FIDDLIN KILBY SPENCER: SON OF WHITETOP MOUNTAIN BAND

     kilby spencer at rex theater 8.8.2010


Kilby Spencer's band The Crooked Road Ramblers played at the Jubilee on Main St in Sparta Friday night. They have the Friday night slot at the Jubilee every week now for as long as they want it. They kept the crowd dancing. They have a good drive for a dance band. Old-time bands are dance bands. Kilby's mother and dad are Emily and Thornton Spencer of Whitetop Mountain Band, a Grayson County Virginia band with drive that lets you know you're in the mountains. Kilby's sister, Martha, is staying with Whitetop Mountain Band. She plays every instrument, dances and sings. She is looking like the next WMB fiddler. She's been playing fiddle with the band, second to Thornton, for several years, possibly ten years, give or take a few. Kilby has played fiddle with Whitetop Mountain Band periodically since he's been able to carry out a fiddle tune, as Martha has too.


I've seen among older people I've known in the past that one of the aspects of the musical tradition in the mountains is for people who love the music, go to fiddlers conventions and dances, pay attention to the musicians, is to note a young fiddler or banjo or guitar picker who appears to have promise if he keeps on with it, if he chooses to go the way of music. It's not a matter of getting hopes up for one, because anything can happen. In the mid teens is a hurdle where a lot of them put the music aside and don't take it up again. Some take it up again and some don't let the music fall away. Kilby, like Martha, started when he was little. Mother and dad played, uncle Albert played, they played together all the time and probably every weekend. The kids grew up with old-time music. Records and tapes of different fiddlers from the past and regions of the mountains, old-time bands, banjos, that Kilby's mother and dad listened to. Kilby sent me a collection of 22 songs Thornton was either given by Fiddlin Art Wooten or he bought from Art. It was a home-made 8-track recording of Art Wooten playing fiddle, Jr Maxwell banjo and Wayne Henderson guitar.


Kilby is a folklorist from the inside. Something like AP Carter was, in his own time and place. AP gathered songs from the mountains a few hundred miles to the north and to the south of his home in Virginia, just across the NC line northwest of Bristol. Kilby has bought digital recording devises that pick up sound beautifully. He records people who have never recorded, like fiddler Raymond Gentry of Trap Hill, NC. Kilby has passed to me several of his recordings that he collects non-commercially, archiving, collecting samples of mountain music by people never recorded, as well as home-made tapes in boxes in the attic. Some of them actually survive. Kilby has found videos from home-movie cameras and put them on YouTube. His channel is whitetopmusic all one word. He has video of Albert Hash fiddling, Enoch Rutherford picking banjo with Thornton Spencer when Thornton was much younger, Doc Roberts, Thornton and Emily, Huston Caudill. You can hear some mighty fine examples of mountain music at Kilby's channel.


Kilby has been the young fiddler I've been watching grow. That's what he does. He grows by learning new songs, new ways to play old songs, a new instrument to learn and master, and another, until he can play a whole old-time band. His fiddle is Kilby's lifetime emphasis. The fiddle is his art form he has next to no choice about, like vanGogh driven to paint every day in nasty poverty because his art form needed full attention. Kilby is not playing the poverty role. He is a computer tech whiz who kept the computers of the school systems, county offices, the one you call when you're teaching computer class at the high school and something went cuckoo, like a virus or any of multiple million possibilities. He was moved to Ashe County where he takes care of the their computers last I knew. He's not told me he left Ashe, so I figure he's still there. The only news I get on Kilby is from Kilby himself. I like it like that.


Kilby Spencer is so dedicated to his growth as a fiddler I love to hear his new subtleties over time. He knows an awful lot of songs and plays all of them well. Very well. Kilby is a true heir in the line of Whitetop fiddlers, his uncle Albert Hash and his dad Thornton Spencer. Now it's Kilby and Martha, both of them Whitetop fiddlers of the next generation, the ones to keep the sound and the drive going into the next next generation. It's been an enjoyment for me watching Kilby grow from having no band at all to his Haw Orchard Band he made a couple of homemade cd's from. He gave me copies of his different cds he made for play on the radio show I was doing at WCOK in Sparta Saturday mornings. It wasn't for any commercial benefit. It was that I wanted to play every field recording I could find. The radio show's focus was the music of this county, then the first circle around that was surrounding counties, the next circle the Central Blue Ridge, the next circle the Southern Mountains. Kilby turned up with some music by musicians from close to home and let me play an awful lot of them to the listeners in the county. Bertie Dickens, Cleve Andrews, Jr Maxwell, Raymond Gentry, Howard Joines, Wood Blevins and quite a lot more.


