ELKVILLE STRING BAND AT THE FIDDLE AND PLOW

the elkville string band

trevor mackenzie, bill williams, herb key, jim lloyd

 

 

Another Friday night of good picking at the Fiddle and Plow Show at Woodlawn, Virginia. The Elkville String Band came from Wilkes County, NC, where they started around ten years ago to play the music in a local play about Tom Dooley. The show was such a hit and the band such a hit the band played more and more gigs and by now have available cds. Herb Key announced they have just finished recording the most recent project that yet needs mixing. Drake Walsh (son of Dock Walsh, banjo, Carolina Tarheels) was the band's original fiddler. Herb Key said Drake died in 2010. The band's present fiddler is Trevor MacKenzie. He stepped into some big shoes and they fit. Herb Key is an excellent guitar picker and singer. He is the MC at the Wayne Henderson Festival that is coming up in a few weeks. Jim Lloyd is a barber in Rural Retreat, Virginia, on the Robert E Lee Highway. Lloyd is best known for his guitar work, though he can keep up with a banjo pretty good. I believe he played guitar with the Konnarock Critters, Brian Grim fiddle, Debbie Grim banjo, an old-time band that made 2 cds several years ago that are now out of print. I was supposing Jeff Michael would be playing the banjo, but he was not. This is the third time in a row I've been to see a band with Jeff in it and he didn't show. He's not playing fiddle with Big Country Bluegrass any more. I'm wondering what has happened to him.

 

 

scott freeman and willard gayheart



Scott and Willard opened the show with a song Willard sings, Don't You Dare Love Anyone But Me. It is on Scott's new cd just released today. I brought home a copy, but haven't played it yet. It's fun that I know intimately nearly every song on it, how Scott does it and whoever else, like Dori and Willard. It blows my circuits that I know such super fine musicians, people who are artists at making music. That's not to say other musicians fall short of art, just to say it stands out in Scott and Willard. The pencil drawings on the wall are Willard's. The space for the show, The Front Porch Gallery, is Willard's gallery where he sells his prints, frames them, and has his studio downstairs where he applies the graphite to paper. I've found very few visual artists in the mountains and a lot of music artists. I suppose it goes back to the old days when making music was the only art form in the mountains. Souls born with the need for some sort of artistic expression took to music. Scott and Willard both are not just good musicians, they are artists at it. Sometimes on the stage with Scott will be Willard, Scott's father-in-law; Dori, Scott's daughter and Willard's granddaughter; Mike Gayheart, Willard's son; also Dori's man of her destiny, David Long. Sometimes I forget they're all kin. When the music is going, none of it matters but the pickin.

trevor mackenzie and herb key

 

 

Herb Key is a guitar picker and singer who knows a great number of traditional songs. He's also a bass player. I've known him before Elkville String Band as Wayne Henderson's bass player. He has many a year of stage experience, and as an MC he can think on his feet a whole lot faster than I can. I've heard him make music several times and heard him MC several times. I know a lot of people who know him, but I've never met him. It's just a matter of how chance works out. Herb is a good singer of the good old hillbilly songs. He likes a good story song. He sang about Tom Dooley and Otto Wood. He sang train songs and he introduced songs with a brief story about each one. Like before the song Lorena, he told of how both sides of the Civil War knew the song and were known to have sung it together across a river or whatever divide during the night when they weren't shooting at each other. While he was singing Wreck of Old 97, a woman sitting in front of me cringed slightly to the words, "was scalded to death by the steam." Herb Key has a strong stage presence singing as well as with his Henderson guitar. He doesn't mind picking it so it can be heard. He's a serious picker who deserves a Henderson.

 

 

trevor mackenzie, bill williams, herb key, jim lloyd

 



