#15 Let It Roll Down That Hill

Tales from Richmond Virginia's Oregon Hill

Laurel Street in Oregon Hill. Photo by Morgan Riley CC Attribution SA 3.0

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If you want to know what “Let It Roll Down That Hill” is really about, you’ve got to start not in Richmond, but at the end of the song Piney Woods. in the middle of a rice field in Arkansas.

That’s where Johnny Hickman and I found ourselves stranded one muggy night, in my dead ’64 Plymouth Valiant station wagon alongside Interstate 40. The car had thrown a rod, and we were stuck, getting eaten alive by mosquitos while we waited for a tow truck that took its sweet time. Unbeknownst to me, Johnny started swatting mosquitos with a magazine, leaving a Jackson Pollock of blood smears on the headboard. When we finally got to Richmond, I noticed those smudges and must have looked confused. Johnny just shrugged and said, “It’s our blood—from the mosquitos.” I remember thinking, “We’ve already paid a price in blood.” Maybe not the best omen, but maybe not the worst either. If I were a little more goth, I’d probably say something like, “Sometimes you have to bleed for your art.” But I’ll spare you that.

We rolled into Richmond, Virginia, towing the Plymouth behind a rented U-Haul, and landed in Oregon Hill—a neighborhood that, at the time, felt like a city within a city. Our new house at 239 S. Laurel Street was affectionately dubbed “Big Dirty Yellow.” It was big, it was yellow, and, well, it was dirty. Three bedrooms, three hundred bucks a month, no heat, no AC, and a hole in the floor big enough to crawl through into the basement. The houses in Oregon Hill were all like that: narrow, two-story wooden row houses, built for the factory workers at Tredgar Iron Works and the Albemarle Paper Company back after the Civil War. They looked more like something you’d see in New Orleans or a West Virginia coal town than the rest of Richmond.

There’s a persistent legend that Oregon Hill was settled by a whole village of Union loyalists from West Virginia, shipped in to keep the ironworks running and sabotage-free after the war. I’ve never found any hard evidence for that, but it’s believable. The neighborhood had its own accent (river was pronounced plainly as “river,” not the pretentious “Ruhvuh” of the Tidewater elite) its own mountain phrases (“ye oughta”) and a wariness of outsiders that made it feel like a world apart. It was 100% white, working-class, and proud of it—what some folks would call a white-trash ghetto, but with a fierce sense of community.

On the first night in Oregon Hill
Was a hootenanny on the porch
Let it roll, let it roll, let it roll down that hill

Fortunately for us, our neighbors took to us right away, probably because Johnny, always the goodwill ambassador, within the first hour of arriving in Oregon hill ends up singing an impromptu duet of “Streets of Bakersfield” with the lady next door. When he flipped the last chorus to “Streets of Oregon Hill,” the small crowd went wild and demanded an encore. They had to play it twice more—with the new improved chorus— before the crowd dispersed.

That porch hootenanny was our welcome party, and it set the tone for our time in Oregon Hill. We never had to lock our doors, and no one ever complained about the noise we made recording demos in the house. On one side of us lived a deaf family, except for the oldest daughter who could hear and played pop radio loud. She often went to her grandmothers house for the weekend leaving the radio on full blast. It would play all weekend because the rest of her family couldn’t hear it. One Saturday night about 2:30 in the morning a group of punks probably coming back from a show at the punk club Twisters, stopped outside our house to sing along with the neighbors radio that was blasting that horrible mashup of Baby, I Love Your Way and Freebird that was popular around that time.

I think I’m making it sound more redneck than it really was. The picture was much more complex. Oregon Hill was starting to change when we moved in. The old-timers—what people called the “Oregon Hillbillies”—were still the backbone, but artists, musicians, and hipsters were moving in, drawn by the cheap rent and the funky houses. Members of GWAR, The Fugs, House of Freaks, Flat Duo Jets, and Cowboy Junkies all lived or hung out there. The nearby Fan District had the money and the history, but not the music scene—too many rules, too many busybodies. Oregon Hill was the wild west, and that’s what made it great. Our house, Big Dirty Yellow, became our studio. We recorded demos there for what would become Cracker’s first albums. There was no insulation, so every sound—inside and out—was part of the recording.

On the second night in Oregon Hill
There was a brawl out in the street
Let it roll, let it roll, let it roll down that hill
People took sides one corner or the other
While the streetlight lit the scene
Big bearded man with a knife and shovel
And the skinny man got a chain

Oregon Hill had its own brand of law and order. The first weekend we had our studio set up, we heard a commotion so loud it cut through our headphones. Two factions—newcomer bikers (not just hipsters were moving in to the neighborhood) and the original Oregon Hillbillies—were facing off in the street. One guy, the big guy, had a knife and shovel, the skinny guy was swinging a heavy chain. Both were shirtless, daring each other to make the first move. “C’mon motherfucker I’m gonna rock and roll you!”A hundred people gathered to watch. The crowd cheered for both sides, which didn’t really make sense, but that was Oregon Hill logic for you. Then a single fat city cop walked in and broke it up. In LA or New York, you’d have had SWAT teams. In Oregon Hill, one cop did the trick.

