The Last Song Of John Profitt.

Red Clay Rambler Tommy Thompson created this one man show to tell the story of John Profitt, a fictitious Vaudvillian whose lifestory captures some fascinating and little known details of Americana.

When we meet him, John Profitt is a hermit living in a small cabin in the woods surrounded by his handiwork in wooden toys and trinkets, and occasionally strums the banjo which was once his key to fortune and fame. He and his former partner, the man who took credit for writing the song "Dixie," although it was really a traditional song passed down thru generations of slaves before he appropriated it, had spent some years performing as minstrels in blackface. Then our narrator retired from this lucrative business becuase of a guilty conscience. He tells us of the regret he came to feel for what came off as mocking his adopted culture, taught to him by a former slave and later Master Cabinet Maker. As a white apprentice, he had worked for Jake and learned learned not just the woodworking trade but also how to play the gourd based, stringed instrument whose secrets Jake had brought with him from Africa. The entire production is laced with songs that are original ones by Thompson, and traditional melodies from the Ante-Bellum South. Accompaniment was provided by the nonspeaking character of the fiddler, who was fellow Red Clay Rambler Clay Buckner.