Read no. 24

Greetings!

Apologies for the lateness of this issue. I won’t take up space giving my myriad reasons, I’m simply glad to finally have found the time to focus on women in bluegrass!

IBMA Board

The IBMA Board of Directors will be seeing more female faces this year. Elected for the first time were Kitsy Kuykendall, At Large, and Missy Raines, Artists and Composers. Reelected was Andrea Compton, Agents and Managers, and reelected after being off the Board for a couple of years was Bev Paul, Record Companies and Publishers. This means that five out of sixteen—or almost one-third—of the Board seats will now be occupied by women. (I’m also on the Board, in the Merchandisers and Luthiers seat.) This is the most women we’ve ever had on the Board! Mind you, I’m not looking for quotas, but I am happy that so many women have been voted into positions of influence—decision-making positions—in our industry.

IBMA Awards Nominees

First, congratulations to all the nominees for Female Vocalist: Laurie Lewis, Claire Lynch, Lynn Morris, Dolly Parton, and Rhonda Vincent. In other categories, we have good news and bad news. Good news: Two albums by women were nominated for Album of the Year: Back Home Again by Rhonda Vincent and The Grass Is Blue by Dolly Parton. Good news: Laurie Lewis and Her Bluegrass Pals were nominated for Song of the Year for Tall Pines. Good news: Women are included in two bands nominated for Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year: Memories That Bless And Burn by Dry Branch Fire Squad and Pieces Of Our Past by the Isaacs. Good news: Four bands that feature women were nominated for Emerging Artist: Dale Ann Bradley & Coon Creek (with Vicki Simmons), Jim Hurst & Missy Raines, Nickel Creek (with Sara Watkins), and Valerie Smith & Liberty Pike (with Sheila Wingate). Good news: Missy Raines was again nominated for Bass Player of the Year. She’s going for a three-peat! Bad news: She was the only woman nominated in any instrumental category. Good news: Nickel Creek, with Sara Watkins, was nominated for Instrumental Group of the Year. Bad news: she was the only woman in any of the bands nominated. Good news and bad news: Lynn Morris is the only woman appearing on a project nominated for Instrumental Album, Marshall Wilborn’s Root 5; ditto Laura Webber who

appears on Benny Martin’s The ‘‘Big Tiger" Roars Again, nominated for Recorded Event. Bad news: There were no women in the bands nominated for Entertainer of the Year and Vocal Group of the Year. Remember your IBMA vote can make a difference! The IBMA World of Bluegrass is October 16-22. I’ll have my Murphy Method and Women in Bluegrass booth set up all week. Come by and see me!

—Murphy Henry

Hattie Stoneman

By Charles Wolfe

Hattie Frost Stoneman, the wife of Pop Stoneman and matriarch of the Stoneman Family, was born September 28, 1900. This September marks the 100th anniversary of her birth.

The Stoneman children generally agree that most of their music came from Hattie’s side of the family—the Frosts. Hattie’s mother and father were both fine old-time mountain musicians, and Hattie herself was a splendid old-time fiddler and banjo player. She played the drop-thumb method, but she played it in as many as eight different tunings. Grandpa Jones once watched Hattie play and remarked that he would give anything to be able to use his thumb the way she did—he called it using a “double clutch.” Hattie spent much of her life trying to raise her children, and worrying about them—in later life she had what Roni called “nun’s knees”—callouses on her knees from being down on them praying so much.

Roni also tells a story about how Pop met Hattie, a story she got directly from Pop. One cold evening in 1900 Pop’s father, Elijah, who was a preacher, was sent for and asked to come way up in the mountains to the cabin of a woman who was having trouble giving birth. Pop, who was only eight, got on back of the saddle behind his father and the two started out, riding in the moonlight far up into the mountains of Virginia. Finally they came to a cabin, an old one that had been built on a flat stone outcropping that also served as the front porch. Elijah was at once taken into the room to the left, where a woman was in childbirth; young Pop was sent to the room to the right, where a roaring fire was going. Pop sat down cross-legged in front of the fire to warm himself, and heard loud cries and forceful prayers from the next room. Finally there was the squall of a baby, and Elijah rushed out carrying a newborn baby in a blanket. He handed the baby to Pop and instructed, “Pray for that baby,” and rushed back into the other room. There

he continued to pray for the ailing mother, while young Pop did his best to pray for the newborn infant.

As it turned out, both mother and daughter lived. And, as it turned out, that baby was Hattie Frost—who would later become young Pop’s wife.

