Red Henry
A person who was new to this kind of music stood by one side and listened. When we finished one tune she asked, “Who wrote that music that you’re playing?” I replied, “Bill Monroe.” She asked, “Is it authentic?”
I pointed to John and said, “That man right there was playing banjo for Bill when he was writing and playing these tunes, and yes, it’s authentic!”
Murphy Henry
This past weekend, Casey and Red and I attended the high school graduation of my niece Caroline Marshall Pate down near Charlotte, N.C. These teenage rites-of-passage have become a Big Deal in our extended family, so all four of my sisters and their offspring were there, along with all three brothers-in-law. Which, I do believe, was a first. This was also the first high school graduation that my parents have missed, so I was aware of a little sad place in my heart amongst all the celebrating. They are simply unable to travel anymore, so we were on our own. Scary.
Naturally, when this many of us get together, music is always a possibility, but since this was Caroline’s Big Day and my motto was “It’s all about Caroline,” I checked with my sister Nancy to see what she thought about the idea of a small family jam. She wisely said, “Let’s wait and see.”
After the ceremony, when we’d all gathered back at the Pate Place and were wolfing down pizza, shrimp, watermelon, and cake (Caroline’s faves) and catching up on niece Helena’s new boyfriend and niece Mac’s summer job, one of Caroline’s friends asked if we were going to play music. I checked in with Nancy saying, “Vicki asked” and again she wisely said, “After presents and cake.”
Opening presents was a bit poignant as, in the past, Mama has always given the grandkids a graduation quilt which they have all taken on to college. (Even Christopher.) Luckily, Mama had made a lot of quilts (usually from our old clothes!), so Caroline got hers. I enjoyed seeing her and her cousins pointing to bits of fabric and saying, “I’ve got that in my quilt, too!” Mama would have so enjoyed that.
As everyone was finishing off their cake, I started rounding up musicians and instruments because It Was Time. I grabbed a guitar, Red, a mandolin, Casey another guitar (she was working on her calluses for leading the slow jam at Kaufman Kamp!), and bro-in-law Mike Johnson (Argen’s husband and builder of my Gibson neck), a banjo. Friends and family gathered around in attentive audience formation.
We started off briskly with the Stanley Brothers’ “Shouting on the Hills of Glory” in G because I happened to think of it. And I knew Nancy could add the high baritone part above Red’s lead and my tenor. We were off and running! Other songs that surfaced during the course of the evening included:
Uncloudy Day
Leaning on the Everlasting Arms
More Handsome Men Than One (Casey)
M and M Blues (me, at a request from Caroline’s dad, Rad)
East Virginia Blues
When You and I Were Young Maggie (Nancy)
Cry From the Cross
Shine, Hallelujah, Shine
Brethren We Have Met To Worship
Do Lord
Mountain Dew
This Little Light of Mine
Nancy and daughters Caroline and Natalie, who harmonize beautifully together, sang “Angel Band” and “Washed in the Blood”. Then later in the proceedings Nancy took over on guitar to sing some of her original songs including “Georgia in the Middle of June” and “Pray For Rain”.
And if you notice a preponderance of gospel songs on the list, well, that’s because Caroline’s aunts were raised Baptist and grew up on the Broadman Hymnal. (I know you weren’t and didn’t, Marty, and I feel your pain.) So, we did many of these songs as “sing alongs,” which is, technically, not the Bluegrass Way, but which I am coming to love again. Also, my niece Mac, who just finished her second year at Yale, is deep into listening to the Hicks Sisters’ gospel project, With Sweet Accord, and has learned the words to most of the songs on the cassette. She was joining in with great gusto and her enthusiasm made me happy. I strongly suspect she will be taking up the banjo any day now!
But we had The Most Fun with the song “This Little Light of Mine”, which for us, dates back to the Primary Department in Sunday School where we learned it with hand motions. Your index finger is “the light” and you wave it around to “shine.” You also cup your other hand over your finger when you sing the verse “Hide it under a bushel, NO! I’m gonna let it shine.” And when you sing “Won’t let Satan blow it out” instead of saying the word “blow” you actually pucker your lips and expel a breath of air. All very exciting stuff to a six-year-old. And here we were, fifty years later, still getting on our “inner child.”
