RiverSide CD
Created under the direction of seasoned producer Randy Brown, RiverSide is a collection of 15 original songs. Below you’ll find a brief overview of each song on RiverSide.
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1. RiverSide – Friends of Dave’s family adopted a girl at birth 26 years ago. Through the Internet, the daughter found her birth mother. At that time, the young girl was married and expecting her first child. The birth mother agreed to travel to Texas and meet during the Christmas season. Dave had written a Christmas song about Mary and was performing it in his church on Christmas Eve. It is called Incredible Mother. As he was singing about one incredible mother, he looked at the crowd and saw the silhouette of three women enter the church. The mother, the young mother and her birth mother entered the sanctuary at the same time through the main entrance. Three incredible mothers! He went home that Christmas Eve, and before midnight this song wrote itself.
2. Gold Rush – This is a fictitious song written during an Alaskan cruise in 2001 about the struggles of the Alaskan Gold Rush and the fruits of hard work.
3. Duct Tape Blues – This was originally written by Joel Mabus. Dave wrote the last verse, and Shermanized the song quite a bit.
4. Sing In My Room – Because of his day job, Dave traveled a lot when his children were young. His daughter always wanted him to sing her to sleep, especially the night before he’d fly out for the week. Several years later, she still wanted her daddy to sing in her room. Three year old grandson Preston adds his vocals to Dave’s on Sing In My Room. A version of this tune is also on YouTube
YouTube version
5. Daddy Take My Hand – This was written for Dave’s youngest daughter’s wedding 2005. She has always been scared of EVERYTHING.
6. Andy – Based on a college addiction to TV that Dave has never shaken.
7. Run Girl Run – Soon after Dave’s first grand daughter was born, he wrote this song about the five things he wanted her to know as she grows up. “Run” in this tune is a metaphor for running toward righteousness and running from evil.
8. Raised Right – As the project was being completed, Dave was blessed with another grandchild. It was hard to know what to say in a song to this little one. Dave could only assume he would be a product of his mother and father. “Raised Right” is a play on the phrase that was yelled out when his daughter graduated from high school. In an arena packed with 3,500 people, she said the benediction. When she finished, a woman yelled out, “You know that girl’s been RAISED RIGHT!” The baby’s dad’s been “Raised Right” too.
9. Company Man – This song is about working for Brown & Root, downsizing and now being self-employed.
10. I Was There – This was the first of the three grandbaby songs on this CD. Dave’s associate pastor, Scott Wiley spoke about a parent’s greatest mission in life. That sermon inspired this song. He said a parent’s most important task is to make sure their children are exposed to the gospel. Then he said the second most important mission we have in life is to make sure their grandchildren are exposed to the gospel.
11. Box of Photographs – This was written for Dave’s first “baby girl’s” wedding. She and her husband were really in the 5th grade together. The producer of RiverSide, Randy Brown, created an earlier studio version of this before the wedding. The family literally had the sound man ready to hit the [play button] in case Dave couldn’t sing it at the wedding. He made it.
12. Mr. III – Being “Dave Sherman III” Dave often get mail addressed to “Mr. III.” Some earlier computers looked at the suffix as a name and sometimes printed it “Mr. Dave Iii.” He actually received the Publisher’s Clearinghouse announcement addressed to Mr. Iii. This song describes that tale and his response to it.
13. Haley – This was written for a special “lady.”
14. Squirrel Song – This is a fun 1-minute song written for Habitat for Humanity.
15. A Baby Boy A King – This is the most amazing thing about Christmas to Dave. To him, it seems the Savior would be born into royalty and have power and influence immediately. The opposite condition was God’s plan.
Musician on RiverSide include Mershell Sherman of Florida on percussion, Dirje Smith on cello, and Matt Menefee of Cadillac Sky on banjo. Randy Brown plays mandolin, high-strung guitar, farm implements on Gold Rush, and a few things he could not disclose.
Key points from Run Girl Run:
* Love God
* Dream big
* Have fun
* Show kindness to others, and
* Know that you are loved
* Run, run, run, Girl, run