UNCLES AND NEPHEWS

Lucas Pasley & Fred McBride

Both these men are related to Guy Brooks, fiddler of the Red Fox Chasers, first band from Alleghany to record. They recorded 40 titles in the late 1920s, and I believe Guy Brooks composed most of them. Lucas plays one of his great-great uncle's fiddle tunes, Did You Ever See The Devil Uncle Joe, on the Alleghany County Musicians collection. I believe Guy Brooks was great-uncle to Fred McBride. Fred's mother and Lucas's grandmother were Brookses. Lucas's great-grandfather was Frank Brooks, Guy's brother.

If those relationships aren't exact, they're close. Fred was one of the great fiddlers of his generation. He worked in Maryland and retired back in NC, living at Hays/NWilkesboro. He made music in the mountains with his friends George Eller, who lives at Hayes across the street from Fred, Faye Wagoner, also a Brooks, of Glade Valley, Bertie Dickens of Ennice, Ed Atwood of Whitehead, and others.

Fred, like a mountain musician, never cared anything about recording. Some younger musicians below the mountain in Wilkes County got a band together around him, The Stone Mountain Old Time String Band, to get him on record. They made a great album. Fred didn't like the experience. He said playing the fiddle alone inside a glass booth with headphones on didn't feel right. He didn't like the process and having the album made didn't phase him one way or the other. I'm glad they made it because Fred was too good not to have on record.

Lucas paid close attention to Fred's fiddle playing and learned a great deal from him. Lucas plays fiddle, old-time banjo, guitar and bass, all equally well. Fred played old-time banjo too, so when they made music they'd switch around, play one awhile and then the other. Lucas played a tune Fred taught him at Fred's funeral. It was a moving moment. I don't know how he did it, close as he was to Fred.

Lucas actively maintains a house, improving it step-by-step. I saw his wife Ibi at Food Lion today. She said he's completely changing the kitchen and she and the kids are staying out of his way. The question of what I might write about today was drifting in the back of my mind and when I saw Ibi, that was it. Ibi is learning fiddle and she plays bass at jams. Ibi is a delicate thing, like fine china. I have a feeling it's her delicate nature and delicate frame that appeals to Lucas, plus, of course, Ibi herself, a dear any way you look at her.

Lucas is Mr. Pasley English professor at the high school. He likes the kids and the kids like him. He's a skateboard champion too. In the summer he and Ibi go around to old-time fiddlers conventions and both bring home ribbons after having a fun weekend. Everything Lucas does, he does well.

He has a computer loaded with old-time music, an immense amount of treasures. He's becoming the county's musical folklorist. Like he has Clifton Evans's reel-to-reel tapes he's putting into computer and on cds for archival reasons. These projects take him awhile, they're slow and ongoing, always interesting to him. Like working on his house a little bit at a time when he's able. By retirement age, the house restoration will be completed and beatuiful, inside and out. All of his projects grow as he grows and get better as they go along.

Lucas has created a website where all the musicians of the county, past and present, are listed. It is in its infancy and he is looking for information on the various musicians and some examples of their music, so you can click on a name and find some information on the musician, and where possible samples of his/her music. He thinks he'd like it to be something like Wikipedia where anybody can add information.

http://sites.google.com/site/tradmusicalleghany/

PS I've fixed this link so it works. It didn't work at first because I'd left out "site" after .com.

THE CARTER FOLD

Alternate Roots

In the Clinch Mountains of SW Virginia, near Hiltons, on the AP Carter Highway, mountain music enters the atmosphere from The Carter Fold on a Saturday night. Janette and Joe, daughter and son of AP and Sara Carter created the place for regional bands to play on Saturday nights next door to AP's old country store that is now a Carter Family museum that charges 50c to get in.

To the people who go there, the Carter Fold is akin to a holy place. I felt it the moment I stepped in the door to pay my $5. It's not a subtle feeling either. It's the same feeling as stepping into a sanctuary, a real one . That was the first moment I knew the people in there loved the Carter Family as much as I do. I, myself, felt awe stepping in there, almost to tears. It's the same feeling as at a Ralph Stanley concert in the mountains.