Hattie never got to make all that many records—she plays fiddle on some of the old Victors, and there are a few cases of her playing on the Stoneman TV shows. But she was responsible for a lot of great music, and we need to honor her centennial.

Darlene Hodges

My Eye Was Always on the Fiddle

By Murphy Henry

When my sister Argen recently married one of our oldest friends and picking buddies, Mike Johnson, they held a huge picking party in Hiawassee, Ga., to celebrate. A few women joined in the picking, including Mike’s mother Polly, but Casey and I were the only women playing lead instruments. That is, until Darlene Hodges showed up. Even in this enlightened age, I am still astounded when I encounter another woman playing a lead instrument in a jam session. So when Darlene, who is 68, pulled out her fiddle and began to play bluegrass with authority, plus a beautiful wrist and great tone, I was delighted and amazed. When Mike told me that she had made the fiddle she was playing, I was thunderstruck! With encouragement from my new brother-in-law (he hounded me!), I interviewed Darlene on my next trip down to Georgia, August 15. She lives in Franklin, N.C., just ten miles from where she grew up, and only an hour’s drive from where I grew up in Clarkesville, Ga.

Darlene Collins Hodges was born February 29, 1932, in Sylva, N.C. Her dad, Wiley Collins, was an old-time fiddler and bricklayer; her mother, Ethel, was a schoolteacher who played a little bit of piano and pump organ. Ethel also taught Wiley to play the guitar. “I don’t know where she learned that,” Darlene said. “All of her people were banjo players and dancers. Most of them were from Waynesville, North Carolina.” Darlene’s older brother, G.C., also plays the fiddle, and her younger sister, Pat, plays piano. As Darlene said, “Pat’s got a really good ear for fiddle—she knows every note in a fiddle tune. But like she tells everybody, ‘I could be playing like G.C. and Darlene, but I was too lazy.’ She had the best rhythm on that piano. I’ve never had rhythm any better than that since we grew up.”

When Darlene was growing up, her family played music every Saturday night. “Either people would come to our house or we’d go to somebody’s house and mostly it was old-time fiddling. Dad would do Bully Of The Town, Leather Britches, Katy Hill. Some would get up and buck dance or do that old-time flat-foot dancing, you know. But mostly it was just music and very little vocals. It was just breakdowns and a waltz every once in a while.”

Darlene is a tall, well-spoken, articulate woman, as she should be with a B.S. in Business Education with a concentration in Management from Western Carolina, an M.A. from Western Carolina (for which much of the work was done at Vanderbilt and George Peabody), plus work on her doctorate at the University of Georgia. From 1971 until 1984 she served as academic dean at Haywood Community College in

Waynesville, N.C. At the time, she was the only female dean in the state. When Darlene was 37, she married fiddler Ernest Hodges. Charles Wolfe included a chapter on Ernest in his excellent book The Devil’s Box: Masters of Southern Fiddling. As Charles puts it, “In 1968, Ernest married his star pupil, Darlene Collins from North Carolina.” He also says, “His wife, an accomplished guitarist, often played backup for Ernie’s fiddling.” I’ll let Darlene fill you in on the rest of that story! They were married for 15 years; Ernest died in 1984.

When I visited Darlene at her home in Franklin, I told her I could only stay for a short time. Four hours later, I finally climbed into the van to head to Winchester. We had a wonderful visit, and even played a few tunes. I only wish I could have captured her soft mountain cadences and her bubbling laugh on paper.

I don't see that many women playing the fiddle, do you?

No, I don’t. Hardly any. Actually, I don’t see many fiddle players period. That’s a dying breed.

So how long have you been playing the fiddle?

Off and on since I was in college. But more off than on. My dad was a fiddle player, and my brother was older and he took up the fiddle. And you know how family bands are, you gotta have somebody to play the rhythm [laughs], so I played guitar all the time I was growing up, but my eye was always on the fiddle. In fact, one time we went to hear Benny Martin fiddle, and Dad said, “If he plays Martin’s Waltz, I want you to remember what key it was in and tell me how he played it.” And he did play it and I memorized it and I could tell Dad it was in D. I closed out everything else they did after that because I

knew that I would forget it if I didn’t keep humming it in my mind. So fiddle was always my choice.

