Doc Stevens

Tondeleo: One thing that impressed Doc particularly was the "itty bitty guitars" for sale in Hawaii. When they went to the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet, he and Marilyn were amazed at the various vendors selling these itty bitty guitars with only four strings. Here are some excerpts from our conversations about them:

Doc: So Tondy, me an' Marilyn was walkin' around the swap meet there in Hawaii and ran across this guy what had dozens of itty bitty guitars for sale. He had them hanging all around his booth and on shelves and tables - I never seen that many regular guitars in one place before let alone those little bitty ones! I'm thinkin' they're for little kids. But mostly it was Chinese grown ups playing them and buyin' them up. Some of them was buyin' two or three of 'em!

Marilyn:  Actually it was Japanese tourists, but Doc thinks they're all Chinese, of course. But he's right, they we're buying up all the little guitars. 

Doc: They was all little nylon string guitars. Some was cheap, like $10 and people was definitely buyin' 'em for their kids. But SOME of those little guitars, which they had a Hawaiian word for, and I forget right now, but the guy sellin' 'em said it meant "flea" and I would never try to sell somethin' called a flea, but he did and was sellin' them like half price tickets to  a NASCAR race -  Some of them was like $250, $300 even $400! For a tiny little guitar with only four strings! Over here, in regular America you can get a six string full size guitar for that!

The guy what was selling them saw me eyeing his merchandise and told me to go ahead and pick one up. He asked if I played them, the word he used what I can't remember and I told him "no." But it wasn't that hard. It was tuned like for blues, in open C I think.

Marilyn:  So of COURSE Doc starts playing Dust My Broom - that old Elmore James song... and he can't help but singing! And of course not under his breath because he doesn't know how. He had a deep half inch socket in his pocket that he had found on the ground behind a dumpster, and he used it for a slide! 

Doc was SO happy that he could play it! The guy that ran the booth got very round eyed when he heard the sounds Doc was getting out of it! So did the Japanese people. Some of them started videoing him on their phones, others were taking pictures and asking for more! Then they started buying those little guitars! And that kept Doc there singing one blues song after another, and the tour group bought I think 4 or 5 of those little guitars thanks to Doc's playing blues on them!

Doc: Well, the guy what was selling 'em was just strumming some sort of shuffle rhythm like all the other people who was selling them at their booths, and it really wasn't much to get excited about. Like if you remember Tiny Tim from when your mama was a little girl. But once you pick one up and start messing with it, you can bend the strings pretty good on those little suckers, Tondy, and they can put out some good blues!They do slide pretty well, too. And I only sang maybe three or four songs more maybe five.

I asked the guy what was selling them why such a bitty little guitar cost so much and he told me that it's really expensive to live in Hawaii - food, gas, rent and all that - so when he sits down and spends several days making one of them little guitars, he has to charge more for it than you would think. The ones he made started at about $275, which is more than I have ever paid for a full size guitar in my whole life!

Marilyn: He had cheaper ones, and so did the other people who sold them, but they weren't made in Hawaii by hand. They were made in China and or maybe Texas. That's the same way it is with buying regular guitars here at home. Cheap ones are made in China and better ones are made in USA and they cost more. Hand made ones are for rich people.

Tondeleo: Unless of course you're talking about one of Doc's hand made box guitars or tackle box guitars. They're not for rich people but they sound good and are impressive for as cheap as they look.

Doc: The only time I've played a four string guitar was a bass or a regular guitar where I'd broke a couple of strings. But it wasn't a 4 string on purpose. But I admit, I liked those teeny little guitars! But I couldn't afford one! So I stuck with my $20 guitar what I brought over with me! It's been with me a long time and is my old friend!

Tondeleo: I'm back in the States after being gone for five months. I've been mired in work and have had absolutely no time to transcribe conversations with Doc, Marilyn and their friends. I feel dreadful about this, but life happens. Actually, life happens while you're waiting for life to happen. I'm learning that as I grow older! 


I'm in awe of the weather on the east coast here in the States! I have been here since the week before Christmas and it has been unseasonably warm and quite nice, even though it has rained a lot. It still isn't as damp as England. I love this! I'm outside with just a tshirt and even wearing short trousers!

Being New Years Eve, I'm wondering what Doc, Big Dave and Rick are going to do. Maybe tonight they'll break their teetotaling ways. Once can only hope. All three of them had had problems due to their drinking in times past and all of them come from families where alcoholism runs deep. I get that. But that isn't MY background! And here I am stuck out living in a cabin in the woods with these three tee totaling musicians and their dogs and instruments.

 Doc was just talking about how every year his father would drink up their Christmas and nobody got any gifts. His dad's head hurt so bad that everyone had to be quiet and tiptoe around the house. Doc's dad was big and acted like a bear with a headache. And Doc would've kept up the family tradition if not for a few miracles.

Doc said, "As much as I hated my daddy, I was growin' up to be just like him. When he would walk across a bar, other men would point to him and say, 'there's a dangerous man.' That's what I wanted to be, a dangerous man. And I was workin' on it pretty well, but like my daddy, I found out that no matter how dangerous you are, you're gonna run into someone more dangerous than you."

"Plus, it's better to go to an AA meeting if I want to get together with my old drinking buddies. They have sober parties, and it's easier to stay sober if everyone else is..."

Big Dave added, "Yeh, I grew up the same way. Daddy and mama was always fightin'  over his drinkin' and fightin'. It weren't no fun for us kids. Not at all. Far as I'm concerned, alcohol ain't good for nothin' but pourin' on cuts."

Doc agreed. "I ain't taken a drink in years. I don't go to no bars. You can have a few shots of liquor and start lookin' for a fight. Liquor makes a angry man more angry... Do y'all have AA in England, Tondy?"


I assured him that we did, which he marveled at. looked over to Rick, who'd been sitting over in the corner quietly. He said, "i'm more peaceful than these guys. My dad taught us that you shouldn't go looking for fights, because there's always a fight looking for you. And you shouldn't think someone is being mean just because he's running his mouth. It might just be that he's ignorant and doesn't know any better. We were raised to just quietly slip out and go home if we could... or go stand by someone like Doc - let HIM be the target!

Doc and Big Dave got into a discussion of the nice cars and pickups that they'd had but had wrecked them due to drinking. Both of them talked about miracles that happened to keep them from getting killed. Doc had a couple of guitars that were destroyed by his automobile accidents. 

"I broke a good Telecaster in a fight once, hitting a guy what pulled a knife on me. He never knew what hit him. A Tele weighs like 9 pounds. It's a pretty good weapon. But if we'd all been sober, I'd still would've had that guitar."

Rick added that he threw up into a harmonica once. Well, actually twice. 

I have a lot of catching up to do with Doc, Big Dave, Rick, Marilyn and all their friends. I look forward to taking more pictures, recording more conversations and doing more blog posts than I did last year! And I guess I'll get a good start, because none of them are going anywhere to celebrate. Marilyn and her husband David are going to church! She said they want to start the new year with God and with taking communion...  I almost went with them, just to get out of the house, but then she said the communion at her church isn't wine, it's just grape juice.

