Doc Stevens

Tondeleo: Whenever I hear Doc and Marilyn and the band play, I always hear songs that I have never heard before in  my life. Some of what they play I have heard somewhere before, but most of it is new to me. They sing a lot of originals, but a lot of what they do, Doc says is old stuff, stuff that everybody ought to know. 

But I have asked other musicians at venues and events where they play, and other musicians also shake their
heads and say they have no idea where Doc and Marilyn's songs come from. Like me, they are familiar with some of them, or others they might say they might have heard when they visited their grandmum's house years ago, but they basically don't know where the songs come from, or why they are played the way they are.

Doc: I play the songs I love and I play them how I feel them. Marilyn does, too. That's it. I don't never try to play it like the original 'cause I couldn't anyway. Matter o'  fact, the original artists ain't play them again like they did on the record - 'cept for George Thorogood, cause he always plays it word for word, note for note from the record to one concert to the next - but everybody else changes it from one time to the next, depending on their mood.

Like, when the original group is recording, they might do five or ten takes of the song. Finally, they get enough of it right that they can mix it into a song. But all of those takes ain't identical. Close, but not identical. Then when you hear the group play live, they always change it up a bit from the record as we know it.

But the deal is this. They don't sound just like the record, but they always sound like themselves, not somebody else. So if I play it or you play it or someone else plays it, why are we supposed to sound like the original band did on that one take that came out as the final release?

Guess what? We ain't gonna sound like them if we tried. Maybe close, but mostly not. The voice will be different, the tone will be different, other things will be different. But worse than that, we won't even sound like ourselves! I ain't gonna be happy tryin' to sound like someone else and failin'! I might as well sound like me and play the way I feel it.

If I don't like a song, I ain't gonna sing it. I ain't gonna play it, neither. If I DO like it, I'm gonna FEEL it. And that is the only way I'm gonna play it. Marilyn's the same way. So's the rest of the band. That's how we all got together in the first place. We just play what we love and play it the way we feel it. Most of what we play, the rest of the band ain't never heard the original anyway.

Tondeleo: So, WHERE do you get your material? Most of us have never heard these songs before... 

Doc: Well, Tondy, some of them I grew up hearin' from my relative's record players, at family gatherin's and such. Others I found on records what we got from the landfill, what other people was throwin' away. Some was so scratched up I had to make up the words where they wasn't playin' right, and I still don't know the right words.

Others were just songs that we all sang growin' up, when we'd get out the instruments and all sing together. Uncles, aunts, cousins, grandma, grandpa, neighbors and friends. A lot of 'em we got from church. Gospel concerts, fish fries and other things at church, you know, picnics, barbecues and all that.

Pentecostal churches always have good music. You can learn alot by goin' to a Pentecostal church. Jerry Lee Lewis, he came from a Pentecostal church. Elvis did, too. Aretha was a church girl. Otis Redding came from church, and Little Richard. Some of them's daddies was preachers. A lot more came from churches and that is where they learnt to play and sing and perform at.

Like with Marilyn, some of the songs she grew up with, she never heard the original. She just heard me an' my friends play 'em or heard them at church, and that's how she thought they was supposed to sound. Then later, she mighta heard one of them on a jukebox somewhere, and she'd say, "Uncle Doc, I heard 'I Believe To My Soul' on the jukebox today and it didn't sound right!"

I'd tell her that it sounded right for that take in the recording studio when that band recorded it; sounded right for them that time. the way we play it sounds right for us, at whatever time we sing it. She's old enough now that she gets it, but when she was 12 or 13, she just figured that our way was right and the other ways were wrong!

It's easier to play a song if you only play it the way you feel it whenever you play it. You're not tryin' to copy anybody, and you're free to holler it as you feel, and play it for as long as it takes for you to be done with it. That's how we do it, anyway.

Tondeleo: One reason I like coming to America is the cheap prices compared to the USA. I can buy used cameras for about half of what we'd pay in the UK. Being used, there's no import duty to pay. Cameras, musical instruments and other things that can be flown back to UK can make a trip to America a very good deal.

My mate Cyril had this aspect of a visit to the states foremost in his mind in addition to the experience of visiting America and also being able to stay at Doc's place for free, and having no food expense. He is pretty adventurous when it comes to food, and likes organic. That helped him be prepared for eating deer, rabbit, squirrel and a lot of fish. Also, fresh raised veggies. 

But what got him most excited was being able to shop on Craigslist for prices on American guitars and equipment for well less than half the UK prices. 

Doc: Well, Tondy, your buddy Cyril's a happy camper now! He found a Les Paul, a real one, and got a good deal on it.