After those initial verses, sister Claire led us into the third with “Shine all over Waxhaw, I’m gonna let it shine.” (Waxhaw is where Caroline and family live. We usually sing “Clarkesville,” our old hometown.) Then I thought we were done with the song, but NO! Claire started in on “Shine all over Caroline, I’m gonna let it shine” and actually got up and moved over to “shine” her “light” on Caroline, who took it all in with much aplomb. And then I thought we were done. But, NO! Claire was on to, “Won’t let Caroline blow it out, I’m gonna let it shine,” which I thought was hysterical, and totally appropriate for an eighteen-year-old heading off for college in the fall with all the myriad temptations that will be waiting for her there. (I’m sure she’ll do fine, Nance. She’s been Raised Right.)
I see I have failed to mention my nephew Andrew, 14, (Laurie and David’s son) and his friend Tristan (visiting from Clarkesville who is my occasional mandolin student and who was completely in awe of Red’s playing). They were both Good Boys and pretty much stayed out of the way. They will no doubt Go Far. (And if you’re wondering about all these Random Capitalizations, I got the idea from Ferrol Sams’ fabulous book Run With the Horsemen, which is about growing up in rural Georgia in the forties. If you haven’t read this, Marty, it’s A Must. He’s a doctor, too.)
Red and I got up early the next morning to drive the six hours back to Winchester where I had an afternoon square dance to attend in Hagerstown, Maryland. And durned if we didn’t dance to “This Little Light of Mine”! How weird is that! I was dancing with one of the West Virginia callers, Rich Steadman, and we were singing to each other as we promenaded around the square. And then, in talking to Rich’s wife Lou (who was kind enough to let me Dance With Her Man), I found out Rich is from Maryville, Tenn., which is where I will be next week for Kaufman Kamp. Again, what a strange, unforeseen connection. Is the Universe speaking? I hope I’m listening!
And on that note I will close, get out of my pajamas and into my day clothes, and go pick up my car at the Toyota repair place. I wanted it to be in good shape for my drive to Kaufman Kamp and then onto the National Square Dance Convention in Louisville, Kentucky! See you in one place or the other!
Casey Henry
I write you from the campus of Maryville College in Maryville, Tenn., where I am teaching fiddle and guitar at Kaufman Kamp. I have the very beginning class for both instruments (simultaneously!) and, despite my reservations about teaching two instruments at once, it is working out rather well. This is our class:
Fiddle/Guitar 101: Roxanne, Casey, Jack, Deb, Louvenia. I didn't realize until seeing this picture that I'm taller than all my students. Thanks to the multi-talented Donna Dixon for being our photographer.
We picked up one more student this afternoon, after the picture was taken (sorry Jim!). We started out the first morning of class learning a G scale. Now, traditionally on fiddle most people start out with the A scale. But my reasoning was that, since this is primarily a bluegrass camp, and the default key for bluegrass is G, that my fiddles should at least be able to chop along in the most common key right away. In trying to figure out how to manage two instruments in the same class I hit upon the idea of doing “Frère Jacques” as the first tune. Everyone knows the melody already and it only has ONE chord. So my sole guitar student could just grab a G chord and hang on.
It went so well that in the afternoon we learned some two-finger chop chords and alternated between playing lead and playing rhythm. Two of my students showed up at the next morning’s slow jam, at which we played everything in the key of G, so I felt good about teaching them G first.
The next day I started with a challenge. While my single guitar player and I had a guitar-specific workshop, the three fiddles tried to pick out “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” by themselves, by ear. They did SO GREAT!!! I had told them the starting note and that all the notes they needed were in the G scale we had learned. They not only got “Twinkle,” they then added the shuffle bow stroke to it! They had started in on “Amazing Grace” when we guitars came back. I was incredibly impressed. All three of the women play other instruments (bass, hammer dulcimer) so they are already familiar with this music, and they’re used to using their ears to figure out what to play. Those very important facts contributed to them picking out “Twinkle” so quickly.
In the rest of Tuesday morning’s class we learned the A scale (for fiddles it’s a whole different scale, for the guitar we just put on a capo and played the G scale) and then “Boil Them Cabbage Down” with the shuffle bow stroke and pick stroke. They did so well I showed them how to do an easy double stop by playing the open E string along with the A string (the string all the melody notes are on).
After lunch we picked up a second guitar student, who jumped ship from the beginner group. I was worried he’d have a hard time since he’d missed what we did in the first three classes, but he gamely jumped right in (luckily he could already play his scale, and that helped immensely).