Ok. I'll stay home, be safe, get some sleep and wake up with a clear head tomorrow. Could be worse.


 

Tondeleo: For serious musicians, everything else is just something they have to get out of the way, so they can play music. 

If they have jobs, the job is to pay the bills so they can play music. As soon as they have spare time, they're out playing music and trying to find people to play with. It doesn't matter if they are poor or are doing well financially, it seems that serious musicians all feel this way. At least the ones I have met through Doc and his friends. 

Doc: Yeah, that's pretty much right, Tondy. Hey, here's an old musician joke for you. What's the difference between a guitar player and a pizza?

Tondeleo: I don't know, what IS the difference between a guitar player and a pizza?

Doc: A pizza can feed a family of four... guitar player can't. Well, most of 'em can't. Not without a regular job.

But yeah, like you said, we want to play all the time. If we go out and are playin' a lot of times there's other players out there listenin' and they might ask if they can come up an' play with us.

Like me an' Rick was out playin' the other night. The rest of the Holy Ghost Band wasn't available, so just the two of us took the bookin'.  We knew that there'd be people there who would join in and make a band and we'd sound ok.

We got home made and cheap equipment. That means we've had to learn to work around that. The other guys have nice stuff. I have to make my guitars sound as good as theirs or it won't work. They do't care how my stuff looks, just how it sounds.


Tondeleo: And what happened... did it work out that way?

Doc: Yeah, as we  got set up, a drummer and bass player was listenin' to us tune up and hit a few notes. They joined us from the git-go. Then a lead player and a trumpet player of all things. That's the first time we had a blues trumpet player with us. He was good, and I didn't even get to meet him! He just come up and played real well, and then disappeared into the night after about an hour of playin.' Later Jim McWilliams said the guy on trumpet was Mike Robey. I never did get to meet him.

The drummer was Glen Strobel. He played a while and does a good job. Then Bobby Jones played drums lot of songs. He was the drummer for Roy Buchanan for like 30 years and was on a lot of albums with Roy and toured the world. He was there.

We had a couple lead players, too that night. Couple of bass players, too. A gal named JoAnn and a guy whose name I didn't get, and Troy Peterson swapped around from lead to bass. Bill Hull played lead for a while. People swapped in and out a lot.

One reason we get a lot of people and other bands what like us is we sound different than most. We ain't had no music lessons, so a lot of what we do is homebrew.

Tondeleo: Homebrew???

Doc: Yeah, homebrew. It means we just sit down by the radio   and try to figure out what they was playin'. We end up not playin' it exactly like the guy on the radio, but we discover a lot of other things while tryin' to play it.

You wouldn't get that if you took lessons. You'd just be taught how that guy played it and that would be all you learned. People ask me all the time how I learnt to play a song a certain way. It's not because I'm doin' it better, cause I'm not. It's because it's different, but still sounds pretty good.

Another part of it is because we don't play bar band music, and that is different.

Tondeleo: Can you explain what bar band music is?

Doc: Bar band music is what bands got to play in bars. Like Hits of the 70's, 80 's and 90's and 00's. They got to do that to get bookin's. Plus the people in the bars ain't really listenin', but they expect that band to sound JUST like the original recording. Look, the original band never played it like the original recording, if you heard them play it live, later. Why should I try to sound like someone else sounded ONE time in their life. But if you're a bar band, that's what the audience wants. They can all be drunk, but if you play a couple of notes different than the record, they notice it and don't like it. To them, you got it "wrong." You gotta play it like the jukebox.

We play songs that's in our hearts and play and sing it like it is in our hearts. If it ain't in my heart, I ain't playin' it or singin' it. Old country music, like our daddies listened to, Hank Williams, Sr, and Webb Pierce, Patsy Cline, and then we play some old school Gospel from Grandma's day, and we play old school blues, like Muddy, BB, Buddy Guy and all them, and we play some rockabilly. But we don't sound like the record on any of them. We just sound like us, which is hard enough.

Anyway, we let anybody who's good enough to be playin' somewhere play with us. If they sound real good, we step back and let them take front and center. You can't be a show off and hope to get along with other people. You can't be a mic hog or a spotlight hog and expect people to want to play with you again. Everybody got to be in the spotlight for a bit. Especially if they been helpin' you to sound good! You got to appreciate other peoples' talent and feelings.

Tondeleo: One factor in the sound of many of the deeply rural musicians in America is that they are not in areas where they can get a clean radio signal, internet access is spotty at best, and they just don’t listen to new music.

For Doc and his friends and neighbors, hi speed internet is not even available. The more affluent ones have dial up, which means that YouTube and other media are basically non accessible.

What this means is that the musicians and singers who live in these outlying areas are playing only the songs they remember from their childhoods or ones they learned by hearing other musicians play them live. It keeps them from even knowing how the original recordings sounded.

Another factor is that they could not take real music lessons, so they just picked up the instruments and figured out how to play. Their instruments tend to be old and cheap, or home made. While the musicians from the middle class have nice instruments and equipment, the rural ones have the cheapest and the most improvised of equipment, and it gives them a unique sound. That is again, a disadvantage on one hand, and an advantage on the other.

Doc: Yeah, Tondy, you’re right about that. We cain’t generally pick up the radio out here. And when we do, we ain’t like what they’s playin.’ 

We don’t sound like any other bands and don’t play what any of ‘em is playin’ most of the time. That’s good for them and also good for us.

Then, we got cheap equipment and home made equipment which is more what the original players and singer used. What we play is poor people music, which is what all the originals was: poor.

We mostly play what we grew up with. Music we heard our daddies and mama’s playin’ and singin’. It’s old songs, but good ones, and for us they have all the memories of when mama and daddy was young. We like that music better.

And, no, we ain’t able to go into town to take music lessons for a half day’s wages for a half hour lesson. That is for office boys and their spoilt teenage kids. It takes us 45 minutes to just get to La Plata. That’s a lot of gas. Then a half hour lesson and then 45 minutes back. Plus they want to stand around and talk a little bit, which is ok, but it adds to the time away. 

And then they want you to learn how to read charts and notes while you’re playin’! We aint up to that! It is all I can do to play that dang thing, let alone be lookin’ a a book while doin’ it, and then tryin’ to sing. That ain’t happenin’.

We just stick to what we know. But that ain’t a bad thing. When we go out and play and there is other bands, we ain’t doin’ the songs that they do, so that makes them like us more.
A lot of places get us to play for that reason. Ain’t too many people playin’ and singin’ what we do. We ain’t do NOTHIN’ newer than maybe 1958. And we ain’t doin’ any of the rock and roll hits from back then. 

A lot of people like what we play, but can’t find nobody to play it. Another thing is we ain’t human jukeboxes. We ain’t heard the original records probally in 20 years, and Marilyn ain’t never heard ‘em. So we ain’t hittin’ anything like a note for note copy of the original. Some people like what they call our arrangements. We ain’t got arrangements – that’s just how we remember them, and sometimes we get it wrong.

We all are church folks – and we go to churches where the people really get into it. We jump around in church, Tondy! You been there. Well, when we do it on stage, people think it is good showmanship, but it is just how we do. 

