Mark Twain Video

Picket Fence (Inspired by Mark Twains Tom Sawyer) song © 2004 by Palmer Utterback Mark Ross: Banjo Marty Chilla: Guitar, Producer Jeff Ray: Bass Palmer Utterback: Vocal, Harmonica, Guitar Gail Keller, Gordon Keller, Bill Kelly: Backup Vocals Mark Twain said, Tom Sawyer is simply a hymn put into prose to give it a worldly air. A hymn is a song of praise or joy. Picket Fence is a joyful song in praise of Mark Twains three books: Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn and Life on the Mississippi. This YouTube offering is also a tribute to the illustrators of these books. Their names are, EH Garrett, Jonathon Harley and AB Shute. I do now admit that I learned to read and love the illustrations of these artists before I got the knack of reading the words of Mark Twain. I cannot imagine Mark Twains prose unmarried to these illustrations. It was the pictures that first drew me into the feel and atmosphere of those bygone times and made me want to read and understand the words, wit and irony of these books. Utterback is an uncommon surname. I may have had a very distant relation who was visited by a young Sam Clemens and his mother. In his autobiography Mark Twain recollected that, We had the "faith doctor," too, in those early days -- a woman. Her specialty was toothache. She was a farmer`s old wife, and lived five miles from Hannibal. She would lay her hand on the patient`s jaw and say "Believe!" and the cure was prompt. Mrs. Utterback. I remember her very well. Twice I rode out there behind my ...