CARL JONES AND ERYNN MARSHALL AT THE FRONT PORCH

carl jones

erynn marshall

erynn marshall and carl jones

Another night of driving to Woodlawn in the dark between 5:30 and 6:30, I got lost the second time. Drove by the Coulson Church Road turn and places I don't recall seeing were turning up, like the heavy equipment place that tells me I've gone too far. Turn around and head back. I'd gone a long ways past the turn off. It was equally difficult on the way back. Harmon's big clothing store is there on the corner, but no lights on the big letters of the name, not a landmark after dark. The post office is on the corner, but with lights out it's a black box like everything else along the side of the road. I'm so overwhelmed by headlights and taillights and the blackness of night, I can't see road signs or anything along the side of the road not lit up. Next time I'll measure the distance by odometer from the light at Walmart, go 4.9 miles and turn left.

I used to like night driving, but now find it disorienting. Nothing like going through a long curve at 60mph in the dark with a pickup beside me on the left that won't go ahead or drop back, but stayed beside me all the way through the curve. I focus more closely on driving than ever in the past. On the way home, maybe half way between Galax and Independence, a road angles very slightly off to the right, while the road I'm on curves slightly to the left. It's always a question of what to do there. A sign stands between them that says Keep Right. The sign refers to the road I'm on about to change from 4lane to 2lane, but standing where it is when I'm making an instant decision which one to take, that sign throws me every time, makes me think I made the wrong decision for just a split second, a demi-second of anxiety. Then I get it and go on.

I'd never heard Erryn Marshall before tonight. A few years ago I saw Carl at Merle Fest in the old-time tent with Beverly Thomas. I came away with high respect for both of them as musicians. Erynn Marshall is associated with the Blue Ridge Music Center on the Parkway. She's Canadian and studied Appalachian fiddle with West Virginia old-timers. She learned much from different ones along the way and has incorporated what she learned into her own sound with a fiddle. Like an Appalachian fiddler, she interprets the tunes she plays in her own style. Like an urban fiddler, her upper body flows with the sound in the music bringing to mind classical violinist Nadja Solerno-Sonnenberg, who broke the tradition of solo violinist standing still. Mountain fiddlers tend to stand still or sit still while they play, but that is changing. Seldom does a fiddler stand or sit still any more. Old-time has changed all the way along its two and a half centuries. It is changing in the time we're in like it has all the way along, the music changing as the culture changes. The important part, besides that she's beautiful while she's playing, she can make a fiddle do what it's meant to do. She dives into it while she plays and flows with the sound.

The people in the audience were well entertained tonight. Carl Jones is an entertaining performer. His sense of humor is accessibly off the wall. He likes odd word associations, playing with meanings and the sounds. He writes a good many songs, good songs. They are songs with something to say he believes worth saying, that at first bring John Prine to mind, and just as quickly Prine is forgotten. The only resemblance is the words are worth listening to. In fact, I prefer Jones's songs to Prines. He sang a song of his own called Snowflake, I think. Beautiful, simple, lovely song that makes a poignant point and the next line turns it into humor and back to falling snowflakes. He's asking the snowflakes to come down from the sky, 'our world has gone awry,' and paint the town. The songs he identified as his own had something powerful to say dressed in poetic light-hearted humor.

Carl has his own style of portraying a song that is mentally outside the ordinary, his feet standing firmly in the tradition. His talk between songs seldom tells a story, start to finish, but makes brief observations, humorous twists of word sounds and meanings. He plays his songs with artistry on all the instruments he plays, and sings his songs of contemporary ways of thinking. It's like the title of Benton Flippen's Rounder album, Old Time / New Time. Carl's old-time brings old-time up to date, makes it present in the same way Barbara Allen was present it its time. Carl Jones has an interesting mind that appears to go faster than he can keep up with using words. It is no stretch at all to say Carl Jones is a master musician.