I took the camera to the show tonight and made several still shots of Kilby on fiddle and the other musicians in the band, some of the whole band with dancers in foreground. Made several videos, too, of half dozen or so tunes. I was able to sit the camera on a counter next to Ernest's coffee maker in the corner at the back, out of everybody's way. Using the zoom and sitting the camera still I could get sharp focus and closeups on the musicians from the waist up with instrument. When getting a portrait of a musician, I like to get both hands and the face in the picture. Not always---a rule of thumb. My computer is so full that I have to unload much of it before I can put more in (like my house, like my mind). It's a time-consuming job that I don't know what it's going to take to motivate me to dive in and get-er-done. It won't be long. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the next day. I'll do it in my own time. I'll hurry slowly. Slow is good. I'm not working in a factory. Nor was meant to be. 

They have a cd available from cdbaby.com. It is Lost Train Blues by the Crooked Road Ramblers. You can see it at  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/tcrramblers. Excellent old-time album. This link will take you directly there. The band has a website that is "undergoing routine maintenance" at this moment, but is subject to change any day or week. For when it's ready to go again, http://www.myspace.com/thecrookedroadramblers.


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JEAN IN THE GLOAMING

big country bluegrass, by tj worthington

At this moment is a near-perfect stillness outside. No breeze. Time of day the gloaming, after sunset when the light comes from the sky itself. Indirect lighting. It has an evenness about it, no distinct shadows. I hear what might be a katydid or tree frog, don't know which. Might be inside my head. That's where those critters sound like they're coming from. It has a certain shrillness that defies direction finding; sounds like it is coming from all directions at once. Smoke detectors are like that. I despise it when they go off. It's always in somebody else's house, because I won't have one. The shrill noise is an ice pick into my ears and I never can find them by following the sound. One day my friend Jean called, she had a shrill beeping noise in the house and she couldn't find what was making it. I went to help look. It seemed like it was coming from the bathtub area, but when I'd put my ears there, it sounded like it was coming from under the house. Under the house it sounded like it was in the house. That relentless shrill beeping sound makes me crazy. I've known water pipes to make sounds, but not like this one. It became a mystery because we could not find a source.

After awhile, I thought I'd run the bathtub water and see if that might stop the sound. A little plastic crate with grandchildren's plastic toys in it was sitting in the tub. I picked it up to have it out of the tub when I ran the water. The beeping noise went with the toy crate. I took the crate to Jean. She dumped it out. The noise was from a child's pretend cell phone with a beeper in it. Jean took the battery out and threw it in the trash. I love it that it's moments like this, hearing the night sounds of the forest, I remember moments with Jean. Many moments in the course of a day turn my mind to Jean. She was one of the people God gave to me to appreciate. In the last week or so a couple different people have posted on facebook a humorous saying such as this paraphrase: Before you jump off a bridge believing you're crazy, look around. Maybe it's the people around you that are crazy. I saw that right away after becoming acquainted with Jean. Her family, everybody around her had her believing she was crazy. What I saw as I came to know them, she was sane and they were the ones that were nuts.

Our relationship started when when she was experiencing an oppressive browbeating from her preacher daughter. We were at the table at Jr's house, the three of us sipping and talking. Jr and I drinking white liquor and Jean drinking coffee. She was telling what she was going through and I passed a note to her over the table, like in school, that said, Just say no. She said, I can't. I said, You can. It's the first word you learned, one syllable, easy to say. She did, and it worked. It worked the next time and the next time. Suddenly, she started finding her life. Of course, the ones around her that were controlling her, manipulating her, stealing from her, browbeating her, using her unmercifully, hated TJ. Grandma's differnt--it's that damn TJ. Jean stopped receiving their abuse. I let her know she didn't have to take it anymore, she had me to back her up.

