Bob’s story is one of faith, courage, and building relationships.
I probably first encountered this song with my first girlfriend, Glenda Dash, who was a country folk singer in Greenwich Village in the 1960s. She performed many Carter Family songs, including this one. The song has an extensive history and was written by a woman for her son in a wheelchair, who always asked her to wheel him on the “sunny side of the street.”
🔗 Keep On the Sunny Side – Wikipedia
About 1989 I started playing music with friends in a park in Kingston, NY on Wednesdays at lunch time. We all had jobs and this was a good way to break up the week with fiddles, banjos, guitars and voices. “Keep On the Sunny Side” became our closing song. That jam continues to this day, even though I moved to Florida a few years ago.
My mother was born in rural southwest Virginia. I don’t know if she knew this song or not, but assume she probably had heard it. But when she passed away it seemed the perfect song to do at her funeral as Mom always “kept on the sunny side”. Two of my friends from the Wednesday jam played and sang Ave Maria on guitar and accordion. We ended with “Keep on the Sunny Side” and I saw my sisters sitting in the pews arms linked rocking back and forth to the song.
About 2 years later, my younger brother David and I took a weekend trip to my mother’s relations in Chatham, Va. These cousins were all tobacco farmers that had become truck drivers. When I was a kid, I would spend summers “down on the farm”. In high school my parents sent me to the towns boarding school/military academy. This was my first trip back there. My mother had not stayed close to her relatives. Her father had left the family and her stepfather’s family had rejected them after he passed away. She was a “poor relation”. We were greeted warmly by assorted 1st, 2nd and 3rd cousins,. Three families had intermarried in that area since colonial times and I had a lot of relatives with the last names of Giles, Motley, and Fuller. On Sunday morning we went with the Giles to their local Baptist church and Sunday evening we went back to the church with them for a “Musi-cal”. There were duo’s, trio’s, and quartets, a young man playing electric guitar and someone read a poem.
I really wanted to be a part of it and was pretty sure it was loose enough that they would let me do something if I asked. The problem was that I had been having trouble with my hearing. I was deaf in one ear and the other one was clogged up. I kept on having to ask people to repeat things and in a social situation with extraneous noises I was lost. Still I got up my courage and went up to the cousin running the sound booth. She was happy to invite me up at the end of the program.
I chose “Keep on the Sunny Side” for several reasons. 1st and most important was that I knew it backwards and forwards and felt confident I could do it even though I couldn’t hear myself! Also I knew they would know it and it mentions “Our Savior” which I knew would be important to them. I introduced myself: “I’m Robert Lusk. I’m here with my brother David visiting John and Linda Giles. My mother was Agnes Ragsdale and my grandmother was Hattie Giles and I used to visit this church as a child” I was related to three-quarters of the people in that room. They knew exactly who my mother and grandmother were.
I remember watching my hands move on the guitar and I knew I was playing it right, but the sound was coming from a long ways away. Looking into the congregation I saw the minister and several of my cousins leaning forward, literally sitting on the edge of their seats. I started singing and felt confident that I knew what I was doing. I finished, they applauded and a few minutes later they thanked everyone for coming and ended the program. People got up from their seats and suddenly I was mobbed. People were introducing themselves. The fellow that read the poem gave me his copy to keep. A short elderly women came up to me and said “I’m Agnes sister” I said “What?” I knew my mother didn’t have a sister. It was a different Agnes. I couldn’t understand half the comments and it was wonderful and overwhelming.
Now if I ever have a bad day musically – and in the creative arts there are always, mistakes, failures, could have been betters – I remember standing up there in the church singing. I couldn’t hear myself, but I know it was one of the best performances I ever gave in my life.
There’s a dark and a troubled side of life;
There’s a bright and a sunny side, too;
Tho’ we meet with the darkness and strife,
The sunny side we also may view.
[chorus]
Keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side,
Keep on the sunny side of life;
It will help us every day, it will brighten all the way,
If we keep on the sunny side of life.
Tho’ the storm in its fury break today,
Crushing hopes that we cherished so dear,
Storm and cloud will in time pass away,
The sun again will shine bright and clear.
Let us greet with a song of hope each day,
Tho’ the moments be cloudy or fair;
Let us trust in our Savior always,
Who keepeth everyone in His care.
