LUCAS PASLEY TALKS ABOUT OLD-TIME MUSIC AT THE LIBRARY

lucas pasley

Thursday evenings, Alleghany Library features a music show or a talk on a given topic, a presentation. This week, old-time musician, local music historian and high school English teacher, Lucas Pasley, played the fiddle and talked. He talked about songs with stories in them. He used examples of songs that were favorites of the musicians in the county past and present, all of them common songs people who listen to the music know well. He talked of one told by a man without remorse, the story of the time he shot little Sadie down, never tells why, never mentions regret. Story songs are abundant in old-time music. One of my favorites stuck in the front of my mind the whole evening, the Stanley Brothers' Come All Ye Tender Hearted. Carter Stanley loved those old mournful story songs of extreme sorrow. This song was tattooed in the front of my mind the first time I heard it. Sometimes I like to listen to it for hearing Carter sing it as only he can in his hyper-emotional dispassionate voice. Sara Carter of the Carter Family had that quality in her voice. In the time before electricity, before the modern world, the people in the old way appreciated other songs besides love songs. Love song was one of the genres Lucas covered last night in his talk, the first of a series. The people before pop culture and advertising liked love songs, too. They also liked songs that made you cry. The people of that time honored all the emotions in their songs. Before marketing. Marketing changes things. Contemporary Chinese writers are not afraid of sorrow. A Chinese writer can wade you through some deep, wrenching, painful sorrow. They write about the other emotions too. Artists tend to like to appeal to all the emotions. There is still a niche in pop culture for sad songs, every once in awhile when it's a feel-good story. I still remember the popularity of the Country Gentlemen's, Taking Mary Home.  

 

with daughter Lenke

with daughter hazel

Lucas brought up the story in the Wreck of Old 97, pointing out the line, Scalded to death by the steam, a notable line. I can't think of any song I've ever heard with so graphic a climactic scene. The song is told visually. Lucas unveiled the story behind the event itself, the engineer an hour behind schedule when it was imperative he arrive at the next stop on time. It seems unrealistic now, but this was the time before safety regulations. A few years ago we had a news story of a commuter train engineer in a northeastern city who took it into a curve way too fast, absent minded out of control. In the old days they sometimes wrote current events into a song. Pop Stoneman sang a classic song about the Titanic. Bob Dylan sang a classic song about the Titanic. There were several songs in the old days of a guy killing his girlfriend because of a roving eye or she was pregnant. We still have plenty of stories of guys killing girlfriends. Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols killed his girlfriend and later himself. In this time we have so many songs of every variety that most of them we never know about. There is not enough time to know about all of them. We hear pop radio and figure that's it. I see mention now of bands from the Sixties that were supposed to be the Best, and I never heard of them. And I see mention of bands from the 70s, the punk era, that were supposed to be the Best. Never heard of them either. These were bands you'd have to be a New York dj in that time to have heard them. I've caught myself again making out like we people were different in the old time way. We were different then from what we are now, but culturally, the nature of our education about the only difference mentally. In the old days education was learning how to figure things out. Education now is largely memorizing details for the test. I see education making that big a change again. Emotionally, we're not much different, except now we inhibit emotions as a rule. We still live by our emotions and interpretations. The same things still happen, though in a greater variety of ways. Looking at movies in our time as songs, the variety is endless, and we have more songs recorded now than movies. The major difference between the music before electricity and after is the changes were slower then and songs people heard were far fewer than now. It cannot be said the songs were better then or now.

 

 

lucas pasley

lucas and hazel

  

Lucas invited his two girls, Lenke and Hazel, one at a time to accompany him on the fiddle with their guitars. Both girls have been holding guitars since before they could pick the strings or make chords. They liked to hold the instruments and feel a part of the music as tiny kids. They live in a world of old-time music, daddy practicing, musicians coming by to jam, both parents participating in jams, going to fiddlers conventions in the summer, daddy collecting field recordings of music in the county. It's fairly predictable that both girls will be good musicians of whatever music they want to play. Lucas will have a family band in his near future. He has been collecting old tapes made of local musicians at jams since the late Forties, early Fifties. He has uncovered some treasures. Clifton Evans went around visiting musicians in the county he knew, banjo and fiddle players. He took his guitar and reel-to-reel recording machine. Lucas came into his tapes. A man named Dick Finney was known to have made tapes at jams. Somebody has his tapes. From what I've heard they are loaded with treasures. Lucas is putting the songs from these tapes into his computer and from there he can put them on a website he has created. He's told me he has been putting together a collection of Alleghany fiddlers and another collection of Alleghany banjo pickers. He's looking at the label, Field Recorder's Collective, a non-profit label that is making old-time mountain music available by people who have never recorded commercially. Lucas's collections will be a major contribution to archiving the music of our county. Lucas keeps his archiving activities ongoing through his life as husband, father, musician, teacher, home repair handyman who restores his house while living in it. And he's teaching his kids to make music. He's taking care of the county's music, present, past and future.