That's Bill Williams playing the bass guitar. It was an electric bass, which he played keeping good time for everybody in the band. He has been with the band since its beginning. The fiddler looked to be in his early twenties. He knew a lot of songs well. He played  his fiddle with the confidence of somebody who has a lot of hours experience twisting four strings into some mighty fine hillbilly music. He played a fiddle tune like he was having fun, didn't want the tune to end, couldn't wait to start the next one. Jim Lloyd, banjo picker, played some good music with his bluegrass banjo he played clawhammer. During one of the songs, an Uncle Dave Macon song, he flipped his banjo around a couple times like Macon for a good laugh. Lloyd has an interesting ear. I found in his banjo picking attention he was giving every note, the same way he plays a guitar, like his ear is guiding what he does with each note. He plays something like a blind man in that way, Doc Watson for example. My feeling was that he was an alternate to fill in for the missing banjo player. He didn't know some of the songs they played and didn't feel so familiar with the band, though he knew them all. I looked at the website and saw Jim Lloyd and Eric Ellis are the band's alternate banjo pickers. Lloyd's own band is the Skyliners. They also record with Mountain Roads Recordings www.mountainroadsrecordings.com. Elkville String Band's website is www.myspace.com/elkvillestringband. Bill Williams is the band's contact person: elkvillebill@gmail.com.

 

 

herb key and jim lloyd

 

 

*

 

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

 

 

*

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.

 

 

*

 



 

 

 

TO WOODLAWN AND BACK

Saturday at one was the deadline for the photo exhibit at the library. I'd taken two prints to Willard Gayheart in Woodlawn last Friday for matting toward the show. I was to pick them up Friday night at the Fiddle and Plow show at Willard's gallery. Friday I headed out for Woodlawn. It had snowed an inch and a half in the night, crunchy icy snow, the kind that would be easy to drive on the first few tire tracks over it. But after several tire tracks it turns to slick ice. I went down the road to Pine Swamp and determined I would not attempt to return that way in the dark and uphill. I saw several skid marks in the place I suspected I might not pass beyond. I'd backed down from that place in the dark once. It's not something I want to repeat. Backing downhill on a winding mountain dirt road covered with a sheet of ice in the dark, so glad the reverse light bulbs were working. Without them I'd have to open the door and watch the back tire in relation to the bank on the left side. I didn't want to do that. At the end of the unpaved part of the road, I came onto clear asphalt from there on. Before the ice I'd intended to drive down the Parkway to get Dana Ross, but could not use the Parkway for the ice. I went around using Waterfall Road, Air Bellows Gap Road, Brown Road, Pine Swamp Road, Wolf Branch Road, Mahogany Rock Road, Dewitt Road, Hwy 21, Pulltail Road, Vestal Road and then Mountain Hearth Road.

By the time I reached Dana's place I was ready to get home as fast as I could git. An icy mist so thick it made a fog was freezing on tree limbs. White pines were covered with ice, limbs hanging down with bottom limbs touching the ground. During my half hour drive I saw the tree limbs turning white and sagging toward the ground. I started thinking about trees breaking and falling across the road. No chainsaw in the trunk, I wanted to go home. When Dana came to the door I showed him what I was seeing. Woodlawn was north all the way. What I saw over the last half hour, given three more hours it will be black ice all the way home. I don't want to drive on black ice. It can't be done. I said straight out I wasn't going. It was Carl Jones and Erynn Marshall, a show I looked forward to. I was getting concerned about making it home with the frozen mist coming down so fast. We decided to sit by the fire with a cup of coffee and visit since I was there and the coffee might help me up the mountain. Outside a half hour later the tree limbs had cleared of the frost. They were up again with just a little bit of white on their tips. The temperature had risen above freezing. The icy snow on the ground had turned to slush, the ice was gone. It heartened me to go ahead and drive to Woodlawn. Then I remembered that I am no weather prophet and dare not pretend to be. Crazy as the weather was, I decided not to chance it. Forty miles to Woodlawn and no telling what was between here and there.

The mist cleared away, the snow and ice were completely gone. All the way home it was like nothing had happened. I went up the mountain on the road from Whitehead, a good choice. I get to the top and there was the ice and snow again. The snow and ice were localized to Air Bellows and Cherry Lane. Cherry Lane gets a current of air that runs through Roaring Gap and goes around Bullhead mountain. Those two gaps, Air Bellows Gap and Roaring Gap must have been letting the same weather through. Who knows? I am not a weather prophet. I just receive it as it happens.The big IT, the weather. Sometimes the weather seems like it has a personality, like it's conscious. If that weather Friday night was really conscious and speaking to me, I was getting the message loud and clear, get yer ass home. Walking to the house was in the snow that was there since morning. I didn't even wonder what was up. Didn't care. I got the message. I was home. Safe. No dents on the car, no air bag blowing up in my face, no insurance issues, no estimates, no repairs, no problem.

