A WILD GOOSE ADVENTURE

wild goose christian community center

Believe it or not, I went to church. Tuesday night church with rocking chairs instead of pews. Walking the length of the room, I was thinking, a dangerous place for cats. My friend Edwin Lacy is the minister or whatever he calls himself. I don't think Edwin calls himself anything in that regard. Edwin is an old-time banjo picker truly in the tradition and truly in his own style. It is important in the tradition to have your own style to interpret the tunes your own unique way. Edwin's banjo pickin is his own. Edwin is an artist in the form of music. When Edwin plays music, it is music, too. I mean by music, what we all know. When I hear Edwin play, I hear music, music I feel inside, music that makes me tap my feet unconsciously, good drive. There are bands that play well, good musicians, but sometimes there is just something a little bit short of music. Like at an old-time fest, some bands force people to run to the front to dance. Other bands, people sit back, listen, enjoy it, but it's short of music. When my friend Jr Maxwell heard a band like that he'd say, "Aint no music in it." I mean by music when it forces people to dance, leaves no choice. Even if I don't jump up and start flat-footin, I'm feeling it inside. Sometimes when the music is really moving, I sit as still as if no music were happening. I was called on it once at an old-time venue when the music was really going, I was grooving good, sitting still soaking it up, like donkey Jack bathing in the sunlight. An old summer-resident neighbor of mine from Florida jumped on me for not moving. How can you not move to this music? One of those moments when everybody looks at you. I was in bliss and she pulled me right out of it. Back to Edwin. He's an ordained Presbyterian preacher, went to seminary in Indiana, or anyway, that's where his first church was. Maybe the seminary was in Ohio. I've never been clear on exactly where the seminary was. Up north. He was gone for several years. He found a way to have himself assigned to a church in Bristol, bringing him closer to home and his musician friends who missed him like crazy. After a few years at Bristol, he found his woman, Roye, married her, found an old empty church way outside Hillsville, Virginia, rural as it rural is. Southwest Virginia is beautiful landscape. Edwin declared the church his own, however that is done, calls it the Wild Goose Christian Community and meets on Tuesday evenings, good potluck dinner brought by the women at 6:30.

 

edwin lacy

 

the interior

forty or so people sat in a big circle all the way around

 

Mac and Jenny Traynham made some music during the meeting. They are in the corner in the picture above. First thing in the meeting, he played an old tune on a fiddle, old-timey hillbilly fiddle, the kind of slow fiddle playing that moves my heart, where sometimes he plays two strings at once. It chokes me up remembering it. Later, Mac and Jenny picked guitars and sang. Edwin does not preach. He spoke of the attitude that the people there were intelligent people who have valuable insights. He chose for the theme some verses from the book of James, The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position. But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position.  Very interesting discussion followed, different people providing insight. It was one of those moments I felt was a celebration of our individual diversity. Everyone who spoke had their own insight. The diversity of points of view worked toward unity instead of division. Edwin's scripture he uses to state the purpose of what he calls Wild Goose Uprising, came from a prayer by Jesus: May those who believe in me be brought to complete unity, Father, one as we are one, I in them and you in me. This was at the top of the sheet of paper passed around to everyone with the outline of the service, words to a song all were to sing together. Reading the scripture, I realized that inside a year Edwin has pulled together several people who really do gather in unity into community. I did not know Edwin's intent to gather a community of people who care about each other, though this falls in line with the Edwin I know. I felt like Edwin's integrity as a "minister" carried the least ego of any preacher I've ever heard. He was not about look-at-me. He's more in line with look-at-you. He did not need to be in the midst of everybody with their attention on him. He turned the attention back to the people themselves. It was never, Let me tell you how much I know. He was saying, Tell me how much you know, enrich me with your insight. He would start a song leading it until everybody was in the flow of the song, then he backed off from the lead and let everybody sing. I'd only known Edwin before, person to person, and him a musician I admire the highest. It felt just right in his circle, true to the Edwin I know. I already knew he was not ego-tripping as a preacher. I felt the satisfaction that he approached his spiritual role with the same humility he lives his everyday life, even on stage. He's a humble stage presence, tells good jokes, sings as good as he picks a banjo. He's there to make music, not to make a spectacle of himself.