Then I got in college and I thought, “Well, this is stupid, to go through life and not do what you want to do.” So I started playing fiddle some. But then after I graduated, I went to Charlotte [N.C.] for three years and taught school, and I didn’t even take the fiddle with me. So I kinda got out of music, period. And then I decided to move back home, and I got a job teaching over here at Franklin High School. And there were some musicians, so I took up the fiddle again. [Laughs.] So I bummed around on it. Fortunately, Dad was a good old-time fiddle player, but not great by today’s standards. But one thing he did do was use the correct finger for the notes, and that's a real advantage because there’s some people around here that are very limited in what they do because they’re not using the correct fingering, so their hand is always out of position. But at least Dad did that! [Laughs.]

Then in 1968, I believe it was, some friends of mine read an article in the Atlanta Constitution about Ernest Hodges. And he was at Gainesville, Georgia, at that time. And they said, “We’ve found him. We’ve found the man. You’ve just got to go down there and take lessons. He can fiddle like you wouldn’t believe.” So I thought, “Well, I don’t know if they know whether anybody can fiddle or not.” So I procrastinated for a couple of months, and they kept on, “You’ve got to go with us.” So finally I went down there, and to make a long story short, he was an excellent fiddle player and he’d studied classical violin with a master violinist from Atlanta for nine years and had taught in Leffingwell’s Violin School. So I always tell everybody, “Well, it was 90 miles down there and 90 miles back. I just married the fiddler and brought him home!” [We both laugh.] So I owe him everything as far as technique and bowing and stuff like that. Was he teaching at the junior college in Gainesville?

Some there and he played in that little Brenau College orchestra. And ill health hit him. He was aiming for the concert stage as a violinist. And he went through all kinds of problems before I ever knew him, so he finally had to settle for teaching and he made violins and repaired instruments and taught. He taught at one of the studios in Gainesville.

Did he teach violin or did he teach fiddle or both?

Both and he taught classical guitar and just regular guitar, too. He always told everybody, “I’ll teach you the fundamentals and the correct technique. You can play whatever kind of music you want to.” That’s the reason I tell a lot of people that if they’re

from somewhere like Toccoa [Ga.] and they’ll ask me if I’ll teach them violin, and that’s a long ways for anybody to come, so I ask them if there’s a classical violin teacher there. Then I say, “Go to them, learn the really good bowing and how to play in tune, where the notes are, and then once you get that I’ll be glad to help you if you want to play bluegrass or old-time fiddle.”

That’s the thing I noticed when I first saw you play—what a great wrist you have! Really? [Laughs.] That was hard to come by. I was kinda stiff-armed. Anyway, after I married Ernest, I got set back again, other than what he taught me at home. When we’d go out, we played concerts together—he played classical banjo, too—he never used picks and he took a measure from a Bach piece and composed the rest of it. You can’t tell where Bach left off and Ernie Hodges took up. And I learned to play his accompaniment for that Bach piece.

So you played guitar with him?

Yeah. That’s where I got my set back. [Laughs.] You know, I’d practice at home on fiddle, but then when we’d go out and do a concert, I had to play his accompaniment. Well, I should because he was much better than I was, you know.

But it was discouraging. And so really, I took early retirement [in 1984] and we had great plans of doing concerts, and he died three months after I retired. So that’s when I decided I was going to come to Franklin and build a house—partly to be pretty close to my mother and partly to get out of the educational environment.

So you’ve done nothing but play the fiddle since then.

That’s it. And I can tell the difference. It’s been a gradual thing but all the time I get better. I don’t know how long I can continue getting better because age after while I guess’ll become a factor. But playing with good musicians is worth a lot, and there are so many good ones around Hiawassee that have become good friends like Don Fox. And I don’t know if you know Clinton Carter. He lives in Cumming, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta. He’s like Don—he knows every chord there is on the neck of a guitar. And people like that just make you better. I can tell. And then I order a lot of instruction tapes, like Johnny Gimble’s and Richard Greene’s and pick up what I can from them. Plus, I remember so much of what Ernest told me, but I hadn’t had a chance to really put it into practice, and now I do.

Are you mostly playing bluegrass now or old-time?

Mostly bluegrass.

So when you were in college, you just picked up the fiddle and started working with it? Yeah. I already knew where all the notes were. Well, I was eight when I heard Benny Martin play that Martin's Waltz and I told dad it went to F-sharp when it left D. You must have a really good ear and a good memory for that kind of stuff. Yeah, I’ve always had a good ear. Ernest said my memory was too good. We’d be working on music, some kind of slow classical piece, and I’d learned to play some of those violin tunes you know, and when we’d play through one, then I knew every note in it.

After just playing through it one time?

