Over the last 40 years, Chuck McDermott has left his musical mark on audiences on both coasts of the United States. Over the last few decades, he has devoted himself to energy and environmental policy issues, and working in government.
I'm Chuck McDermott, and I'm a singer songwriter, and I spent the better part of a year recording an album that we released in 2017 called "Gin and Rosewater." One of the songs on it that's nearest and dearest to my heart is a tune called "The Girl from St. Lucy," and the girl from St. Lucy is my mother. Grew up in a Irish-Catholic enclave in the city of Chicago, Depression-era time period. Her mother was the church organist at the Catholic church they attended. It was called St. Lucy's, and my mother sang in the choir. So that was a big part of her growing up, and that became the title in the beginning of this song, which really tells the tale of her life from those early days into early marriage and to the great beyond. It meant a lot to do it to the point where we decided we'd try to make a video out of it, which we did, which we've also released in late 2017. We used some old photographs of my parents and my mother as a child, and some stock footage of the year, but we also recorded parts of it in the church in my hometown of Hingham, Massachusetts at which I met my wife and who participates with me in this video. And this particular church, it's called Old Ship Church. It's a Unitarian Universalist church, and it's the oldest church in continuous operation in North America. So it has a vibe all its own that it brought to the project. It meant a lot to try to memorialize a woman whom I admire so much in a way that I could share with our family and with everybody else.
Last Updated: September 26, 2021