 

edwin a-pickin and a-grinnin

 

mac and jenny traynham

 

I've been wanting to make it to Edwin's Wild Goose Uprising since he started it. It's a daunting drive, sixty miles of mountain road, the only kind I like to drive, a little over an hour and a half. That's really no drive at all, but I am so jealous of my home time that a 3-4 hour round trip and a couple hours of sitting and standing around was no lure at all. Sometimes I'd say, This coming Tuesday I'm going. Tuesday comes around and I'm not feeling like committing to six hours at the end of the day, leave at five, home at eleven. Some years ago I heard about a friend here who was teaching yoga. I talked to her about it. She taught in Winston-Salem, and invited me to come to the class. Driving an hour and a half each way in interstate mayhem to spend an hour relaxing did not compute. By the time I'm home all the relaxation is exhausted from attention given to staying on the road for an hour and a half. Over twenty dollars in gas per round trip plus the cost of the class. No yoga for me. My friend Debi has a deep faith. She recently had what she called a "Holy Spirit" visitation, and I believe her interpretation. I've been wanting to give Debi a chance to experience a church situation outside the traditional, believing she'd like it. I thought I could make the drive much better with Debi along. I've known Debi as long as I've lived here. She's lived someplace else most of those years, but she's been back several years by now. It seems like things are going Debi's way for a change. She says she's in the best place she's been in her whole life. I know a large number of her relatives. Our bond is around her great uncle Tom Pruitt, my nearest neighbor and my teacher for the farm work in the early years. I knew Tom in my first fourteen years a hillbilly and Tom's last fourteen years. Tom was proud that he was born a Regular Baptist and a Republican, and he died a Regular Baptist and Republican. It was evidence to him that he did not change, he died the same as he was born. The ideal was not to change because God did not change. I, who have spent my entire life in ongoing change to the point of embracing change, found Tom's estimation a whole new way of thinking. Not for me, but I'd never met anyone whose pride was in never changing. His brother, Millard, the Regular Baptist Elder, held the same pride for himself. Both would be buried in the cemetery of the church they grew up in and were saved in, where mother and daddy were buried. It was an experience I could not fathom.  

 

debi in the middle

a charming 6 mo old baby next to debi

 

debi

 

Our drive to the church was an adventure neither Debi nor I will ever forget. It will be memory we'll hold in common the rest of our lives. I entered the address in the GPS device on the dash. I believed I could take the Parkway to within maybe twenty miles of the place. The GPS told me to exit the Parkway and take 89 to Galax on the way to Hillsville. I did not want to drive through Galax so soon after work let out, thought I'd override the GPS and go a way I believed better. Major error. I took us all over the place, crossing the interstate twice, and finally taking 52. All this was way out of the way. When I left 52 I decided it was time to follow the GPS. I'd never been in this part of the world. It took us over one dirt road after another, four miles on one, six miles on another, one after the other, nice scenic roads, a nice drive. Drive a few miles and turn on Bent Nail Road and Slaughter Hill Road, just two of the names I remember. Slaughter Hill Road was only as wide as one car, banks straight up on both sides, something like a mud luge track. Big potholes. One, I had to stop and study a way to get through it. Some of them bounced the rearview mirror off its mount, things were flying all around inside the car, we were laughing and wondering what could be next. It was several miles on that one lane road hoping nobody was coming our way around any of the blind curves. An old wagon road is what it was. The relief to see the pavement when we came to the end of Slaughter Hill Road was near ecstasy. As all the roads were worse and worse from one to the next, we dreaded what the next road might be. Turned left onto the paved road and the church was right there. We had arrived on time. On the road home I decided to let the GPS be my guide. First thing: Slaughter Hill Road. It was going to take us back the same way we came. No, we're not doing that again. I turned onto the paved road to Hillsville, the GPS compensated and from there on took us by highway all the way home. Comparing the mileage each way, I went twelve miles out of the way first try. I had a good learning out of it. Debi and I agreed we had an adventure, that the drive was one hundred percent adventure.

 

The website: wildgoosecc.com

 

To see video of Edwin, write Edwin Lacy in the search box at YouTube and you'll have a big selection. His band is Skeeter and the Skidmarks. They have several tunes on YouTube. They do a mighty fine Yellow Rose of Texas with the original lyrics. Mac and Jenny Traynham are on YouTube too.

 

 

first daffodils

first crocuses

 

 

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PICTURES OF MY WORLD

vada, 2

Day 7 of the blogathon asks for pictures of one's creative space. My creative space is my head and heart. I'll start with the heart. Above is baby Vada, the child I fell in love with the day she was born. Her mother painted a wall flat black and Vada practices her art there.

vada art, age 2yr 2wk

 





Vada drew this image sitting on the kitchen floor. Her mother asked her to draw a picture of TJ and this is what she did. She concentrated such that she never lifted her mind from the image until it was done. She was drawing from her mind. It makes a perfect mask. I could cut out eye holes and wear it for a mask if it were on thicker paper. But I wouldn't cut holes in it. You can see the eyes, nose, mouth and an ear. She filled in the whole face. It is framed now and hanging on my wall. Willard Gayheart framed it. I was tickled out of my mind to get something by her before she evolved into stick figures.