We took on our biggest challenge so far: “Cripple Creek”. It was the longest tune we’d done, and the most complicated. But by taking it three or four (or sometimes two) notes at a time, by the end of class we sure enough had it down. I was careful to explain to them that since we’re learning by ear, when they went to sleep tonight the tune would seep out of their head and wouldn’t be there in the morning. That’s part of the process. But we’d do extensive review, so by the end of today’s classes, “Cripple Creek” would be back. Oh, sure, it will go away again tonight when they sleep, but you know what, Thursday we’ll review it, too, so by the end of camp it will be stuck in there good and tight.
So, I’m off to lead this morning’s slow jam. Today’s key is A, so we’ll play everything in A, which opens the field to play “Cripple Creek” and “Old Joe Clark.” Also, since it’s two frets higher, my singing will sound less like a sick bullfrog and more like a healthy bullfrog (just kidding!). But I am looking forward to the C day, since that’s actually my key!
Red Henry
By “we” I mean Red and Chris Henry and our All-Star Band, which includes John Hedgecoth (banjo), Jenny Leigh (fiddle), and Barbara Johnson (bass), all three of whom are great pickers. In spite of only performing together a few times per year, we have plenty of material worked up and are always learning more– we managed to play two hour-long sets at Gamblefest without repeating anything– and we have a good time playing music together.
First thing on the day’s program was to back up our friend Dale Crider for his set on the Old Marble Stage. We all traipsed over there at the appropriate time, and Dale launched into his set.
Now, Dale’s mind works quickly and creatively. (I have already mentioned his “Mangrove Buccaneer” song posted by Ron Johnson at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18-Kt4UKmII , in which Dale’s cat-like powers of recovery are demonstrated.) But after Dale arrived a few minutes late for his own set on Friday, and was only prevented from singing one of his own songs which we’d already done by the kindness of a vocal audience member, he’d gotten skittish about repeating a song. Before singing one of his songs at the Old Marble Stage, he paused and asked the audience, “Have I already done this one?” — it’s a good thing he asked them instead of us. I leaned into my mike and said, “Dale KNOWS that if he’d already sung it, WE would stand right here and let him sing it AGAIN!” – but correctly reassured by the audience that he hadn’t done it yet, Dale sang “Mangrove Buccaneer” to end the set. Good job, Dale.
After a break back in the campground, it was time for us to go down to the River Gazebo and play. Before our set I chatted for a while with distinguished Florida folks Larry Mangum and Frank Thomas, and also met Nancy Crockford, an accomplished violinist who was interested in learning fiddle. I’ll send you a couple of our Murphy Method fiddle-instruction DVDs, Nancy. Then it was time for us to play.
Since Christopher and I like playing double-harmony mandolins together so much, we started out with a fine Bill Monroe tune called “Tallahassee”. Chris and Jenny contributed Florida songs of their own, and then John sang his “Florida Sunshine” tribute to White Springs in olden days. The crowd really liked all these but at that point we were running short on time, so we did a quick guitar-harmony rendition of Will McLean’s “Osceola’s Last Words” and finished out with an abbreviated double-mandolin version of “Rawhide” — not exactly a Florida song, I suppose, but to get five out of six isn’t bad.
Last on our day’s schedule was a set by Dale at the Gazebo, alternating songs with Jeannie Fitchen. We had a good time playing, and listening to Jeannie, and playing, and listening, until it was time for Frank Thomas to take center stage and lead us all in “Old Folks at Home”. What a good day, and what a great festival!
After the set John needed to get back to Nashville, but the rest of us loaded up our stuff and drove down to Dale’s place at Windsor, on the shores of Lake Newnan. The thunderstorms were threatening as we set out, and let go some gully-washing rains as we drove. On Monday, we’d be recording with Dale!
Next time: Day 5!
Casey Henry
Over the weekend I had the pleasure of playing at the Wind Gap Bluegrass Festival in Pennsylvania with the Dixie Bee-Liners. It was, I think, the fourth time I’ve played Wind Gap, and the third different band I’ve played it with. The first, of course, was Red and Murphy and Their Excellent Children. The second was Casey and Chris and the Two-Stringers. As I recall, both times the family band played it absolutely poured rain, so we were mostly performing to a crowd of lawn chairs with a very few hearty souls hunkered down in ponchos.
