RETURN OF ALTERNATE ROOTS

 

alternate roots

 scott freeman, mark freeman, katy taylor, tony testerman, willard gayheart

 

alternate roots

Friday night, the Fiddle And Plow show at Willard Gayheart's gallery and frame shop in Woodlawn, Virginia, the core of the band, Alternate Roots, played a reunion. Plus Scott's brother Mark, who came to hear the show, had a banjo in the car, and Scott asked him to join the band. He's a good picker, plays in the Freeman brothers band, Pathway, a bluegrass band emphasis on gospel. Alternate Roots started in the 1990s with Scott, Katy, Tony and Willard on their first album, Tales of Love and Sorrow. They added Randy Pasley on dobro, who appeared on their second album and the others following. Steve Lewis came in next with bluegrass banjo and lead guitar for their third and fourth albums. It became a dynamic band. The show Friday night seemed like a combo of the full orchestra that Alternate Roots became. After the fourth album, Planted In Tradition, the band went away, their last show being at the Carter Fold off hwy 58 a half hour or so beyond Bristol, VA/TN. I made several photographs and a few videos of the Friday night show. Caught myself while holding the video camera singing along and had to be conscious of my own unconscious singing. I've not been there in probably seven to eight months. Stopped going in winter when the dark came early and Galax headlights made my eyes crazy at a time everybody is going home from work. I fell out of the habit of going, and missed several shows I might have gone to, but let them go, dreading the drive. When I saw that Alternate Roots was playing, I made it a point to be there. It was good to be back after so long a break to see familiar faces who go every week. My friends visiting from Atlanta, Lucas and Judy, intended to go, but Lucas had a spell of not feeling well, so Judy went along and had a stellar musical experience.

 

katy taylor, tony testerman, willard gayheart

 

katy and tony

 

Katy and Willard did most of the singing. I always like hearing Katy and Willard sing. I know all the songs and sing with them inside my head. Tony plays a bass with quite a lot more going on than just keeping rhythm. He keeps the rhythm so well the musicians don't have to think about the rhythm, and he plays it in such a way it enhances the song flowing with the melody as well as the rhythm. He is not a thump-thump bass player. There were times I would like to have heard just Tony's bass, not necessarily a solo, but to hear better what he was doing with the strings. We tend to think of the people who keep rhythm as secondary to the band. But they are as integral to the band's sound as the banjo or fiddle, lead guitar or dobro. Willard's rhythm guitar playing is amazing picking when I pay close attention to what he is doing. He does not strum. He picks two strings, individually, each swipe of the pick. His noting fingers change chords without thought. He's 81 and been picking since childhood. Katy picks a good rhythm guitar too. Katy's delight was visible having a chance to pick with Willard. She told me some years ago she loves making music with Willard. There were times I saw her watching Willard sing like she was in awe. And for good reason. She hears Willard. Willard's singing and picking do not draw attention to themselves. He sings a song to deliver the words. Pay close attention to Willard's singing once and you'll always pay attention thereafter. Willard has taken the Hank Williams song, Mama Tried, and made it his own. To my ear, he has made The Yellow Rose of Texas his own. Before I heard the words Willard goes by, the original lyrics before it was changed to be the Texas state flower, I wondered why old-time fiddlers of the past liked the song. It makes a beautiful fiddle tune, and with Willard's lyrics it makes a beautiful song.

 

willard gayheart

 

willard  a-pickin and a-singin

 

Willard sings in the mountain tradition of, it's the song not the singer. In pop music, like in the Rolling Stones lyric, it's the singer not the song. In hillbilly music the singer delivers the song in his own style of singing. Being true to the integrity of the song applies to vocals as well as to the instruments. Willard sang lead vocals with his Galax bluegrass band, The Highlanders, over forty years. He sang with the bands he and Scott made together, Skeeter and the Skidmarks and Alternate Roots. He likes Texas swing, too, makes good music with Bob Wills songs, Take Me Back To Tulsa, Little Red Wagon. Scott likes Bob Wills, says his dad played Bob Wills all the time he was growing up. Willard and Scott play often and have recorded some Texas swing. Scott does a good version of Bob Wills' Roly Poly, and makes it his own, to my ear. Scott and Willard don't slow the Texas swing down, either. I used to care nothing for Texas swing, then heard Willard and Scott playing it. At an Alternate Roots show in Jefferson, the next town to the west of Sparta, I heard Willard sing Catfish John. They never put it on a recording, but that night Willard brought Catfish John to life for me. Katy's vocals gave Alternate Roots its own special sound. Her first song at the show was the John Prine song, Hello In There. Katy makes that one her own. I've heard John Prine sing it, and it's good. But after I've heard him sing it once, that's enough. I can hear Katy sing it over and over. It is on Alternate Roots first album. She sings it like a gospel song. Come to think of it, Katy sings everything with the reverence given a gospel song.

 

katy a-pickin and a-grinnin

 

katy a-singin

 

I was glad my friend Judy had a chance to hear Katy perform. Judy played guitar and sang in her school years and let it go preoccupied with being a wife and mother while having a full time job. Now that her baby is grown and gone with a baby of her own, Judy has retired from her work and needs something to occupy her attention. She is taking up the guitar again and singing. Katy was an inspiration for her. Judy was appreciating her singing to the full. Judy bought Alternate Roots first album, the combo that played Friday night, and spoke with Katy some about singing. Judy is a good singer. I'd like to see her bring it out in the open again. So what if she hasn't played and sang in over thirty years. Tommy Jarrell and Pop Birchfield, both by different circumstances, stopped playing fiddle for forty years. When they took it up again, they were the great fiddlers of their time. Evidently, not playing for such a period of time must be to the good for the individual musician. I'm thinking of an experiment where one participant threw a basketball at a hoop half an hour a day for a month. Another threw a basketball in his mind at a hoop half an hour a day for a month. At the end of the month, both had improved the same. It tells me Jarrell and Birchfield played the fiddle quite a lot, probably every day, in their minds while working in the fields, making liquor, whatever they were doing. I imagine Judy has continued to play in her mind. Scott played the fiddle and the mandolin. His brother Mark played Scott's mandolin some while Scott played fiddle. They grew up making music together, they play in a bluegrass band together, they know how to flow together making music. It was combo music the band made, relaxed and flowing free, music made by people who have flowed together musically for a great many years. 