The Virginia State Penitentiary loomed over the neighborhood—a real prison, with death row and executions. I remember being at a party when the lights dimmed, and someone said, “They’re frying someone tonight.” I think they were joking, but it was never really clear. Anti death penalty protesters would gather outside, and sometimes counter-protesters from the neighborhood would show up with signs like “Fry him.” When they finally tore the prison down, the rats that had lived there moved into Oregon Hill. These were some tough rats—unimpressed by humans, bold as brass. They’d stroll through my kitchen like they owned the place. These were rats that had done time.

On the fifth night in Oregon Hill
I met two brothers both named Fred
Let it roll, let it roll, let it roll down that hill
They lived in an unheated warehouse space
Down in the Shockoe Slip
Played guitar with their band one time
But the rats they ate my cords

It seems like a lot of my Richmond memories from that time involve rats. Around this period, I met the Linkous brothers—Mark and Matt—who would later gain fame as Sparklehorse. Back then, their band was called Salt Chunk Mary. We practiced together in a rat-infested, “unheated warehouse space down in Shockoe Slip.” I was there to play a couple of Camper Van Beethoven songs with them at a local show—my first live performance since Camper Van Beethoven broke up in Sweden.I left my gear there overnight, and when I returned for practice the next day, I discovered several of my cables had been chewed on by rats. These were old-school cables with that fluffy insulation, and it looked like the rats had stripped out the insulation to line their nests. I joke about this now, but that show I did with the Linkous brothers made me feel like I might one day get back on stage and perform my songs again—though, at the time, it wasn’t really clear if that would happen.

Oh, and the reference to “two brothers both named Fred” is because Mark was born Frederick Mark Linkous. Just to mess with me, he told me his brother was named Fred as well. Classic dry West Virginia mountain humor.

Oregon Hill was full of unforgettable characters. Dirtwoman was a local legend—a redneck drag queen who could have stepped right out of a John Waters movie. Every year, he would wrestle Dave Brockie from GWAR (in costume) for charity. One time, Dirtwoman walked up to my soon-to-be wife, Mary, and took a bite of her ice cream cone. She just handed it over and said, “Keep it—you eat the rest.”

There was also Dog Man, whom Johnny named for his habit of sitting on his broken-down car, drinking beer, and barking or shouting at passersby. His words rarely made sense, but if you were just buzzed enough, you could almost sense a profound truth in his ramblings. There are so many Cracker songs that reference Oregon Hill or things that happened there, it feels like the neighborhood is almost a co-writer. Among the many songs inspired by those days are “Can I Take My Gun Up to Heaven,” “Kerosene Hat,” “James River,” and “Hollywood Cemetery.”

On the sixth night in Oregon Hill
I met my future ex-wife
Let it roll, let it roll, let it roll down that hill

Perhaps I’m burying the lede here: Why did I move to Richmond? I first spent real time in the city on my 29th birthday, September 10, 1989, while on tour with Camper Van Beethoven and 10,000 Maniacs. We played a show at the Mosque Theater near VCU, and afterward, Natalie Merchant invited me to a party in Oregon Hill. That night, surrounded by porch-sitting residents, cicadas buzzing in the trees, and a neighborhood that felt both familiar and strange, I met Mary—my future ex-wife. I’ll tell her story in the next song.

On the first night in Oregon Hill

Was a hootenanny on the porch

Let it roll, let it roll, let it roll down that hill

On the second night in Oregon Hill

There was a brawl out in the street

Let it roll, let it roll, let it roll down that hill

People took sides one corner or the other

While the streetlight lit the scene

Big bearded man with a knife and shovel

And the skinny man got a chain

On the third night in Oregon Hill

Well I finally got some sleep

Let it roll, let it roll, let it roll down that hill

(Hooo Hooo le bon temps roulez etc)

On the fourth night in Oregon Hill

Well I finally wrote a song

Let it roll, let it roll, let it roll down that hill

On the fifth night in Oregon Hill

I met two brothers both named Fred

Let it roll, let it roll, let it roll down that hill

They lived in an unheated warehouse space

Down in the Shockoe Slip

Played guitar with their band one time

But the rats they ate my cords

On the sixth night in Oregon Hill

I met my future ex-wife

Let it roll, let it roll, let it roll down that hill

(Hooo Hooo le bon temps roulez etc)

++++++++++++++++++++++

David Lowery: vocals and guitar

Luke Moller: fiddles

Velena Vego: stomps, claps and backing vocals