This year, though, the weather was perfect. Sunny, with a few scattered clouds, not too hot, not too cold, not too humid. It was a Goldilocks kind of day.
We played two sets and our first one was sandwiched in between Bill Emerson and Sweet Dixie, and Eddie and Martha Adcock. I joked that being scheduled right between two former Country Gentlemen created “no pressure at all” for the banjo player! In truth, you couldn’t find two nicer guys and it was a huge honor to share the same stage with them. Additionally, Lynn Morris was at the festival, running sound for Emerson, and having her in the audience always makes me super conscious of my playing. Not nervous exactly, just hyper-vigilant.
On this day, my hyper-vigilance paid off, because she was very complimentary of my playing. It means so much to me to get a positive comment from Lynn because she’s the kind of person who will tell you the truth if you ask her. She doesn’t give fluffy compliments.
My biggest thrill of the day, in truth one of the biggest thrills of my banjo-playing life, came after our first set. I had said hello to Bill Emerson before we went on stage. I’ve known him for quite a few years and he doesn’t live that far from my parents. I snuck into the front row to listen to a couple of songs in their set. We were mostly warming up and tuning while they were on stage, since our set followed theirs. After we had played and were standing around the record table—excuse me, product table—Bill came over to me and said, and I quote, “That was right in there.” I was SO excited. It told him it was going up on my wall of great quotes. I feel like I’ve accomplished some huge goal I didn’t know I was working towards. Bill Emerson gave his stamp of approval to my playing!! I immediately Tweeted it. And then called my parents to tell them. They were properly appreciative. Then I watched Emerson’s whole second set from the front row, recording some choice tunes on my phone—specifically “Theme Time,” which I sometimes play with the Bee-Liners, hoping to cop some of his licks. His playing is so clean, so precise. It’s a joy to listen to.
I was a little bummed to have to leave the festival that night. After the Bee-Liners’ second set I had to immediately get in my car and head south to get to my cousin Caroline’s high school graduation, which was at 3:00 the next day. I kind of wanted to stay and hang out because my friends Matt McBriarty and the Grillbillies were there and I know that a rowdy night of jamming fun was in the cards. But family events take precedence, so I drove late, and I drove early, and I arrived exactly at 3:00. Usually I’m not a good night driver, being the early-to-bed-early-to-rise type, but the excitement of the events of the day kept me going, and I expect they’ll keep on keeping me going for the next few weeks, at least!
Red Henry
We last left you after a long (and mostly dry) Friday at the Florida Folk Festival. Saturday morning I awoke after a good night’s sleep of 6 hours, begged some coffee, and got ready for the day. Again on Saturday we were to back up Dale Crider on a set, this time at the Azalea Stage, and then play a set of our own at 3:00 on the historic (and fun) Old Marble Stage. I say “and fun” because it is. The Old Marble Stage tent is typically crowded with festival-goers who are a lot of fun to play music for.
I got my mandolin and guitar tuned up about the time the rest of the band woke up and showed up at the campground. By “the rest of the band” I mean that we are Red and Chris Henry and Their All-Star Band: Besides Chris and myself we have my uncle John Hedgecoth, who (among other items in his long resume) played banjo for a while with Bill Monroe; Jenny Leigh, a young and talented fiddler who can play many styles well; and Barbara Johnson, who needs no introduction to a Florida audience, on bass. It’s fun to play music with this group.
Chris, Jenny, Red, and John
Along with playing our sets, Jenny was going to enter the Florida State Fiddle Contest, so she, along with Chris to back her up on guitar, went over to the big Dance Tent at the appropriate time. Meanwhile, John, Barbara, and I ambled over to the Azalea Stage to see what trouble we could make for Dale Crider during his show. We all took the stage and Dale was in fine form, preaching the Florida Environment Gospel and singing his songs. Our friend Ron Johnson was there, camera in hand, and immortalized two of Dale’s numbers on YouTube:
(…in the second of which, perspicacious listeners will note, Dale’s amazing cat-like powers of recovery are demonstrated.)
. . . . .
After Dale’s set I went back over to the Dance Tent, where Jenny was just about to play her tunes in the state fiddle contest. She played a couple of unbeatable tunes, and— you can guess it— she won the contest! So now we have a Florida Fiddle Champion in the band.