Playin’ out on the streets is somethin’ a lot of musicians ain’t done, and that gives us a different kind of edge. SO I guess bein’ poor can help you if you’re into playin’ music.

But it all works out, and it makes us sound like we got an original sound, and we ain’t copyin’ nobody. Hey, even if we did, we couldn’t sound like nobody else! It’s hard enough for us to sound like us! 

Most of the time, it seems like Doc and his friends are too busy trying to survive to take much interest in the broader world around them. This trip had surprises for me in that I found evidence of him and some of his friends taking notice of the world beyond their friends, jobs, music and families.

Doc found an old Washington Post magazine at the Bryans Road library. Columnist Gene Weingarten wrote an article about not being able to find jeans in his size, which just happens to be the exact size that Doc wears and can't find.

Apparently the clothing companies have found it easier to make fewer sizes of inseams. Doc wears a 31. He says 30’s are too short and 32’are too long. Sometimes he wears the 30’s lower non his hips to make them look right. But he doesn’t like the way they feel.

Marilyn had read the article to Doc and then he stumbled through it, and was moved to send an "e-letter" to Mr. Weingarten to help him out. Marilyn bcc'd it to me. Here it is, so you can sense the vast social consciousness that is developing in Doc.

weingarten@washpost.com

Dear Mr Gene.

We was at the liberry over to Bryans Road and my neice Marilyn read to me your article about blue jeans not fitting good anymore. You are right. I am like you, but am a bit bigger at 200 pounds. I wear 34X31 jeans too. So we are maybe put together a bit different but the same size waste and legs. The same part of me and you is 34X31 and they do not make them any more. I play music , blues and country blues at festivles and fairs and BBQs and I travel all over the place doing it and one thing I can tell you is this.

If you find 34X31s you are not finding them brand new. You are finding them used and I don't go for some of those used jeans if you know what I mean, by the time some folks is done with them.   

In August I was coming back home from playing in SC and I stopped in NC at JRs big outlet there on 95 where they sell a lot of evrey thing except 34x31 which they did not have but they had like what you said, 30s and 32s which is either high waters or sissy looking.

I had almost lost haert but Marilyn took me over to that other store which sold carhartt ones. They is labled the same way without 31s but they is cut long so the 30s is really a 31 and fit good. I bought some at that outlet there and when we got back here to Nanjemoy I carried Marilyn up to the library in Bryans Road and she bought me 4 more prs of them on that ebay on the interweb. They was used but in good shape like just broke in good but not dirty or staned up.

Now I have 5 prs of jeans that fit good and they are just regular jeans color, blue. I wear crapenters jeans with loops and the extra pockets I need. They could be what you are looking for since Levis don't care about the little man any more unless he is way too little. Carhartt is the ones for men like you and me.  Your friend  Doc Stevens

I never thought I would live to see Doc so moved as to contact a perfect stranger try to help. Maybe he is finally getting a world view that is bigger than panelbeating and playing guitar and eating BBQ. But I doubt it.

- Tondeleo

Tondeleo: I am attempting to catch up on Doc Stevens and Marilyn’s activities. I have a lot of recordings and notes to transcribe and will do my best to get caught up, at least to some degree.

A few weeks ago, they were playing in Washington, DC and were invited to play at a blues jam of the DC Blues Society. They, of course didn’t know anything about it, and followed someone up to the location and played a couple of songs.

Doc: Yeah, Tondy, we was playin’ at this place in DC up to Lincoln Park, on a Sunday afternoon, playin’ some gospel music. This little black lady – she was cute as a bug! – come up and danced with Thurman an’ then said we had to get our stuff and head outta there as soon as we could.

I asked her how come we gotta go an’ she said ‘cause she had called up to the DC Blues Society and tol’ them about us an’ wanted us to go meet those people. I ain’t never heard of a Blues Society afore, so I was ready to go! We didn’t know how to get there so she drove up there an’ had us follow her. I woulda definitely got lost if she hadn’t drove an’ have us follow her. It was a long ways from where we was in Lincoln Park.

The other guys in the band couldn’t go – we ain’t really a band, we just play music together – so just me and Marilyn and Thurman went up there.

Doc Stevens & Marilyn at The DC Blues Society

We followed her up there, and it was a room full of people all takin’ turns playin’ and singin.’ It was some real good talent in there, to be sure! All kinds of people playin’ blues.

Well, we hung aroun’ a bit an’ I wanted to just go ‘cause I was tired but Marilyn said we oughta stay since that lady invited us up there. I had one of my home made guitars with me, the one with the bass strings along with the regular strings, but then right afore we got up to play it fell and got knocked outta tune, so I had to use my old Fender Frankenphantom which is a guitar I made outta old parts. Some of the guys had been lookin’ at my box guitar and was waitin’ to hear how it sounded. I told them it sounded like a poor man’s guitar. The Frankenphantom soundslike a poor man’s guitar, too, ‘ cause it IS a poor man’s guitar. Two bass strings and four regular guitar strings.

So near the end, they called us up there an’ we sang an’ played a little bit. Our drummer, Welch Simmons couldn’t come up there with us, so they had a real good drummer there what played with us and done a real good job. We done a gospel song, cause it was Sunday an’ you oughta honor God at least one day a week.

Marilyn sang “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” and then we done “I Believe to My Soul.” Thurman was up there with us so he done a good man dance and ended doin’ the splits. Everybody loved that. He’s a good dancer, Tondy. You couldn’t have done the splits, not in jeans and work boots like he done.

They was all real nice to us an’ asked us to come back up, but it is more than a hour from here, so I don’t think we’ll be able to do it. I cain’t afford the gas to drive all the way up there an’ back. Not in my truck! But if we is ever up in that area again, we’re gonna try to find out where it is and go up there and get to know those folks. A lot of them asked for our cards what has our phone number on them.

I ain’t never seen that many folks in one room what played the blues so good. Never in my life, Tondy. Never.

 

By Tondeleo Lee Thomas

It’s been a few months since I’ve updated Doc’s blog. I have been busy with work and stuck in London. I am trying to catch up on his blog over the Summer.

I have been so bogged down with work that all I could do was post some vids that were sent to me of them on Youtube, but I’ve had no time for comments or blogging.

Last week I came to the States and have been catching up with Doc and Marilyn and their friends.

When I pulled up into their driveway, Marilyn came running out of the house to give me a hug and to tell me all the things that have happened since I had seen them last.

I pulled my digital recorder out of my pocket to make certain I could capture it all.

Marilyn: Tondy! Me and Doc got a band now! We ain’t mostly playin on the streets so much and we got more inside bookins. And we got real cards, too! And we been playin’ more gospel shows which I like better and things is goin good, Tondy!

Doc: Hey, Tondy – I thought you’d dropped of the face of the earth, been so long. Figured old England had swallowed you up.

Yeah, we got a band. Well, it ain’t really a band, it’s just a bunch of people we play music with, but it’s like a band. It’s a bunch of guys I been knowin’ but we started playin’ together here an’ there an’ people like it so we keep doin’ it.

