ALLEGHANY BLUEGRASS AND THE NEWS

seen in pine swamp

On the news I just now heard that enemy missiles can reach US aircraft carriers. I figured that was settled back in the 50s. Maybe news is like fashions, retro-news. Poke the off button. Get that noise outta my house. Click. Done. Mmm, quiet. Refrigerator running, fan on the heater going, crickets inside my head. I prefer this trio of the sounds of home to somebody talking about missiles and ships over pretend news. There comes a time it's just a noise. It's come to the place I don't believe any of it I hear and I talk back to it. Like hearing them talk about the tea party a "grass roots movement" makes me gag. It's a Karl Rove creation, the Master Propagandist. I listen less because I believe less every week. Yet I continue to catch a five minute top of the hour news every day to see if the end of the world took place yet, if N Korea has nuked S Korea, or if Pakistan nuked India while I slept.

To get that nonsense out of my head, I put on a cd Lucas Pasley gave me some months ago of Howard Joines playing fiddle and Jr Maxwell on bluegrass banjo. Probably Richard Joines playing bass. Sounds good. Made perhaps in Howard's living room. Now they're playing Sally Goodin. They're making music. It's mountain music from down the road a couple miles. Among the greatest gifts these mountains have given me is the music. I've been trained all my life to believe that only the big recording stars are any good as musicians and anybody that don't play on the radio can't cut the mustard. Au contraire. Now, when I hear the great Eric Clapton pick acoustic guitar, I think there are at least a dozen men and probably women inside a 50 mile radius of my house who can pick circles around Clapton. More than a dozen more than likely.

I've grown into a time of the life when I prefer to hear music of field recordings, recorded at home during practice sessions, jams. That's where mountain music lives, besides at dances. At home practicing is for the dances and fiddlers conventions. Now they're playing the Bill Monroe tune, Just Because, that Elvis recorded around 1955 and made Bill Monroe a pile of royalties. It's refreshing to hear Jr's banjo again and Howard Joines's fiddle, especially them together. I hear a guitar that may be Howard's son Richard. A guess I assess pretty close.

These I'm hearing are ones Lucas Pasley has put into his computer to download them onto cds for a preservation effort. It would have been a serious shame to have no recordings of these people, especially in a time when recording is easy. They were too good as musicians to never be heard again after they've died. While Jr was living, I was only able to find a cassette of his band the Green Mountain Boys and a video tape of the band playing in his basement. When he died, 3 more collections of his picking fell into my lap. One with 2 tunes of Jr with fiddler Cleve Andrews, 15 tunes of Jr with fiddler Art Wooten, and a dozen tracks of Jr with his uncle Howard Joines. This is one of the wonderful treasures of Alleghany County music I want with all my might to be able to put them on several cds to give out to the people who need them. I can name off a list of a hundred easily.

I like being able to preserve what little bit I'm able. My contribution to the whole is small, but an integral part of the whole, a part that belongs, small though it may be. One is plenty. I like having a small part in the world of the traditional music of NW NC and SW VA. I've helped preserve a little bit, and gathered together some of Jr's lost recordings for the archives. Seven years of radio show was satisfying and 4 years of the store Backwoods Beat Music distributing the music to people wanting to hear it. Unfortunately, it's too small a market for any place with any overhead to make a go of it, all the more going into a Depression called an Economic Downturn. It might be an economic downturn on the stock market, but it's a depression in the working class. Big O's allusion to self as FDR replacement didn't work out. He was no FDR. He's not showing much Abe Lincoln, either. There is still plenty of time for the Lincoln likeness to come to the surface if it's in there. Sorry for mixing up the inner world with the outer world, but they do weave together in everyday life.

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FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS

crouse house fiddlers


Some mighty fine fiddle music going with Wade Petty and Erica Godfrey hearing each other's sounds together flowing through the music, neither trying to outplay the other, but to use their different styles and sound to complement the other, weave their different ways of playing into a single sound that gives the tune a new dimension. They were having the kind of enjoyment only musicians know. The way I hear it, they are artists of sound creating a new sound together, 100% totally in the now. It's like music of all sorts is going with the ongoing now giving it varieties of waves, sound, every note a present moment high and low, the music riding the waves of the tune.



