>>From the second floor of the Orlando Public Library Welcome to Melrose in the Mix.

Our series of live recording session from here at the Melrose Center.

Hi everyone.

I'm Jim Myers.

Today's session features the Swamp Xistas.

Chances are you've heard of the Swamp Sistas, a multi-generational network of female artists led by legendary local musician Beth McKee.

The Swamp Xistas with an X is an offshoot collective of songwriters and performers open to any gender who've created the Power Lines musical project to benefit Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida.

It's a group I'm honored to be part of.

During this episode, we have a chance to talk with Beth and some of the group members about the Power Lines project, the Swamp Xistas history of fundraising and special events, writing songs together, and more.

>>Swamp Xistas Foundation is, musically based, but it's far more than that.

It's a little community of musicians and creatives and artists that's been around Orlando for quite a few years now.

We have a bifold mission of, community service while supporting artists.

We have evolved into a multi-gen group.

And when I say multi gen I mean multi genders and multi generations.

♪♪ [VOCALIZING] ♪♪ [VOCALIZING] >>Day after day on the highway, I witness things I don't wanna see.

A skinny dog standing on the roadside, an old man no shoes on his feet.

Well my mama taught me well right from wrong.

Left me a conscience won't leave me alone, when all I wanna do is get back home.

I hear it coming to me.

I can't believe what I read in the papers.

The same news every day.

So much hunger.

Neighbors hating neighbors who brought us up to act this way?

Well I know I wasn't born to be no politician.

I'll go down, help out at the mission.

Maybe I'll drop the mayor a line tell him what's been on my mind.

Reach out your hands Sons and Daughters.

Get together, trouble the waters.

We may be gone before it gets done.

But revival is gonna come, oh yes it will.

[VOCALIZING] ♪♪ So much to do, so many need helping.

This ain't no time to roll with the tide.

What's the use watching and waiting?

Stand up child, speak your mind.

A pebble makes a ripple.

That gets it started.

Get on ou and throw a seed in the garden.

My daddy always says "You reap what you sow" Cultivate what you wanna grow.

Reach out your hands Sons and Daughters.

Get together, go and trouble the waters.

We may be gone before it gets done, but revival is gonna come.

Reach out your hands Sons and Daughters.

Get together, go and trouble the waters.

We may be gone before it gets done, but revival is gonna come.

It's gonna come.

Yes it is.

[VOCALIZING] It's gonna come.

[VOCALIZING] >>We'r a group of musicians that worked to support each other.

It is so natural in the musician community, in the artist community, to compare.

>>And compete.

>>To compare and compete.

And it doesn't do us any good.

It doesn't.

It only takes awa to be critical of someone else.

So when you come into our group, eventually you feel free to express your own ideas.

That's part of our project thi year, the Power Lines Project.

We've started writing songs together, and it's taken ten years for us to be able to communicate and do that, because writing a song is can be precious.

>>It's so personal.

>>But if you can let it go, if you can trust your artists that you're going to mess up and they're going to mess up, and we're going to make something greater than the sum of our parts, and maybe you'll feel better.

♪♪ >>Play some music.

Maybe you'll feel better.

Clean out the closet.

Throw away that sweater.

>>You never wear it anyway.

>>Say hi to the neighbor.

Talk about the weather.

Try and pick up the pieces.

Put them back together.

Sit in the sadness.

Say hello to the friend in the mirror.

Tell them the truth, I dare you.

Not just want they want to hear.

Take a shower, Drink some water.

Go exercise.

Count your blessings.

Smell the flowers.

Get organized.

And if one more person tells me Take a walk outside, I'm gonna.

[VOCALIZING] ♪♪ Sit in the sadness.

Say hello to your friend in the mirror.

Tell them the truth, I dare you.

Not just want they want to hear.

One door closes one more opens.

Push your troubles aside.

>>Troubles aside.

Keep your chin up, trust the proces with your heart as your guide.