Yeah, you know something that was not real long, but still it’d be a page or two in one of those books. Then when we’d go through it the second time, I couldn’t help it. I knew where the notes were, so I didn’t pay any attention to the finer points, you know, when it says get soft or where it says up-bow for three notes and down-bow for two. And he said, “Your ear’s too good in a lot of ways. You don’t have to pay attention to the music and then you don’t. You don’t discipline yourself enough.”

A guy came over here from Knoxville, Tennessee, about five years ago, and he loved classical music. So I got some of Ernest’s Bach pieces and Beethoven and brought them out, and I guess he stayed four hours. He’d sit here and he’d play on some of them and he’d get so far and he’d bog down, and I’d hum the next three notes. [We both laugh.] And he’d say, “Darlene, you say you can’t play this stuff.” And I said, “I can’t, but I know every note in ’em because I’ve listened to Ernest.” The den in our house in Waynesville was right under the living room, and he’d always go down there and play maybe a couple of hours at night, and I guess it just went in my head some way. But I can’t play it.

Is it that you don’t have the technique to play it?

No, I really don’t. You’d have to study years and years. But I learned enough to really help my fiddling. Nowadays if you can’t get up in third position—mandolin players do it all the time, but fiddlers don’t, except Stuart Duncan and Aubrey Haney and Randy

Howard and Buddy Spicher and Richard Greene—there’s no way to really play things well if you don’t do some of that.

I was thinking that so many times it's just that women don’t have time for music when guys do. That makes it hard.

And I don’t know what it is but people, especially older guys, don’t seem to want to see a woman play a fiddle. Now I don’t know why. You have to win ’em over.

So you even find that now? Even as good a player as you are?

Yeah, and I don’t find it as much with young boys. You know, you can go to a festival, and if you’re carrying a fiddle and if a young guy is standing there he’ll say, “You got a fiddle in that case?” “Yeah.” “Well, get it out.” You know, they don’t care. But the older guys—and if they play a fiddle look out. You know their little egos. It’s bad. I believe a less accomplished musician sometimes lets his ego get in the way of sharing music. But I’m not gonna play down just to make them look good. If I’m gonna play, I’m gonna play the best I can and let the chips fall where they may. Because a lot of people can show me up, too, so you just take it. [Laughs.] And try to improve.

Do you find that guys who are not as good as you, after they find out you’re better than they are, they just don’t want to play with you?

Yeah, yeah. But that’s mostly the older guys. And the better the male picker, the less resentment I feel toward me.

Do you think it’s just coming from the era they were born in, when they thought guys were supposed to be better at everything and that women weren’t supposed to be able to do anything?

I think that’s probably it, but now I have never figured out, a woman can walk up and play a standup bass and the old guys, they want her. She can play a guitar and she’s accepted. She can sing and she’s accepted. It gets a little harder, I think, when it’s a banjo. But the fiddle remains the one thing that seems to throw ’em all. I don’t know why that is.

I will say one thing, though, for men. I think when they decide to play an instrument, they’re more dedicated to it. I think women are more easily derailed by boyfriends or social kinds of things when they get in high school and maybe college, and they don’t seem to be willing to put into it what it really takes to be good. It can’t be handed to

anybody. You just have to dig it out. You know, Ernest told me one time that I had probably more talent than anybody he’d ever taught. But right on the heels of that, he says, “But talent is not worth a nickel if you don’t do something with it.” And that’s true. It just will not be dumped in anybody’s lap. You dig it out. But I love it because of that. It’s a better sense of accomplishment when you do. When something kind of falls in place and you do something that pleases yourself as you play, then you think, “Gosh, I’m glad I worked on that for two hours each day this week or this month or this year or whatever it takes to get it.”

How did Ernest come to be a classical player and a fiddler? That’s a little bit unusual. Which did he do first?

Old-time music. They lived in Kentucky and his dad taught that shape note, old-time singing, and he would travel from one community to another and Ernest would go with him. He said he could read music before he went to first grade. And he heard somebody playing the banjo so he had to have a banjo. And his dad played a fiddle, but I think after he got into gospel music he gave up playing the fiddle. But the fiddle was there, so Ernest started picking it up. By the time he was 12 or 13, he was a good fiddle player. But he said there was just something about classical music, too. All this time though, he was playing for dances. He could play reels and hornpipes and jigs. He loved all that stuff. And then he and his brothers formed a band [the Hodges Brothers] and played down at WCKY in Cincinnati.

So when did he start his classical training?