The musicians took a break, some of them to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and anything from a variety of cookies, some home made, some store bought. When the others got up to stretch their legs, Wade Petty pulled his chair to face Erica, and somebody whose name I don't know stayed with a guitar and kept rhythm for them. They played several songs in such a way it showed one of the spontaneous joys of musicianship. Two extra good fiddlers enjoying a chance to make music with another. I was watching them and hearing them, seeing the present day fiddlers in the tradition of our region, hearing the sounds they created in relation to each other. I felt like their musical aside was a concert in itself. I stood listening, thinking, this is quite a moment. Wouldn't it be great to record it? Wouldn't it be better not to? Allow it its own spontaneity. Let it be what it is. I felt like a snapshot without flash would be no disturbance to the music. I didn't want to interfere in any way.



Yesterday and today I went around to different people I wanted to deliver the cd of Jr, Cleve and Art to people I know who knew them, made music with them, love this music. Dropped in at the radio station Monday morning to see Sonya and deliver the cd for her and Bill. She wanted to play the 2 songs of Jr with Cleve Andrews. She asked me if I'd like to give some out over the air. Sure. I went to the car and brought some in. The telephone rang every time I clicked the off button. I knew several of the callers and we had a moment of being in touch. 15 called in a row. Then no more. It was wild. I was writing names, being certain that my imperfect hearing got the name as it really is. Like in this part of the mountains the names White, Wright and Wyatt are all pronounced the same. And these were my listeners, the ones I made the cds for. It gave me joy to talk with each one of them, sometimes someone telling me they used to make music with Cleve and Jr too. For bluegrass lovers, this is straight on mountain bluegrass picked by musicians who get the job done. And every one I talked with on the phone Monday and Saturday was somebody who knew at least one of them, most often Cleve and Jr. Several were in awe of hearing Cleve's fiddle again after 32 years since he's been gone.



Several hours today I went around to particular people I wanted to be sure had one, stopping to visit for a while, then on to the next one. I saw people both days I've not seen in awhile. Good spirit with everybody. Going from place to place leaving the cd and visiting for awhile, telling the story of how this music came together, where the recordings came from, Kilby Spencer, and how he came by them. The people of the county are becoming aware of heritage now that the old ways are gone. They're aware now, thanks to Ernest Joines, possibly the only one in the county who knew everybody who ever picked a string during his lifetime to assemble the 4-cd set of music from Alleghany County. Ernest's collection has done a great deal toward drawing interest to the musicians of the county. This collection of Jr's musician friends is something so rare of such good music and sound quality I couldn't keep it to myself.



It has been 2 happy days of talking with people I see too seldom. The love for this music is enthusiastic. It's like something that fell out of the blue into my lap. I chose to share it with my listeners, Jr's friends and kin, radio stations and archives. The joy I've received from this experience was a side effect I hadn't taken into consideration in advance, at all. It crept up on my by surprise.

MARK FREEMAN AT THE FRONT PORCH

brothers



Tonight's entertainment at the Front Porch in Woodlawn, Virginia, was Mark Freeman on banjo and guitar. Mark is Scott Freeman's brother, accompanying him above. Scott credits Mark with getting him started on mandolin. Scott came along after 4 brothers, all of them played an instrument except the mandolin, so Mark assigned Scott to the mandolin to round out the band. In the present day, they have a bluegrass band that leans to gospel called PATHWAY. They make respectable music.