They rebelled for a few weeks, getting mean and nasty. The kids don't like you any more. They don't want to see you again. Then Jean goes weeping to TJ she won't get see her babies any more. TJ says, don't worry about it. I said she's just pushing you by giving you a vacation from her, thinking you can't stand having your own life for a day---in this time she's finding how much she needs you to take care of the kids that she's taken totally for granted unto elder abuse. She'll call when she needs you. And sure enough, she called, with a whole new attitude of grudging respect. At least there was that little bit. What I was objecting to in the way the people around her treated Jean was the absence of respect, even from the grandkids. She was the hen at the bottom of the pecking order with no feathers on top of her head; the other hens kept her pecked bald. She gave me credit for her liberation from being beaten down by family around her. All I did was write on a slip of paper, Just Say No. When she took it, I said, by the authority of Nancy Reagan.

When she said she could not say no, I felt the enormity of the problem for her. She'd been trained for a lifetime that she doesn't say no to any of them, ever, for any reason. In the past, the pattern had been that when she said no, she was sent off to Dorothea Dix or one of the other mental institutions. The visits were her punishments for saying no. She came to regard them vacations, getting away from the crazy people in her life, a chance to draw a breath without being told that's not how you do it. At least, the people in the institutions were being treated for their mental illnesses. One evening at Jr's table she started a sentence, Next time they send me off.... I said, You're not going to be sent off any more. She believed me. She took it I had a knowing, when what I meant was I'll lay down in front of the bulldozer. That's a kind of knowing. They will have to get past me to get to you. Jean came into a time of her life where she was relaxed with who she was. The more she opened up to who she truly was within, the more interesting she became, and I found her already interesting. Then she was diagnosed with breast cancer past operable. Choice: die in 6 months or go through chemo treatments. She chose to die. I supported her in it. We'd already talked at length about neither of us wanting to go through a year of agony on less than a 50/50 chance of making it, and then no certainty  if you do make it. Heaven can't be that bad.

A month before her spirit rose from the body I wanted to take her to an all day bluegrass show at the Mountain Music Jamboree in Glendale Springs, a few miles down the Parkway south. She was so loopy on pain killers she was floating about a foot above the floor. It was Big Country Bluegrass, The Wildwood Valley Boys, Micheal Cleveland fiddler was with them, The Blue Ridge Travelers from MtAiry, another band I can't recall the name now. The show ended with Whitetop Mountain Band. Both Jean and I expected Whitetop to fade into nonexistence after 4 hours of staright-ahead bluegrass, but they ruled. Whitetop Mountain Band put all that went before in their dust. They tore it up. Jean's condition was delicate as a two-week old kitten. On the road there, I told her at any moment, from this moment on, you feel like you need to get back to the house, we're gone the moment you say it and I will feel no regrets. I'd seen all the bands before but the Wildwood Valley Boys. I wanted to give her the assurance that the music was not more important than the last month of her life. It's meant to enhance that last month, not be a burden. I asked her to pick the place she'd be comfortable sitting.

On the way in, we passed Jeff Michael and Ramona standing outside, Jeff smoking. I spoke with them a moment and Jean, in her psychedelic condition kept drifting on. She drifted through the doors and on to the auditorium. I said to Jeff I'd better go see where she's going; I don't want to lose her. And I really did not want to lose her. I wanted her to stay on at least through my lifetime. I figured she'd have several years after me. I cherished our time together that night. It was our last time together and it couldn't have been better. The evening of the morning her spirit left the body, driving down the mountain to Jr's, I swung around the curve below Jean's house and the full moon was sitting perfectly on the peak of the roof. Already, I had seen Jean's smiling face in brilliant white light, happy as a cat curled beside a fire, radiant, letting me know she was doing all right. It's in the gloaming that I feel Jean's peace.