After some picking with our friends Barbara and Gary back at the campground, the time for our own set was coming up, so we all moseyed over to the Old Marble Stage. Enjoyed visiting briefly with Donna Green-Townsend and our old musical friends the Peyton Brothers, and then it was time for us to play. I figured we’d pull out all the stops, so we kicked off the show with a high-energy homemade instrumental, “Centerville Road.” Then Chris and I launched into an old Bill Monroe number, “Toy Heart.” Then Chris sang one of his excellent original numbers, “Walkin’ West to Memphis,” and the folks liked it a lot.
John was next, and he sang a special song he’d re-written from one of Bill Monroe’s songs, “My Florida Sunshine.” The chorus goes like this:
“Way down in the state of Florida, Florida,
where the old Suwannee River flows,
My Sweetheart is waiting for me, for me…
[dramatic musical pause],
‘way down where the orange tree grows.”
–and John had re-written the verses all about the White Springs festival in the old days! Cousin Thelma Boltin was in there. So were Dale Crider, Gamble Rogers, and Will McLean, and others who had played on that same stage long ago. The song was fun to sing.
Now it was time for a tune from Jenny, and she chose “Paddy on the Turnpike,” a real barn-burner. John, Chris, and I all took a turn with it, and we finished it up by playing it one time through together. Mercy, what a tune! And the audience caught the band’s excitement.
Christoper and I enjoy playing the mandolin together, so now we played a double-mandolin arrangement on “Pelham,” another of his originals. The tune has a lot of spirit, and the folks liked it. And then (at the risk of playing three instrumentals in a row) we ended the set with “Helton Creek,” the title cut from our latest CD. Everybody played great, and the listeners gave us a very nice response for which we’re all grateful.
What a set! Then it was time to rest. Or so we thought… we got back to the campground just in time for the deluge!
This was not just a thunderstorm. This was one Florida cloudburst after another, going on for a couple of hours! Right away there were puddles on the ground a couple of inches deep. We huddled under the awning which Gary had brought, and waited for the storm to stop. But the entertainment was not over yet! Just as the storm was starting John hurried to get something out of his van, and (for the first time in his life, which I believe, knowing what a methodical person he is) locked his keys inside. So as the storm was pouring water down in buckets I was on the cell-phone to AAA, and sure enough, after about an hour a locksmith came out from Lake City, found the campground and our site somehow, and as the rain was letting off he let John back into his car. Mercy.
The rain went on and on, and everybody was too wet to pick. I heard some music over in the direction of the Mayhaws’ big awning, but at that point I was too wiped out to go and cause any trouble. That was it for the night, but it had been a great day! — as usual at White Springs!
Red
Murphy Henry
I am happy to tell you that Midwest Banjo Camp was a smashing success. The campus of Olivet College in Olivet, Michigan, was lush and green and the food in the dining hall was more than edible and at times even good. (Okay, maybe I was just hungry!) The accommodations for the staff were new, four-bedroom, two-bath student townhouses with a kitchen, which we didn’t actually use except to chill our bottled water in the fridge. (Thank you, Stan Werbin, for that!) The temperature in the bedroom seemed quite hot the first night, but when I figured out that the air conditioning vent was under my bed and slid the frame over, all was cool from there on out. So, those are the things that matter to an instructor!
The classes? Oh, those were good, too. Camp directors Ken Perlman and Stan Werbin (of Elderly Instruments) had assembled a mighty team of bluegrass instructors including Bill Evans, Bill Keith, Jens Kruger, Ned Luberecki, Pete Wernick, Dave Talbot, Ryan Cavanaugh (jazz banjo), James McKinney, Mike Sumner, and moi (the lone female).
One of my favorite classes teamed me up with three of the old-time banjo players—Mac Benford, Michael Miles, and Brad Leftwich—to demonstrate singing while playing the banjo. Having never workshopped with those guys (to coin a verb), I didn’t know what to expect and thought we might all do some playing together, trading breaks bluegrass style, but instead we each took a turn singing a song of our choice while playing the banjo. Normally, I have a full bluegrass band backing me up when I sing, or at the very least Red on guitar, so this was something new for me. Nevertheless, I gave it my best shot and for my first number sang “I’m Going Down the Road Feeling Bad” (“Lonesome Road Blues”) because it has lots of verses and the old-time guys were all singing these mournful ballads with interminable story lines. Singing while sitting down, I seemed to be channeling Uncle Dave Macon (or at least Leroy Troy) and started stomping one or both feet exuberantly as the spirit began to move me. I only wished I had known how to spin my banjo around!
