At the 1992 Florida Folk Festival Dale Crider hosted a tribute to Florida Folk legend Gamble Rogers. Many amazing Florida Folk musicians took the stage to honor Gamble's memory. The performers included Gabe Valla & Sam Pacetti (who were both 17 at the time), Southwind, Dennis Devine, Jeanie Fitchen, Ken Skeens, Don Grooms, Charlie Robertson, and Ken Crawford. Gamble's nephew Geoffrey Rogers read a very moving poem he wrote about Gamble; and Gamble's brother, Jack Rogers, tells the true childhood stories that were the inspiration for some of Gamble's greatest songs. James Gamble Rogers III was born Jan. 31, 1937 in Winter Park Florida. Dedicated to following in the footsteps of his father James Gamble Rogers II and his great-uncle James Gamble Rogers who were prominent architects, but in 1966, on his way to interview for a job at an architectural firm, he saw a notice that the Serendipity Singers were auditioning for another musician; he borrowed a guitar, tried out and won the job, which he kept less than a year, returning to Florida to hang out with Florida legends Will McLean, Jim Ballew and Paul Champion. By the 1970s he was a permanent fixture at the Florida Folk Festival, often the headliner famous for his hilarious onstage monologues depicting Cracker life in the imaginary Oklawaha County, everything backed up by Gamble’s incredible dexterity finger-picking the guitar. A self-described modern troubadour, he influenced such greats as Jimmy Buffett, David Bromberg and Jim Stafford. On October 10, 1991, while camping with his wife at Flagler Beach, near St. Augustine, he noticed a man in the surf having trouble. Compromised by his lifetime battle with spinal arthritis, he nevertheless jumped in to save the man, but both men died in the rescue attempt, devastating the entire Florida Folk Music family that worshipped him. To honor him, the area was renamed Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area at Flagler Beach. He was awarded the Kiwanis Award for bravery, the Carnegie Award for heroism and was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame in 1998. He recorded six albums, all available on the non-profit Gamble Rogers Memorial Foundation, Inc.

At the 1992 Florida Folk Festival Dale Crider hosted a tribute to Florida Folk legend Gamble Rogers. Many amazing Florida Folk musicians took the stage to ho...

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Welcome to The Florida Folk Show podcast. In this episode, through the words and recollections of Arcadia realtor and land manager Gordon “Mac” Martin, we celebrate the life and times of a man known far and wide as The Citrus King. We are talking about none other than the legendary Ben Hill Griffin III of Frostproof, who died July 25, 2020 at the age of 78. Early in his own career, Mac worked very closely with The Citrus King, and shares with us some precious memories of one of Florida’s greatest citizens. In addition to his own career in Florida land, Mac is also one of Florida Folk Music’s best singer-songwriters. He has promised to write a song about Ben Hill Griffin III and when it is ready, we’ll add it to this podcast.

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Whitey Markle was a proud and defiant defender of Florida’s environment, animals, lands and especially water. Like the late songwriting legend Bobby Hicks, the famous Game Commission biologist songwriter Dale Crider and the 400-song Patriarch of Florida Folk Music, Frank Thomas, Whitey was unforgiving to those who dared despoil Florida, throw a cigarette out a car window, leave litter on a beach, dig holes to drain wetlands, clear cut miles of forest and throw up trailer parks in natural prairies. I can see him right now, face red as fire, his vitriol boiling over with anger towards cowardly politicians and Councilman and the faceless corporations that dare to cross his path. Yet he had a soft touch that could silence an angry room with songs that made you feel the old Ocklawaha flow through your veins as the room grows quiet and shy like the squirrel who perches like a statue until we all safely walk by. Whitey, I knew and respected you every day since we first met at the 1971 Florida Folk Festival and we offer this podcast in your honor, to the bears and panthers and gators and mullet and those vanishing parts of Florida we can still see and feel, which you helped preserve. We present your first appearance at the Florida Folk Festival, including Cousin Thelma’s introduction, as well as your last FFF appearance. And we have your appearances at many environmental meetings, standing like a vicious bantam rooster before governments, the bad guys, the people who want to do things like they did up north where they had to leave because it was so bad. Remember, Whitey and rest in peace knowing you have trained and educated an Army of protectors, a veritable militia who will use their binoculars and notepads and phone cameras to keep watch over Florida and bring to justice the bastards whom I hope your memory will haunt the rest of their days. Richard “Whitey” Markle, a man like no other in Florida history. Courageous, bold, stubborn yet sweet in his own Florida cracker way.

I hope you enjoy this Tribute to Whitey produced by Tim Valle from everything we could quickly get our hands on at the last minute. And thank you for watching the Florida Folk Show podcast.