 

 

found art

 

found art

 

found art

 



Found art is a regular feature of my blog. At top is what was left after a bank changed locations and took down the old sign. They left the fluorescent bulbs turned on at night, making this fabulous piece of Dan Flavin art in Sparta. Sparta doesn't have much public art. So I appreciate it where I find it. In the middle is a huge pile of silage (ground corn stalks) for dairy cows. The mound of silage is covered with white tarp held in place by black circles. I see this once a week and love it every time I see it. At bottom is something found in the basement at Crystal and Justin's. Crystal had been spray painting something. While I was getting some pictures of it, she said, "What are you doing?" I said, "Found art." She said, "Oh my God!" (She said God a few notes higher than Oh my, Southern style.) These are examples of art I see everywhere.

 



steve lewis and josh scott

skeeter and the skidmarks

 

scott freeman

edwin lacy and willard gayheart

 

bobby patterson

the crooked road ramblers at the Jubilee in Sparta

 

Above are my artist friends. These are the artists I spend time with and call my friends. At top is Steve Lewis, Master bluegrass banjo and guitar picker, good story teller, and his step-son Josh Scott, who Steve raised as his own, who became his best friend and his bass player. The painting on the wall behind Steve is my portrait of Willard Gayheart, the guitar player with Skeeter and the Skidmarks. Willard is 81 and has been picking all his life. This means he's good. He plays rhythm so well the musicians of the region love to make music with Willard for his near-perfect rhythm. Willard doesn't strum. He hits an upper string and a lower string, individually, each lick. When he has Orange Blossom Special going on, it works him. The pencil drawings on the walls are his. The venue is his frame shop/gallery. Willard has been singing with a Galax bluegrass band, the Highlanders, over forty years. The ones living are all old guys now. Their fiddler, Buddy Pendleton, is one of the great ones. He's near gone now, I hear. Skeeter and the Skidmarks made two cds on Hay Holler label in the early 90s. Then Edwin Lacy, banjo, had to leave the area for several years, so Scott and Willard started a new band, Alternate Roots, an amazing bluegrass band. Steve Lewis played banjo in the band. They made 4 albums and the bass player had to leave the band. Alternate Roots disbanded, Edwin returned and Skeeter started back up. You can hear them on YouTube. I've made hundreds of music videos that are on YouTube. My name there is hobblealong1. The fiddle is Scott Freeman, who also plays mandolin. He is married to Willard's daughter, Jill, a good bluegrass singer who doesn't like the stage. That's Sandy Mason's head sticking up from behind Willard. She plays bass. Oh they have a good sound. Scott and Edwin composed several of the songs they recorded. The song they open shows with is one of Scott's compositions, Groundhog Shuffle. It is mandolin and banjo mayhem. They're putting together a new "project" now.           I put Bobby Patterson's picture in there because Bobby is important in my life. He has a music store in Woodawn, Virginia, and a recording studio in the basement. Old-Time Herald magazine was begun in his basement in the 1970s. Over the last 40 or more years he has recorded old-time bands of Southwestern Virginia, Heritage Records, and has a catalog that is out of this world for music of the region. He played guitar on the finest old-time album my ears have ever beheld, JUNE APPLE, with Tommy Jarrell on fiddle, Kyle Creed on banjo and Audine Lineberry on bass. Jarrell and Creed have been dead at least thirty years. Both are legends and were legends while they were living. Bobby is one of the Highlanders and also sings with gospel groups. First time I met Bobby, we'd known OF each other for years, I said, "In my way of seeing, you're the most important man in Southwest Virginia." He said, "Thank you." He knew what I was saying. Thanks to Bobby we have a great collection of old-time music of this region on record and he puts together recordings of the Galax fiddlers convention every year. Plus, he's a terrific musician. His dad was a legend fiddler of his generation. Our bond is our dedication to the music.          At bottom is Kilby Spencer on fiddle with his band the Crooked Road Ramblers. Great fiddler, son of a great fiddler, Thornton Spencer, who is in his later years the great old fiddler of his generation. Thornton's wife Emily plays banjo and sings with their band, Whitetop Mountain Band. In my own personal estimation, WMB is the hottest old-time band in the region right now, and has been for years. They are most characterized by their drive and their musicianship. Kilby knows so many songs he's become a living encyclopedia of the music of the Central Blue Ridge. Kilby's aim in life is to be a great fiddler. He is well on his way and has a momentum going that will take him there. His band has good drive too.   

