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The
Mercy
Project

Songs from a rust-orange Westfalia headed north on Highway 61.

The music of Mercy Grace Robinson, from the novel Hummingbird by Edith Whitfield.

Listen on YouTube About the voice
Rust-orange 1979 Westfalia camper van illustration
Highway through a windshield at sunset

What this is

Mercy Grace Robinson is the narrator of Hummingbird, a novel by Edith Whitfield. She writes songs on the road, so the book came with a catalogue.

This is where it lives: her records, the musicians she meets along the way, and the novel they all come from.

Mercy Grace Robinson

Twenty. From Aldine, north Houston. A 1979 Westfalia, a guitar that was her mother's, and no plan past the next town.

She'd been writing songs since she was twelve. She'd never sung them in front of anyone until this trip.

Plays
A Gibson Hummingbird
Sound
Blues, folk, roots, gospel
Headed
North, mostly
Guitar in an open case on a sidewalk

The records

The Road Record album sleeve
The Road Record

The Road Record

Mercy Grace Robinson — Songs from the novel

  1. Tangerine Chapel
  2. Nobody's Coming
  3. Rain Takes Its Cut
  4. Amber
  5. Water's Easy
  6. A Light on Low
Rust-Orange Chapel album sleeve
Rust-Orange Chapel

Rust-Orange Chapel

Mercy Grace Robinson — Old stories, told plain

  1. Bramble King Judges 9
  2. The Little Robe 1 Samuel 1–2
  3. We Wanted to Know Genesis 3–4

People she meets

Musicians she crosses paths with on the road. Each has a record of their own, released one at a time.

45 rpm record for Kirby "Picks" Jackson

Kirby "Picks" Jackson

Picks & the Delta Madmen

45 rpm record for Eli

Eli

Record title to come

45 rpm record for Micky The Canadian

Micky The Canadian

Record title to come

45 rpm record for Canadian

Canadian

Name and record to come

Hummingbird novel cover

Hummingbird

A novel by Edith Whitfield

In June, Mercy Grace Robinson leaves Houston in a rust-orange Westfalia with her mother's guitar and a name she has never said out loud.

Hummingbird is the summer she spends driving every direction but the one that matters.

Tell me when it's out

What's coming

  • Now A new song every Wednesday on The Road Record.
  • Now A new song every Sunday on Rust-Orange Chapel.
  • Winter Hummingbird, the novel.
  • After that Records by the musicians she meets.
Horizon at first light, highway ahead

About the voice

Mercy is a character in a novel. She isn't a real person, so her singing voice is generated with AI. AI us used to edit writing.

What isn't automated is the deciding. Every song starts from something that happens to her in the book, and every line either sounds like her or gets cut.

It's stated here, it's marked on every video, and it always will be. If it's not for you, that's understood.

Hear the next song first

New songs, and word when the book is finished. A few emails a year.