Boss Radio: Revealed at Last
    Ron Jacobs & Bill Drake
    June 19-20, 1999       home

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Georgia Roots

RON JACOBS: So, you grew up in Donalsonville in a corner of the state of Georgia.

BILL DRAKE: I was born January 14th, 1937. In Waycross, Georgia.

RON JACOBS: Not Donalsonville.

BILL DRAKE: No. Waycross. Right at the edge of the Okeefenokee Swamp. Don’t you know about Waycross? (Laughs).

RON JACOBS: All the published stuff says that you’re from Donalsonville.


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BILL DRAKE: Well, that’s where I grew up. I mean, I was born in Waycross, and my parents moved from there to Donalsonville when I was like a year old.

RON JACOBS: How far is Waycross from Donalsonville?

BILL DRAKE: A hundred miles. A hundred twenty miles.

RON JACOBS: Waycross is more well known, right?

BILL DRAKE: Well, yeah, anything is more well known than Donalsonville. Waycross is almost on the coast. The Atlantic coast. Like a little north of Jacksonville, Florida. '‘Cause Jacksonville, Florida is in the northeast corner of Florida and then you got that Okeefenokee Swamp and then you got Waycross, Georgia.

RON JACOBS: So you’re born 1937 in Waycross and why were your parents there do you think?

BILL DRAKE: Oh, I guess ‘cause my daddy had a job. He was an auto parts guy.

RON JACOBS: And your mom?

BILL DRAKE: She was a schoolteacher. Second grade.

RON JACOBS: Brothers, sisters?

BILL DRAKE: None.

RON JACOBS: Why do you think your parents picked Donalsonville?

BILL DRAKE: Well, they’d grown up around Donalsonville anyhow. My grandfather, Papa Drake, lived five miles from Donalsonville and my father was like fifteen miles from there in Blakely. That’s where they met and got married and then my father got a job and they moved to Waycross and that’s where I was born.

RON JACOBS: What was your mother’s maiden name?

BILL DRAKE: Maxine Drake. But they called her Pat for some reason, I don’t know why.

RON JACOBS: Where did that side of your family come from?

BILL DRAKE: The Drake name supposedly they have traced it pretty much back to Sir Francis Drake, who was a fucking thief and a pirate. On the Yarbrough side of the family—the Yarbroughs I don’t think anybody had inspected them too carefully. I’m not sure they wanted to know. But the Yarbroughs were all from that area of the country. From all around the state of Georgia. But from what I was told as a kid, I never paid attention to that stuff. But they were talking in English and German.

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