Here’s who we got. We BEEN havin’ Thurman Goodlett as our man dancer an’ he still is with us. But now we got Homer and Wendell Green from Detroit, what is also called Motown. They come down here lookin’ for work an’ money ‘cause Detroit is broke.

Wendell got a deep voice and sings back up bass and some solo stuff. He come here first and got a job and a place to live and is a real hard worker.

Homer’s his little brother. He plays piano best you ever heard in your life. I ain’t never heard nobody no better. There weren’t no money to be made in Detroit unless you already got big money behind you so Homer come down here to see what he can do. He plays with us, and plays on his own and gives piano lessons, so he’s keepin’ his head above water.

Then we got Welch Simmons from Durham, North Carolina on the drums. He is a good man what also come up here lookin’ for work. They ain’t no work down there. But he got him a job up here and a place for him and his family so he’s doin’ all right. He is a real good drummer and keeps the rhythm right and tight like they say.

It’s a lot better with the piano and drums, Tondy. It frees me up a bit to not have to carry everything. You know, like when it’s just me an’ Marilyn, I’m playin’ the guitar, and also the bass with the two bass strings on the guitar, plus keepin’ the beat with the foot box with the tambourine what’s screwed to it. Now, I can put more into the singin’ and not be tryin’ to keep track of what I’m doin’ all the time.

Me an’ Marilyn still plays by ourselves a lot, but we got the band for places that want a bigger sound. All the guys is good guys what is livin’ right and trustin’ the Lord an’ tryin’ to do the right thing.

It ain’t like the old days when I used to play with guys what would be drunk and high an’ you ain’t knowin’ what they gonna do next. Nope, these guys is straight arrows an’ that makes it better. No cussin’ and fightin’ or anything like that. These is church goin’ guys, when they can make it. It’s a lot better, Tondy, for real. Wait til you meet ‘em. They’s good people. Holy Ghost people. So it’s all good.

Tondeleo: I can truly tell the difference in Doc and Marilyn over these past few years. Marilyn has definitely grown up into a woman and Doc is more mellow and civilised, at least to an extent. They’ve cleaned up their bungalow a lot, inside as well as outside. Some of the junk cars are gone now, and his shop/garage is a bit more orderly. It is interesting for me to notice people still growing and changing as they make better choices and different friends, and are offered better opportunities. I have witnessed them going from living in total poverty and playing music on the street corners to now having some semblance of a stable, albeit still very simple life. It is interesting to watch people grow in who they are and find better lives.

But, having said all that, Doc is still pretty scrappy and rough around the edges, and Marilyn is still giggly and funny – but there is a more civilised side that is developing in both of them.

Below is a video clip from one of their Gospel gigs: The third song on here is one of the many that Doc has written.

 

Tondeleo: On the side of the bonnet (in the US, it is called a “hood”) of Doc’s panel van (in the US, it is called a “panel truck”) is signwritten “We do “not” play bluegrass, so do not ask.”

The panel van has been in Doc’s family since his father bought it in the 1950’s. It has been driven and parked for sometimes years at a time, depending on the repairs needed and the amount of money available, for decades.

Doc has recently begun driving it again, and we will definitely interview him to find out the details on this interesting and unusual (and very fast) vehicle. He has put some kind of huge engine in it.

My curiosity was piqued by the phrase about not playing bluegrass music, so do not ask. He has explained to me at times what the difference is between the kind of country music that he and his friends play and bluegrass music. I understand the basics of what he is talking about, but sometimes I must confess that the line is very blurred to me.

I asked Doc if we could talk about bluegrass music just ONE more time, and for him to clarify for me what bluegrass is and isn’t, in his mind, and in the minds of his friends.

Tondeleo: Doc, your truck has written on it, “We do not play bluegrass, so do not ask.” Why is that?

Doc: Because we do not play bluegrass. I don’t want people asking us if we play it.

Tondeleo: But why do you think that people would even ASK you if you play bluegrass? That seems a bit odd, to me…

Doc: I ain’t know, exactly. But like, I can go to a blues club, and when I walk in with my guitar, someone’ll say something about it being a blues club, not a bluegrass club. I have to let them know I ain’t play no bluegrass.

Tondeleo: Could be the way you dress? You don’t DRESS like people would expect a person to dress who plays the blues and the kinds of music you play. You DO look more like you would play bluegrass…

Doc: The way I dress? The way I dress is I get up in the morning and put my clothes on. Then I wear ‘em till I go to bed at night. What is bluegrass about that?

Big Dave: Yeah. If you play blues they expect you to be wearin’ a pork pie hat and sunglasses, like you’re an old man in the 1950’s. Or Hawaiian shirts. We ain’t dress up like that. We aint from Hawaii. We wear the clothes we got on. Mostly work clothes ‘cause we work hard.

Doc: People sees us and thinks they know what kind of music we play by lookin’ at us. Sometimes, people calls us on the phone or reads the side of my truck about us playin’ at festivals, or BBQ’s or pig pickin’s and such, and they ask if we play bluegrass. We don’t. So, I put that on there to stop ‘em afore they get started. That’s been on there a long time, Tondy. A LONG time. What’s new on that truck is my 406 motor.

Now, we play old COUNTRY music, like Hank Sr, Hank Snow, Jimmie Rodgers, Patsy Cline, Webb Pierce and them. But we ain’t play bluegrass.

Mostly with bluegrass, Tondy, it’s not what folks in the mountains is sittin’ around playin’. Bluegrass is more what people what’s moved away from the mountains is sittin’ around playin’. My daddy said there weren’t even such thing as bluegrass till about 1945. He ain’t never heard nothing like that growin’ up and neither did his daddy. He said Bill Monroe come up with bluegrass during the war [WW2].

Big Dave: Mostly people now what plays bluegrass take lessons, and try to learn to play like someone else. If they’re a banjo player, and I know a boy what is one, and they all want to play like someone else. Some of ‘em plays Earl Scruggs style, or Keith style or someone else they is copyin’. Note for note, lick for lick, tryin’ to sound like the record, or what they read in a music book.

Doc: Mountain folks ain’t do that. We ain’t do that, neither. We sing and play what we feel and it might or might not sound like anyone else and we aint tryin’ to. We’re doin’ the best we can to sound like whatever it is we sound like!

I mean, I LIKE how other people plays, but I ain’t copyin’ ‘em. Another thing is this, what is different. When folks what play the kind of stuff we play get together, we all got a part what we do. Like, I play good enough as a solo guitar player, meanin’ just me playin’ guitar. But I ain’t no LEAD guitar player at all. Big Dave is a good lead guitar player.

Here is the difference. I stick to playin’ rhythm guitar, and he sticks to playin’ lead. He plays the solo’s, I don’t. Marilyn sticks to playin’ harp and so forth.

Sometimes I play bass if they need it. But I ain’t play it like it’s a ‘coustic bass. It ain’t. I play like it is, a ‘lectric bass. But I stick to that. No bass solo’s comin’ outta me.