 



medea by tj worthington

on the side of the house approaching from parking space

donkey jack

 

Closer to home now. The painting above, Medea, I did something like 15-20 years ago. It doesn't leave the house. It is on my wall all the time. I don't put it up for sale because I don't want to lose it. Plus, I'm the one it's important to. I see it a stage with Medea in foreground planning what she has to do, pacing, the rock behind her a Greek rock mountain and the Greek archipelago, the night sky howling its horror seeing what Medea has in her mind. Below Medea is the a little sign I put on the house soon after I moved in. The first one rotted away with time. This is the second one. And here comes Donkey Jack. This is one of the first pictures I got of him. That's my friend Jack the saxophone player. I put hee-haw and braying out of my mind and I hear a saxophone. It is the same sound, low range tenor, a note John Coltrane might have found. The donkeys have been a great source of creative inspiration since they've arrived in my life. I thank God every day in my heart I've lived long enough to know donkeys.

 

 

 

found art

 

 

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SKEETER & THE SKIDMARKS LIGHT UP THE NIGHT SKY

skeeter and the skidmarks

scott freeman, edwin lacy, sandy mason, willard gayheart

 

skeeter and the skidmarks

 

Friday night, Skeeter & the Skidmarks lit up the sky over Woodlawn VA with traditional music Skeeterized. Their music holds the audience's attention and doesn't let go. Sometimes I closed my eyes to hear better and the difference was radical. It's the best example I know for how sight limits hearing. I watch these four people whose music I've listened to long enough that I know all the words, hearing them make music, watching them pick and sing, wowed by every moment, happy to be in the presence of this music as good for the soul as laughing. I close my eyes and the quality of the sound I'm hearing increases what seems like immeasurably. I understand why Doc Watson had such a good ear for playing his guitar and banjo, why blind musicians seem to hear the music they are making more clearly than ones distracted by sight. I get into a grove with my eyes closed, sit flowing with the music, open my eyes and the music changes. Eyes closed, it is more like listening to a cd at home, relaxed, grooving to the sound. Eyes open, it's a bunch of people picking their instruments, it's even social in that I see I am among about forty people and know a lot of them. I might be looking at what Willard is doing with his guitar strings while Scott is tearing up his mandolin. I'll miss much of what Scott is doing because my focus is on Willard's strings. I pay attention to what Scott is doing and I lose what Edwin is doing. Sometimes I focus my attention on Sandy, because that's when I best hear what she's doing with the bass. Eyes closed, everybody's individual sound flows with the other sounds as a unit. I like the concert experience of eyes open awhile, closed awhile. To my ear, it is two different musical experiences in one. A quarter century ago at a Frank Sinatra concert, I was so drunk that I saw two of him through the entire show. I think of it as seeing Frank Sinatra twice.

 

scott and edwin

 

scott freeman

 

I think of Skeeter as the house band at the Fiddle and Plow series. This may be their seventh show there. Not complaining. For my satisfaction, they don't play enough. Several weeks ago, I had to miss a show that was Scott and Willard. Those are the best ones for my ear. I love to hear Scott and Willard pick and sing together. They've made music together for so many years, they move together as one. If I had a big wad of money, I'd want to produce a project by Scott and Willard, Live At The Front Porch, because it needs doing and nobody has done it yet. Like Skeeter, Scott and Willard's sound is their own. To them, it's like nothing because they're so used to it. To my listening ear it is dynamite. Soft dynamite. The kind that blows your mind and makes you happy. Skeeter started the show Friday night with Willard singing Silver Dew On The Bluegrass. It's a beautiful song and Willard brings it to life. Willard likes to take old songs from the 1920s and before, and make them his own. Drifting And Dreaming, I Love You Nelly, Won't You Ride In My Little Red Wagon, a Bob Wills song. Unfortunately, the audience takes Little Red Wagon for a children's song and discourage Willard from singing it. They laugh at me when I request it, and I think in turn the unspeakable. Scott sings some good Bob Wills songs too. Another of Willard's old songs I like to hear him sing is Nighttime In Nevada. Then there is The Yellow Rose of Texas, a song Skeeter and the Skidmarks made their own, Willard singing it.  