 

scott freeman and mark freeman

 

scott and mark

 

 

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MARK FREEMAN AT THE FRONT PORCH

brothers



Tonight's entertainment at the Front Porch in Woodlawn, Virginia, was Mark Freeman on banjo and guitar. Mark is Scott Freeman's brother, accompanying him above. Scott credits Mark with getting him started on mandolin. Scott came along after 4 brothers, all of them played an instrument except the mandolin, so Mark assigned Scott to the mandolin to round out the band. In the present day, they have a bluegrass band that leans to gospel called PATHWAY. They make respectable music.



Mark's theme tonight was Jimmy Arnold, a musician who was from around here, Ashe County originally, then Galax and at the end I think he was located at Fairview, outside Galax on the hwy to MtAiry. Good singer, good song writer, good musician. Made a couple of country albums, never went far in the country music world, but might have but for downward spiraling habits. He made an album of songs of the Civil War that is a classic album of just plain good music. His style of country fusioned with bluegrass and old-time. He was an excellent banjo picker too. Learned his licks from Tommy Jarrell. Mark didn't sing much, and the tunes he and Scott played were tunes associated with Jimmy Arnold. Mark talked a little bit about him too. Arnold is a legend in this area, held way up high. Mostly Mark picked banjo and Scott mandolin. Sometimes Mark played a guitar and sometimes Scott played a fiddle. Mark is all over the banjo's neck. I found most interesting listening to the way they played together, musicians who know each other's musical minds, have known each other all their lives, brothers.



Mark and Scott picked with casual familiarity all the music they made the same as he makes music with Willard. These are the people Scott has made music with throughout his life. This whole family of MtAiry Freemans I'm finding is an extraordinary bunch of people all in one family. I find them sensible, balanced people who make music and have their jobs and families. This can be said of about all mountain musicians. I don't mean all like 100%. More like it's a rule of thumb. Applies to enough to make it seem like all. What I say about mountain musicians doesn't always apply to musicians in general. Off the mountain musicians have very different attitudes toward themselves. The tradition in the mountains is a humility about it. Making music is not something to hold yourself up high over. In the tradition, mountain musicians play in such a way it calls no attention to the musician. The music is what it's about. The younger ones who grew up on television are breaking the mold.



The people coming to hear the music are becoming different every week. For some time it was the same ones. Now it's different ones every week and a small core of the same ones. I go every week and see everybody. Interesting variety of people. The cat that lives there walks through the seating area and music making area once each night. She's recently been shorn and she hates it. She really hates it. Her whiskers were snipped off too, and the tip of her tail cut, which has never healed. She walks around with a sour look on her face, which is mainly in the way her eyes are set. The place is her home. All these people in a place where people come and go all day long, sitting down and making loud noise. She lets anybody pet her that wants to, but not too much. It's like the cat lets them pet her because it does them so much good.


Next door at the Heritage Shoppe I picked up the cds from Bobby Patterson of Jr and his musician friends. Bobby showed me his music studio where he does the recording and cd making and all that he does with all the old equipment, table top size, replaced by a computer with a big monitor and a mouse with a ball on top. With it he can take out a sour note and replace it with a good one. It's an extremely complex machine and he figured it out all by trial and error, letting the 10 hour video rest. He did a beautiful job with them. On the label is a b&w picture of Jr playing banjo and Cleve Andrews playing fiddle. He got the names of all songs and musicians on the label. After we had them ready to go, he brought up the bass player with Jr and Cleve. He said it was a woman named Ann Jaffner, the very woman Jr never forgot as the best bass player he'd ever made music with. Too late to get her name credited on the cd, which is a shame, but I can add it to the paper playlist.



So it's ready to go. I'll take several to the radio station tomorrow and give them out. This is a joyous moment for me. Like I said to Bobby this evening, I could not sit on this music having the only copy of it. So curious that it came to me at once after Jr went away. It made perfect sense to me to have a hundred copies made to give out to Jr's friends and relatives and archives in Chapel Hill, Boone, some other places. This is important music. It's all there is of Jr and Cleve Andrews. It's all there is of a bunch of people on it. It's rare music. It's a thing that it's a shame in one way Jr isn't here to hear it. In another way, it is what it is. Evidently it wasn't meant for him to hear it. It was meant for me. These musicians on the cd are people Jr has told me about, but I was never able to hear Cleve Andrews, who, like Jr, never recorded. I never dreamed I'd ever hear Ann Jaffner, the woman bass player Jr swore by unto the day he died as the best bass player he'd ever made music with. Bobby Patterson recognized her bass. I'd been suspecting it might be her, and Bobby nailed it. He'd heard her play. He remembered her style of playing. It's her own. She continued in Jr's memory until his mind was gone. When Jr came to the place he couldn't remember names especially, he asked me what that bass player's name was he likes so much. Ann Jaffner. Now I know why he remembered her to the day he died. In this cd I hear what Jr told me about over some years. It's like seeing the movie after reading the book.