Tondeleo: I'm not sure what you're saying, Doc. I guess happy camper means he is glad to be sleeping outside... but I'm not sure what a Les Paul is - real or fake.

Doc: He ain't sleepin' outside. It just means he's happy. He ain't really campin'. That's just something to say. But he got a real Les Paul. that's a guitar. Made by Gibson.

Tondeleo: Are there "not real" Les Pauls? Imaginary ones?

Doc: YES, there's Les Paul's what ain't real! There's fake ones, there's copies, there's Epiphone ones, there's counterfeit ones made in China. All kinds of Les Pauls. But he got a real one. A real GIBSON Les Paul. Made in USA.

Tondeleo: OK... I hear you. Tell me about getting the real Les Paul. The Gibson one. Made in USA.

Doc: Last week Cyril was lookin' on the  'puter up to the Liberry on Craig's List of things for sale. He found a Les Paul on there, for sale in Arlington... over in Virginia. It was old, like ten years, but never been played. He had me call the guy first to ask him some questions.

Here's the story. The guy works for PBS makin' those Oldies Music Specials. He's a music history guy what used to work at the Smiths Onion [Smithsonian museum in Washington DC]. The PBS called him and gave him a job puttin' together those Oldies Music Specials. He was doin' one of those in Nashville and Gibson gave him some guitars to use as stage props. New Gibson guitars! As stage props, Tondy!

Tondeleo: Uhhh... that's unthinkable, Doc! Unconscionable!

Doc: Well, YEAH! Anyway, he was down there, doin' a country music special and Ricky Skaggs was there as a host or whatever the guy is what talks between the songs and 'splains them. Gibson gave this guy the Les Paul - this guy what doesn't even play guitar - and then Ricky Skaggs signed the case with a silver magic marker. So this guy over to Arlington was movin' down south somewhere and wasn't gonna take the guitar with him, so he was sellin' it. Aint never been played.

Me an' Cyril went over there, an' met the guy. He wanted $700 for it, which ain't bad. Cyril was all like "can I take that other bloke's name off the case?" I told him to deal with that later. I talked with the guy an' 'splained that Ricky Skaggs' name on that guitar case ain't mean nothin' to a 20 year old Brit who ain't never heard of Ricky Skaggs, so that ain't no sellin' point. Then I splained to him that Cyril's gonna have to pay $100 to take that guitar onto the plane to get it home. So if he charged Cyril $600 for it, plus the $100 Cyril would pay to get it home, that's still gonna be $700 which is what he wanted anyway...

Tondeleo: And that guy WENT for that?

Doc: Well.. YEAH! It only makes sense. $700 for a $700 guitar. It's just he wasn't gettin' all $700.  He got $600, but he knew Cyril was paying $700, so it was fair. Cyril got that guitar and was happy as a clam, Tondy! His smile started on the back of his head and went all the way 'round to the front of his head and back to the other side of the back of his head! Good old USA! Well, for good deals, anyway.

He brought it home and tuned it up and then we went out and he played it at a couple gigs already.It sounds good, plays good and some people have told him to keep Ricky Skaggs' name on it, 'cause it makes it more interestin'. They splained to him who Ricky Skaggs is. Plus Cyril called his Dad over in England who not only knew who Ricky Skaggs is, but is a Ricky Skaggs fan and was real proud of his son over gettin' that guitar with Ricky Skaggs' havin' signed the case on it. So anyway, there you go. I'm gonna hang up and get him to teach me a few things while he's still here.

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! 

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: 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.

Tondeleo: Some readers may know that over the past several months Doc has come out of his self imposed musical exile. He's played music since he was a kid and traveled around America playing with different artists and local bands. For a while he went by a stage name, and due to his lack of education, he pretty much played the role of the introverted burnout.

Then, his brother died and he took responsibility of raising Marilyn and he dropped out of playing music, other than at home and for places where people knew him, and it brought a stability to his life.

Here is part of a long interview I had with him when I was in the States last week. It will probably end up being several posts. He was relaxed, talkative and had just gotten back from playing at a wedding reception in DC where he and Marilyn were very well received.

Tondeleo: So, Doc, when you were playing with different bands, you said that usually people didn't know how uneducated you were...

Doc: Silence is the dumb man's friend. When I'd keep my mouth shut, aint no one know'd that I didn't know too much or that I didn't talk too well. I just kept my mouth shut mostly, and played a good rhythm guitar, bass or drums and sometimes piano. They don't care if you ain't much on conversin'.

Tondeleo: I know you played in different local bands and then went through a rough spell and lived on the streets and kind of hand to mouth for a while.

Doc: Yeh... I was depressed and things weren't goin' so good. I stayed out west in Wyoming for a while tryin' to get my thoughts together. I had a little money saved up and some money from a settlement but I gave a lot of it away and helped some family members an' relatives.