So then he moved to Atlanta and worked for a fellow who originally was from Bryson City [N.C.], and he owned a music store and was a violin maker. So Ernest started working there and helping repair violins and working in the music store, and then eventually he became a partner in that store and he started making violins on his own. I made that violin I play. That’s the first thing I told him when we got married. I said, “I want to make my own violin.” Because I loved woodworking. I used to save all my electives in college, which weren’t that many but still, the ones I had, I would go take woodworking courses. Just loved it. That just fascinated me with his violin-making stuff, and so I told him, “While I’m at work, do NOT touch that. Do not touch it! If there needs to be more wood taken out of the top, if it needs to be brought down to a little bit thinner, I won’t learn a thing if you do it for me.” And he would say, “Now, tomorrow you need to take out a little bit more wood here.” I’d say, “Why?” Then he’d tell me why and that’s how I learned. And he later said, “On your own, with just trial and error, you’d have had to work ten years to make a fiddle as good as mine.” But it was all instruction, not doing.

And sometimes I would ask him, “What options do I have? Does it have to be that way?” And I deliberately made my fiddle more of an Amati style on the back. Which is a little bit more curved. The Strad model goes up more gradually. He generally used more of the Strad model.

Did you like the sound of the Amati's better?

No, I wanted to be different! [We both laugh.] And I asked him about it, what options could I do, and what effect would it have on the sound. So we discussed things like that. Then the f-holes, when you cut them, you’ve got a little bit of variation of how you can slant those f-holes. So I got up at three o’clock in the morning one time and built a fire down in the basement and took the old dog in there with me, and I asked that old dog, “What do you think?” [We both scream laughing.] And I’d erase them and I’d move them, maybe make the slant a little better or more so. I sat there the whole night and did that. Finally I decided how I wanted them. I had a real sharp knife and I started cutting them out then. About 6:30 I went upstairs and took a quick shower and got in my clothes and went to work. And told him, “Don’t touch it!” I always tell everybody the reason the fiddle is so red is because it had blood mixed in with the varnish, and that’s not far from the truth.

How long did it take you to make it?

It took me two years.

Is that the only fiddle you ever made?

No, I made another one for a little girl in California. She’s quite a violinist. She’s a lawyer now, too. Her mother and I were really good friends before either one of us got married. We taught over here at the high school, and every time we got spring holidays or something we’d take off to Florida together. One summer we bummed all over the West—we’d just go wherever we wanted to go. We stayed the whole summer, and we went to the World’s Fair out there.

Where did you learn how to read music?

When I met Ernest.

So all the work you had done on the violin before was all by ear?

Yeah. You know, having a good ear, I always thought I was playing in tune, and I was basically, but it’s those finer things. And Ernest could be in the basement down in the den doing something and here he’d hit the steps and he’d say, “Now, you’re coming along fine on that piece but watch that C, you’re playing it a little bit sharp.” He’d pick it out. And once it’s pointed out to you, then you become aware of it. And eventually it becomes second nature to make sure you don’t flat or sharp certain notes. Was it hard to go from playing by ear to actually reading music?

Yeah, it was. And it’s also hard to break bad habits. I told you I had a stiff arm in bowing. That was a bad habit to break. It was hard to break.

Was it almost like relearning to play?

Yeah. In fact it’s worse than the difficulty of starting out. You have no bad habits to break so you learn it right. But if you’ve been playing around for several years with a stiff arm, I mean that’s agony. I cried. I literally cried for three or fours years. I couldn’t play like I had been playing, and I couldn’t play like he wanted me to play. And, oh, it’s frustrating! Oh, mercy! And he kept saying, “Stick with it, stick with it. Now I know it’s hard, but it’ll come to you. And then once it does, you’ll be so glad.” And was he ever right. You know, I got my master’s degree in ’61, and I spent one summer partly in school at Vanderbilt University and partly at George Peabody—their campuses sit side by side and they share libraries and dorms—so I was enrolled in both places. But every Sunday they would have, out in Centennial Park, sometimes it would be a country band, sometimes a bluegrass band, and sometimes a string quartet. And I remember Buddy Spicher was one of the up-and-coming fiddlers then, and at that time they didn’t want anybody to know that they were taking violin lessons. I knew Buddy was going over to Vanderbilt and taking violin, but he didn’t want anybody to know that. Now they wear it like a badge of honor. And well they should. It’s nothing to be ashamed of to play well. And if being able to shift and do different things and play in tune and do good bowing, if it takes a violinist to teach you that, then so be it.

But you know the disheartening thing about it all, I’d say 95 percent of the people don’t really know whether you can play or not. I’ve seen people come right over here on Picking on the Square which they have all summer every Saturday night [in Franklin] but some of the most popular bands up there are actually people who can’t play a lick. Cannot play a lick. Jump time. [One person] who comes up there just beats the fire out of that fiddle. And it’s a show, it really is a show, but it’s not music. But I guarantee you

that people can’t tell the difference. It almost takes another good musician to know whether you can play or not.

