Three creative Mainers you should know about

Full disclosure, they're also my friends.

I often get on here (and on social media) and bombard you with what I’m up to — the tintypes I make, the songs I write and the concerts I play. Today, I want to tell you about three Mainers who are not me, whom I admire for their creativity and energy.

First, I don’t think any musician in Maine puts out as much great new music, on such a consistent basis, as Toby McAllister. Hardly six months go by between his EP and single drops — and the good stuff just keeps on coming.

Second, Ross Gregor Adam is a one-man party music machine. His live sets are legendary. His energy is boundless. And now, that’s he’s a full-time musician, he’s putting out great recordings, too.

Third, Ron Romano can’t stop writing books about dead people in Maine. I, for one, am thankful for this. He’s tapped into some kind of never-ending vein of stories and amazing facts, all gleaned from old headstones and public records.

Best of all, I call these three guys friends. Here’s why you should pay attention to them.

Maine emo rocker and sometimes country and western crooner Toby McAllister sets off for the dusty old west and into the great American ballad tradition with his newest song “Dead Man’s Hand,” which hit the internet at the end of June.

The tune tells the time-worn story of old west gunfighter and lawman Wild Bill Hickok’s final poker hand — two black aces and two black eights. Hickok was holding those four cards and an unknown fifth when he was shot in the back of the head on August 2, 1876, at Saloon No. 10 in Deadwood, Dakota Territory.

The song is a departure for McAllister, being set long ago and sung mostly in the third person: “A fox in the night who was losing his sight / He was tough for a broken man / The devil was waiting for old Wild Bill / To lay down the dead man’s hand.”

The song has McAllister’s normal dose of dark, foreboding imagery set to cheerful music but here he’s stepped out of his own introspective shadow to sing about someone else’s struggles and demise — and it really works. He doesn’t drag the tune down in historic detail like some didactic folksinger out to teach a history lesson. Instead, McAllister keeps the minutia to a minimum and hits the listener with emotion and pathos in spades: “He guarded his hat like he guarded his guns / Every morning could be his last.”

My favorite part of the song is an unexpected twist at the end when the omniscient narrator suddenly springs into the story, letting the listener know he was there to see it all: “What haunts me the most is I still see his ghost / As we drift through this barren land / The devil was waiting for old Wild Bill / To lay down the dead man’s hand.”

Given that McAllister is only in his 30s and not, as far as I know, a gunslinger from the Dakota Territory, he can’t have been there to watch Hickok fall, clutching those famous cards. But, then again, given the singer’s penchant for all things Bigfoot and UFOs, who’s to say he’s not a time traveler? Most great artists are — able to imagine themselves in days and lives other than their own. I think that’s where McAllister might be headed. Keep an eye out for that at his website: https://www.tobymcallister.com/

Ross Gregor Adam is a musician and songwriter who can seemingly tell the future. His latest song release, “Pass Roon the Bucky,” is about Scottish World Cup fans taking over Boston and turning the city into one big party. By now, we all know that actually happened last month, with bars running out of beer all over the place and predictions of hundreds of Beantown babies being born with Scottish accents nine months from now.

However, Adam put the song out well ahead of all that tartan mayhem, on May 11. But if you think about it, there’s nobody in Maine more qualified to make that musical prediction than him.

Adam is Scotland born and bred, though he now makes Southern Maine his home. He recently left a secure job at the U.S. Postal Service for a full-time life of music and he’s making the most of it, playing several regular, weekly gigs around here as well as sometimes singing in Boston, Scotland and Ireland.

“I’m a Caledonian boy with American dreams,” he sings, staking out his flag near the start of the song.

The song, itself, needs a little decoding for us Americans. “Bucky” is Scots slang for Buckfast Tonic Wine, a fortified, sweet wine dosed with a nearly lethal amount of caffeine. “Roon” is just an abbreviation of “around.”

“Pass roon the Bucky, I’m feeling lucky, banter in Boston and we’re riding high,” Adam sings in a slow burn, atmospheric groove of a chorus.

Adam’s song then goes on to name drop even more Scottish flavors, including footballer Scott McTominay, singer Susan Boyle and what I think is a “tanning oil” reference to the pale Scottish proclivity for summer sunburns.

There’s also a spoken interlude where Adam tries to order Scottish meat pies at a Wendy’s drive through window. I can’t be sure but I think the part of the confused fast food worker is played by his lovely, understanding wife, Shannon.

Scotland may be out of the World Cup this time around but we’ll be able to enjoy Adam’s song forever. Keep up with his doings at his website: https://www.rossgregoradam.com/

Portlander Ron Romano just published his fifth book about local gravestones, graveyards and dead people. It’s called “Stories from Maine Cemeteries, Lives Cut Short.”

Given Romano’s penchant for wandering around burial grounds, reading crumbling tombstones and digging through dusty records, all while resurrecting long-forgotten life stories and family trees, you’d think he might be a tad bit dour in real life. You might even imagine him to be somewhat of a Goth, pale and dressed in black, or maybe like an undertaker with a skinny tie, fedora and dark suit.

But that’s not the case.

In real life, Romano is a friendly, well-adjusted, retired insurance executive. Whenever I see him, he’s dressed in cheerful, bright colors and shorts — if the weather is nice. And, like most historians, Romano loves to tell people about the long-hidden, interesting stuff he’s uncovered. That’s good news for readers like me.

I own all Romano’s books and his newest is much like the others. It’s jam packed with all the tidbits, crazy stories and zig-zagging digressions you could ask for. Every chapter, whether about a specific family, person or peculiar grave site, always starts with a stone. Something on a marker, something Romano can see, first strikes his fancy. It might be the carving style, the name or the dates, but something sets him off, running, rummaging and researching.

“Each grave marker represents a life of a mother, father, daughter or a son, sister or brother” Romano writes in the introduction to his latest tome. “I’ve tended to favor stories about the ordinary over famous people in their communities… I prefer to give voice to the not-so-famous people so that we won’t forget them.”

He sure does.

I don’t want to give too much away but Romano lets us in on tales including those of South Portland’s Bessie Oliver who ran off to New York City, then died young from consumption while leading her family to believe she was still married to a man she’d divorced years before.

Romano also tells us about Black, 19th century Portland barber Ira Gray whose house was attacked by a murderous mob in 1826. Gray killed a man while defending his family and home on Center Street and then stood trial for manslaughter.

Then there’s Biddeford’s Rose Vincent, killed by her jealous boyfriend, Fred Savage, in 1878 and Pricilla Burnham, a Scarborough pauper who was buried twice — both times without a marker.

“All reflect lives that ended too soon,” Romano writes, with a kind of empathy usually reserved for people you know. It’s clear to me, he really feels close to the folks he writes about. It makes Romano’s books warm and tender, even while telling stories hard as marble stone and colder than the grave.

Find Romano’s book at any good, local bookstore or through The History Press. If you can, catch one of his local graveyard tours. Don’t put it off, time is always growing short, as his book points out.