For my second number I chose “East Virginia Blues” (seven verses), which, as I told the folks, “sounds exactly like “Lonesome Road Blues” except for the words.” (I only realized the chord pattern was the same as I was introducing it.) Then for my third number I gave ‘em a little “White Dove”, “just to show you I can sing something besides Lonesome Road Blues.” They all thought that was funny and laughed so I felt loved. Which is all I wanted anyhow.
What was really cool on “White Dove” was that by the third chorus folks were starting to sing along, so we had sort of a Morman Tabernacle Choir effect with some marvelous, rumbley bass voices. At the end I had them double back and sing the chorus one more time saying, “I think you’ve just about got it!”
Perhaps that gospel number was what inspired Michael Miles to trot out “I’ll Fly Away”. He was playing a fretless banjo, which was tuned low, maybe in F, and he sang the song fairly slow (not bluegrass tempo) and asked everyone to sing along on the “I’ll fly away’s” and the choruses. Once again, there were those throbbing bass voices, not too loud, perhaps a bit tentative even, but resonant and….well, comforting. I think now, as I’m writing this, that that sound probably reminded me of my granddaddy’s bass singing in church when I was little. So hearing everyone joining voices together sparked one of those special moments for me, when I felt all this emotion welling up inside and I was aware enough to pay attention to it, to feel it, and to think, “This is what I like about this music.” As Brad Paisley says in a current country song, “I live for little moments like that.” Those are the ones that keep you going. And that one has certainly kept me going.
I’m looking forward to experiencing and perhaps creating some more “magic moments” at Kaufman Kamp which commences in only ten short days. Hope to see you there!
This is the third in a continuing series of excerpts from Murphy’s Banjo Newsletter Columns. This article appeared in October 1985 and is one of my favorites. You’ll only have to read as far as the first sentence to figure out why! If you want to read the complete column, you’ll find it in Murphy’s book, …And There You Have It!
Howdy! I am sitting here at the breakfast table, listening to my daughter practice the banjo. Did you get that? My daughter is practicing the banjo. I am, naturally, delighted, but I am also objective enough to know that it may not last once she gets back to school and her little cronies start whooping it up over Michael Jackson, Prince, and Cyndi Lauper. [Ah, those were the days...] Still, while she is at it, it will be an excellent opportunity to learn about learning, and, consequently, how to teach.
Casey is seven and a half years old, going into the second grade, and is practically perfect in every way (just like Mary Poppins). [Well, duh.] She has, of course, been raised on music—bluegrass, to be precise—with a good hefty dose of folksy kids’ songs thrown in on the side. But her interest in banjo had been almost non-existent until she met Stott.
Now, you don’t know Stott, who is also seven and a half, but he is the answer to every banjo teacher’s prayer. […] Actually, he is a born musician, whose passion is the banjo.
Stott and his parents came over to the house a few months ago, to buy his first banjo. Casey met him then, and he couldn’t play a lick. Then, just two months later, they were back again, consulting about the purchase of an RB-250 they had found. Stott just sat there on the couch, and calmly played through four banjo tunes, including “Cumberland Gap” complete with the up-the-neck break. It made quite an impression on Casey, and she requested banjo lessons immediately after their departure. [Nothing like a little competition to get me going!]
Well, I did not get all excited. I mean, I’d shown Casey things on the banjo before, and I’d shown her lots of things on the piano, but never did she practice for more than one day in a row. But, since I am a marshmallow, I said, yes, I would give her a lesson. Tomorrow. I was pretty sure that by tomorrow she would have forgotten. She did not forget. So, tomorrow found me scrounging around the house, looking for little banjo picks. We already had a little banjo—a 1925 Gibson TB-2 pot assembly, with a 10 1/2” rim, and a short, 18-fret neck that Red had made. When it is tuned up, it comes out pitched in C (just like putting the capo on at the fifth fret of a regular-size banjo.) So I put my capo on, and after the usual preliminaries about picks, hand position, and string numbers, I showed Casey some rolls—forward, backward, and square. She didn’t have too much trouble with them, so I sent her off to practice, and told her we’d have another lesson sometime, IF she practiced a lot and learned her rolls.
[…] Time went by, as it does in the summer, with vacation, swimming, movies. Several weeks passed, and then Casey said, “Can I have a banjo lesson?” “May I have a banjo lesson,” I said. “You haven’t been practicing very much.”