lucas and hazel

 

lucas

Lucas is so busy keeping everything going he's engaged in, he doesn't have time to seek publicity for himself. Few people know of his involvement with making the music of this county accessible on cd, both commercial and homemade. People in the county not connected with the school system have never heard of him. He strikes me a case of somebody doing something important for the county, its history and its future, and not many know what he's doing. Then we have the clique of people patting themselves on the back taking credit in the name of "gonna" and nothing happens of any value beyond cosmetic. Lucas is a teacher his students never forget. Going by the way he gives a talk at the library, I get a feel for how he functions in the classroom. Lucas takes passionate interest in whatever is holding his attention at a given moment. His interior excitement shines through when he talks. It doesn't make him an obnoxious missionary, it makes his talking fun for him and interesting to the listeners. He gives pertinent information when he's talking about a song's history and interpreting its story, conversationally, information that amounts to stepping stones he puts down one at a time to help us follow his interest. Lucas doesn't need praise for his contributions to the community. He believes the county's music needs archiving. He's somebody who does what he sees needs doing instead of talking about it. There was a time I believed the county needed a weekly radio show of its own music on the local AM station. There hadn't been one in probably fifteen years. Rather than try to talk other people into doing it, I went to Dudley Carpenter to teach me how to dj, learned as I went and put on a radio show for seven years until the station closed. Lucas and I are like-minded in the way that we would rather do what we see needs doing and go on than tell somebody about it, You-know-what-you-oughta-do? Lucas has a deep interior life. I don't know his spiritual beliefs, but it appears to me he is guided by real values. He doesn't fold and quit, like me, he keeps on a-keepin on and gets er done.     

lucas pasley

 

 

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FELLINI OUTSIDE TIME

giorgio de chirico

 

I've been in the Tropic of Torpor today, nothing in the mind, nothing I want to do. Take a nap, up for awhile, another nap, up for awhile, another nap. All the time awake I wanted to be asleep. Finally, I rose from the bed intending to stay up for awhile. It was after 8. Put in the movie of the day, Fellini's 8 1/2. Two nights ago I saw La Dolce Vita. Takes me back to the early 1960s. These two films were so very modern then, Italian chic, the new cutting edge in film. Then, they were as obscure to me as what goes on in a donkey's mind. Today, they retain their original obscurity. I've seen them both around five times, and none of those times did I feel like I got what was happening, but followed the stories well enough to stay with them, but what's going on behind the story is still a mystery. This time with them I watched as though sitting on the beach watching the waves come in, crash and fade to a wavering line on the sand. I did not want to figure them out. I wanted to see the stories as Fellini told them, leaving out mental static. First time I saw La Dolce Vita was in the auditorium at Wichita State U, maybe 1962. I think the art department put it on. It was new then and the talk of the cinema world internationally, making it an essential film to see for anyone interested in the art of film making, or simply art. It was my first art film. I'd never seen anything but Hollywood films before. It was my first experience reading subtitles. It was so modern it made me feel backwards. I've seen so many films over the last five or so years with netflix I've quit analyzing films. I receive them now as I believe they are intended to be received, riding the flow from beginning to end, seeing where it goes, immersed in the beauty of the visuals. In both these Fellini films he juxtaposed the modern with the ancient. Much of the outdoors scenes were against the ruins of ancient Rome that continue to stand in modern Rome.

