Lyr Req: Rappahannock Running Free (Bob Gramann)

Subject: Rapahanoake river dam 'breach' singer
From: open mike
Date: 06 Jul 04 - 07:59 PM

I am watching a documentary on Link T.V. about a dam , the Embrey dam,
which was built in 1910 and was recently "removed" to enhance spawning area for the fish...Shad. There is a singer performing a song about how water slips through your fingers. I think it said his name was Bob Graham. Any one know him, or his song? The Rappahannock river is in Virginia.

Subject: RE: Rapahanoake river dam 'breach' singer
From: open mike
Date: 06 Jul 04 - 08:11 PM

the info on linktv web site says this:
A story about the Embrey Dam, built in 1910 by the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia to harness the power of the Rappahannock River. The dam was breached this past February when explosives planted by the Army Corps of Engineers blew apart the dam's concrete walls.   The historic event drew a crowd of thousands from the Fredericksburg area who came to witness the spectacle and to celebrate the environmental restoration of their community's river. Earth Focus joined the onlookers, and presents this video journal of the breach of the Embrey Dam. For a history of the Embrey Dam,
and the web page with info on the dam and the project is here
http://www.virginiaplaces.org/watersheds/embreydam.html

Subject: Lyr Add: RAPPAHANNOCK RUNNING FREE (Bob Gramann)
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 07 Jul 04 - 02:17 PM

The song is by a great singer-songwriter from Fredericksburg, VA named Bob Gramann. Check out Bob Gramann's website for other wonderful songs by him.



Rappahannock Running Free © 1993 by R. A. Gramann

Again, the eagle beats his wings
To climb above the trees
Over the locks on the Rappahannock
What's left of history.
Where the Council and the contractors
Over quality disagreed.
Where the present meets the past
And some things never change.
For a man can only hold
A piece of earth
For a lifetime.
Water leaks through fingers
You can't hold it at all.
I love the Rappahannock
And its water running free.
In the rapids of this river,
That's where I want to be.

From Carter's Run at Waterloo
It drops three hundred feet.
Forty-seven locks in fifty miles
1849 complete.
With first year's drought and railroads
So quickly obsolete.
A canal system for just four years
And history ever since.
An aqueduct and wood crib dam
Fed power to the mills,
And factories and tanneries
The foundations are there still.
The concrete dam in 1910
Electric generators until
Only thirty years ago
And now a poor man's home.
Poison ivy coats the bank
Where you climb around the dam.
A century and a half of portages
Canoes across the land.
The damn dam blocks the spawning fish
Floods rapids behind the span.
I say its time to blow it up.
There's no need for this dam.