 

sandy and willard

 

dori freeman

  

Dori Freeman and David Long opened the show with some of the songs she is singing now. David played mandolin accompaniment to her singing that flowed well with her sound. I was struck again by Dori's new degree of control with her voice. Her singing has become more conscious after some years now of performance and practice. I've seen Dori's singing grow and it brings to mind watching my baby friend, Vada, grow. Both are doing something new each time I see them. This time, Dori's singing was on a whole new level. It is still her, still her voice. She's fine tuning it. She's paying very close attention to it the way a musician pays close attention to an instrument, finding the subtle nuances, listening. I was thinking of Carter Stanley, not that she sings like him; his voice played with its own sound like Dori is doing. This is the first time I've heard her sing since she has become a mother. Her music has improved immeasurably since she has been with David. She was good before, and gets better. By now, her singing commands the hearing of the audience. It always has, but now it's in awe. David playing a mandolin is in the zone we think of as "professional," meaning extra good, and Dori's singing has entered that zone. Together, they are working very well musically. It feels like their life together is making music. Dori has a baby, she has the man of her life. She is in double love now and soaring with her music. It is a good time in Dori's life. I'm happy for her. I was hoping she would bring the baby, but it's not a good idea to be hauling so new a baby around in the cold night air. Mothers know it better than I do.

 

david long and dori freeman

 

edwin lacy

 

Edwin Lacy, the banjo in Skeeter, has begun a new phase of his life, recently married to a woman named Roye. Edwin's demeanor has brightened up considerably. I don't mean he was hang-dog before, but I see in him a new light that tells me he is doing all right. I'm happy for Edwin, too. Edwin has a good woman and Roye has a good man. He was wearing a ball cap with a logo that said Wild Goose. It's the name of a new church idea he has arrived at on Tuesday evenings, rocking chairs instead of pews. People bring instruments and they make music. It's the other side of Hillsville, an hour and a half from home. I want to make the trip every week, but every Tuesday I don't want to drive for three hours at the end of the day. I'm even a little shy of driving two hours on a Friday night. This Friday night was one of those black nights that was opaque but for where headlights fell. I was not comfortable driving either way, going or coming home. Plus, I'm so paranoid about highway patrol now, I drive 45 in a 55 and use a turn signal even if there's not a car in sight. I don't like to drive anymore because of the paranoid feeling, esp in opaque darkness. This is new and I don't like it, but there it is. I had not seen Edwin in several months. I was glad to have a few minutes to talk with him before the show. Sandy too. Had a good visit with her before the show. Dori and David were asked to join the band opening the second half. Driving home, I did not play any music in the car, let my mind flow with a mix in my head of Lucinda Williams singing Ventura, and Dori singing Prairie Song. They flowed in and out of each other all the way home.  

 

dori freeman

 

dori and david with skeeter and the skidmarks

 

 

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SCOTT FREEMAN, EDWIN LACY AND WILLARD GAYHEART

scott freeman

 

The Fiddle & Plow show in Woodlawn featured the Siamese Cousins. They are Scott Freeman, mandolin and fiddle, Edwin Lacy, banjo, and Willard Gayheart, guitar. Scott and Edwin call themselves the Siamese Cousins, joined at the fret. The Siamese Cousins is what they called themselves on their Mountain Roads recording, 2 Chairs No Waiting. Willard is on the cover picture with them, and plays guitar on some of the songs. These three are the core of the music at Woodlawn on Friday nights. Scott and Willard open every week with two songs. They then turn it over to the guest band or duet or individual. They play with some of the people who play there. When Dori is featured, Scott and Willard, and sometimes Edwin make music with her. When bluegrass banjo artist Butch Robins is the guest, Scott and Willard accompany him. Scott and Willard are ideal accompanists. They support musically whoever they're making music with. They do not upstage them, out-play them, none of that. Scott, Willard and Edwin are respectful of each other musically, as in conversation. In conversation, they talk about whatever subject at length, neither one talking over the other. They ride the flow of the music together. This is part of what makes them such excellent musicians. No one of them outshines the others, yet they're all so good they can play all out showing their stuff, keeping up with each other like race cars going side by side around a curve, three-wide, and they make it. Whiskey Before Breakfast.