In bluegrass, it ain’t like that. They ALL want to play lead, and you can see ‘em movin’ all over the stage, each one tryin’ to move up to the mike – they ain’t allowed to use electric guitars and banjos and all that, they have to stand in front of a mike – but they all have to take turns at the mike, movin’ up to play a solo and then movin’ back so someone else can play a solo. It is all solo artists, pretty much. The faster they play, the better. We ain’t do that. We pretty much are slow compared to bluegrass. I’m slow compared to myself!

Big Dave: It is all music from the mountains, what we play and what they play,but it is all different. But we don’t play JUST music what comes from the mountains. Matter of fact, I’m sick of mountain music. I got too many bad memories that I wanna forget. You gotta play more than that. Well, WE do.

Doc: Also, bluegrass uses three or four people singin’ at the same time and one of ‘em has that high lonesome sound. We ain’t got that. One person sings mostly, or maybe like me an’ Marilyn, you switch off from each other. You have a lead singer and maybe someone’ll sing a harmony if you need it.

When people talk about old time country music, and they are talkin’ about bluegrass, you know they is from the city. Old time country music would be more like Jimmie Rodgers, the Carters, the Stoneman’s and people like that. What we play got more in common with Jimmie Rodgers, than with Bill Monroe. Jimmie Rodgers is like 20 years afore Bill Monroe.

So we don’t play no bluegrass and don’t ask, Tondy.

Tondeleo: This is a continuation on Doc and Big Dave talking about how they do NOT play bluegrass, and that not all rural Americans even LIKE bluegrass.

Doc: Tondy, like we been sayin’, not all mountain people plays bluegrass or even likes it as much as city people does.

Some of the places we play at when we was growin’ up and where we plays now when we go back down home, don’t allow no bluegrass, no country western and no electric guitars. Some songs ain’t got no instruments. Just sung. Some of the work songs and the sad songs is just sung straight from the heart. I do that sometimes.

This ain’t music for sellin.’ It’s gospel spirituals, work songs, coal minin’ songs and such. But up here, we play more songs what people want to hear. And we ain’t about goin’ out an’ showin’ our shame.

Big Dave: Yeah, we play what we got to play here, and we still draw the line ourselves on what we play. Old country, blues roots, Gospel and things like that. But we don’t do no new country western or bluegrass. Of course, we ain’t no GOOD at bluegrass! We don’t play it! (laughs)

Me and Doc, we like electric guitars and our friends do, because we like to be able to play loud and we like the tone that you get on a tube amp. We like a little distortion, but even that is the music we grew up playin’ with our friends and neighbors. You can play a acoustic guitar into a mike like they do at a lot of the festivals and places we play, but it just sounds like a louder acoustic guitar, which is what they want.

Doc: We like overdrive, Tondy! But we also grew up with fiddles, and I like fiddles if played right, and banjo’s and such. I like a mandolin ok. A banjo with bad tone don’t set well with me. If a banjo aint played right, it sounds like a bunch of bees stingin’ me in the ears.

But a lot of folks down home and in a lot of places ain’t got no electric, so they gotta play music without it. I take my ‘coustic guitar and dobro when I go down there, unless I know I’m goin’ where there is ‘lectric.

Marilyn: I like playin’ harp. That runs in our family for back to my great grand dad and Doc thinks my great great grand dad. I like a dulcimer, too. Doc has one that he strung with guitar strings and plays with a bottleneck slide sometimes.

Another thing what runs deep is dancin.’ My aunt does flatfoot and cloggin’ but I can’t do none of that. I can yodel, and always could, but she cain’t yodel!!! Uncle Doc can yodel, but he don’t do it too much. 

Doc: A lot of the mountain roots music and blues roots is about the same thing. Bein’ broke. Havin’ a mean boss or bad landlord what don’t understand. Bein’ sick. Bein’ cheated on. Your loved one dyin’. Some is about just bein’ sick of this earthly life and wantin’ to just go ahead and go to Heaven. All the songs is about the basic thing about bein’ human and what goes on in your heart in hard times.

A lot of the sound comes from church where it gets blended, black and white folks, singin’ the same songs, and we pick up a little bit from each other, but we don’t copy no one. Most of us, at least my people is Pentecostal, too. Pentecostal folks whether white or black usually got a heart for music and have a bunch of good musicians and singers.

Tondeleo: Isn’t any music that’s made with banjo’s and mandolins by definition, “bluegrass?”

Big Dave: No. There’s differences. Bluegrass is more modern, like for city people that maybe came from the country and were missing home, and bluegrass was a way to sell that sound. I don’t know. I like Dawg Music, which has then same instruments, but isn’t bluegrass and ain’t quite country. David Grisman does it.

Doc: Well, as I see it, mountain music, roots music is more about bein’ music to dance to, more about a steady beat. That’s what we do in everything we do, keep a good beat. Mountain music uses more open tunings, which blues roots does, too. Both uses Open G a lot.

I grew up listenin’ on the radio and on the records when Daddy  could get them, and sometimes live to the Carter Family, the Mainer's, the Stoneman's, the Delmore's and the Blue Sky Boys,the Carter Brothers and folks like them.

I spent some time with Donna Stoneman and know her to be a good Christian and nice person. Her sister Ronnie was on Hee Haw. But all them people ain’t bluegrass. Mountain music and roots, I call it. We like that ok, heck we grew up on it. But we also needed to get away from it when we got out of there and done some travellin’ and didn’t want to be hillbillies.

Big Dave. He’s right, Tondy.

Marilyn: We live in the country and we ain’t got much money, but we ain’t hillbillies.

Tondeleo: As you know, I initially expected rural Americans, especially those from the southern Appalachian region, to all play bluegrass music, ad to only like bluegrass. That is why I was surprised when I first began meeting Doc, Big Dave and their friends, because not only do they not play bluegrass music, but they seem to have an aversion to it.

I have learnt these past few years that some of the aversion is shame. Shame for the poverty they grew up in, shame for being thought of as hillbillies, and shame for the memories that some of the bluegrass music evoked. I had never thought of these factors.

I always thought of bluegrass as happy, simple music that hearkened back to a simpler more honest and good time in simpler and more wholesome environments. But for many people who lived in those times and places the memories are anything but good.

Doc: See, Tondy, to a office boy what has never been down to where we lived, it seems good and happy. Or if someone been away a while. But if you lived there and were dirt poor, and your daddy was a drunk, and your older brothers was drunks, and your grand daddy was a drunk and your uncles was drunks, you ain’t got to many good memories in the first place. ‘Bout nothin.’

You remember fightin’ and hollerin’ and women bein’ hit and ‘bused an’ getting’ your own butt whipped for doin’ nothin’ or for standin’ up to the old man when he was drunk and hittin’ your mama. And they was always bluegrass music bein’ played in the background.

Big Dave: Yeah, and when you go to town people look down on you for how you talk and how you dress and you don’t have any money to buy anything. You get ashamed of what you are and your family and everything you got. when people look at you and spit, and then cuss you, callin’ you a dumb hillbilly, you’re not going to do anything to make them think that even more.

