Ol' One Note

Born in 1888, to parents Singleton Riff Scale and his wife Nary Atonallis, Noah Scale lived to be 111 years old. Known today as "Ol' One Note" we celebrate his life with this new release of a classic archival recording, "Part of the Song" featuring the tune "Middle C" which was recorded in 1999, the year we lost "The Grate One", as he was known to his friends and fans. Included on this CD is the blues standard, "F on the Left" and his top 400 hit "A town".1

Though today's listeners sometimes dismiss Ol' One Note as a poseur with no talent, those that knew him marvel at his accomplishments. For without any musical training, without perhaps having even heard music, Noah Scale reinvented the sound, creating a primitive new artistic form, a singular and creative vision of the human condition as he experienced it.2

Ol' One Note spent his life deep in an Arkansas Cave, in the bowels of a holler, far from the light and far from the hustle and bustle of his family's cabin, which was far from any other house and further still from any town, in a state that, though it touches many borders, is far from meeting the standards of any.3

One could not create such a pure experiment as that life of Noah Scale... fed on blind yellow crawdads, blind yella' cave fish and blind mellow Jefferson.. Which was a stew consisting of various blind cave critters and boiled in deep cave water, a recipe created by his young cousin, Boo Radley. But I am lost now, like Noah Scale, Ol' One Note, lost down in the dark cave of shame and banished from the home and holler of his mutant nuclear family, a family of members each sporting 12 fingers; a family shamed by their decadigitized brother child. Besides the various family members, bringing Noah food and a word or two, there was little mental stimulation for Ol' One Note... until... one day a well-traveled and wealthy old man decided to build his hermitage upon this rock.4

... A rock with a hole in it. Little did anyone know that the hole was the entrance to a chamber in the cave of Noah Scale. There was interaction between Noah and Jacob the Hermit, though nobody knows what that interaction was. We are fairly certain that the men never saw each other, but must have communicated in some way just the same. There are references to a Jacob Jesus Escape' in the music of Ol' One Note. Indeed, Jake brought the story and recordings of Ol' One Note out of the Arkansas Holler and into the world.5

Eventually, an expedition was launched to find and save Noah from his dark world. Twelve men went into the holler and into the cave. Only one returned.. Barely recognizable and barely able to speak.. Repeating one phrase, ad nauseum, for the rest of his life "We found him." ... and now you have found him, like the instruments and microphone found him, lowered by rope from the hermitage... like those instruments that call now from this old tale of woe... from Ol' One Note, We bring you "Part of the Song", though not all of the story…the story of Ol' One Note, a man behind and below his times but at the leading edge of a new primitive movement..6

"Part of the Song" lyrics7

Ohhhh, Momma...Momma 8

Where, where, where are you...9

Don't send me10

Don't send me more of this food11

Don't send Boo Radley12

Don't send him down here with my food13

That Boo Radley14

I think he is a damn fool15

I don't want more nonononono mo' Blind Mellow Jefferson stew16

I got my own17

My own bugs blind bugs and mud bugs down here in my pool