 

edwin lacy

 

I've got bad in that their music satisfies me so much that I can't think of any other music that satisfies me as much. Scott and Willard's band, Alternate Roots, satisfied my musical ear completely. So does their band Skeeter & the Skidmarks. They are two very different bands, though both have Scott and Willard's sound. Their sound is a fusion of Scott's sound and Willard's. By their sound, I mean the way they approach a tune, their flow together that blends their individual sounds like the natures of the two parents become the nature of their child. They sing duet well together, vocally and with their strings. When Edwin is with them, it's a blend of the three, the sound of Skeeter & the Skidmarks, minus Sandy. Skeeter is the sound of these four people. No one of them is replaceable for the Skeeter sound. When it's Steve Lewis's banjo, it's the Alternate Roots sound. Driving to the show, I took the Parkway, was cruising along thinking about my love for the band, Alternate Roots. I think I saw them 14 times, the last show at the Carter Fold, my only time there. It takes a lot for me to drive 3.5 hours, one way, to hear some music. It was a beautiful night with my friend Jean, who loved the band as much as I did. I recall standing outside with Jean during intermission smoking cigarettes, talking with other people outside smoking. In front of me was the night silhouette of the Clinch Mountains under a half moon. The Clinch Mountains of the Carter Family and the Stanley Brothers.

 

willard gayheart

 

During second half of the show, the man sitting in front of me had moved his chair back a ways. I tend to lean forward when listening to music or to someone talking. It's unconscious. I just notice I do it. I also tend to sing along muttering under my breath. I know the words to all Willard's songs, Ern and Zorie's Sneakin Bitin Dog, My Henderson Guitar, A Turn Toward The Light. I've heard them so many times they've become a part of who I am. Like in my teenage years when I knew the words to all Little Richard's and Chuck Berry's songs listened to on 45rpm. Later, I knew the words to Rolling Stones songs and Bob Dylan songs from playing them so much. Then it was Patti Smith lyrics I sang along to, and Nina Hagen, the Cars, Jane's Addiction and Mazzy Star. Then I discovered mountain music and loved it so much I dove in head first. Mountain music is the only music I have ever heard that can make tears run down my face from the beauty of it. At one Ralph Stanley concert at Fairview Ruritan, tears ran down my face the entire show. Ralph Stanley's artistry is that his singing is not just from the heart, it is his heart singing. He is the voice of these mountains. I won't make such a big fuss over Willard, but he has the soul of the mountains flowing through him, as do Scott and Edwin. To my understanding of mountain music, they are playing in the tradition, playing their own sound that in some cases is new to the tradition, advancing the tradition.

 

  



roye

 

A few times I caught myself singing along out loud not many inches from the back of the man's head in front of me. He must have hated it. He probably heard me chuckling at myself, too, for being so unconscious. Above, is Roye, Edwin Lacy's wife. That's not a foot-long cigarette sticking out from her lips. It is a line on the wall behind her. This isn't a Forties movie. Again, my unconsciousness failed to notice it while snapping the picture. I didn't want her knowing the camera was taking the picture, so I adjusted the monitor screen upward, put camera on my leg to keep it still, aiming not to catch her attention with the camera, holding it like it was resting on my lap, and got some nice pictures of her profile without her noticing. I was wanting to get her face hearing the music unselfconsciously. Good people. The kind of people I'm honored to be among. Driving home I was thinking of how honored I feel as a member of the Whitehead community. I feel the same degree of honored to have what has turned out to be ten years of friendship with Scott and Willard and their families, eventually Edwin, and now Roye. The five of us went to supper at El Torito in Galax. Edwin bought for everybody with the money he made at the show, and I fell in love with the waitress. These are honorable people, and that's what I love about them. They show me it is very simple to be a true human being. This is part of my learning from mountain people. Many of them, mountain people I have known, a small pie slice, have taught me that it is easy to be a true human being, the simplest way to live.

 

 

across the road from willard's front porch gallery

 



 

 



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JEANETTE AND JOHNNY WILLIAMS AT FIDDLE AND PLOW

scott freeman, edwin lacy, jeanette williams, johnny williams

 

 

Johnny and Jeanette Williams returned to the Fiddle and Plow Show Friday night. Scott Freeman played with them some of the songs from their album FREEMAN & WILLIAMS, available from Mountain Roads Recordings. Edwin Lacy played banjo. He and Scott played some songs from their album 2 CHAIRS NO WAITING, where they call themselves the Siamese Cousins. The music was clear and crisp. Sometimes I closed my eyes to hear better. That's when I heard the clarity of Scott's mandolin especially. Edwin's banjo rang out nicely, as always. Jeanette had an electric bass with her, something she "can throw in the back of a Toyota." Johnny played his guitar and all sang. All are good singers. For me, it is a powerful feeling being in the presence of such superb musicians. Hearing their music is where the powerful feeling comes from. These people play music. I took a mess of pictures of all of them. Thought I'd put up pictures this time.

