Rod McNeil - - Tim O’Brien / Howdy Skies Music / Universal Music Corp / ASCAP

I make a living from a circuit I made
Out of trial and error and gigs that I’ve played
It might be the money or the town that it’s in
But mostly it’s people make you come back again

There was one little place that I played every year
It’s outside of Pittsburgh, I know it’s still there
Just a little old Moose lodge, the crowd was okay
But you’d never get rich from the money they’d pay

It’s mostly been silent since Rod was around
But that place used to fill with a bluegrassy sound
And I’ll never forget the way he made me feel
A big man with a big heart, named Rod McNeil

You might arrive tired and dark in a gloom
Then he’d buy a big dinner and pay for your room
Pete Rowan would hug him and call him his dad
And that day the lonely road wasn’t so bad

“I saw this and said that I’d buy it for Tim,
Didn’t I Marty”, he’d say with a grin
Now I keep that toy fiddle on my windowsill
To remind me of Rod and those grey Pittsburgh hills

It’s mostly been silent since Rod was around
But that place used to fill with a bluegrassy sound
And I’ll never forget the way he made me feel
A big man with a big heart, named Rod McNeil

-Playing the musical circuit like I have for many years, you meet a lot of different people. Some folks seem larger than life and one such character was Rod McNeil, who promoted bluegrass shows at the Moose Lodge in Elizabeth PA. Rod brought folks together, providing a venue, building an audience, and treating the musicians with great care and respect. His concert series lost steam and ended a year of so after his passing, suggesting that he himself was the real attraction. Music and music people were Rod’s joy, and the melody of this song is borrowed from The Joy Of My Life, one of the first jigs I ever learned.