* 

HUNGRY HASH HOUSE RAMBLERS AT THE FRONT PORCH

courtney burroughs in front of edwin lacy (banjo)

edwin lacy (banjo) behind courtney burroughs

scott freeman, mandolin / doug rorrer, guitar

doug rorrer (father) / taylor rorrer (son)

Gonna lay down my old guitar, sung by Doug Rorrer sounds to my ear the way the song sounds best. A lot of people have sung it and I've heard several, all of them good. It's one of them songs, like Goin down the road feelin bad, that sounds good any way its sung. Like lay down my old guitar can be sung several ways from folk song to bluegrass band. Doug's singing of this song pleases my ear. It's like Spencer Pennington singing East Virginia Blues on Whitetop Mountain Band's album, Bull +10%, sung the way that sounds to my ear just right. Like Willard singing Sweet Virginia. Like Audine Lineberry singing Ruby. Like Sara Carter singing I'm thinking tonight of my blue eyes, who is sailing far over the sea. Like Ralph Stanley singing Beautiful star of Bethlehem.

I love it when I hear a song sung just right. Another one done just right tonight was sung by Courtney Burroughs, who also played fiddle, when she sang Streets of London. She brought the song to life, made the song her own, like Julie London made Cry me a river her own. The show at the Front Porch was, in effect, The Hungry Hash House Ramblers, minus the bass player whose soul left the body a few years back, Doug's wife, Taylor's mother, Kathy. She sang Summertime on one of their albums. It wasn't Big Mama Thornton, who owns that song to my ear, but mama made her solo singing of it stand very respectably in among all the hard driving fiddle, banjo and guitar on the rest of the album. Her singing of it was like somebody opened the door and a soft breeze of fresh air entered the room.

I recognized Courtney on sight when I walked in the door as fiddler from a young bluegrass band Broken Wire. I'd heard them play live and once at the Rex theater on the radio. I was struck by her fiddle, thought she had something special in her fiddle and her voice. I spoke with her, mentioned her band Broken Wire, and she said she's not with them any more. I didn't ask if that meant she left the band or the band dissolved. I suspect the latter, because I believe the banjo player was killed on a motorcycle some months ago. Something like that can act as a hand grenade that blows the band apart. Jim Van Cleve and Scott Manring played fiddle tracks on the HHHR cds. Scott Freeman, who played mandolin with HHHR, I think played fiddle on a track or 2. Taylor also played fiddle with HHHR.

Courtney's fiddle and voice, she sang 2 songs, gave the band a refreshing spirit like Kathy gave it before. Doug Rorrer's great uncle was Charlie Poole, and Posey Rorrer, Charlie Poole's first fiddler, was also Doug's great uncle. Doug is behind the Charlie Poole festival at Eden, NC, every year now. He has a record label at Eden, where he lives, Flyin Cloud, in his house where he records and distributes cds, acoustic music by musicians of North Carolina leaning toward the mountains, like Kirk Sutphin and Wayne Henderson. The website: http://www.flyincloudrecords.com/ . The Hungry Hash House Ramblers have a website too, http://www.hungryhashhouseramblers.com/ .

Doug and Taylor have played guitar together for most of Taylor's life, and Taylor was his dad's equal some years ago. They make music together as one. Taylor has become quite good with the fiddle. It was a good show all way through. Edwin Lacy played banjo and HHHR's first album, The Butter Had Red Hair. You can find HHHR on YouTube, with Edwin Lacy playing his banjo on Mountain Reel and some others. This weekend I'll be uploading onto YouTube several videos from tonight's show. Write in the YouTube search box hobblealong1 and they'll be at the top of the list when they're up. They bear a good listen. Acoustic music at its best. I don't mean it's the very best. There's an awful lot of good music going around, and these musicians stand respectably among the very best.

Driving home I heard the last 45 minutes of the Whitetop Mountain Band playing at the Rex live. They sounded good. Thornton was fiddling. Martha sang Faded Love and made it her own. Martha also sang Ruby. Jackson Cunningham, Martha's feller, plays mandolin beautifully and sings a good song. They were in good spirit tonight. The musicians in Whitetop Mountain Band are in the same league of the musicians I'd just listened to for 2 hours. It was like there was no difference going from one to the other, except that they were different bands playing very differently, but they had the same spirit. I suppose that spirit is really good music. Both bands connected tonight and music was made in Southwest Virginia.