 

giorgio de chirico

 

Perhaps the only scene in La Dolce Vita I recognized as having seen it before was Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni late at night in evening clothes standing in a Roman fountain, water to their knees, making out and talking silly nothings. I invited Lucas Pasley, English teacher at the high school, to watch it. We get together to watch a film a few times a year. He watched very closely with analytic mind full steam. We talked about the role of the paparazzi in the film. We came to see they were Marcello's grounding. He goes back to his fantasy life, lives in fantasy world of celebrities for awhile and the paparazzi arrive, grounding him. I'd have never seen that without Lucas waking up my analyzing mind. I've been out of school long enough to forget how to read and see films analytically, by weariness of it, finding I miss much of what is happening in a scene using mind to figure it out. Sometimes I feel like subtitles are a distraction from the beauty and will watch a foreign film without subtitles, to enjoy the beauty of the language, having learned just about everything is told visually. First time I saw Zhang Yimou's film, Ju Dou, it started without the subtitles and I decided to let it roll and see what happens. I've seen it three times and that was the most beautiful of all. The only thing I missed was names and names of relationships, like uncle, cousin, details in language. It's hard to watch, an extremely sad story, the kind only the Chinese do, devastatingly sad, and beautiful to the same degree. The story happens in a place where silk is soaked in pools of dye and hangs on rods to dry, flowing in the air, reds that are out of this world. The Chinese are the masters of the color red. Seeing the film and understanding the words spoken filled in some blanks, but by comparison gave the film a boring edge. I miss so many visuals reading, I've learned to read and look at the images simultaneously, multi-tasking. Am so free with subtitles now I use them on English language films due to so much muttering and whispering before an explosion, a gunfight, a bomb, a car blowing up. I despise turning up the sound to hear the whispering, then BAM, and turn the volume down as fast as possible, always too late.

 

giorgio de chirico

 

I was thinking about watching 8 1/2 again tomorrow without subtitles. The disk has a commentary with it, too. Thought I might watch it with commentary. I believe my preference would be without subtitles. Having read the script while watching it, I don't see I'll miss anything. None of the talking had anything to do with anything. It was chatter and distracting noise around Marcello's head. Marcello, an Italian film director, is about to begin a new film. Producers, actors, agents, girlfriends, wife, everybody appealing for his attention. He's driven nuts by demands on him from all directions. In the end he pops a cap in his head, then maybe he didn't. Maybe he did. Probably didn't. Probably did. It doesn't matter whether he did or not. The whole story was a dream. Did it happen, did it not happen? Doesn't matter. In one way of looking at it, I can say he died in the beginning of the film. He was in his car in a big traffic jam. His car started filling up with a gas, he banged on the windows trying to get out, then he was quiet. Next, he was seen crawling out a window onto the roof of the car, stood there arms outstretched and drifted away through the air, overcoat waving in the breeze, floating over the tops of the cars. Next, Marcello is up in the sky, a rope tied to his ankle held at the other end by a man standing on the beach. He jerked on the rope and Marcello fell into the sea. Then the story begins. I could say his spirit left the body and went through the review of his life, as they say happens upon leaving the body. The film was his review. It included scenes from childhood. The people around him were telling him what was wrong with him, pointing out his weaknesses, attempting to humiliate him. At the end of the story he pops a cap in his head and next we have a circus band and clowns, the people of his life, mother and father, walking by in a personal parade that includes him and himself as a child. Then the entire cast of the film enters the circus scene. I can very easily see it a vision of the spirit leaving the body, but will not draw that conclusion. I don't want to ruin it with a conclusion.

 

giorgio de chirico

 

Talking with Lucas about La Dolce Vita, no more than briefly in anecdotes while the film was going, and briefly when it was over, I saw much I'd have never seen on my own. He noted the turning point in the film. It had not registered to me there was a turning point. When I saw it, it was plain and right there, obvious. Marcello's only friend, whose name I forget, was an existentialist who waxed philosophical, and was Marcello's other grounding agent in his life in the fantasy world of celebrities, a man who had an air of sanity about him. He killed his whole family and himself. That knocked Marcello off his track. The paparazzi never appeared again, Marcello was lost in space in his world of less than trivial demands. I was glad Lucas pointed that out. I saw it, but it didn't register. I took the murder/suicide for a shit happens day. Perhaps I did not see that as a turning point, because I never think about things like turning points. I found his falling apart inevitable in the flow of the story. Lucas said he had a great deal to think about on the way home before he's satisfied with what he saw. I was in awe that I'd seen a film that totally blew my circuits. I was seeing the juxtaposition of the old world and the old ways against the new world of fashion, celebrity, lights, new cars, pretensions. This story of the trials of modern man was largely filmed in environments of another Age, while still in Rome. It gives the sense, too, that it is an ancient story in modern dress. Lucas and I were both struck by the attitudes of the men toward the women. Slut and whore were frequently repeated words in the script. I remembered the film was made when Women's Liberation was in infancy, and this was Italy, a different culture from ours. It was a little bit shocking, indicating that we, the people of Western Civ have changed in that regard over the last half century. Both films are 50+ years old. They are as if they could have been made this year. Both films were outside time. They continue to be two of my very favorite films.       