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GOD WEPT

light in the window



I've had a bit of a heavy heart since this afternoon when a memory surfaced in conversation with a friend of many years, of some people we knew who have been dead 20 years. I'd been a member of the Regular Baptist Church in Glade Valley, Laurel Glenn, 14 years, went regularly because I loved it. I loved the people in the church, all of them. They were the people I felt the very closest to. People I could count on and they could count on me. In the beginning, Millard Pruitt, the preacher, told me it was my duty to go to church regularly. I told him I don't do duty. Duty is mechanical. I go to church when I want to go. It just happened I wanted to every meeting time. To his way of thinking, I was fulfilling my duty. To my way of thinking, I was going because I wanted to. If there were any preachers Millard Pruitt's equal in the county, I wouldn't know who they'd be. Millard had the spirit something awful, in the old way of putting it when awful meant full of awe. I'm grateful every year of my life I have experienced Elder Millard Pruitt's preaching. A lot of people didn't like him, but nobody could deny his preaching.



A time came when the light went out in my heart for the church and one morning heading out the door, I put my hand on the screen door to push it open and couldn't do it. I stood there, hand on door, unable to move. I didn't want to go. I said, 'Ok. You don't have to.' Next meeting time I couldn't go either. There came a time I realized something had died inside. At the time I thought it was that Millard was unable to preach any more and this man who got some kind of crazy notion he was called to preach came in to take his place. I couldn't leave the house to go listen to him run his mouth, "trying to talk." Meaning nowhere near preaching. He was a good old boy, good natured as anybody could be, had extended himself to help people around him in whatever kind of need all his life. If he was called to preach, the preaching never happened. It got to the place I couldn't listen to him any more.



But something before that made it easy, when otherwise I might not have been able to leave the church. One day maybe less than a year ago it came to me what put the light out that was in my heart. The day Sabe Choate, the old black farmer whose land surrounded the church's lot on 3 sides, whose house was the next house up the road, dropped in on a meeting in his Alzheimer time. Sabe grew up in that church house as it was originally a black church bought by the Regular Baptists. The cemetery Sabe would be buried in was across the road. During the meeting I saw an old man hat go by the window opposite where I sat. I wondered who would be coming to the meeting this late. I don't recall anyone coming in that late to a meeting. At the door in a suit, holding his hat in his hands in front, standing at the threshold looking at the floor appeared Sabe Choate, far away in Alzheimer absence of mind. My heart wept seeing him. Millard said, 'Come on in, Sabe.'



Old man Sabe stepped in the door and sat in the same seat I sat in my first time. I sat there with Sabe on my mind the whole time, the years I'd known Sabe, 14 years, him stopping by on his tractor when I was there mowing the lawn and every 4 years painting the house, to talk a little bit and tell me the Lord's gonna bless me for what I'm doing. I came to know him well enough to know there was no better man on this earth than Sabe Choate in God's eye. Anyone who ever knew him would readily affirm it. I was holding back tears from seeing Sabe in the shape he was in, as well as immense respect for Millard, because I wasn't sure he'd ask Sabe to come in. After the preaching and the singing, we all set about shaking hands with each other singing the last song. I went straight to Sabe and shook his hand about to lose it seeing him like that. I went around shaking hands with the others and began to notice nobody went to shake Sabe's hand. Everyone walked by him like he was invisible. If I'd thought about it, I'd have been ready, but I hadn't thought about it and was not ready.



I told myself, 'You're in the South. This is their culture, their church, their beliefs, I'm not here to change any of that. I'm here to accept.' I let it go, forced myself to pay it no mind, while my soul was in tears. When we were going out the door, people standing around in small groups talking, I heard Sabe's car cranking but not starting. I went around to see if I could help him. He kept on grinding the starter until the battery started weakening. I stopped him so the battery wouldn't go dead; we might need it. We raised the hood and looked at the motor as if either one of us would know what to look for or do. We put the hood down and he went back to cranking it. Not 15 feet away the alternate preacher and a deacon were talking. Neither of them looked our way, never offered a hand, acting like we were invisible and inaudible. The car finally caught hold and sputtered into motion. Sabe backed out and putt-putted up the road to home. Inside, I was a wreck insisting to myself I not judge these two men who had nothing for their church's neighbor, people who have gone to church all their lives, the deacon the son of a preacher. I told myself over and over, this is the South, let it rest.



