jazz, bluegrass, prog-rock and folk into an affecting set of wry soul-searching with uplifting spiritual flavor specific to no genre. The combined effect has garnered Crockett attention from within the music community in the Pacific Northwest, the reputation of being a “musician's musician” and devoted audience support.”

He is a wonderful musician, and I encourage everyone to check out his music online.

Sources:

YouTube page for Lincoln Crockett. https://www.youtube.com/@SpiritAmerican

Recording of “Sawdust Settler”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08JzpC7HuDs

Recording of “Nothing Makes Me Feel Good”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTNHnS6hlfs

Lincoln Sutherland Crockett Bio: “One Artist, Many Passions.” https://griefwatch.com/pages/lincoln-crockett?srsltid=AfmBOooE5o1uPB5zbTkK6nKhMnTxKIUHqyuqUDkW3RQHq39w569WGj92

Mandolin photo. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gibson-mandolin-orchestra.jpg. Gregg Miner, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons

Laurel’s Banana Bread: 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “Family Recipe”

Crumbling Recipe Card is a Sweet Reminder

Laurel Emily Jandy: 1926-2016 (Mother)

 

One of our favorite family recipes is a banana bread recipe Bruce’s mom Laurel gave me. Not only is it a great and easy recipe, but the recipe card is written in Laurel’s hand. Just seeing that handwriting brings back fond memories.

The recipe card has seen hard use in the thirty-five years I’ve had it. There are grease stains, scorch marks, and  fingerprints that have left brown marks. Also, paper moths or silverfish have been nibbling on the note card. It is almost unreadable in its current form. Luckily, I transcribed it long ago. I keep the old, beaten-up card for sentimental reasons. The transcription can be found further below.

The recipe is titled “Hawaiian Banana Bread”. There is nothing particularly Hawaiian about the recipe—no pineapple or coconut, for example. It has the traditional banana bread ingredients of flour, sugar, baking soda, bananas, eggs and shortening, but the instructions are a little different than a typical banana bread recipe.  First, the liquid ingredients—eggs, butter or margarine, and ripe or over-ripe bananas—are to be turned into an emulsion in a blender. This makes the batter very smooth. And second, the batter is a little thinner and is poured into an 8x8 inch cake pan for baking instead of a bread pan. The end result is a super-moist, cake-like banana bread.

I seem to remember that Laurel called it Hawaiian Banana Bread because she got the recipe from someone in Hawaii while she and John were visiting there around 1990. But I may not be recalling that correctly.

Transcription of Laurel's recipe card

I occasionally add chopped nuts, or mini chocolate chips to the batter. This recipe is our favorite way to use up over-ripe bananas. It’s a sweet treat—both in flavor and as a reminder of a sweet lady.