 

giorgio de chirico himself

 

 

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WRITING FIDDLER HOWARD JOINES

pictures from the game-cam

A couple of mornings ago I rose around 4am. Unable to return to sleep, I decided to get at the day's writing. In just a few minutes I was engaged. That almost is never possible. Along about 8am I'd finished the writing and it was time to add some pictures. The sunlight came through the window and lit some rows of cds on shelves against the wall opposite the desk. The titles had spotlights on them. From about 8 feet away I could read them easily. My eyes stopped at GARBAGE, Bleed Like Me. I'd been aiming to listen to Garbage for several days. That was the album I wanted to hear. A very satisfying band to my ears. I put it on and cranked it up, had a rock n roll party first thing in the morning, selecting pictures to go with what I'd just written. It took about as much time as the collection of songs playing out, considering I stopped to listen for long stretches from time to time. It was good to hear them again. Extra good musicians and Shirley Manson's vocals. By the time it was done, I was wide awake and wide open. Music over and the day's entry posted, I went outside to feed the donkeys and calves their morning hay, came back in and called my friend Carole for our morning visit. I must have sounded wired on coke, talking as fast as I could go, wound up. I laughed at myself when I heard me talking like I'd ingested a handful of diet pills. After talking about an hour with Carole, I'd simmered down a good bit, gradually returned to home base.

 

A few weeks ago, Sarah Bryan, editor at Old Time Herald, had sent me a box of several copies of the new issue. I'd asked that I be paid for the article in it with copies instead of money. I wanted to give copies to people whose relatives were in the article, friends, pass them around to people concerned, like Kermit at the barber shop who let me use a photograph hanging on the wall in the barbershop to include with the article. I opened the end of the box and left the magazines in the box, a good place to keep them while I took out one, two or three at a time. Today the stack was down to three yet to be delivered. I took them out of the box to throw the box away. Under the bottom magazine I found a notecard in envelope from Sarah, the editor. If I'd opened the box another way the note would have been on top. Before I say more, I need to interject that my assessment of Sarah Bryan as an editor is way up high. The two pieces of mine she has worked with, she smoothed the rough parts, rearranged some of the information such that it makes better sense in the reading. She is a subtle editor. She pays close attention with a well-trained, quick mind. I had given my friend Lucas Carpenter a copy of the magazine. He read the whole magazine, looked at all the ads and said, "Really good magazine! Good editor!" He went on to praise the lay-out, Steve Terrill's work. Steve is a master at his part of it like Sarah is a master at hers. Lucas has recently had his third book of poetry published. He has worked with several different editors from writing stories and articles as well as his poetry. He appreciates a good editor. I was glad he was able to see it in the product without me saying "Sarah is a great editor." That kind of intro kills what follows. But she is.

 

 

 

In her card she wrote that she "really, really liked" the article and believes OTH readers will too. I, who suffer from the mental illness ODD, Oppositional Defiance Disorder, and suffer as well from LSE, Low Self Esteem. An editor I respect as an editor and as a human being saying such as that about something I wrote, makes somebody with LSE double-take and say, "Really?" By this time in the life, I've learned to accept it when somebody says something like that, receive it with gratitude, be encouraged by it, instead of saying to self, she was just being nice--that's her job. It was one of the great joys of my life to write this account of Howard Joines, local fiddler, from other people's memories. I believed writing by "first hand" sources, information from witnesses memories, was the most reliable. Lord have mercy. A few times I had to leave out some information because of contradictory memories. Like some said Howard always played bluegrass, never played old-time. There was no bluegrass before he was 40. A bluegrass banjo player told me he didn't make music with Howard because Howard played old-time. The banjo player I knew in Howard's band played old-time. Another banjo player was in his bluegrass band. Howard had two bands, one old-time and one bluegrass. I had people telling me he only played one or the other. A woman I know said, "I aint never heard Howard Joines play nothin but bluegrass." She was born about the same year Bill Monroe first played on Grand Ole Opry. I attempted to add, but there wasn't any bluegrass before 1939. "I don't care--he aint never played nothin but bluegrass."