 

 

jeanette williams

 

 

scott freeman and edwin lacy

 

 

jeanette williams and johnny williams

 

 

edwin lacy and jeanette williams

 

 



scott freeman and jeanette williams

 

 

edwin lacy, willard gayheart and jeanette williams

 

 

jeanette williams and johnny williams

 

 

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EDWIN LACY AND JIMMY ZEH BANJO RAMA

scott freeman, edwin lacy, jimmy zeh, willard gayheart

 

 

Last Friday night at Willard Gayheart's Front Porch Gallery, the Fiddle and Plow Show featured the banjos of Jimmy Zeh (bluegrass with resonator) and Edwin Lacy (open-back) with Scott Freeman's mandolin and Willard's guitar. Everybody did vocals. Jimmy Zeh plays with the Highlanders with Willard and Bobby Patterson, a Galax bluegrass band of 40 years. Jimmy is an easy-going kind of guy it takes a good bit to incite a problem with. I've an idea if Jimmy were threatened he'd come out of his corner doing some serious damage. Give him a banjo and Jimmy Zeh is about making music. Both he and Edwin were asked to tell how they started playing banjo. Jimmy told a story similar to mine, in that he had been listening to rock and other music when one day he went to the Galax fiddler's convention without much anticipation. When he heard the music it was a question for him similar to mine: where have I been? This music has been in the world all my life and I'm just now hearing it! I heard my first mountain music at the Independence fiddler's convention. I remember hearing Kyle Creed, Albert Hash, Ernest East, The New River Ramblers (James Burris fiddle) and a fun old character from Zephyr NC, Melvin Slaydon. He danced while he played the fiddle. Sent the crowd into a roar. Slaydon later became mentor to Jacob Bowen of Zephyr Lightning Bolts, who grew up next door to Melvin. Jimmy's response was to start learning how to play a banjo. Mine was to put my mountain music interest on hold because punk had just started in rock and I was following its progression.

 

 

edwin lacy of skeeter & the skidmarks

 

 

I knew if I started paying too much attention to mountain music it would swallow me whole. So I stayed focused on rock for the music I listened to. The late 1970s. Patti Smith was happening, Nina Hagen, The Clash, Siouxsie & the Banshees for the start of a very long list. What I heard first time I listened to mountain music (old-time) was acoustic punk. No kidding. In punk there is no lead guitar. No long solos. Punk is everybody in the band playing all out. Few of the old-time tunes were familiar to me, so they were as fresh to my ears as a new punk album by the Ramones. In every band I heard at the fiddler's convention, acoustic, everybody in the band played all out. It was hard driving mountain music. Punk is hard driving. The only difference I was hearing was acoustic and electric. Also, in punk, the bands write their own songs, whereas in old-time they play traditional songs, each band in their own way. I was seeing pop music coming full circle, starting with old-time, then country, then bluegrass, then rock, then punk, then old-time. I can go to a Papa Roach concert or a Thrice concert with the same enjoyment I get at a Crooked Road Ramblers show or Skeeter & the Skidmarks. To my ear, it's all the same. In late Seventies I mentioned to a few people in conversation that I saw a link between punk and old-time. No Way Ho Zay! A quarter century later punk rockers around the country were discovering old-time, acoustic punk, and put away the electric guitars, took up acoustic instruments and became very respectable old-time bands. It's been something of a trend ever since, electric rockers taking up acoustic traditional music, even jazzing it like the Avett Brothers and Old Crow Medicine Show.

 

 

willard and his new henderson guitar

 

 

Anyway, that's why it took me awhile to come to mountain music after first discovering it. Later, when punk became mainstream and was no longer interesting, I started listening to mountain music and, like I knew it would, it reeled me in like something I had no control over, like destiny. For the first time in my life I found music that made me weep for the beauty of it. The Carter Family and the Stanley Brothers consistently tear me up. I have wept through an entire Ralph Stanley concert for the beauty of it. On my radio show I wept every time I played Carter Family. I could never say anything. I'd mention Sara's name and would choke up, silence, push the button to play the next song. On Carter Family days I played music without talking except weather at the half hour. Couldn't say anything. Didn't need to say anything. All my listeners loved the Carter Family. At the time I started the music store I became acquainted with Scott Freeman who needed a place to teach in Sparta. He'd been at one place that didn't work out. He offered to pay me for the time spent there, but he wasn't making any money. He made a little bit, but it went to gas. I couldn't take what little pocket change he had left. I wasn't about money anyway at the store. I wanted it to be a place where mountain music could be available. I wanted to give people who love the music a chance to have some for their home sound systems. As it is, to find a cd by the Slate Mountain Ramblers, you have to go to one of their shows. That's not a problem, but they don't play all the time. For my part with Scott, I was honored to have him using my store's space. I felt like we were both doing the same thing.