Casey: Sad Face
Me: “Well, okay.”
So we set up for our lesson in the studio. Casey does her rolls for me, but they are merely adequate.
“Casey,” I said, “if you were one of my real students, I would tell your mother that you needed to practice more.”
Giggles and tee-hees. “But you can’t because you’re my mother!” More giggles and tee-hees.
“No, but I can tell you, and I’m telling you that I’m not going to give you another lesson until you have practiced more. Now,” said the marshmallow side of me, “I’ll show you something new. We’ll learn a C chord.” [What is that if not a lesson? Marshmallow, indeed.]
I show her where to put her fingers, and tell her to press down hard, so the strings won’t sound muted.
“It hurts,” she says.
It hurts. Lord, how many times have I heard that? But never has it sent an arrow to my heart like it does now. Those tender little hands have never felt anything as rough and cruel as an old banjo string across the tips.
“I know it hurts,” I said, “but before long you’ll get (showing her my fingertips)…”
“Callouses,” she said. (She and Christopher have always been impressed and intrigued by Red’s huge mandolin callouses.)
“Don’t worry. We’ll quit when your fingers start to bleed,” I said, being jocular. She is not amused.
The C chord does not come easily, and it will definitely give her something to work on. [But at last, after all these years, I can FINALLY make a C chord! 
] I am about to end the lesson now, when it pops into my mind that we should try “Polly Wolly Doodle”, since we’d been singing it a lot recently. After all, it only has two chords, G and D7. So I show her D7, and make a mental note that it is easier for her than the C. Then I tell her (and show her) that we will just do a strum with the thumbpick on the open strings. I tell her that the first two words, “Oh I . . .” are pick-up notes, and that we don’t start strumming until the word “went.”
[Blah, blah, blah, she teaches me to strum the song…]
The next day, as I am listening to her practice, I am curious to know if she can play the song all by herself—that is, find the correct pitch, and remember where to change chords. Sure enough, when she starts singing the song, she’s not exactly on pitch, but she soon eases into it. And, sure enough, she misses the D7 once or twice, but I hear her saying, “Ugh. That doesn’t sound good.” But she keeps strumming and singing and trying the D7 in one place and then another, until it does sound right. [These days Murphy would never, EVER use the word "but" in two sentences in a row!] Then she plays it through the right way a few times. Inside I am ecstatic! She’s doing it!!
Now, this singing on pitch and changing chords is the very thing that so many people say is intuitive, but now I have seen first hand that it is not, not intuitive, but it is LEARNED. Sure, some people will learn faster than others, but still and yet it is learned.
And this one song, “Polly Wolly Doodle”, with its two chords, will become the basis for learning the chords to other songs. It will be the groundwork; it sets the pattern for learning to change chords, which is a huge stumbling block for so many aspiring pickers.
[And so began the ideas that eventually culminated in the Learning to Hear Chord Changes DVD. Apparently, not only did the Murphy Method teach me how to play, but I taught the Murphy Method now to teach! {Ha! Just kidding!} "Polly Wolly Doodle" is still one of my all-time favorite teaching songs. I betcha I'll sing it every day for the entire two weeks I'm at Kaufman Kamp.]
[I should also add that it, in fact, did NOT last. It was another seven and a half years until I actually started playing the banjo for real. I wonder if it lasted for Stott?]
Red Henry
We’d barely gotten started when someone noticed that our friend Dale was scheduled to play a set at noon on the Seminole Stage, which is at the other end of the festival– probably about a half-mile– from the campground. We wanted to back him up. So we loaded ourselves and our instruments into a variety of vehicles and set out for the Seminole Stage.
Now, when you deal with creative personalities you’re talking about people who sometimes don’t see the point of making sure you arrive everywhere exactly on schedule. This is the case with Dale, one of the most brilliantly creative people I know. So when we all arrived at the Seminole Stage, ready to back him up for his set, he was nowhere to be seen. What to do? Well, we’ve backed Dale up a lot. When the time came to start his set, we just got up in front of the crowd and started singing his songs! We kicked it off with Dale’s original song “Mangrove Buccaneer.” The crowd (full of people who knew Dale) loved it. And when we had played about half of the set, who should come running in, guitar in hand, but Dale himself! Christopher was in the middle of singing “Tate’s Hell,” a wonderful Florida song and one of Dale’s favorites, and Dale just took over the lead vocal from him to finish out with the last verse.