Still, I needed to get the two photographs I'd left last week for Willard to mat. Up Saturday morning to the coffee shop to have a coffee and work the Jumble puzzle in the paper, and visit with whoever was there, this morning Tom Guy. Willard opened his shop at 10, so I left Sparta at 9:30 to get to Woodlawn by 10:15. Took 21 and 58 through Independence and Galax. A good drive at a good time of day when few cars were on the road. I like the scenery in Southwest Virginia. Stopped and bought gas for 24c a gallon less than in NC. That much state tax difference. I like to support my state, but when my state charges me that much more tax when I buy something I need as much as gas, I'll give my money in Virginia. Since I go to Virginia regularly, that's where I buy gas. Saved $3 today. It's my way of saying to my state: you screw me, I screw you. My state is ruthless when it comes to taking my money. The state of NC regards me a numbered object that owes it money. Need I think of NC in any other way?

Willard did a beautiful job of matting the two photographs. One was Thornton Spencer of Whitetop Mountain Band playing his fiddle and the other was Lyle Croco of Buffalo Death Rattle, a Louisiana old-time band, playing his fiddle silhouette against blue sky. I'm not putting pictures in looking to win a contest, but to participate in the show. I like to hang something on the wall with other people from around here. I see it a community show, the people of this county who have an aesthetic eye for still photographs. We have quite a number of people in the county now who make some beautiful photographs. I like to see a show of them and I like to have something among theirs. Had a good uninterrupted conversation with Willard until we ran down. That's the best way to end a conversation, when it runs down. He had finished and framed his colored pencil drawing of me painting the picture of him. I'm happy to have something by Willard in the house. I also have his color drawing of Tommy Jarrell playing fiddle and Paul Brown on banjo. I'm going to hang them on the same wall, one above the other.

Back to Sparta by 58 and 21, to the library delivering the matted prints one hour before closing time. I filled out the forms, paid the fee, talked a bit with Debbie and staff, went to the coffee shop and visited with Tom Guy again. He'd been away and came back. Tim the Techman came in and we had a good conversation corner over coffee. Winding down after several hours of driving, talking and paying attention listening, I stumbled out of the coffee shop and Drew Tuggle called me from across the street in the art store. Carol was volunteering there on Saturday mornings. We talked for a good while until I couldn't stand up anymore without assistance. I had a new blanket in the back seat of the car I'd just bought at Magic something or other where Walmart used to be in Galax. I wanted to wrap up in the new blanket and sleep. At home I make a bee line for the bed, wrap up in the blanket and lay there with my head buzzing like a yellow jacket nest in the wall. I was thinking it hopeless to attempt to sleep. Maybe I could calm down watching a quiet movie. I stayed where I was, unwilling to move. Then woke up two hours later, refreshed.


*

ELIZABETH LAPRELLE AT THE FIDDLE AND PLOW

elizabeth laprelle

sandy laprelle, elizabeth laprelle

elizabeth laprelle

sandy laprelle, elizabeth laprelle

elizabeth laprelle

Another good night of music at Willard Gayheart's gallery, the Front Porch, home of the weekly Fiddle and Plow show. Elizabeth LaPrelle has been singing the old songs with her mother, Sandy, since childhood, made her first recording at 15, a beautiful album, and has become one of the singers of the old-time songs of our region. I've been hearing her music since her first recording, which came out while I had the radio show where I've played her music quite a lot. I would have played the albums all the way through. That's what I did when I came upon something new from the region I knew my listeners would love whole-heartedly. Elizabeth's singing took me back to those days that I miss like I miss a good friend who died. To follow that thinking brings sorrow at first, then gratitude for the opportunity to play mountain music to mountain people in the last years of mountain culture in our county. Seeing mountain culture go away is cause for sorrow as well, another friend dying, while at the same time is cause for gratitude that I had the opportunity to live in mountain culture as it was in its last years, and appreciate it.

I'm happy we have Elizabeth laPrelle in this region of the mountains. She's from Rural Retreat, Virginia, not far from Wytheville, a beautiful part of the mountains. The Smokies have Sheila Kay Adams, and the Central Blue Ridge has Elizabeth laPrelle carrying the old ballads, keeping them alive, revealing their beauty at performances. She sang what I took to be the complete lyrics to the old Irish song, Matty Grove. I suppose it's Irish. It sound like it. That's the song Ralph Stanley recorded with a drone fiddle behind him. Her version was much longer than Stanley's. Ralph Stanley's is the definitive version of that song for me. It was all the more interesting to hear the lengthier version Elizabeth laPrelle sang. Her rendering of the song has its own integrity.