I ain't much on money. Like I ain't never been into havin' a money collection. I'd rather have a friend than to have a hundred dollars in my pocket. An' money ain't much good if you ain't happy.

I left Wyoming, and went to Senatobia, MS. Lived off Peyton Road with a buddy of mine what I met in Memphis. Memphis is a hour or so north of Senatobia. Stayed in Memphis for a while. Went to North Carolina, Goldsboro. Was in Kentucky for a spell, staying in Nicholasville, outside of Lexington. I like Kentucky real well and want to go back there one day. Played a bit of music there and worked in body shops.

My brother up in Maryland passed an' he'd wanted me to look after his daughter Marilyn. That was my call to duty an' I took it real serious. I had to prove myself to the Department of Socialist Services what meant no unemployment, no runnin' around and to clean up. I went all clean cut like a office boy. No beard. No mustache. No long hair. Squeaky clean.

It's worth it to me to be able to do what my brother wanted and to raise Marilyn. She's 22 now, but says she's 18 sometimes. She ain't no 18, but she says a lady never tells her real age.

Tondeleo: Didn't Marilyn get you back to playing music in public again - like isn't she kind of paying you back by getting you out of the house?

Doc: Yeh. We always sat around in the evenin' playin' music or I was teachin' her about life, but I didn't want to take her to no bars. She don't need to be around that. Once she hit 18, she was old enough that she wanted to play out at family reunions and barbecues and festivals and such. So, we started goin' wherever people asked us to.

Then I had to borrow a cell phone. Got my own now. Had to get email too. I am tryin' to move ahead real slow, but am movin' again in playin' music. Got some of my guitars shipped up here from Bristol one at a time as I would get money orders and send them to Ace down there. Just got my dobro back up here in September. Some places only want acoustic an a regular guitar just don't cut it for me. Had to have the dobro. But Marilyn has got me to get circo-lating and percolatin' again. I probably owe her.

They's a lot of good musicians out there, Tondy. A lot of them. I ain't that good, but I'm easy to deal with pretty much and I will show up if I say I will.

One thing with Marilyn is she also got some of the church folk from her church to talk to me when I would get the blues and that would help a lot. They helped me reconnect with the Lord, so that is a good thing. I ain't perfect and the Lord knows it, but I ain't what I used to be an' I probably aint what I'm gonna be, neither.

Doc Stevens: I play guitar, but I ain't got a lot of money and we live more than a hour from Hot Licks Guitar shop over to Waldorf. About once a year I get to go up there and buy a set of strings and Marilyn picks up another harmonica or two.

I make the strings last a year or more just like everybody else out here. Metal don't really go bad. What makes strings go dead is they get dirt in them from your fingers and sweat what gets stuck in them

What we do out here is just take off the ones what's wound and we put 'em in a pot of boiling water or a old coffee can and it melts out the oil and dirt. But you gotta boil 'em for about ten minutes to get it all out.

It don't hurt the strings cause they is metal. When you're done boilin' 'em you wipe 'em down with a rag an' after they dry, put 'em back on the guitar.

That's nothing new, it's what folks out in the country been doin' for years. They sound good again 'til you get 'em filled up with oil again. The boy down the road got strings on his guitar what he been usin' for maybe five years. He just takes 'em off an' boils 'em every two or three months. But you got to be good enough on your guitar to not be breaking your strings.

By Tondeleo Lee Thomas

Writing Doc's thoughts, opinions and ramblings is not an easy job. First off, because he mumbles, and his English is atrocious. He misuses words and mispronounces a lot of them.

On the other hand, his lack of education and culture is part of what makes his opinions and advice interesting. Most of these postings are made from recordings of phone calls and one on one conversations. Whenever I visit Doc, I have my digital recorder on, and when I leave several hours later, I have enough fodder for a dozen or more blog postings. Doc has an opinion about everything and there is nothing he won't talk about... well, unless it is something that I try to bait him into pontificating on, and then he can get sort winded pretty quickly.

As I listen to the recordings, I usually transcript them based on however I am feeling at the moment. Transcribing with only mild deletions or editorial comments is a task in itself. I do my best to spell his worlds the way he pronounces them, and also to try to have the postings make sense.That is harder than I first imagined. However I find it to be a positive challenge and I am starting to get into the flow of it, and to know what he means by certain malapropisms the instant he mumbles them.