Dale sang several more, and it was time to finish the show. He had decided to end the set with “Mangrove Buccaneer” when one audience member (unfortunately) told him that we’d already sung it! It would have been so much fun if he’d gone ahead and done it again, unknowingly. But instead he finished up with his song “Apalachicola Doin’ Time” (freshly topical these days with the Gulf oil disaster on peoples’ minds), and we we back to the campground to rest and pick.
Our own set was at the same Seminole Stage at 3:30, so we loaded up again and made the trek. We had an excellent crowd, and played and sang many of our favorites, starting off with Chubby Anthony’s “Foothills of Home” and finishing out with the old gospel favorite “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder,” which I’m glad to say that many people sang along with. Then it was back to the campground and picking until the small hours.
Do you wonder why we do this? Well, who’d want to be anywhere else?
Red
Casey Henry
This weekend The Dixie-Bee Liners headed north to play in Ohio and Michigan. The festival we were booked at was a full day’s drive, so we picked up a routing date in Dayton at the Canal Street Tavern. The club reminded me of the Station Inn in Nashville. It’s been around since the early eighties and the walls of the back room are covered in graffiti and stickers, which have been consistently and painstakingly altered to reflect the most juvenile locker-room humor.
A flyer in the Canal Street Tavern for a Frank Wakefield show a few years back.
The bar walls are adorned with blown up copies (at least 4 by 5 feet) of autographed black and white 8 x 10 publicity pictures of the very young Riders in the Sky, and New Grass Revival, among others.
Unfortunately, summer is the wrong time to play at this place, as there are so many other activities going on in the city. For example, there is a baseball park right across the street. There were lots of people at the game. There were seven paying customers to watch us play. So it goes.
But the gig got us cheap hotel rooms for the night, and that was really the point anyway. At least that’s what we tell ourselves when seven people come to a show. The next two days at the Niles, Mich., bluegrass festival were considerably better. We played two sets each day. The festival is free to all attendees and is held in the city’s riverfront park.
Friday night we alternated sets with the John Cowan Trio, which is Jeff Autry on guitar and Shad Cobb on fiddle, in addition to John on bass. I’ve been knowing Jeff since I was young but I hardly ever see him, so it was awesome to get to catch up and hang out a little bit. Shad and John also live in Nashville, but I also never see them. Actually, Shad’s brother Jesse lives two houses down from me so I occasionally see him out mowing Jesse’s grass for him. What a nice brother.
Us on stage with Cowan: Casey Henry, Shad Cobb, Rachel Renee Johnson, John Cowan, and Jeff Autry.
John was extremely nice and asked Rachel (our fiddle player) and me up on stage during their set to pick a couple tunes. Actually, I was sitting in our van, eating a couple of crackers with almond butter before our second set and I thought I heard my name, then I thought I heard it again and I realized it was John, from on stage, saying “Oh, Casey…” I shoved the rest of the cracker in my mouth, grabbed my case from the back of the van and hotfooted to over to the stage (about fifty yards), with Rachel not far behind. I jammed on my picks and whipped my banjo out of its case, only a little out of breath.
Rachel and Shad twinned “Dixie Hoedown” (I was extremely glad she and I had played it just the day before, as the break is largely melodic), and then John sang “Rose of Old Kentucky” in C, which I kicked off. Actually, when I kicked into it I totally had “Little Georgia Rose” in my head (I have the two songs terminally confused in my brain), so the kickoff sounded extremely awkward, but I survived, and Rachel got to sing harmony on the chorus, making her aunt (who has a huge crush on John Cowan) terribly jealous.
Our own sets went fine. We tend to skew our material in a more traditional direction at festivals. Brandi sang “Foggy Mountain Top,” the Davis Sisters version, not the Carter Family version, and someone actually complimented me afterwards on my up-the-neck break on it, which really tickled me. I met several Murphy Method students over the weekend, which is always a treat.
The festival ended in a hurry on Saturday night as a storm was moving in. In the lightning and thunder with the sky about to open up any second we threw our gear and instruments into the van and made a beeline for our hotel. My drive home the next day ended up being ten and a half hours. Buddy, Brandi and Rachel had twelve, and Sav had fourteen. Come to think of it, next weekend I’LL have fourteen. Why do I even call myself a professional musician? I should call myself a professional driver!