Elizabeth's mother, Sandy, sang with her about half the songs. They make a good duo. Sometimes I'd see Sandy beaming that her daughter is such a good singer and is so dedicated to the music. Over my lifetime I've seen two women friends raise their daughters and saw their maternal satisfaction when their girls grew up into extraordinary people. One of the girls recently got her PhD in some kind of advanced biology, and the other just got her MD. I saw in Elizabeth's mother the same relaxed feeling that her daughter is not living in a dump with a crackhead and babies, an ever-present danger mothers know well. In Elizabeth and Sandy I saw mother and daughter who are friends, like each other's best friend. It gives me a good feeling to see a happy parent/child relationship. I had a chance to talk with Sandy a few minutes during intermission and she seemed like one of my friends, somebody I've known a long time and haven't seen in awhile. During our conversation I felt respect for her as a woman, as a mother, as a singer.

Elizabeth laPrelle carries the old songs for her generation into the future. It's a powerful gift she has to know all the songs she knows already and the songs she'll learn in time. The old ballads living in somebody who performs them beats lyrics printed on paper, like good old hymns are so much better to hear sung than to read them. In the singing is their life. Elizabeth has what it takes to bring a song to life. She sings the mountain way, from the heart, tells the old stories with the emotion that is in the song. Like Sara Carter, Elizabeth doesn't emote to get the feeling of the song across. It's her singing from the heart that carries the song. I like about somebody like Elizabeth laPrelle that she is the antithesis to the common sayings that start, The kids these days.... Not all kids these days are slackers on crystal meth. The fact is, very few are. I've seen so many people in their 20s now in a spin not knowing what to do or how to get started at anything. Elizabeth is one of the kids these days who has found her completion, found, in fact, her way early in her life.

* 

WILLARD GAYHEART AND SCOTT FREEMAN

     scott freeman (l), willard gayheart (r)

     scott freeman and willard gayheart

     willard gayheart

      scott freeman

     cynthia grant

Last night, Friday night, more music lit up the air in Woodlawn, Virginia. Scott Freeman and Willard Gayheart made the music. A Scott and Willard show has become my favorite of the shows at the Front Porch Gallery, the Fiddle and Plow show. I can say without fear of rational contradiction, both Scott and Willard are as good as it gets in the mountain tradition of the Central Blue Ridge in their time. Like Scott told me some years ago when I mentioned his band Alternate Roots was a really good band. He said, "There's lots of good bands." That has stuck with me as indelible. I don't know how many times I've quoted him and multiple more times thought about it. Indeed, an awful lot of good bands are everywhere. The other day on YouTube I clicked on a band called The Hillbilly Gypsies playing Hazel Dickens' song, West Virginia My Home. I wanted to see if a band with so good a name could live up to it. They did. They are among the many "good bands." I can't help but say, Praise the Lord, we have so many good bands, so much good music in our time. But, Alternate Roots was exceptional among good bands.

I found myself singing along to about every song either Willard or Scott sang. I had to watch it while working the video camera, because I have unconsciously sung along in the past and it turns up on the video. I don't mind that. It's one more of those live audience things that happens like somebody walking across the camera's view. I don't get annoyed when that happens. When somebody stops from courtesy before entering the camera's field, I encourage them to go ahead, wishing I could take a moment and explain--I love it when you do that--but I motion with one hand, unable to talk. It works out either way. If they choose not to walk in front of camera, that's ok too. I like the approach comfortable with whatever happens. It doesn't make "good" video, but it makes the kind of video I like. There's plenty of good video going around. I've had a few people give me tips on how to make better videos, but I don't follow their advice, because I know why I don't do what they want me to do.