As for the photos on this blog, I carry a digital camera with me when I visit him and when I am able to go with him when he and Marilyn are playing music somewhere. I take as many pictures as he allows me to. Sometimes we will go for a ride while visiting - "C'mon Tondy, let's go for a ride and you can by me a sandwich an' bring one back for Marilyn" - and part of the deal is that I can take a few pictures of him if we find a place that is interesting. Again, he gets antsy about it sometimes - "My mama warned me about men like you what want's to take my picture" - and other times he seems impressed that someone would want to see pictures of him on the "interweb." The pictures are posted randomly with the postings, just as I go through the pics that I have and then try to match them up appropriately to the editorial content.

I gave one of my old digital cameras to Marilyn and she has gotten some good ones of Doc. He is more relaxed around her and lets his guard down. Most of the ones where Doc looks more relaxed or even nearly pleasant have been taken by Marilyn. She has also made recordings of some of his musings and has emailed them to me when he takes her to the library for Internet access.

Anyway, that's how it is done. I also have video of him playing and singing and several of him and Marilyn at different venues and also playing out on the streets. I plan on putting them on Youtube at some point. I may also link the original sound files of these postings where possible and when I can find them on old SD cards, just so you can get the feel of how it is to talk with him.

Tondeleo: Doc, you're calling me after midnight this had better be good. What's going over there?

Doc: OK. I got invited to play and sing at the Blue Grass Vestibule over at Leonardtown and...

Tondeleo: Vestibule? A Bluegrass VESTIBULE???

Doc: Yes - the Bluegrass Vestibule over there at Leonardtown. They brought in a bunch of singers and players from here in Maryland and some from Virginia, down in the mountains where my people come from in Scott County.

So I get my buddy Oliver to drive me an' Marilyn down there, an' I give him 50 bucks for gas. I bring my guitar an' battery powered amp and stomp box so I can play an' sing. If you gonna play outside, you gotta have a amp an' you gotta have a mike on your stompbox so they can hear it.

We pull in an' a geek what worked there told me where the stage was an' me an' Marilyn got my stuff outta Oliver's truck an made our way to the stage where them other boys was playin' an' singing. I figured we get up there an' join 'em cause that's what you do an' all take turns at the mike.

But guess what that polo shirt wearin egghead told me when I got near the stage? Now, I got Oliver to ride me two hours to play there cause they wanted real country roots music as they call it but all it is is just music. I'm carryin' my 'quipment an' this polo shirt wearin' sissy calls out , "Sir, you can't bring any ELECTRIFIED instruments up here! This is bluegrass!"

I din't pay no 'tention to him and kept walkin' towards the stage. I told him I know it's bluegrass but what them boys up there was playin' weren't no bluegrass it was jus' music an' I was gonna go up there an we're all gonna play together cause they ain't got no 'lectric guitar an' they ain't got no stompbox. Marilyn told him to open up his big baby blues cause they ain't got no harmonica players neither.

Well he started whinin' and callin' for security to haul me outta there. I tol him he didn't know nothin' and all those candy pants he had up there was probly mostly office boys an' geeks pretendin' they was "country." You ain't country if you're pasty white from working in a office an' your hands are soft like a woman's.

He started orderin me around callin' me "SIR" an' tellin me to leave before Security had me arrested. Arrested for tryin' to play music at a music vestibule. So I ast him what he would do if I hit him up side the head wi' my guitar an' I went over there an' lifted it up to swing it like a baseball bat. He took off runnin' for the security boy on a golfcart and he came over an tol' me I was gonna have to leave or he'd have me locked up.

He weren't big enough to lock me up an' I tol' him so. I said I'd pound his head til he looked like a bowl full of prunes an' then I'd get up there an' play as long as I felt like. Well. Marilyn commenced to cry and tol' me he warn't worth it. I was gonna knock him out of that little golf cart an' put a hole in one in his rear end.

After that, I din't even want to be there an' I told him I was goin' home an' he couldn't stop me if he wanted to. I picked up my guitar an' amp an' stompbox an' got back in Oliver's pickup truck an' Marilyn got in an' Oliver did a burn out throwin' dust an' grass and dirt all up in that sissy's eyes. When we left he was cryin' about getting' dirt in his precious contact lenses. I ain't goin back to no more of those vestibules an' if they calls me again, I'm gonna tell 'em [deleted by Tondeleo, as editor with a sense of propriety]. That's what I'm gonna tell 'em an' then ask the Lord to forgive me, but not them.

Tondeleo: Doc, you know I put this on the Internet so you better be careful about some of the things you say...

Doc: Ok, I ain't sayin' nothin' about the people what runs that vestibule or none of the people what got to play an' sing even tho they used mikes and amps an' my guitar weren't allowed to be plugged in or my stompbox. They is all good fine Americans an' love the Lord. .. and I forgive them. Goodbye Tondy.

Tondeleo: Goodnight, Doc.