Doc: We was poor, and we worked with other poor whites, poor blacks… anyone what wasn’t getting’ paid good or treated right. With all that pain built up, we needed to get it out, and we played music and sang about it. We wasn’t thinkin’ what KIND of music it was. We just sang what we was feelin’ and about what we was goin’ through.

Some of it was songs we learnt off the radio what was singin’ about how we felt. Some was songs from other people what talked about how we felt. Some was church songs, about the Lord or askin’ the Lord to get us through a hard time.

Some was about how good it felt to be in love. Some was about bein’ cheated on or bein’ brokenhearted. It was all kinds of music. Some Kitty Wells, some Hank Williams, Webb Pierce, Bob Wills, Hank Snow and we listened to Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake, John Lee Hooker. I always liked John Lee Hooker real good.

Big Dave: I like John Lee Hooker real good, too.

Doc: So we played a bit of this, a bit of that. The whites and the blacks, they called themselves coloureds back then, all sang about the same things. Havin’ no money, mean bosses, mean women, cheatin’ women, whiskey, fallin’ in love. Tondy, all people feels them things.

We didn’t never put a name on what we played. Only when I come up north did they call it a name. It was just music what poor people knowed and sang.

Up here, in the 90’s they said what we played was blues. But not real blues, they said it had other names. We said it was “downhome” music. I still call it that.

Big Dave: They call some of it “country roots blues.” We play some of that, on acoustic. I heard that it is called Piedmont Blues, especially what Doc plays when he is playin’ alone at the house. That’s acoustic and they use the thumb for the bass line and the pointy finger for the chords or notes.

But most places if we are playin’ indoors, we use electric guitars and play old blues music that most people like. We play it because we know how and because we like it and they like it too. Blacks and whites. 

Doc: I heard that one before, Big Dave. Piedmont.A man in DC called it that. That is how whites and blacks played guitar down home. It’s how you play when you just sit down and start playin.

I don’t play that way out in public too much ‘cause I think it might sound too much like a poor man. But I do that on my ‘lectric guitars what gots bass strings. Nobody notices it, but it gives me that bass line and the rhythm guitar line and a little lead. When the guitar is set right, that is the best way to play if you come from down where we do.

Big Dave: But Doc is the onliest one I know with the bass set up like he has. It sounds real good, and it gives me somethin’ to play lead over. Makes a full sound.

Doc: When we play Gospel music, it’s the same way. Old downhome songs from when we was kids. We ain’t do nothing new. We do a lot from the Gales…

Big Dave: Their real name is The Sensational Nightingales. I only learned that a few years ago, Doc.

Doc:  We do Gales’ songs. Spirituals. Sister Rosetta Tharpe – Marilyn sings her stuff a lot. Just stuff we grew up on. People like it the first time they hear it, and the old folks love it ‘cause ain’t nobody do it anymore, but us. They see us and still think, “Look at those dumb white hillbillies, but when we start playin’ and the Spirit starts movin’ they are clappin’ and singin’ and stompin’!

Tondeleo: One thing that fascinated me when I first began working around real American rural musicians is that they did not all play bluegrass music. That is the stereotype that we hold of them: blowing on moonshine jugs, playing banjo’s, mandolins, jaw harps, violins and guitars.

When I met Doc and his friends several years ago, they described what they played as “downhome country blues roots.” It is a mix of country, blues and a fair bit of early rock and roll. I was curious as to how this fit in with the stereotype that we have of these people playing nothing but bluegrass.

Following is an interview I had with Doc and Big Dave a couple of years ago.

Doc: Why don’t we play bluegrass? Well, we ain’t got no banjo’s or violins or mandolins first off, Tondy. We got guitars, I got a bass and we got amps. Bluegrass don’t like basses and amps and electric guitars. But we do.

My family was tryin’ to get away from all that when we was comin’ up. People called us hillbillies and my Grand dad said we needed to quit lookin’ and talkin’ like hillbillies or we ain’t never gonna have anything or amount to nothin.’

Big Dave: I don’t like bluegrass. Ain’t nobody told me to. It just reminds me of my old man. He listened to bluegrass all the time. If it wasn’t his friends comin’ by and playin’ it at the house, it was on the radio. It got bad memories for me. It gets on my nerves.

Tondeleo: Bluegrass gets on your nerves? I thought all rural Americans thrived on bluegrass!

Big Dave: Well, you thought wrong, little buddy.

Doc: We don’t play bluegrass. I never learned it. When I was comin’ up I learned from my grand dad and uncles, and their friends. Some was white and some was black. We all learned each other’s songs. But he steered us away from bluegrass.

I been to places where all they play is bluegrass, and I can be playin’ along, and some office boy what took “bluegrass lessons” will watch me a few minutes and then tell me that I am not playin’ “bluegrass chords.” Bluegrass chords? What’s that? I never learnt no bluegrass chords. I ain’t never took lessons.

I learned a lot of what I play from being in the drink houses. That was whites and blacks and mixed people. Just poor people what had problems and still wanted to sing. Mostly they ain’t know what they was playin’ as far as chords go. They just figured out what sounded good.

I ain’t know the names of all the chords. I know more than some people does, as for the names, but not all of them.I just play what I seen other people play an’ I have some what I figured out, and I slide ‘em up and down the neck to make different ones. That’s what mostly I seen comin’ up.

We’d take our guitars and go to the drink house and eat and talk and play music.

Tondeleo: Drink houses. What are drink houses?

Doc: A drink house is what they have a lot of down south, in North Carolina especially. If they ain't a bar in the area where you can go down for a drink or play some music, a person might just open their house up as a drink house.

You can’t just go and hang out in a bar all night if you ain’t drinkin’ and if you’re dirty from work, they ain’t like that too much neither. A drink house is where poor folks go to hang out and talk and drink and relax.

It's just a person’s house, and they might have they livin’ room or back room with a little bar in it, and a few beers in the ‘frigerator, and maybe a few bottles of liquor in the cabinet. You give 'em a couple of bucks and they give you a shot of whiskey or a beer. Maybe even a dollar might get you a sip, if all you got is a dollar. You can just hang out there and talk of play music or whatever you want, as long as you're not causing any trouble.

People in the neighborhood'll come by. Some will pull up in their car and come in just for a drink and leave. Others hang out there all day or evening.It’s a place to hang out, to talk, meet people and swap songs and learn a little by watchin’ what the other guy is doin’ and listenin’ to how he is playin’ and then do it yourself. You can learn a lot that way.

Sometimes they got a radio on, and you can learn some songs that way. That’s where some of the songs we play come from. That and old records we found here and there.

Big Dave: Yeah. I used to go to drink houses when I was in western North Carolina. It was just a cheap place to go and waste some time, and eat a sandwich and play music.

Some of 'ems open just some days or some evenin's and others is open day or night, seven days a week. Some's got a poker game in the back room or out on the picnic table in the back yard in the summer.

Some got a room fixed up where you can play music inside, with a little stage area over in the corner.

Some sell drugs, some don't. Some sell about anything a person could want, if they know you or you is family to a friend of theirs.

I never went for that. I just went for a sandwich, some music and some place to go before going back to my room to sleep.