Mark's theme tonight was Jimmy Arnold, a musician who was from around here, Ashe County originally, then Galax and at the end I think he was located at Fairview, outside Galax on the hwy to MtAiry. Good singer, good song writer, good musician. Made a couple of country albums, never went far in the country music world, but might have but for downward spiraling habits. He made an album of songs of the Civil War that is a classic album of just plain good music. His style of country fusioned with bluegrass and old-time. He was an excellent banjo picker too. Learned his licks from Tommy Jarrell. Mark didn't sing much, and the tunes he and Scott played were tunes associated with Jimmy Arnold. Mark talked a little bit about him too. Arnold is a legend in this area, held way up high. Mostly Mark picked banjo and Scott mandolin. Sometimes Mark played a guitar and sometimes Scott played a fiddle. Mark is all over the banjo's neck. I found most interesting listening to the way they played together, musicians who know each other's musical minds, have known each other all their lives, brothers.



Mark and Scott picked with casual familiarity all the music they made the same as he makes music with Willard. These are the people Scott has made music with throughout his life. This whole family of MtAiry Freemans I'm finding is an extraordinary bunch of people all in one family. I find them sensible, balanced people who make music and have their jobs and families. This can be said of about all mountain musicians. I don't mean all like 100%. More like it's a rule of thumb. Applies to enough to make it seem like all. What I say about mountain musicians doesn't always apply to musicians in general. Off the mountain musicians have very different attitudes toward themselves. The tradition in the mountains is a humility about it. Making music is not something to hold yourself up high over. In the tradition, mountain musicians play in such a way it calls no attention to the musician. The music is what it's about. The younger ones who grew up on television are breaking the mold.



The people coming to hear the music are becoming different every week. For some time it was the same ones. Now it's different ones every week and a small core of the same ones. I go every week and see everybody. Interesting variety of people. The cat that lives there walks through the seating area and music making area once each night. She's recently been shorn and she hates it. She really hates it. Her whiskers were snipped off too, and the tip of her tail cut, which has never healed. She walks around with a sour look on her face, which is mainly in the way her eyes are set. The place is her home. All these people in a place where people come and go all day long, sitting down and making loud noise. She lets anybody pet her that wants to, but not too much. It's like the cat lets them pet her because it does them so much good.


Next door at the Heritage Shoppe I picked up the cds from Bobby Patterson of Jr and his musician friends. Bobby showed me his music studio where he does the recording and cd making and all that he does with all the old equipment, table top size, replaced by a computer with a big monitor and a mouse with a ball on top. With it he can take out a sour note and replace it with a good one. It's an extremely complex machine and he figured it out all by trial and error, letting the 10 hour video rest. He did a beautiful job with them. On the label is a b&w picture of Jr playing banjo and Cleve Andrews playing fiddle. He got the names of all songs and musicians on the label. After we had them ready to go, he brought up the bass player with Jr and Cleve. He said it was a woman named Ann Jaffner, the very woman Jr never forgot as the best bass player he'd ever made music with. Too late to get her name credited on the cd, which is a shame, but I can add it to the paper playlist.



So it's ready to go. I'll take several to the radio station tomorrow and give them out. This is a joyous moment for me. Like I said to Bobby this evening, I could not sit on this music having the only copy of it. So curious that it came to me at once after Jr went away. It made perfect sense to me to have a hundred copies made to give out to Jr's friends and relatives and archives in Chapel Hill, Boone, some other places. This is important music. It's all there is of Jr and Cleve Andrews. It's all there is of a bunch of people on it. It's rare music. It's a thing that it's a shame in one way Jr isn't here to hear it. In another way, it is what it is. Evidently it wasn't meant for him to hear it. It was meant for me. These musicians on the cd are people Jr has told me about, but I was never able to hear Cleve Andrews, who, like Jr, never recorded. I never dreamed I'd ever hear Ann Jaffner, the woman bass player Jr swore by unto the day he died as the best bass player he'd ever made music with. Bobby Patterson recognized her bass. I'd been suspecting it might be her, and Bobby nailed it. He'd heard her play. He remembered her style of playing. It's her own. She continued in Jr's memory until his mind was gone. When Jr came to the place he couldn't remember names especially, he asked me what that bass player's name was he likes so much. Ann Jaffner. Now I know why he remembered her to the day he died. In this cd I hear what Jr told me about over some years. It's like seeing the movie after reading the book.