Back to what I was getting at, that I now know the words to the songs they sing. Last night I heard myself vocalizing with the singing, keeping it below a whisper. It used to be with David Bowie, Hot tramp, love you so, or the Stones, It's them honky-tonk, honky-tonk women, dat gimme, dat gimme, dat gimme de honky-tonk blues, or Bob Dylan, People call, say beware doll, you're bound do fall, you thought they were all kiddin you. Now I'm singing along with a western swing, Won't you ride in my little red wagon, I can haul you down the street, and Roly poly, daddy's little fattie, bet he's gonna be a man some day. And best of all, Willard's singing of Yellow Rose of Texas, She's the sweetest Rose of color this poor boy ever knew, her eyes are bright as diamonds, they sparkle like the dew. The yellow Rose is not a flower. She's a woman named Rose. These are the songs I carry in my head now, after more than a year of listening to Scott and Willard almost every week. They open every week's show with two songs, then turn the show over to the guest. Sometimes they give a show of just them. It's always my favorite show when it's Willard and Scott. That's how it is with the dozen to twenty people in the audience who go every week they can.

I took my friend Cynthia Grant along for the show. She's teaching Appalachian Studies in Sparta at the WCC community college extension branch. She's a good teacher. I sat in on one of her classes last year and was struck by what a good teacher she is. Before we left Selma's coffee shop to drive to Woodlawn, Selma was talking about several people get together and leave the coffee shop as the starting point, go to dinner in Galax and on to the show in Woodlawn, some Friday night in near future. We learned last night that Skeeter and the Skidmarks will be playing in two weeks. That will be a great show for a party. I'm imagining the half dozen or so who would be going, and I'm knowing in advance that every one of them will love the experience. Skeeter puts on a good show. It's Willard and Scott's present band with Edwin Lacy playing banjo and Sandy Grover playing bass. They have put on four shows at the Front Porch, every one a gem.

I've not put any of last night's songs onto YouTube yet, but will upload a few. Willard and Scott have several videos now on YouTube if you'd like to see them. Write either one of their names in the search box and everything with them will come up. Everything they do is good, so any selection process of song would be no better or worse quality than any other. Plenty of Skeeter and the Skidmarks is there too. For me, it was a great enjoyment to introduce Cynthia to Willard and Scott's music and the venue. She enjoyed it as much as I imagined she would. Cynthia has the ability to appreciate art in whatever form it presents itself. She's a museum curator by profession, came to Sparta hired to direct the Teapot Museum in Sparta in it's last months. She was given a bit of a raw deal, and has chosen to stay here because she likes it here. But it's coming to a place she needs to get on to someplace where she can have work that pays something she can live with. She's applying for work in various places and will probably find something. Everyone at the coffee shop will miss her. That's not to be worried over today. We'll wish Cynthia the best when the time comes. She's not one to forget her friends.

I get a lot of still shots during a show, as well as video. This picture above of Scott catches his fiddle playing best of what I got last night. This one came with his last note. I was going after a picture with his bow hand in the picture. My camera has a delay from pushing the button to snapping the picture. Quite a lot changes in that half second of time when musicians are in motion. When I pushed the button when his hand was in view, the hand was out of view when the camera clicked the picture. I tried snapping the picture when his hand was out of view, and it stayed out of view when the camera did it's part. I went through half a dozen or more trying to get that hand in the picture. The very last note, his hand slowly came into view and stayed there long enough for the camera to catch it. It was while he was playing Ashoken Farewell. I was happy with this picture of Willard playing his guitar, too.

VW BOYS LIGHT UP WOODLAWN VIRGINIA

     tim white, fat albert blackburn, dave vaught

             tim white

             dave vaught

             fat albert blackburn

     tim white, fat albert blackburn, mack puckett

Bluegrass at the Front Porch Gallery in Woodlawn, Virginia, Friday night. It's predictable that the VW Boys make good music and good humor. I took my friend Justin along to hear some good live bluegrass. Justin I've known since before he started school, so I've known him almost all his life. Now he has 3 kids and is almost 30. His wife, Crystal, Christmas shopped all night last night and was sleeping. It was a bit of a mind adventure for me on the way there, worried about running out of gas, somewhat confident it would not happen, but not sure, because it was the closest the needle had been to the E line since the new fuel pump, and I didn't know where E really was. Before the new fuel pump, it ran out of gas when the needle touched the quarter tank line. I had an idea it would have to go all the way to the E line to be empty, because when it was full the needle didn't quite touch the F line. I was wanting to fill the tank in Galax where I found gas for $3.13 when it's $3.45 in Sparta. Put in 15 gallons for $4.80 less than in Sparta, just by crossing the state line. By the time we made it to Woodlawn the worry about running out of gas was in the past and my head was clear, ready to focus on some bluegrass music.