*

TWO FIDDLERS

kilby spencer of crooked road ramblers


thornton spencer of whitetop mountain band



At the Rex Theater in Galax a show of 2 old-time bands. Kilby Spencer's band, The Crooked Road Ramblers played first. The band has released their first cd, that is cd produced in large numbers and packaged. Kilby has recorded the band quite a bit. He's been generous to give me copies of cds he's made along the way for play on the radio show. I'd love to be playing this collection of songs. I'd play the whole album in the course of the hour. It has 18 songs, and I could get 18 in the hour easily, weather included. It's a band of good musicians, every one of them. Guitar player John Perry used to be with the New River Ramblers, James Burris fiddler, that evolved into Southern Pride.



Now on the cd Kilby is playing Lost Train Blues. He gets train sounds in it rolling down the track. Kilby has grown quite a bit as a fiddler in the years I've known him. He knows a lot of songs, an awful lot, and knows them well, plays them well. In this concert and this cd I hear nuances entering Kilby's fiddling, the subtle kind of things fiddlers get after much experience, very much experience. I hear Kilby becoming a great fiddler like his dad, Thornton, and his uncle Albert Hash. I'm enjoying hearing Kilby's progress on the fiddle over the years I've known him. His wife, Amanda, plays a very respectable banjo. He just now played the fire out of the old-time fiddle tune Ebenezer. He played it like he owned it, it is his. The band makes music well together. They have good drive. Kilby and Amanda play Johnson Boys together, just fiddle and banjo. They sound good together. They played it just the two of them at the concert earlier. I think I might have got it on video. I don't remember all the songs I got with video. I'll go through them tomorrow.



I don't want to make slick, professional videos. I want them hand held, free to do things like run the zoom too far too fast. That's ok. I like the spontaneous feel of a group of musicians flowing along together, riding the wave, hanging 5. Kilby is playing Sally Goodin now. Fiddlers tend to like Sally Goodin and give it their best. He laid it to it. He learned much fiddle from his dad, Thornton. His wife, Amanda, learned banjo from Kilby's mother, Emily, banjo in Whitetop Mountain Band. I tend to think of Kilby as Son of Whitetop Mountain Band. He's playing Lee Highway Blues, going after it. Every time I hear that tune I imagine GB Grayson in the car with Henry Whitter, Whitter driving, on the road to a show someplace, rolling down Highway 11, the Lee Highway, Grayson playing the fiddle in the car composing a fiddle tune he called Lee Highway Blues. Good old-time fiddle tune.



Whitetop Mountain Band played the second half of the show. They're one of the hottest bands around here. There are several, and Whitetop is one of them, the band with Thornton Spencer's fiddle and Emily Spencer's banjo and vocals. Fiddler Albert Hash passed the band to Thornton. The way things are shaping up, it's looking like Martha could be the next fiddler of Whitetop Mountain Band. She plays a very respectable fiddle with the best for her teacher. Hearing Thornton Spencer play a fiddle is beautiful to my ears every time. He has subtleties with the strings that bear his signature alone. Emily's banjo is hers and hers alone. The two of them play together as one.



Maybe 4 years ago, when Jean had one month to live, we went to Glendale Springs at the Mountain Music Jamboree to hear 4 bluegrass bands and Whitetop Mountain Band. I imagined Whitetop would play first. They played last. I wondered how they could follow 4 hard driving bluegrass bands. They did it. They played such that I forgot all that went before, right away. If it had been a battle of the bands, Whitetop would have won. The Wildwood Valley Boys had Michael Cleveland playing fiddle with them too. None of the bands was laying down on the job. Whitetop Mountain Band took over the show and made it theirs. I tend toward old-time before bluegrass. Much, then, of that was my own personal love for old-time music. My heart lights up when I hear old-time music. Bluegrass gets me going and I do like it, but old-time goes straight to my heart. Tonight's music was all heart music. Masters of the fiddle and banjo going at it, giving us in the audience the music we came to hear in abundance. Good show tonight. Every minute of it.