From the Witch and Toad CD "You Can Never Go Home"

Lucky Slob  - Witch and Toad

From the Witch and Toad CD " You Can Never Go Home"

Red Red Tide - Witch and Toad

From the upcoming CD "Its About the Story"

Uncle Johnny
© 2011 Music and Lyrics by Steve Mramor
266 East 204th Street, Euclid, OH 44123 ~ 440-221-0693 ~ mramorsteve@yahoo.com


My Grandma’s from Kansas, my mother is too
My Gramp lived a lifetime in a hole called Mine 22 
In a place called the dust bowl, in a time before the New deal
They had just moved to Franklin from a town called Breezy Hill 


Now my Gramp was a drinker, and he played him some cards
And he grew a big garden in the spring in the yard
My gram had her chickens, and water they drew from a well
These are things that were told me, and all my mother would tell


Now my gramp had a brother, some said he was slow
And though he was younger, he worked down below
It was on Easter Sunday, his mother begged Johnny don’t go
And he was crushed by a coal car, and died while he smoked a last smoke


Now my mother she told me, she never could cry
And it took a lifetime, and she finally said why
She told half the story as seen through a little girl’s eyes
How we get lost in a coal mine, and sometimes we never get right


So I walk through the prairie for the things that I love
My grandmother’s house there and the night sky above
And when it gets quiet and I can feel my own soul
I forgive uncle Johnny, then I turn around and walk home


My Grandma’s from Kansas, my mother is too
My Gramp lived a lifetime in a hole called Mine 22 
In a place called a dust bowl, in a time before the New Deal
They had just moved to Franklin, from a town….. 




Uncle Johnny - Steve Mramor and Friends

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Paul Penfield & Steve Mramor - Recorded at Rider's Inn - 3-19-2016

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Paul Penfield and Steve Mramor - Recorded at Riders Inn - 3-19-2016

Dont Think Twice Cover

Steve Mramor was born into a family blessed with musical talent and was raised in a home where singing and playing seemed as natural and necessary as breathing. His father played in a well-loved local band; his mother and her sisters sang a cappella harmony; and both of his parents were members of a group that perpetuated and celebrated their Slovene heritage and culture, including its music. Steve and his two sisters were all given music lessons, and though Steve’s lessons were not on an instrument of his choice, the experience provided a foundation for what was to come. He quit the lessons, became a self-taught guitarist, and began performing in a high school band in his hometown of Euclid, Ohio. 

He set performing aside during the ensuing decades, until the evening he heard Raven Dana and her daughter singing in a local coffee house. His love of making music was reawakened with that experience. He and Raven soon formed a band called Witch and Toad, and collaborated on the album titled “You Can Never Go Home Again.”

With “Uncle Johnny,” Steve drew on a family story so true to the common experiences of the time and place that he was asked to perform the song when the Smithsonian Institution brought its traveling exhibition, “The Way We Worked,” to the Miners Hall Museum in Franklin, Kansas, in the summer of 2013. Franklin is where his mother and her family lived at the time the events that form the basis of “Uncle Johnny” occurred, and where a number of family members still reside. Several of Steve’s cousins joined him in the performance, as did Susan Gaydos, who created the video that accompanies the song. The video and song remain a part of the permanent exhibit at the Miners Hall Museum. 

Although Steve enjoys performing, his first loves remain composition and songwriting. In addition to continuing with Witch and Toad, he pursues a solo career and currently is working on an album of new originals titled “The Ghost.” 


Steve Mramor 1

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