Doc: You ain’t got to be a drunk or druggie to go to drink houses. I went for the food and music mostly and people what don’t have any money or good clothes got to be able to go someplace, too after work. Where else are we gonna go?

And that’s where we learnt to play and where we learnt the songs we sing. A bit of everything. Hank Williams, Webb Pierce and all them from my grand dad and uncles and they’s friends, and then John Lee Hooker, BB King, Albert King and a bunch of others from the drink houses.

Really, you got to know all of it so you can make a few dollars. We play some places where it is mostly white people and they want that country music what they call roots. So we play it. Some people think we only play country.

Some places we play is like we are the only white folks there. We play blues; John Lee Hooker, Artie White and BB King and all those kinds of songs there. They ain’t never hear us play country.

Sometimes we play where it is mixed and we do mixed music there. A bit of blues, a bit of country. Whatever they want. We play Gospel too, Tondy! We learnt that at church. But also at drink houses and from family. Most poor folks go to church some time in their life, because life is hard and they need help from the Lord. I need help from the Lord.

And me and Marilyn like singin’ and playin’ Gospel music. It reaches down deep inside you.

Tondeleo: I know, I’ve heard you do that, and I quite like it, I do…

Doc: We like that Gospel, Tondy. Not the new stuff. The old stuff. When a man is poor and can’t deal with his problems, he can turn to drinkin’ and drugs, or he can turn to the Lord. I been turnin’ to the Lord when I get down in the mully grubs, and sometimes I can just pick up my guitar and sing a while and I feel all better. We play Gospel around the house a lot. A whole lot.

Tondeleo: One thing I have noticed at home in England and everywhere else I have travelled is that people want to stand out and have their own personal style.That goes for people with money and education as well as for old age pensioners and even the homeless. There is a human quest for individuality that cannot be suppressed.

I was talking about this with Doc at Scott’s II Store one afternoon, as I was noticing and commenting on the way the various patrons expressed themselves with their clothing, their jewelry, accessories, hats and their cars and trucks. When the conversation was in full swing, I realised that I needed to get out my digital recorder and capture some of these thoughts.

What prompted me getting out my recorder was a Cadillac out in the car park of Scott’s that was pulling out as we went out to Doc’s truck for Marilyn to get her harps. It was evident that the car's owner didn’t have much money, but that he had a sense of style and clearly a sense of pride – and his car very much stood out from the others!

Doc pointed out all the changes that the owner had made:

Doc: Lookit that, Tondy! You ain’t got nothin’ like that over there to that England, I guarantee it! He got a Corvette hood scoop on it.Painted his grille gold. It’s just spray paint, but it makes it stand out. He got him some Wal Mart wheelcovers on it – and they ain’t match each other, but at least he’s tryin’.

Tondeleo: Well, ummm, you’re right Doc. I have never seen anything quite like this in England. It is sort of an American CHAV vehicle, perhaps. I don’t really know what to compare it to. It DOES make one sit up and take notice, I confess!

Doc: Yeah, Tondy, You gotta stand out. This boy’s standin’ out!

Marilyn:I think it stands out in a yucky way.It’s too much. Well, at least for me. I bet the cops could spot him a mile away, too! He probally ain’t thought of that.

Doc: Well, sometimes you wanna stand out and sometimes you wanna blend in. You can figure that out by walkin’ in the woods. Most the time, for survival, you gotta blend in. That’s what keeps the predators from noticin’ you and eatin’ you. Most everything in nature wears camo (camouflaged clothing). Snakes, turtles, frogs, deer, birds, almost everything. They need to blend in so they don’t get eaten.

But then, sometimes they gotta stand out for protection. Like a peacock blowin’ his tail all out big to look bigger than he really is – and prob’ly for standin’out so the girl peacocks notice him and think they want him ‘cause he’s a big man! Bull frogs does it, too! So they is two laws in the jungle. Blend in so you don’t get eaten and sometimes stand out to scare off enemies.

Look at him! He got what…five antennas on the back! And American flags! And magnets, too! He is scarin’ off the competition. I mean a dude with a regular car can’t compete! He is sayin’ somethin’ here, Tondy! Puttin’ ‘em on notice! He got a lot of work in that car an’ you can tell he loves it! That’s his baby!

Look how proud he is! An’ he OUGHT to be proud. That’s a car to remember! It ain’t about the money, it’s about the love you put in it. If it was mine, I’d be proud of it!

I’m proud of what I got, even though it ain’t worth much. At least it’s mine.

Me an’ Marilyn does the same thing when we’re playin. When we’re playin’ in the streets for money, we need to stand out enough so people stops to listen an’ give us money an’ if they really like us to ask for a card or invite us to play at a event or party or something. Lotta ties you gotta play ‘coustic guitar when buskin.’ BUt I use my drum box with the tambourine on it for a beat. That helps.

We make eye contact with ‘em an’ I’ll make up some words to the song I’m singin’ to put them in it:

Like: “I see that lady there with the sunglasses watchin’ me

She’s reachin’ in her wallet and gettin'’ out some money!

An’ she walks over here… an’ she puts it my case

That’s a good lookin’ woman

she puts a smile on my face – thank you ma’am!”

I’ll do somethin’ like that for anyone I can catch the eye of and it gets a crowd, an’ a crowd gets you money an’ bookin’s and friends. You gotta have friends ‘cause they pass the word around about you.

We stand out by lookin’ happy and bein’ high energy an’ ‘proachable. Marilyn kinda dances. We have dance contests on the street, too. Ain’t nothin’ funnier than havin’ a dance contest out on the streets an’ watchin’ men dance! And it gets a crowd.

When we’re playin’ and there is other bands, we don’t never do songs that they would do. We ain’t no 70’s cover band. We does mostly old stuff from the 40s and fifties. Nothin’ much newer than’ 1960, far as I know. That’s cause all we had was old music what other people didn’t want, when I grew up, or old songs what the people round us sang an’ played. We ain’t no human jukebox. We play songs what most bands don’t play so we don’t overlap what they is doin’ and that way the other bands likes us, too. That’s part of standin’ out.

Like, we bring along Thurman Goodlett to dance for us whenever we can. That boy can dance like Michael Jackson with ants in his pants! That helps us stand out. There is lotsa bands out there and they’s all better than us, so we gotta put on a show, if we’re gonna stand out. You got to stand out, Tondy. And people like a show. It ain’t so much about the music as it is about the show. Standin’ out is the show.

Marilyn: Sometimes it embarrassin’ but you gotta do it. Doc says if it don’t take guts, it ain’t worth doin’ and you gotta be bold, Tondy. Stand up and stand out is what I always say.

Tondeleo: If you have been reading this blog, you know that Doc always refers to me as a "sissy" or a "sissy Brit," not due to any sexual identity issues on my part, but because he thinks I talk like a sissy (compared to him and his uncouth mates) and because compared to them, I am built rather slightly built at 5'7" and 8 1/2 stone.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a vid on youtube of Doc and Marilyn singing "Gonna Send You Back to Walker" which is among their favourite songs. Someone on youtube commented that they were surprised to hear Doc sing the sissy British version of the song, which was a cover of an American song called "Gonna Send You Back to Georgia." The commentor said that the Animals substituted the word Walker for Georgia to make it more relevant to a British audience.