From time to time I'd get into conversation with someone and the subject was always the Carter Family. Outside for a smoking break I saw the moon over the Clinch Mountains. The Carters and the Stanleys made the Clinch Mountains as legendary in traditional American music as Wordsworth did the lake country in England.

I was thinking how this view of the Clinch Mountains from where I was standing is the view of the Clinch Mountains they saw every day. It seemed like ordinary mountain landscape in the daylight, but the mountains with the moon above them seemed more like the image in my mind, navy blue mountains and a middle blue sky with the golden moon and a halo around it.

The band that night was Alternate Roots. With my friend Jean we traveled two and a half hours getting there because we both wanted to see the band and both wanted to see the Carter Fold. If you listen to my radio show, you've heard Alternate Roots fairly often. It's a band of excellent musicians who played together beautifully from the start. I even think of them as a kind of art band of mountain music. They play a song because they believe it's beautiful in its way and don't lean toward standard crowd pleasers and getting the audience worked up.

Steve doesn't get everybody hoopin and hollerin over his banjo, until it's time. Scott makes nothing of his mandolin artistry, until, again, it's time. The night of the day Scott won the mandolin competition at the Wayne Henderson Festival, a new mandolin made by Wayne, he arrived at the Blue Ridge Music Center just in time to go on stage. When it came his time to take his mandolin break he smoked that thing. He was all over it. At a certain point, Steve looked at him like to say, what got into you? I'd seen Scott play several times, but never like that.

Scott is a mandolin and fiddle player, who plays every note at whatever speed is required. Pee Wee Lambert, who played mandolin with the Stanley Brothers is a mandolin player who brings Scott to mind when I hear him, the crystal clarity of every note and it always right.

Steve Lewis, banjo and lead guitar, is Scott's equal musically. They play together like one mind. Each one is a musician who wants to play the artistry of the music and their instruments. And best of all, they like to make music. When they're at it, it's music being made, and you feel it. I wouldn't say less of anyone else in the band.

Katy Taylor is a bluegrass singer the equal of any one of them on the bluegrass charts. Everyone in the band is too. That includes Willard Gayheart, singer and I believe musical hub of the band. They don't get any better than Randy Pasley playing dobro. And Tony Testerman, bass. I don't mean to slight any of them by saying more about Scott and Steve. Every member of this band is a good bluegrass musician.

They made four stellar albums and went poof. When Alternate Roots disbanded I fell into a state of grief like one of my friends had died. Scott has a new 'solo project,' Carolina Welcomes You. It has everyone from Alternate Roots but Tony the bass player. Mike Gayheart, son of Willard, plays the bass this time. Hearing it the first time was like having Alternate Roots back, their 5th album the best of them all, like each one before it.

Next Saturday night, the 13th of June, Scott's band with his brother who plays banjo and his brother's boys, Pathway, will be playing at the Lincoln Theater in Marion. They play good bluegrass Freeman style.

TAPO

Tapo is the leastun of the 3 cats. She was so ravenous as a kitten when I was bottle feeding them I learned right away to feed Tapo until she passed out. If she didn't pass out from fullness, she'd be climbing my pants leg for more the moment I put her down. Her kitten eyes were pleading all the time. Pleading for food, pleading to be picked up. She wanted the bottle so much she pushed it away by desperately groping for it. Getting it past those two windmilling front paws made me laugh every time to see her wanting it so bad that all her effort was pushing it away. It seemed something like a parable.

Tapo has a sense of humor that is gentle and funny at once. Caterpillar annoys her most of the time. A time when I was feeding them, Caterpillar and TarBaby were on the table I feed them on, about 3 feet square. They were walking in circles, round and round, excited I was opening the catfood can. They were both wound up and excited. I knew first time one touched the other, it would be on, and knew it would happen. They were too close to each other for it not to happen.