 

 

I'd wanted to write about Howard Joines three years ago. Talked with his son Richard on the phone for quite a while and he told me Howard's life and I made notes as he talked. I kept those notes in my desk drawer and looked at them from time to time. I had some memories from other people about Howard. I couldn't find how I wanted to approach writing about him. I wanted to write about him as a fiddler, but had pages and pages of biographical information. The biographical information made a kind of hurdle for me, one to climb over. I felt like the biographical information was important and wanted to tell it too, but then it became the purpose and I couldn't even get started. I continued to look at the notes from time to time, memorizing them, incorporating into my mind every little bit of information I could find about Howard Joines. Lucas Pasley had given me a couple of cds of Howard playing fiddle from some tapes Clifton Evans made. After three years of memorizing the notes of Howard's life, and having a couple hours of his music in the house, I felt like it was time to start. I searched and searched for a way to approach him besides biography. Couldn't find it. I decided to start and see if the writing might take its own course, see what happens. I was visiting with Richard Andrews, who grew up a neighbor to Howard Joines, and asked him to tell me something about Howard. I didn't have anything in mind I was asking for, just wanted to hear what he would say. It would be something memorable. He said, "When both his feet get to going, you're going to hear some music." That one sentence pulled the trigger.

 

 

 

I started the writing as soon as I woke up next morning, wrote all day until after 2am. Slept awhile, up again writing until 2am. Did that three days in a row and the same amount of time the fourth day rewriting, filling in blanks, and grammar editing. Then I took a rest. Didn't even want to look at it for awhile. Needed some distance only time could provide. Soon after introducing him, I started looking at Howard Joines in family context, part of it, but not the way I was looking for. I kept on writing and came to realize I've known several musicians from his generation, people he made music with over a lifetime. There it was. I was looking for the context of his life and it was the music world of this region of the mountains from Roaring River below the mountain to the south, to Galax to the north, Wilkes to the southwest and Mt Airy to the east. That was his music world. And more immediately the musicians of the county. I had been told about that period of time by other musicians I'd know from his time. I started writing about the musicians around him and found his context as a musician among musicians and went with that. It happened. And I saw that during his time as a fiddler everything was changing around him, from the Carter Family on the radio to the Beatles on tv. Everything was changing then. Electricity and plumbing were new to the mountains. Paved highways were new, and really fast cars. The music changed in that time. Howard was one of the musicians that went with the New, which was bluegrass. I surrounded him with the other musicians of his time he knew and made music with, and found the Howard I was looking for. I love it when a writing project takes its own direction and somehow guides the writing, or guides the flow in my head that is transferred to the monitor by fingers that follow thought. Thank you, Sarah, Thank you, Thank you.

The quick way to the OTH website:

www.oldtimeherald.org  

 

 

 

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MUSIC IN CROUSE PARK

chris johnson and justin willey

borderline@crousepark





At noon the old-time band Borderline played at Crouse Park for an hour. It was Blue Ridge Mountain Fair, I think. With the outdoor bandstand, it seems the town has found a place to gather people for these outdoor events. On a weekend parking is every place and in easy walking distance. I wanted to see Borderline do a whole show. I'd seen them play at the Jubilee several months ago. I learned that night they were quite a band, good drive. I wanted to be sure to make it to the park by 12. Found a good place in shade under a big tree. Brought the fold-up chair that slips into a carrying bag with a shoulder strap. Ideal lawn furniture. I took the camera with video feature to get videos of whole songs. Got 7 or 8. Also several stills.