I’ve got a friend who says other musicians aren't the ones who are buying the tickets. You’re trying to entertain the general public.

But I don’t really play for the people. If I don’t feel good about it, I’ll come home so mad at me. I know what I know, and I know whether I’ve done well or whether I’ve really flubbed the dub. And if I do, I’m disgusted with myself because I know I can beat that. So it’s back to practice.

I think there’s a difference in a musician’s musician and somebody that’s a show person. Their job is to entertain.

Well, [this person I know] is a good entertainer. She’s got a good stage personality, she smiles a lot, she’s got that going for her, which I don’t have. I just play. [Laughs.] And to me, a fiddle is an emotional instrument. And your emotions show in your playing. Especially on pieces like Ashokan Farewell. I can still see those battlefield scenes in that picture and all the dead people there, and here’s this haunting melody. Then when people get up there and just prostitute the song, I can’t stand it!

So when you first started playing the fiddle did you ever see any other women who were playing?

No.

How did that feel? Did you feel lonely or different or did you care or did you notice? I noticed, but it didn’t bother me. If I want to do something, I don’t care if you don’t want to do that. That’s fine, but I do. That’s kind of the attitude I had. Not that I was trying to be different, it’s just that I was different. I just let whatever I am come out and let the chips fall where they may. I’m not gonna worry about it.

So how much do you play every day?

It depends. Sometimes I’ll sit here all day if I get interested in something. I’ll put it down for a little while, and then I’m just like a magnet, it draws me back. Then there are other days I don’t play much. I sit here and run scales—I make myself do that. Ernest told me that you really ought to take an hour at the beginning and do nothing but run scales. And you don’t want to do it—I don’t want to do it. I want to jump in and start learning

another piece or working on something I’m already working on. Yet I know that that’s the secret to it. He used to say, “Show me how you can play this one note. Just pull your bow all the way, and make that the prettiest note you’ve ever heard. Just that one note. And then show me how you can run a scale in G and make every note just shine, each one, just like the other one. Don’t slide anything. If it’s a note that’s in the music or in your mind, then it deserves its full share.”

Then I’ll take some old breakdown that maybe you never hear in anything except G, and I might put it in B-flat and sit here and try to play it. Just to make you get used to playing it. Make your mind work more about it. Even though you know it won’t play as well in that key. Sometimes I’ll play Leather Britches in F, just to see what it sounds like. And I didn’t used to play in B much, but if you’re going to play bluegrass… ...you have to play in B!

Like with Curtis Blackwell—I’ve been playing quite a bit with him this summer—and, boy, he just sits up there in B. Gosh, he about killed me July 4th. We played for three hours and took one ten-minute break. He plays so fast it’s unbelievable. I about died. I thought, “Golly bless.” My arm just about froze, just playing so fast and so much. That was the toughest fiddling I’ve done in a long time. Curtis pushes me, because he plays so fast, and I think that’s good for me. But I wouldn’t want to do it all the time. Are you seeing more women in the music now? Do you think there’s been any kind of change?

No. In fact I think fiddle playing’s a dying thing, in general. You see all kinds of good young musicians at festivals playing banjos, playing flattop, mandolins. I think all music has progressed—the technique of young players is just amazing. And they’ve had advantages. They’ve had videotapes and instructional tapes and CDs and cassettes and things that we didn’t have, plus being exposed to good teachers at a young age. But with that said, I just don’t see many young fiddle players. I don’t know why. People like it. You can be in great demand if you go to some of these festivals. I went down to Myrtle Beach, to that festival they have on Thanksgiving weekend, about three or four years ago, and they had in that Civic Center the upstairs three rooms devoted to jamming. Well, they liked to fiddled me to death. Because there were no fiddle players. There were two or three old guys that started to play and then, kids play so fast and play things they’re not used to playing if they don’t keep up with it much. So they just put their fiddles in the cases and walked off.

But you hung right in there.

I hung right in there! And they’d say, “Come over here and play with us!” Do you find most of the time you're still the only woman in the jam session? Yeah, just about all the time. Occasionally there’ll be a bass player.

But no lead players.

Uh-uh. There’s one here in Franklin, she was a good banjo player when she was 15 or 16 and she’s married now…

I think it’s hard for women if they marry and have kids.