TarBaby bumped Caterpillar, she pounced on him and held him down while she boxed him, both of them howling and TarBaby squirming to get loose. She wasn't letting him go and Tapo, in the other room hearing the commotion came into the kitchen to have a look. From the floor she jumped up and landed on Caterpillar's back with all 4 feet. Caterpillar hissed with everything she had, TarBaby slipped free and Caterpillar slid out from under Tapo and stood when she stopped with a bewildered look in her eyes like she just woke up and was trying to figure out where she was. She was so befuddled she shook her head attempting to pull herself back together. Tapo stood there on the table and laughed.

One day I was outside and Tapo was hanging around with me. Caterpillar came along. She was 10 to 15 feet away. I saw Tapo look at her. Tapo's eyes flashed with inspiration. She saw it to do and she was going to do it.

She ran by Caterpillar full speed just a few inches from her nose and stopped a little ways beyond to turn and look. Caterpillar jumped straight up a couple of feet, turned half way around in the air hissing and landed facing the direction she'd come from. Tapo was laughing at Caterpillar getting so rattled. Again, Caterpillar was befulddled having to figure out where she was. She shook her head. No attempt to attack Tapo. It was like she didn't even know what happened.

Before the kittens came along, the house had what I call a spirit cat. It was what I took for a ghost of a cat that might have died under the house some time or other before I moved in. I'd seen it several times out of the corner of my eye. Mostly I'd see it when I opened the door and came in by surprise. I'd see a cat-shaped shadow dart behind something. One day after being gone 2 weeks, I came in the door and the shadow cat was in the middle of the room. It ran all the way to a corner giving me a good look at it, the only good look I ever got.

After the cats were born I never saw it again. My feeling is that it found a body in the newborn kittens to get back into. And I suspect Tapo is the one. She was shaped like the shadow cat and she walked like it with her tail straight up and ran in short dashes. She's been eagerly hungry since she was born, leading me to wonder about the shadow cat unable to eat, longing to eat. To see how she looks, imagine a black basketball with 4 legs and a little cat head with ears and eyes. She waddles like a black 4-legged duck.

There was a time when they were a few years old and Caterpillar and TarBaby were wearing Tapo out pouncing on her so much. They did it just to aggravate her and it worked. One day when she was on my lap I told her in words, explained to her she doesn't need to take it. I said, just roll over on your back when they jump on you and rip their guts out with your back claws. Next time TarBaby jumped on her she did it and he jumped right off. The same happened next time Caterpillar pounced on her. It didn't stop them, but it got them off of her in a hurry.

Then about a year ago Caterpillar had been intimidating her with the look in her eyes for her entire life. Again, she was on my lap and I explained to Tapo with words that she doesn't have to take it. I said it's just a look. Give her a look right back and see what happens. Same day, Tapo was crouched on the footstool like the Sphinx facing the open doorway. Caterpillar started in the door. She looked up and saw Tapo and Tapo was giving her the eye. Caterpillar stopped, backed up and growled, couldn't look at her and backed out the door.

For days after that I'd see Tapo give Caterpillar the look that says I'm gonna pounce on you, and watch Caterpillar back down and ease away like she was afraid of Tapo. I was so dumbfounded I felt like Caterpillar trying to figure out where she was. Twice Tapo did exactly as I'd explained to her in words, phrases and sentences. Of course, it was telepathic as I don't believe she understood the words, because her vocabulary of words she recognizes doesn't include words she'd never heard, like "rip their guts out." Moments like that convince me we're in closer touch than I imagine.

CATERPILLAR

This evening I set out to walk down to the creek in the woods and sit on a rock for awhile. TarBaby was nowhere in sight and Caterpillar never let on like she wanted to go with me. I had to step over her on the walkway. I pet her and talked to her and went on thinking if TarBaby doesn't see me I might have a chance to spend some time there. He gets anxious in the woods after awhile. He smells the wild things that pass through in the night. He knows they're all bigger than him and the ones his size are so ferociously wild he doesn't want to tangle with any of them.