 

 

scott and willard of skeeter & the skidmarks

 

 

Scott's band at the time was Alternate Roots, to this day my favorite band. He gave me a pass to get in at Alternate Roots shows. I saw them fourteen times, and drove to Hiltons, Virginia, to the Carter Fold to see Alternate Roots' last show. I found a Carter Family tshirt that night, my anti-cool tshirt. Willard played with Alternate Roots. I think of Alternate Roots an art band, like in rock I think of Garbage as an art band or Patti Smith Group or Mazzy Star. By art band, I mean full of truly excellent musicians making original superb music; in Alternate Roots' case, some traditional, some their own compositions. I later came to think of the Alternate Roots sound as another form of "bluegrass," or jazzed old-time. Bluegrass is Bill Monroe's jazzing of old-time, and Alternate Roots was Scott and Willard's particular jazzing of old-time, which doesn't have a name yet. Unless it might be Skeeter. Their band before Alternate Roots was Skeeter & the Skidmarks, a band that was called "progressive old-time." That's another way of saying they were jazzing old-time like Bill Monroe jazzed it, but their own way, which is not bluegrass. The band has a sound of its own that is the composite of each individual in the band. When they take on a new song, they "Skeeterize" it. Skeeter is a high-spirited rhythm and an acoustic sound assault by musicians that blow the mind with their musicianship and the music itself. When the Skeeter sound is happening, it is fully alive. That might be what characterizes Skeeter, makes their sound their own. Their music is the equivalent of a Merriam-Webster audio to define the word music.

 

 

edwin and jimmy

 

 

Edwin Lacy picked banjo with Skeeter & the Skidmarks, an early l990s band. Anyway, that's when their two cds were released. They'd been playing together quite awhile before recording. By the time they recorded they were solidly a band used to playing together. Edwin was called to a Presbyterian seminary because the Presbyterian church needed soul. Edwin is soulful in the pulpit as he is singing and picking his banjer. He's a soulful man. He has a great deal of silence within. Skeeter without Edwin was not Skeeter. No other banjo could be the Skeeter sound. Scott and Willard put together Alternate Roots and took a leap into a new sound that also was their own. They made four great albums and then the band went *poof* and was no more. Soon after, Edwin got himself stationed in Bristol TN/VA. There wasn't much traditional music in the Indiana sea of corn. Edwin ached to be making music with Scott and Willard again, and to make music with other musicians in the mountains where they play the music he loved. Skeeter & the Skidmarks got back together. They've played several shows since Edwin's return. They've played I think seven times at the Fiddle and Plow Show. When it's Skeeter night, the audience is ready. We all love the Skeeter sound. We feel blessed that it's twenty or so of us given the privilege to hear this band we all love as much as we love music itself. It is indeed a privilege to have this music happening an hour's driving distance from home. Scott and Willard's music resonates with my soul in whatever band they're playing in as well as together.

 







 

raymond oakes

 

 

The bell on the door rang not long into the music. In the corner of my eye I saw a man sit in the empty seat with cushions the cat used to nap on. Later, at intermission time I saw it was Raymond Oakes. I'd met him twice at Bobby Patterson's music store in the building almost connected to Willard's shop. I remember my first impression in conversation with him that he talked freely for a man of his generation from the mountains. That was the musician in him. Jr Maxwell, the banjo player could talk freely with people he didn't know. I suppose it comes from stage experience, people you don't know coming to you after the show, having to talk with all kinds of people in the music business, people in bands, a wide range of people. Bobby told me Raymond had played guitar with the Lilly Brothers at the Hillbilly Ranch in Boston for a year, and played on a country music show on tv in Richmond, Virginia, for several years. Raymond told me Everett Lilly asked him to stay with them, but Raymond had to get back to Virginia. That yankee world didn't suit him. Virginia is home and he loved his family, wanted to be close to them. This was what it took to provide for them, and he did. It just meant he had to be away a lot. That's a musician's life. I sat and spoke with him during intermission. He accompanies himself and sings country songs. The Blue Ridge Parkway produced a cd of Raymond Oakes singing some classic old country songs. I hear of him playing every once in awhile someplace in SW Virginia, close to home, like the Floyd Country Store and at Flat Ridge Community Center. I felt like he was the show's special guest. Not because he's a star, because he's not. He's an interesting man of these mountains to talk with who has a lifetime of experiences.

 

 

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