It was good to be back among the people who go to the Friday night Fiddle & Plow shows at Willard Gayheart's frame shop and gallery. Walk in and shake hands around, greet, how-ya-doin, talk about looking forward to the music about to happen, remembering how good their show was last time they played at the Front Porch. Seeing the guys in the band brought memory back of their music and their musicianship. Willard and Scott played the opening song, Willard singing Lay Down My Old Guitar. I've heard him sing it several times, but felt like tonight his voice flowed seamlessly through the song, Scott's mandolin sounding as good as Willard's lyrics. It's a good worded song, the story of a man at the end of his life laying down his old guitar, "wish I could strap it to my side and take it along with me." Very satisfying song just to listen to as well as to hear the words. The old-time songs are all good-worded, but this one has a satisfaction about it when it ends that makes me say to myself, good song. Willard sings it like it's his own, too. Scott's daughter, Dori Freeman, took Willard's place on the next song and sang beautifully, accompanying herself with guitar, and Scott played along on mandolin. 

VW Boys came forward telling light hearted jokes and comical sayings, connecting with the audience. All three of them are singers. Dave Vaught on guitar plays rhythm and lead. Tim White plays bluegrass banjo and guitar. Fat Albert plays bass and sings melodiously a variety of song styles. He played bass and sang with the bluegrass band Fescue, I think he said 17 years. Fescue was a very respectable SW Virginia bluegrass band. Albert took the place of Larry McPeak whose cancer has reached the place where he can't get out anymore. Larry was a good part of the band, played electric bass, sang and wrote a good song. Larry also played with the bluegrass band, the McPeak Brothers. Larry had a personality for taking the background. Albert's personality is foreground. His bass, his extroverted voice and his size standing between Tim and Dave makes a pyramid. Dave said of Albert that he grew up through his hair. He said his present wife is an angel. She's up in the air harping all the time. He told about an old boy that said he wasn't going to get married anymore, said he was going to buy a house every 5 years and give it to a woman he hates. 

They had the audience going, grooving to the music and laughing over their jokes. They kept me laughing nearly the whole time. Justin was laughing at least as much as I was. The band started off with the Rooster song that tears Justin up every time he hears it. I think the VWBoys do that song as good as I've heard it. Everybody that does it, does it well. Justin fell out when they played If My Nose Was Running Money, honey, I'd blow it all on you. If my nose was running money, but it'snot. It's a booger of a problem I've got. I'd buy you a Cadillac and a PT Cruiser too, if my nose was running money, honey, I'd blow it all on you. That's a song they borrowed from the Moron Brothers of Kentucky. The Moron Brothers are worth looking up on YouTube. Good comedy bluegrass in the vein of comic bluegrass the VWBoys are in. Telling their jokes, they flow freely as making music. When they make music, you know it's music you're hearing. It's the real deal. Actual music.

They played a song I remembered from the early 50s, RAGGMOPP, Ragmop, just before rock & roll rose to the surface. Dave Vaught told me during intermission they found the song went back to about 1932. That made my ear listen a little more closely. Sounds like it has a Charleston rhythm. I hear Cab Calloway in the fast beat in the dance music of that time. Another they played from later in the 50s, a comedy song, Hot Rod Lincoln. "My dad said, Son, you're gonna drive me to drinkin if you don't stop drivin that Hot--Rod--Lincoln." They played Bob Dylan's Wagon Wheel with the zeal the song deserves. Fat Albert sings it and does it right. It seemed to me they made that song their own. They played the Everly Brothers' Dreamin. I didn't know back in the 50s that the Everly Brothers were so close to bluegrass. Back then I didn't know about bluegrass. Heard it listening to Grand Ole Opry with my grandmother, but didn't know what it was. It was my grandmother's music.

I was laughing throughout the show from start to finish. Justin was too. There was an old boy in the next row of seats, about 10 years older than me, wearing a jacket with a waving US flag on the back and stars down the sleeves. I said to Justin, "I need a jacket like that to start dressing my age." He was laughing bent over much of the time. I thought all their jokes were funny and the funny songs cracked me up too. It would be too much to hear the VWBoys and the Moron Brothers on the same show, one following the other. Laughter therapy. Whatever I had going into it, I'd come out of it cured. Tonight was a good night of light hearted feeling in a room of about 20 people, every one feeling light hearted and happy. It was over too soon, even though they played three hours.      