I'd been there maybe two or three minutes on the moss covered rock I like to sit on and heard, meow. TarBaby. He followed. I sat down and he was all around me, stood up and sunk his claws into my shoulders from behind. That means, let's go. I act like I want to sit there awhile and he walks around and around me, sometimes sinking some claws into me somewhere to get my attention. He wants to go. He doesn't like it here. This is where the really big critters live.

I started back to the house and heard a shrill cat cry. It was Caterpillar. She had followed. She takes her time walking. TarBaby doesn't have a walking speed that slow. We met Caterpillar at the same place of TarBaby's photo yesterday. She was so pitiful. Walked all that way by herself, calling, calling. She finally caught up with us and she wanted to go back. This is the territory of the night critters that live outside the restraints of the human mind. The aborigines. They have a very different way of thinking and doing things. Some of them eat cats.

It's a different world out there in the woods for them than it is for me. I'm a human, enemy of every living thing. They see me a long time before I see them and they're gone. I've not walked up on a bear yet and don't fear it, but also don't rule out the possibility. The bear's fear is greater than mine. The body language of fear is the same as that of aggression. They read fear in a body stance or movement as aggression, aimed at them. All the different critters that live in the woods see each other and don't charge each other. They just stand still and show no aggression in any way. Just stand still and let a non-aggressive stance say I'm not here to be a problem. That's what I tell myself, believing it untested, therefore not altogether certain. My knees would be too weak to move. Having lived with cats and dogs all my life, I know that to run from an animal is an invitation to chase. It's automatic.

We walked slowly down the path out of the woods, ambling for me. TarBaby came along next and Caterpillar behind him. Caterpillar walks at a steady pace. She has one speed only, a steady one-step-at-a-time pace. I can go way out ahead of her and she will plod along one step at a time until she catches up to where I'm going. In tall grass it's funny to see her gray tassled tail passing through the grass. She will take as long as she needs to take, just keep on keepin on. One step at a time. She cries to me knowing I'll call back when I hear her to help her locate where I've gone. TarBaby looks at her like to say, 'You slow thing.' She pays him no mind.

Caterpillar is an aloof sort of cat. She simply would rather the other two cats go live someplace else. She keeps a place on a cushion in a far corner of the house from where all the activity takes place. She'll put up with the others, but don't get too close. Don't touch the cat. A little growl in the back of the throat, a whisper growl that says, 'You're gettin on my nerves and I just might take a notion to pounce on you. Wipe that silly grin off your face or I'll wipe it off for you, whichever.' If it's TarBaby he'll stop and pull his head back a little ways and look down his nose at her, watching her eyes to see what she's going to do, ready for anything.

If it's Tapo, she'll squat to the floor and lay her ears back and growl showing her teeth. That's an invitation to Caterpillar. It flashes in Caterpillar's automatic mind, Get the Cat. Tapo is the bottom of the pecking order and Caterpillar likes to push it. She'll advance on Tapo slowly, holding her eyes on Tapo's eyes, moving closer and Tapo growls and lets out a yelp and runs into a corner and Caterpillar advances on her. Tapo crouches down with the back of her head to the wall and ears back growling and yelling at Caterpillar who is acting like she's going to pounce, but may or may not. I like to leave them to their own relationships, but when it gets to this point where Tapo is so intimidated, I'll call to Caterpillar and ask her let it be. And she does. She starts backing off slowly, holding her eyes on Tapo's, retreating but watching in case Tapo decides to pounce.

I walk back slowly with a couple of cats that don't walk as fast as I do. TarBaby was all charged up ready for anything that might happen to send him flying up a tree. Alert and sober, nothing on his mind but wariness. Caterpillar too, glad to be leaving that wild place. Tapo doesn't go walking with us anymore. Years ago she quit. They used to all three go walking with me, but once we passed a certain point Caterpillar would pounce on Tapo and wrestle her clawing and biting and telling her to get back to the house. TarBaby too. He has his own way of walking up to her with a look that says, I'm gonna kick your ass, and jumps on her and Tapo goes nuts squirming and fighting. She can fight them both off of her, but it wears her out to be fighting all the time. She doesn't like it, so she stays at the house. She's the house cat now and she rules inside the house.