This album is dedicated in loving memory to my aunt, Viola Vines, and an essential mentor, Samuel Pollack.
Special thanks to God, Almighty for His wonders, the Branch Family, the Robinson Family, Jim Tyrrell, Jenniene and Eddie O at Next Plateau Records and their staff, and all the musicians who contributed their love and talent to R + R.
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave.
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack.
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
(excerpt)
Claude McKay (1889-1948)