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SCOTT FREEMAN AND WILLARD GAYHEART AT THE FRONT PORCH

 scott freeman and willard gayheart

 scott freeman and willard gayheart



willard gayheart

scott freeman

Before the show tonight, Scott asked why I didn't go to the fiddler's convention in Sparta. There is only one answer, plain and simple. "I'd rather listen to you and Willard." There is no other answer. Fiddler's conventions have a lot of good music, but I often wish I'd brought a book for the spaces between and the music that aint fer shit. I'm not one to walk around and see people I know and stroll around in the camping area to hear the music there. I'd rather sit in my seat and enjoy the show. More than likely it's something I carry from childhood. Going to movies as a kid, other kids were walking and running up and down the aisles throughout the movie. It seemed like the thing to do. If I'd ask daddy if I could go get some candy or go pee I'd get talked to about no running up and down the aisles--stay in your seat. Staying in my seat at movies and concerts became the way I do at movies and shows. I have gone against that teaching a time or two to see what it is about it that other people like so much. I've never found anything about it worth getting up from my seat.

I've never been a chit-chatter. Talking for the sake of making noise never caught on with me. I can't say why, because I don't know why. Perhaps it had something to do with being told when I wanted to say something at the dinner table, "Nobody wants to hear you." That was that. I grew up believing nobody wanted to hear anything I had to say. Nobody at home did. It made me a talker among friends at school and other places. I talked a streak. Then that talking streak ended, perhaps because I became self-aware along the way. Also, I talk so slow I tend to get interrupted every sentence I speak, so in certain company where conversation amounts to interrupting anecdotes with anecdotes, I stop talking. I've never liked interruption as a form of conversation. At this time in my life, my curmudgeon phase, I don't put up with interruption. Once interrupted, I'm done. If it's from lively conversation and out of control, that's ok. When I'm talking with someone and somebody walks in interrupting and taking over, I do not tolerate it. I turn and walk away. Interruption is the American form of conversation in all classes. It's how we talk with short attention spans. It's so pervasive in America it's patriotic.

Anyway, I'm a stay in my seat kinda guy. I don't think that's so unusual. About 98% of every audience I've been in stays in their seats throughout like it's no big deal. After my harangue about walking about during a concert, I spent tonight's show mostly on my feet with video camera making video of every song but a few I used for still photographs. It was a good show. Scott and Willard make a great duo. Willard talks about Scott being a special breed of musician, one who plays in the realm of excellence like he's in a league above Willard. But Willard is too. The people Willard looks to as the best musicians around all love to make music with Willard because he's so good. The fact of the matter is that I regard them equals, as I'm sure Scot does too. Equal or not, they make music together as good as music gets made. I wasn't deciding by what I'm supposed to do, should do or am expected to do. I did question which to go to, called Willard to find out who'd be playing there, thinking if it were some band or individual whose music doesn't trip my trigger, of very few possibilities, I'd go to the convention. When he said it was Scott and him, there was no decision to make.

The music tonight gave the audience good feeling throughout the show. On the last tune, Scott playing Angelina Baker on fiddle, the audience broke into spontaneous applause while he was playing. Lonesome River Band was playing at fiddlers convention at 7 and 9. I did not regret missing them for Scott and Willard. In this time in my life I follow my own taste and interests. I've been instructed along the way by oughta, should, needta, better, gotta, s'posed to. None of them worked out. Usually whenever I followed somebody's instruction figuring they knew better than I did what would suit me, it's been a mistake. I broke free from that and now it really pisses people off when I say, "I don't do should," or "I don't do s'posed to." It pisses them off seriously, so much they puff up and leave, which suits the hell outta me. Perhaps I say it with a finality in tone of voice. I don't care how I say it. I'm so damn tired of being told what I should do by people who don't even know me that it doesn't make a bit of difference anymore how they take it. Do it yourself, I want to say, if it's so damn necessary.