I told Doc about this, and he was adamant that it was NOT a British cover, but that he had learnt it from an old record by a black group called The Animals! I informed Doc that The Animals were indeed WHITE and British...

Doc: Ain't NO way, Tondy! Them guys ain't little Brits like you! They was black guys. They sang John Lee Hooker Songs.Fats Domino songs. Billy Boy Arnold songs. Jimmy Reed songs. Sam Cook songs.Ray Charles songs. Those is BLACK songs, Tondy. Black songs. AMERICAN BLACK SONGS.

Tondeleo: Well, Doc, you're right about the songs they did, but they were a white British group, a YOUNG white British group, not an American blues group! Doc, have you ever seen a picture of them? How did you learn their songs? This is unbelievable! Ha Ha!

Doc: Unbelievable? You need to BELIEVE, Tondy! But it ain't no laughin' matter! No, I ain't never seen no pictures of them. How could I? I found some records by The Animals in Clinchport, down when I was livin' there when I was a teenager. Someone left them in the roomin' house where we was stayin' an' they wasn't no pictures or covers or nothin.' Just the records. An' I kept 'em for my own an' wiped 'em down and put cloth around 'em and when we visited my cousins in North Carolina, I took them records with me to hear what they sounded like, and it was blues, mostly. It sounded like black people to ME. That singer screamed like a black man, not a white man. He hollered like a 40 year old black man, not no young white man. SO how was I supposed to know? You SURE they was white Brits?

Tondeleo: Yes, Doc! I know for a FACT that they were my fellow sissy Brits. And they were in my age group when they were singing those songs you love so much! Here are pictures of their albums with them on the over (I present Doc with some pics that I downloaded and stored on my phone)...

Doc: Well, I'll BE! They IS white! They got hair like YOU and your friends. Well, I like how they sang better than the ones I knew an' I always liked that singer cause he sang in the same keys I sing in but is better. Brits, huh? I know Big Dave ain't gonna take kindly to being tricked like this neither, cause he made cassettes of my records an' leaernt the same songs an' thought they was black men and some of the best blues men we ever heard. White Brits. The Animals. [Long pause] Well, I bet they was hard workin' country boys, not office boys like you, right Tondy? Am I right about that?

Tondeleo: Well, Doc, they WERE hardworkin' English boys, from the rough part of town, I am certain. They weren't university educated and probably barely had their O levels, I believe.

Doc: Well, I don't think Marilyn would be able to take this, Tondy. It might break her heart. Let's not say anything about this to her til she is a little older and can take this.

And we're gonna go back to singin' Gonna Send You Back to Georgia with the words from Timmy Shaw, how I first learned it. I got the 45 here somewhere.

[He left the room and went outside to his shed and emerged 20 minutes later with an old phonograph and a couple old 45 rpm vinyls, which sounded like someone had pioured sand on them and subjected me to hearing them a few times.]

...but I liked how The Animals done it better. We'll do it with his words and maybe some of The Animals' parts out of respect for them what come before us.

Tondeleo: As a non musician, I don't yet fully grasp why even poor American musicians will have several variations of the same instrument. I understand needing an electric guitar and a non electric. But many of these rural Americans will be as they say, "dirt poor" and still have several instruments.

Today's post is about Doc's No Name acoustic guitar. He has had it for years, and it seems to be a favourite with him. He will tell you about it and why he likes it so much:

Doc: This here is my No Name Guitar. It's called a no name cause it ain't got no name on it. It had a name on it when it come out of the factory whenever it was made, but somebody somewhere took the name offin' the neck and took out the label inside. Most guitars gots a label inside and also the name on the neck. This one don't, as you can see. Had 'em but lost 'em.

Tondeleo: Why do you think it has no name, Doc? I mean why would someone want to take the brand name off their guitar?

Doc: I don't know. Different reasons, maybe. Maybe it got stole once, and the person sanded off the name and took out the label so it wouldn't look like it had been tooken.

Sometimes a poor man with a good guitar will take off the name so no one will rob him of it. If it looks like a cheap guitar, it is safer for him and for the guitar. There is some places you cain't take a good guitar, even a old one, cause someone will rob you for it.

Maybe they had other reasons. I don't know. But I didn't do it. You have to ask the man what done it. And he ain't me.

Tondeleo: What else can you tell me about this guitar?

Doc: It's pretty old. Maybe 40 years or 50. It's been around a lot, you can tell that. I done had it a long time myself. Maybe 20 years or more.

It's got designs around the sound hole what I painted on and also designs around the bridge what I painted on. It looked too plain. I wanted to make it mine, you know, special to me.

Under the strings I got a picture of me when I was about 19, playin' guitar. It's a old Kay guitar what belonged to my Grand Daddy. I don't know why I put that picture there. I just did. Maybe I didn't want to lose it. I lose things pretty easy.

Up on the head stock, I got a picture of Merle Travis. I put that their 'cause he was a inspiration to me to play better. I cain't play like him but I wish I could. So I got his picture up there to take with me wherever I play so he goes with me so, to speak.

Tondeleo: How would you describe the sound of this guitar? What makes it special to you?

Doc: This guitar sounds like a old Gibson or old Martin. Those are are good guitars. If you had a Gibson model J-45 it would sound like this guitar. I cain't afford one of those, but I could afford this one cause it ain't got no name.

It has a good all round sound. It sounds right for mountain music, for blues and roots music. I use number 10 strings on it so I can bend the notes for blues. I just really like this here guitar!

I give a boy $20 for this guitar a long time ago so that makes it pretty special. The price was special. I ain't had no money at the time an' gave him my last twenty bucks for it - then went into Goldsboro - down North Carolina - and played out on the streets and passed the hat an' got my money back plus some money for food. It started taken care of me from day one. So that is special, too.

Plus, it is set up real good, too, Tondy.

Tondeleo: What's that mean? "Set up real good?"

Doc: It means the strings lie close to the neck so it is as easy to play like a electric. Also I put on a bone saddle down on that bridge and a graphite nut on it to make it sound better. Inside, it's got a good pickup for when I need to play it through a amp. I forget the brand name of it but is is a good one.

When I go into a place where they is other guitar players, they look at this no name guitar, then they look at me an' I can see them laughin' to themselves. These is the boys with the brand new shiny guitars what they bought with credit cards - they is sittin' around in their polo shirts and loafers, laughin' at the poor man. But when I play it, and they hear it either plugged into a amp or not, they stop laughin' an' start askin' about it, what kind it is! It is a No Name.

You can see on the neck where I have played it down to the wood! Nothin' plays like a guitar that is full of vibes from bein' played by someone who loves it. And I love this here guitar.

Everybody what's ever played it loves it. It looks like it has been to Viet Nam and back. It might have, I don't know, but it is worn out in just the right way that it plays good and plays loud.

It may be ugly, but it is good to me, and I am good to it, Tondy! I take it out most every Friday and Saturday night.