Well, I do think that’s a big part of it. I hate to think, but it has crossed my mind, that women somehow lack something that pushes them to the extent that men do. It’s easier to go to Cade’s Cove over in Tennessee and take a piece of plywood and put it down and dance to the music that men are making than it is to be up there playing and to have done the homework to get to where you could play with them.

How much of that do you think is due to the fact that women have so many things, like family, pulling them in other directions?

I think women—maybe we’re born that way—but some women have it, anyway, where they’re willing to be all things to all people. They want to be a perfect mother, they want to be a perfect wife, nowadays they work on the job, they want their house to be perfect. And they can’t. You can’t do all that and be perfect at all of it. I would like to think that that’s probably a condition that’s taught—that you put other people’s welfare ahead of your own. And you accept it because that’s what women have done. And that’s what your mother did, and that’s what your grandmother did and everybody else that you knew. Only a few of us rebel against that. If somebody told me I couldn’t do something, well, I’ll do it or die. I’ve always had a competitive streak in me. And I’ve heard women say, “Let him win,” if you’re playing a game of tennis or something. I say, “Beat me.” And if you do, my hat’s off to you. But I will not give it to you. I’m not sure how many women have that.

On that same track, I think it’s hard for women to be selfish enough to carve out the hours that you need to sit down and do something for yourself.

Yeah, yeah. You have to. And everybody deserves to carve out their own niche like that and get to do something that’s for you. And I don’t think it’s selfish to play. I’m doing this for me. I want to play the fiddle today. I don’t think that’s selfish. But I think some women feel like they’re not doing their job if they should be in there washing clothes or entertaining the kids. It takes a strong person to buck the tide.

Did your parents encourage you to be strong like that or was just the way you were born?

I was born that way. That’s part of it. I’ve read that if you were born premature you fight for your life. And I was. I just weighed a little over two pounds. They told Mom she’d never raise that one. Because I was born on Leap Year, February 29, in the middle of the winter down at my grandmaw’s house. And Mom said at night she would hold me in this arm till her arm just shook and then move me over here to that arm. And shift all night. She said she was afraid I’d freeze to death. I guess I looked like a little rat or something. They say that puts kind of a fighting spirit in you.

I can’t remember a time that I wasn’t determined at everything. I wanted to go to school when I was five and Mama wouldn’t let me. She said I was too little. But there was a boy that was in the first or second grade and he’d walk down the road in front of our house. And I knew what time he’d walk there, so I’d go sit on the bank and wait for him to come home from school to make him stop and sit down and tell what he’d learned that day! [Laughs.] I just couldn’t wait to get there. Then when I was in school, if they gave us books the first day, I’d be mad if they didn’t give us an assignment that night. Couldn’t wait to get started and I never got over it. In sports, I was so competitive it was pitiful. We played fast pitch [softball] and I pitched left-handed.

You’re left-handed but you play the fiddle right-handed?

Yeah, ’cause Dad’s fiddle was strung up for right-handed. [Laughs.] And I’m so glad I didn't play it left-handed. Because that’s such a disadvantage. You can’t pick up anybody else’s fiddle and play. Ernest used to laugh at me, though. I’d play right-handed, and I can’t even imagine playing left-handed. But for a long time, when I’d put rosin on the bow, I’d rosin my bow with my left hand. [Laughs.]

But in softball, I remember we were playing some team, and one of the girls told her coach, “I think I could hit that ball if she wouldn’t look at me like that.” I’d watch all the major league players and try to adopt their mannerisms. I loved baseball from the time I was little. My brother and I would put a stick of stovewood down, and he would pitch to me. And we had this one glove, it was old and it didn’t have much padding in it, and

when he’d get through, my hand would be as red as a beet. But I wouldn’t tell him it hurt, and I'd say to myself, “Just wait till your turn comes. I’ll burn you up.” So that’s where I learned to pitch, trying to burn him up. But I guess it’s born in a person. And it’s a disadvantage at times. I mean you just won’t take no for an answer.

Dad knew that my heart was always with the fiddle. He knew, too, that the way to get me to do something is to challenge me. And so when I was about 18 or 19, when I first started college, he said, “I wonder why you don’t see more women playing the fiddle? Is it because they can’t?” And he told me later that he was hoping and praying that I would grab. He thought I would. And I did. I thought, “I’ll show you!” He wasn’t saying it to insult me, he was trying to make me play the fiddle.