I'll have the videos up on YouTube by end of weekend. There are aplenty now on YouTube of Scott and Willard. Put their names in the search box and you'll get a bundle of songs by them. I tend to put up them doing the same song 2 or 3 times, because each rendering is uniquely itself and different from the others. Like there is one of Willard singing Yellow Rose of Texas standing up with the band Skeeter & the Skidmarks, layin it to it. He sings it another way altogether sitting down with guitar singing it folk style. Very different renderings and both excellent. One Scott sang tonight he's done quite a lot, She's My Curly Headed Baby, he did Western Swing style with Willard keeping a good swing going with his rhythm guitar and Scott working the mandolin. Tonight's rendition had an energy in it I've not heard him give it before. It really swung. At the end, I spoke out loud, "That was really nice." Couldn't keep it inside. Had to let it out. Really good show tonight. I was where I needed to be, footsteps right down the centerline of my path. 

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BILLY C SMITH AT THE FRONT PORCH

jerry bowman, daryl bryant, billy c smith, mark freeman

billy c smith

jerry bowman

jerry bowman, daryl bryant

billy c smith, daryl bryant, mark freeman, willard gayheart

Billy C Smith's band played at the Front Porch Gallery Friday night to an audience of Billy C's wife, Daryl Bryant's wife, Willard Gayheart, me and the white cat. The regular audience was side-tracked by a free concert at the Blue Ridge Music Center of Doc Watson, Wayne Henderson and some other regional musicians, Dori Freeman one of them. The entire Front Porch audience went there, all the regulars but me. I didn't go because Wayne Henderson doesn't trip my trigger and Doc Watson I appreciate a great deal, but not enough to skip a night at the Front Porch. Sometimes I do miss a show, but seldom. Mark Freeman started out as audience, but soon was called to join the band. It was a casual show, making it all the better. Willard joined them on guitar the last few songs of the night.

Billy C Smith, Daryl Bryant and Jerry Bowman play in JD Higgins' band Country Express. They play older country music from before the last 25 years of Nashville doing Motown corporate cookie-cutter music. All of them are really good musicians. They put on a show like the house was full, Billy C saying a couple times they've played for smaller audiences. Every song they played, they did very well. It was extra good classic country played by musicians who love it. I'll have the videos I made up on YouTube before the end of next week. I've got a couple of shows behind and need to dive into it for a few days and get caught up. Next week's show will be Dori Freeman singing the songs on her cd. 

Delivered Willard's painting to him this evening. I've been living with it for several months and it leaves a gap in the house on the easel where it was visible all the time. I've found I like to live with my paintings, so I paint them in the living room of the house. I keep 2 easels in the living room, one on either side of the home entertainment complex, one being finished, the other being started. On the way to Woodlawn I stopped at Selmas for a moca. An art lover friend was in there. She paints too. Doesn't want me to use her name. I went to the car to bring it in for her to see. I sat it upright on a wooden chair with a high back. We sat in front of it and talked about painting for perhaps twenty minutes, something like that. It was a treat for both of us to have someone to talk with about our painting. 

I was happy to hand the painting over to Willard. He is planning to make a pencil drawing of me painting the picture. I wanted Willard to have it, but didn't want to ask money for it. Didn't need anything for it. Just wanted Willard to have it. I painted it for Willard, like I painted the Ralph Stanley painting for the Stanley museum, wanted them to have it. Last week Willard asked about what I'd want for it. It told him I don't want money. I trade the picture for money, then I use the money to pay bills and the next day I'm out, I don't have the picture or the money. He suggested he make the drawing in exchange, and I'm happy with that. Happier than money involved. Money is on the lower end of the scale of what I value.

Willard is a musician and a man I have a great deal of respect for. I wanted to paint the picture to honor Willard for his achievements as pencil artist of musicians of SW Virginia, and other mountain people, as well as his guitar playing, singing and song writing. Plus, as a human being Willard is every bit as respectable as when he's making music. For me, the painting is my own personal form of awarding the Nobel Prize in mountain music. We were talking before the show and I told I'd been applying the principles of mountain musicians for my own art form. First, it has to come from the heart, all application of paint. Second, a degree of humility in the artist. Third, mountain musicians make music for the fun of making music. I now paint for the fun of painting. I don't make it a gotta-do thing or climbing a ladder to higher and higher prices and more sales. The ladder of success takes the fun out of it for me. Heart doesn't translate to money very well. Nor does fun. 

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