The day I stood at the screen door unable to push it open, I didn't consciously know the Sabe Choate incident had made it easy for me to stay at home. A light had gone out inside and I felt the church and everyone in it were far away, somehow not so much my people any more. Today, in town talking about it, I felt a great deal of sorrow. Then, arriving home, going through emails and computer stuff, Sabe came back to mind. I put my head in my hand and the tears flew. I was thinking how glad I am I shook Sabe's hand instead of following the lead of the others. God was there. God saw it. God did not judge them, but I know God wept, because my soul wept. I sat with head in hand and tears going, thinking I'd have carried intense guilt the rest of my life if I hadn't gone to Sabe to shake his hand, among the most honorable men I've ever known, and none more humble. I wondered if I'd be able to tell you the story without turning passionate and going into a rant. But I have no rant about it. It's just among the saddest moments of my life that ran way deeper than I knew. It turns out that's where I lost confidence in church. I'm unable to join another, though I like to visit from time to time for the beauty and the love of it.



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GUITAR PICKIN WILLARD GAYHEART

winter lights



I think about the music I hear at Woodlawn on Friday nights much of the time. No pop tunes inhabit my head any more. No more in my head is music like, I'm a king bee, I buzz around yo hive, from the Rolling Stones, or from Patti Smith, outside of society, that's where I wanna be, or Jane's Addiction, comin down the mountain, one of many children---that one has a good surfing video that goes with it. My mind has always been a juke box of pop music from I saw those harbor lights, they only told me we were parting, those same old harbor lights that once brought you to me. Your Hit Parade with Dorothy Collins and Snooky Lanson. I heard them pre-school on the radio my city grandmother listened to, and later saw them on television.



Now the songs I carry in my head are, Mama said don't go near that river, don't you be hangin around old Catfish John, and the original Yellow Rose of Texas, she's the sweetest girl of color this fellow ever knew, her eyes were bright as diamonds, they sparkled like the dew, and another one from way back there, Sweet Virginia, Oh Virginia. It's not the same as the Rolling Stones' Sweet Virginia, not at all. Willard Gayheart sings these songs and others on Friday nights at Woodlawn, Virginia, I record them and put them on YouTube and hear them several times, enough that the words are now inhabiting my head. And Willard's new song he's working on, with nothing but the Bible and the fiddle and the plow, and his song Robin D, another of my favorites, for eleven months he labored with one main goal in mind, to christen her and take her down the river to the sea, and, the thing I dreaded most was that old dark holler's ghost, Ern and Zorie's sneakin bitin dog, these are the songs that play in my mind. I don't object at all. It cracks me up that Willard has me going about with old songs from the 30s or thereabouts flowing through my mind, and Willard Gayheart originals, songs I like a lot. Sometimes I go to YouTube to hear them, because one is in my mind so much I want to hear Willard sing it again.



Last week when Pathway was playing, somebody requested My Old Cabin Home On The Hill. Nobody in the band knew the words, so they asked Willard to come up and sing it. He went without his guitar and stood with his hands in his pockets singing it. Something about that particular performance struck me that it was essence of Willard's singing. He moves his head back and forth when he's in the groove, eyes closed, and it's then Willard is going on pure sound. He, himself, is absent. Only the song exists. That's the kind of singer Willard is, and this song shows it very well. Perhaps the part of his mind that plays the guitar is free to join in the singing, giving it something new.



When it gets down to what's real, Willard is there. That's where Willard's songs come from, where his pickin comes from, where his singing comes from. And Willard, himself, the man, is the same. The music is an expression of who Willard is. When it comes to mountain music, Willard is right there with Ralph Stanley and Doc Watson, in his own way. Willard has never made corporate label recordings, self-producing about everything he does. Sells cds at shows. No distributor. He's only known by people who know his music from live performances. He's been with the Highlanders 40 years. His band Skeeter & The Skidmarks made 2 cds and now working on a third. Alternate Roots made 4 albums. He has made 2 cds with Bobby Patterson and 1 so far with Scott Freeman, plus playing on Scott's solo cds. I don't know how many records Highlanders made.



