The oldest son of the Mailman grew up in Hatchie Bottom, Mississippi. Drawn to music even in diapers, he would often dance to a VHS tape of Frank Zappa's Bobby Brown Goes Down. His musical tutelage began with a fiddle at eight years old. Marlin Grisham did not read music, made custom multi-colored leather cowboy boots, and could eat up a piano. He also taught our man to saw over four years of playing hymns, country favorites, and bluegrass tunes while accompanying on the black and whites.

Saxophone came next in the Willard Taylor Marching Band. Guitar followed shortly after. His growing record collection was sponsored by his job at the classic country radio station, Kudzu 102. He spent his last year with the marching band as its leader, conducting during sporting events, parades, and formal dress concerts. Touring with a jazz band on baritone sax, the Mailman's Son fell in with a group of actors and degenerates.

A heartbreak later found him showcased in an underground theatre company below the ROTC building on the Ole Miss campus. He taught himself to blow the harmonica for a production of The Grapes of Wrath directed by an escape artist named Dex Ed. A banjo was willed to him by the late mechanic/pharmacist, Carter Boy. Fulfilling his oldest wish, the Mailman's Son began performing music of his own, with a partner. He and a dark-haired, Italian beauty sang for their supper as Chauncey and The Beast.

After a long correspondence by mail with a dancer in the Pacific Northwest, he left it all behind - the Mailman, the Beast, sweet tea, his brother and sister, the degenerates, and his mother, the Mailwoman. He and the Dancemaster General are happy as can be with a cat and a yard and a big kitchen. But this Monday will be the last episode of The Back Porch. Like so many other southerners before him, he'll be answering the call of Chicago, IL.

You are thus invited to enjoy the music of the Old South (anything recorded up to 1999) followed by that of the New this Monday, June 18 from 9pm - 12am on KSKQ 89.5. Listen in your car, at home on your radio, at a friend's house with snacks and libations, or over the internet through this very website. You can also check out archived shows here or on this site http://archive.org/ by searchingmailman's son and/or the back porch. Thanks for all of it, Ashland. Y'all listen. - MS