Meet the moment, find you calling, manifest your dreams.

They're gonna keep o talkin at me 'til I finally Ah.

Sit in the sadness.

Say hello to the friend in the mirror.

Tell them the truth, I dare you.

Not just want they want to hear.

>>So at firs it was a ladies group to be able to connect on Facebook with all the inspiring women that you met while you were-- >>Touring.

>>Traveling and singing and playing music and all these places connecting with musicians.

But not just musicians, artists and lawyers and gardeners.

And then we started having parties.

>>La Las.

>>La Las.

La La are when we bring music and food and everyone gets together for a good cause.

Puts a little bit in the pot, and we just keep doing that.

>>And the pot is always, something for a community, cause, our biggest la la benefactor to date has been, Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida.

And we have intermittently, over the years, raised money with our La Las to help feed children over the summer months when school lunch and breakfast doesn't happen.

And we're very proud that over these years we've raised over a quarter of $1 million.

And the power lines project, is also benefiting, Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida and even members of the Second Harvest Food Bank staff are participating in the recording and release of the record.

So it really is a community project of the, public.

Recording royalties and online sales go directly to Second Harvest Food Bank.

So literally streaming a song, just listening to our song helps the people in our community.

So we would like to invite people to find Swamp Xisters.

That's S-W-A-M-P and then Xistas with an X.

♪♪ >>When you want to draw your circle of friends, do you use a permanent marker?

>>Guess it depends.

>>Trace that curve with an unsteady hand.

If you try to use a compass.

You'll never expand.

Outside those confines where you're weird and real.

May you know someone who knows how you feel.

Now you've defined your circle of friends.

Would you be better off with a spiral?

They never end.

Even light years awa from the path that you've led.

You can reach across any distance.

>>So far away.

>>With just a thread.

Outside that orbit no matter how far.

May you kno someone who knows who you are.

And may you find you're of one mind.

All along the power lines of time.

♪♪ When you catalog all your kndred souls Your head can't quite get a hold of what your heart controls.

>>When your mind says no.

>>When you make your list will you stop and think Should I use a number 2 pencil?

>>Wa-oh.

>>Or India Ink?

>>India Ink.

>>I like India Ink.

>>Lets go with India!

>>And may you find you're of one mind.

All along the power line.

All along.

>>All along.

>>All along.

>>All along.

>>All along the power line.

>>The Xistas starts with an X to denote our opening the doors to all genders.

>>What's that about?

>>Xistas.

Yeah.

So Xistas is all our all are welcome.

We're not as women.

This organization is certainly is led, by women.

But as women, we also know how it feels to b excluded, based on your gender.

So we decided that it would be a good idea for us to never exclud anybody based on their gender.

So hence Swamp Xistas and, I believe Jim Meyers was probabl the first official swamp Xista.

And we're very, very proud, that he's helped with the songwriting and the performing and the recording and the music and, are excited that he's going to sing with us, a little bit today.

Even just one song.

♪♪ >>Can't deny it.

Mistakes were made.

Yet I find myself still in this race.

I could just stop and limp away, but instead I take it in.

Knowing someone's got to win and someone's got to end up in last place.

♪♪ Try to picture what's out of sight.

Trusting in this pace to see me there.

And I nearly fell and took a spill.

But somehow kept my feet.

Made friends with the concrete.

Learning to embrace this wear and tear.

I feel the strain of every choice and each negotiation with my inner voice.

And I almost say I concede.

But I bite my tongue and let it bleed.

♪♪ And when I get there, I won't be done.

It'll be time to recalibrate.

All this running.

It's only to keep from sitting still and pass the time until I find myself back in the starting gate.

♪♪ I felt the strain of every choice and each negotiation with my inner voice, and I almost said I concede but I bit my tongue and let it bleed.

♪♪ >>Hi, I'm Amy Robbins.

I started playing with the Swamp Xistas in 2018.

So what is that, eight years now?

That's crazy, but it's been a huge part of my musical journey.