Willard has a great deal of stage experience and recording experience. He's as relaxed on stage as he is off. Mountain music is his musical form that's been with him all his life. Willard plays mountain music in his own style, like Ralph Stanley does, like Doc Watson does. His style is not as well known, because it's not had the radio/tv coverage, but it's here nonetheless. Over and over, the musicians who come to the Front Porch to play on Friday nights speak of how happy they are to be making music with Willard, because he's such a good musician, keeps a good solid rhythm and sings well. In Willard's case, it's almost only other musicians who know how good a musician Willard is. He's understated and never shows off. He's more like the art of mountain music. Willard is an artist, expressed both by ear and by eye. Willard is the kind of artist you have to discover first hand, by experience; he has no publicity agent, no place in any advertising budget, no ad campaign to make him a household name. You find out about Willard by hearing him. Write his name in the search box at YouTube and you'll here some mighty fine music.



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A DAY OF ODD OBSTRUCTIONS

light from the window







The snow is icy and stuck to the road so well the drumptruck that went by yesterday cleared the snow off the ice stuck to the road, making it all the more difficult to drive. This year they were conservative with the salt. Only put it on patches of ice instead of driving and slinging it wherever it falls. The temperature never reached above freezing today, but the sun and the salt together melted the roads fairly well. I drove in to the grocery store and Selma's coffee shop. The only ice was on the gravel part of the road going down the mountain, and it wasn't bad either direction, up or down. Highway 18 was completely melted and white from the salt, like in Sparta.







I was the cause of a young guy twenty-something in a ball cap and gold SUV completely losing his cool. Turning into Farmer's Hardware parking lot, the entrance near Halsey Drug, the car was parked in the middle of the exit/entrance. I saw I could make it by a frog hair. Didn't see any point in parking in the road with right blinker going, waiting for him to find an opening to pull into to make a left turn at the worst possible place in town and time of day for a left turn. By now I know the Catfish well enough to know where the corner of its bumper is. I swung a right turn into the space between car and the brick wall like it was wide-open and clear. It was. He started waving his arms, screaming, windows up, at me to watch what I was doing. I saw what I was doing, needed to see it to do it. Didn't touch his girlfriend's mother's car, or maybe his wife's. From the corner of my eye I caught a look at him as I drove by. He was in post-hysteria red face, red ears, looking daggers at me for nothing.







Earlier, at Food Lion, I pushed the buggy around the corner into the Mexican aisle aiming to get some corn chips, and an abandoned buggy was parked in the middle with a display box making it impossible to get around. The woman with the buggy was about 15 feet away talking on a cell phone. She came and pushed the buggy out of the way and went on. I went around the corner into the next aisle and she was in that aisle standing beside her buggy taking up the whole aisle. I turned around and went to the next aisle. When I came to the end of it, she was turning into the aisle. Still on the cell phone. Next aisle she was parked in the way again. By then, it seemed like we knew each other. Then I saw an entire family turn into the aisle completely blocking that end. I turned around and got out of there fast as I could go. Went to the catfood aisle and the dairy aisle, the home stretch. At the end of that aisle was the woman with the cell phone. She pulled the buggy out of the middle of the aisle and it was a clear shot to the register. By then we were almost acquainted. I'd never seen her before, assuming she was from Away.







In one of the aisles I was standing picking up a package of Bigelow green tea bags and a man I'd never seen before walked right into me. Didn't see me, wasn't looking. I turned just enough to make it a ricochet instead of a thud. By the time I came up on the guy in the middle of Farmer's parking lot entrance/exit, I was ready. Did what I had to do. As I passed him by, I projected a thought to him: 'If you wouldn't park in the middle, I wouldn't have to scare you so bad.' I'd already resigned myself to this being a day of heedless people out and about. Time to get home, though not without a latte at Selma's amid her good vibrations.







Allan, next door, has a long driveway made of solid ice. I knew he wouldn't be able to get out, so I called this morning to say I'd be making a town run if he needed to get to town. He needed some groceries too. He was sitting in the car when I turned into Farmer's parking lot. He didn't let out a peep. Good self control. My driving has always scared him. One more scary moment is just another in a long list. I'm mortified of his driving too. I don't like to get in a car with him any more than he wants to get in one with me. In fact, I've got to where I don't like to ride with anybody any more. Beginning to understand why Jr always wanted to be the one driving when he was in a car or pickup with anybody else. It's a belief that I trust my own driving. Never had a wreck. Came close a couple times and got out of it. I was glad to settle for a bit at Selma's in the good feeling in her place.



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