The band is Chip Moyer playing rhythm guitar, Jerod Willey, bass, Lucas Pasley, fiddle, Chris Johnson, banjo, Justin Willey, mandolin. Chris, Justin and Chip learned their instruments and the music in the Junior Appalachian Musicians after school program in the schools. It doesn't seem right to call it a program. Helen White set JAM in motion bringing in regional musicians to teach the kids that wanted to learn after school. JAM has been teaching the young of Alleghany to play old-time music very well for several years. Chris Johnson took up banjo about 7 years ago, when Justin Willey was taking up mandolin. Their band Borderline has been holding together with different fiddlers and different guitars, Chris and Justin the constants in the band. The band was out of a fiddler. Lucas, teaching with JAM took note of how good these fellers had become. His band, The Old Town Revellers, never got a real groove going and faded away. Lucas has been looking for a band to play fiddle with.



As Mr Pasley, he is their English teacher at school, their music teacher with JAM, and friend. Lucas regards the kids with respect, doesn't talk down to them, listens to them, is fair with them and above board. I can see how popular a teacher he is when I am talking with someone in high school and mention his name. In every case their eyes light up hearing his name. Lucas cares about being a teacher, believes in education as the glue that holds civilization together, wants to be a good teacher, give his students some understanding they didn't have when they came into his class. He is a good musician on all 4 old-time instruments, plays all of them with ease and mastery. His great uncle was fiddler Fred McBride of Stone Mountain Old Time String Band. His great great uncle was fiddler Guy Brooks of the Red Fox Chasers, the first to record from this county. Fred was Lucas's mentor on the fiddle, banjo too.



It came to Lucas that the JAM band Borderline needed a fiddler who could stay with them at least as long as they're in school. He's also their teacher in music. He can help them with playing in public, playing in a band. And they can help him with their energy. They get a good drive going and make it work. Lucas's fiddle floats right along with the rhythm they're putting down for him. The bass player, Jerod Willey, is Justin's dad. Chip Moyer has been playing guitar about as long as Chris and Justin have been pickin. As soon as the band started, I could hear that Lucas had found his band. They have no problem delivering the drive. It's like that's the only way they want to play, get it going and keep it going. The band backed Lucas allowing him to open up and let the music out of the fiddle. They made some music that kept the audience listening from tune to tune, and liking what they were hearing. I was happy to hear how good they had become as a band. Glad to see Lucas has a band that can support his fiddle like a good wave a surfboard.



After the band had played out their time, Lucas came by to talk a bit, just home from at two-week drive to Canada in a van. He told me of some music he'd found by Howard Joines from Clifton Evans' reel-to-reel tape which Lucas transferred to computer, then to cd. He's in process of going through the tapes that were almost too old to do anything but dissolve, cataloging them, treasures in Alleghany County music of the time, the mid 60s. Lucas found a lot of Howard Joines and we talked of doing the same with Joines as the cd with Jr, make a hundred copies and give them out to individuals concerned, relatives, friends and musicians who know him and made music with him. Get them out in the county.



Later, after getting a few videos of the next band, Mountain Park Old Time String Band, Johnny Gentry's band, went to the stage to play. Gentry plays a guitar to get the music out of it. He plays so audience can hear it and makes music first. I've heard some guitar players who play with artistry but lose the music in the forest of the artistry. Willard Gayheart plays his guitar with the music the number one priority. It's immensely enjoyable to watch a musician who is a master with his guitar or whatever it is, playing music that makes a body want to dance. Getting up to fold my chair and pack it for the walk to the car, I saw Lucas had left his camera and a photograph someone gave him of the band. I drove it by the house and he wanted to give me some cds he'd made from the Evans collection; 2 of Howard Joines, 2 of Lucas's great great uncle, fiddler Lon Brooks, brother to fiddler Guy Brooks. And one cd of Mack Brooks.



I carried home these treasures of the county. I don't need them for the radio show any more, but, since my regional collection will all end up at the library upon my demise, I'll certainly get these to the library before closing time. Finding music of our county by people no one knew ever recorded anything, even a cassette at home for practice, has become something we're attuned to like metal detectors combing the beach. I believe and Lucas believes it is important to have everything that can be found by musicians of the county. A lot of them are in boxes in attics, basements, garages, forgotten. Since the 4cd set of Alleghany music Ernest Joines collected last year, it seems like the county is taking an interest in its own music. This was the unfortunate part about the radio show being over, that more and more people were taking an interest in the music that's all around us close to home and doesn't cost a lot for admission. The music today was free. Quite a lot of people came out to hear the music. I believe everyone was well satisfied.