I have, I was I was doing my own thing before, maybe for about ten years previously, before I started working with Beth and Renee, and I just felt lik I had not found my people yet.

And then I was at a show and Beth said, hey, why don't you come check us out, see what we're all about?

And it was like, instant "clickage."

Went to Beth's house and I was like, these are my people.

I found them finally here, an I've stuck with it ever since.

And I really like the idea that I'm able to also make a difference in the community while playing music.

One, two, three.

♪♪ Smal town living never felt so good.

You were the brightest star in the neighborhood.

Everywhere you go you played those whiskey soaking songs.

Hoping that they would sing along.

Maybe it'll move this whole thing along.

Maybe then I live up to the words I sing in my songs.

You're gonna make it.

Trust me.

You're gonna make it big.

All those girls gonna scream to shout.

When they see you on TV.

All those girls gonna scream and shout when they see you on TV.

Drinking your way across the land.

Got every town in the palm of your hand.

But you're crying about the world.

Oh how it's dark and trouble bound.

That voice inside just screaming loud.

You gotta do it right.

Gotta do it right now.

Time has come for you to stand up and rise from the crowd.

You're gonna make it.

Trust me.

You're gonna make it big.

All those girls gonna scream and shout when they see you on TV.

All those girls gonna scream and shout when they see you on TV.

♪♪ There's still some things weighing on your chest.

Unload them now and do your best.

Write yoursel one of those achy breaky songs.

But that's what the folks really want to hear.

When they're sitting in the bar crying in their beer.

You'll breakthrough to stardom here.

You can't go wrong.

You're gonna make you trust me.

You gotta make it big.

All those girls gonna scream shout when they see you on TV.

All those girls gonna scream and shout when they see you on TV.

All those girls gonna scream and shout when they see you on TV.

♪♪ >>I'm Bex and I'm a performer and musician from Apopka, Florida.

Music has always bee the way that I found community, whether it was church choi when I was seven, doing musicals all throughout middle school and high school and most recently, Florida Stat University's College of Music.

So coming back down to the Orlando area of place where I grew up and finding Swamp Xistas has been an amazing experience.

Just the welcoming and community.

You know, I thin Renee was saying there is such, programing to compete and to criticize, in the music community.

And sometimes that's how we get better.

But I've never felt such a nurturing mentorship from these wonderful people beside me, in a way that pushes me to be better without giving me any of the performance anxiety that I've experienced throughout my life.

♪♪ I'm gonna get there.

The best way I know how.

I deserve the right to be here.

I'll get to it somehow.

And I know what it's like to be scared.

It seems to confound me.

But I feel the breeze of a new fair wind to surround me.

No fire, wind and water no walls of bricks and mortar no mountaintops or hurricanes.

No men of steel on horses or fields of burning crosses can keep my dreams away from me.

♪♪ I want to be where the music is playing.

There must me someone somewhere who hears what I'm saying.

And I have wished and prayed for the bright lights to find me.

I can see it in the distance, the long road's behind me.

Yeah, yeah.

No fire, wind and water no walls of bricks and mortar, no mountaintops or hurricanes.

No men of steel on horses or fields of burning crosses can keep my dreams away from me.

♪♪ I want to be where the music is playing.

Ooh, there must be someone, somewhere who hears what I'm saying.

Yes, yes.

No fire, wind and water no walls of bricks and mortar no mountaintops or hurricanes.

No men of steel on horses or fields of burning crosses can keep my dreams away from me.

Away.

No fire, wind and water no walls of bricks and mortar, no mountaintops or hurricanes.

No men of steel on horses or fields of burning crosses can keep my dreams away from me.

Fire wind and water.

Fire wind and water.

Fire wind and water.

Fire wind and water.

>>Thanks for joining us for this episode of Melrose in the Mix featuring the Swamp Xistas.

I hope to see you soon here in the Melrose Center at the Orlando Public Library.

♪♪