Jeni Hankins & Billy Kemp: Listen & Lyrics

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• MP3 play whole song, lo-fi (modem)

One time Billy and I were up on Jewell Ridge visiting MawMaw and my Uncle Roy Lee drove up from South Carolina. Roy Lee is a big story teller and we asked him if he'd ever worked in the mines. He said he worked one summer before being drafted to Korea. This was during the heyday of big coal and mining was the most lucrative job you could get out of high school. In one summer Roy Lee made enough money to buy a brand new Chevrolet. Of course, the job was lucrative but came with a risk, a risk so high that some of his friends and my own father's friends didn't leave the mine alive.
Our beautiful friend Kim Peery Sherman honored us with her gorgeous alto voice and twinkling guitar on this track.

If you don’t mind the low seam,
and if you don’t mind the dark,
if you don’t mind the black face
that is every miner’s mark,

you can make a fortune
and you can buy a dream --
go cruisin’ in a Chevy
with the Tazwell Beauty Queen.

If you don’t mind the short fuse,
and if you don’t mind the smell,
if you don’t mind a summer
in a place as black as hell,

you can make a fortune
and you can buy a dream --
go cruisin’ in a Chevy
with the Tazwell Beauty Queen.

If you will make a gamble,
if you will bet your skin,
you can get your wish in
tires and chrome and fins.

You can make a fortune
and you can buy a dream
and go cruisin’ in a Chevy
with the Tazwell Beauty Queen.

If you will make a gamble,
if you will bet your skin,
you can get your wish in
tires and chrome and fins.

You can make a fortune
and you can buy a dream
and go cruisin’ in a Chevy
with the Tazwell Beauty Queen.

You might be dusty now
but you’ll be coming up so clean
drivin’ in your Chevy
with the Tazwell Beauty Queen.