Grandmother launches music career

Daryn Slover/Sun Journal "He wanted a new convertible," Joyce Rossi-Gammon said of her husband Ira's birthday. "I could not afford one, so I wrote him a song instead."

- Daryn Slover

Her first CD will be released later this month. It's titled, "Tater Farm," a foot-tapping story of growing up in The County and picking potatoes.

"I was intrigued by her story," said CD producer Charlie Gaylord. "She's 80 and has been writing songs for only a couple of years. Her songs are classic American folk-country."

"I feel really good about writing. My family, husband and friends have all encouraged me," said Gammon as she demonstrated how to play the Dobro guitar.

The bubbly, upbeat woman wrote her first song as a birthday present for her husband, Ira, based on the night they met at a dance in Rumford.

"That was pretty neat," said the retired logger. "It is quite a song."

That song was followed soon after by a tune she wrote for her daughter, Lori, who with her husband, Marc, is teaching art and music in the Middle Eastern country of Dubai.

"Christmas in Maine" describes the snow falling, and how Lori is missed by her mother and family.

"It made her cry," Joyce Gammon said.

It was "Tater Farm" that caught the ear and eye of Gaylord, the host of a WBLM program called "Greetings from Area Code 207," and owner of Cornmeal Records.

"Her music has a timeless quality," Gaylord said.

"Tater Farm" describes growing up in the small, border town of Bridgewater where Gammon's father grew Katahdin, Green Mountain, Chippewa and other varieties of potatoes. She was one of seven children, most of whom picked potatoes.

"We picked them to buy clothes for school," Gammon said.

She said she never thought of the family as poor. During that era, pickers earned 27 cents a barrel, which is four bushels.

Gammon has always loved music, whether listening to it, or dancing to it. She said her teachers encouraged her to pursue music, but that didn't happen 60 years ago, despite her singing in the church choir, or joining her children in a marching band where she played drums, or being part of a group of women who once sang in nursing homes.

Release of a CD of her music began when she regularly listened to Gaylord's radio program, which features music from virtually all genres from across the state sent to him.

"I knew mine was as good as some of that music, and I thought it would be nice to hear it on the radio," she said.

She recorded the eight tracks that will appear on her CD in a studio in Kennebunk and was backed up by the Kennebunk River Boys.

She has 40 other songs already written, including, "Mommy's Little Girl," "The First Time I Got a Speeding Ticket," and one about the changing seasons in New England. She's hoping to record a second CD.

"We'll wait and see what happens," she said.

eadams@sunjournal.com