But one time I told him I could take a miter box and cut molding. And he said, “Well, show me.” So he got the miter box and a piece of molding. I used it up, and I still didn’t know how to cut it, but I wouldn’t ask him to show me. That’s where your pride gets in your way. I should have finally said, “Dad, I can’t do it. Show me how to do it.” But I wouldn’t do it. And he wouldn’t volunteer if I didn’t ask him.

I can see what you're saying about that much determination getting in your way. Yeah, it does. It gets in your way. If you can’t ask for help, that’s stupid. You’re just saddled with it. And over the years I’ve softened a whole lot. I learned a lot in supervising people, too. You know you get further by holding a carrot out to people. And a guy that was kind of my tutor from the state office said, “If you think you’re a leader, look behind you and see who’s following you.” And nowadays you don’t dictate to people, you lead them to your way of thinking. If you can. So that did a lot to help me, to temper what’s naturally in me.

Did you and Ernest have kids?

Uh-uh.

So you never had to make the decision between kids and...

Well, that’s the reason there were no kids. [Laughs.]

Really? Was that a conscious decision, if that’s not too personal a question? No, it’s not. No, that was a decision. I knew I could not do that job right and also be a good mother. I didn’t think I could because I traveled a lot. About every week I’d be

gone a day or two. Sometimes I’d be gone longer than that. One summer, they sent me to Europe to tour six countries to study the educational systems. You just can’t do that. Well, I guess you can, but I didn’t want to. I felt like I couldn’t do a good job at both, and I didn’t want to cheat either one.

So it didn’t have so much to do with the music as it did with the job.

Because I really wasn’t that tied up with music at that time. I played Ernest’s accompaniment but like I say, I didn’t care for the guitar so I didn’t spend time trying to learn anything on it much.

It sounds like you and Ernest had a really good relationship. [We did.] But that must have been really frustrating to only be able to accompany him and not.... It was. It was. It was very frustrating. And some of my friends would say, “Darlene, nobody in Waynesville even knows you play a fiddle.” They didn’t. That’s another reason I quit and came over here. [Laughs.] To start over. And most people in Waynesville today still don’t know I can play fiddle. Yeah, it was frustrating. It was very frustrating. And you really can’t get inspired to do a lot because you’re living in resentment.

So you didn’t ever think there was a way Ernie could do his thing and you could do yours on the fiddle?

Well, not really. When we’d go out, you know, it’d be the two of us and even though he taught guitar, I didn’t care for his way of accompanying. And he didn’t like bluegrass at all. He liked old-time traditional and waltzes and reels and hornpipes and schottisches and stuff like that. But he would tell me, “Well, bring your fiddle and go down to the festival and play.” And I said, “Well, who am I going to get to do my accompaniment?” “Oh, pick up somebody.” And I said, “Well, why don’t YOU go down there and pick up somebody?” Because he always had his own way of playing each piece. Like Alabama Jubilee. He played it like the band, like it was written in music, where you have the intros that you don’t ever hear anybody do. And if I was not down there, he’d get on stage and play it by himself. Rather than pick up somebody. But he’d tell me to pick up somebody. And that didn’t sit worth a nickel. So that was our biggest hangup as a couple. That was where resentment showed more than any other place with me. But other than that, I owe him everything. I didn’t carry that resentment over to other parts of our life. I didn’t let it eat at me. I just refused to go down there and play unless I knew somebody was there that could play.

And so while you were married, you were keeping up with your fiddling in the house? Yeah, but never getting to play it out.

Well, thank goodness you did keep up with it and didn't just put it down. Yeah, I could have done that, just put it down and said, “The heck with it, I’m never gonna get to play so I’ll just quit. [Laughs.]

I know you’re glad you didn’t do that.

Oh, I’m tickled to death. I am tickled to death. I just can’t imagine life without music. That fiddle, it means everything to me. It’s just everything. That’s the biggest reason I took early retirement, so I could do something I really wanted to do. And people said, “Well, Darlene, you’re just 52 years old, why would you quit now?” And financially, sure, you’re just now hitting your stride. But I said, “I’m not retiring from something, I’m retiring to something. I hear that fiddle calling.”

WIB

Michelle Porter–Mandolin Picking Girl

By Murphy Henry

I met ten-year-old Michelle Porter this past June at Steve Kaufman’s Banjo and Mandolin Camp in Maryville, Tenn. Michelle was not a student at the camp, but a friend had brought her and her parents down from Knoxville so that Steve could hear her play. Steve was so impressed that he asked me if Michelle could join us on stage that night. Of course I said yes.

Before the show, we ran through a few tunes backstage. We decided to play Blackberry Blossom and Bill Cheatum with Michelle kicking them off. Steve, Butch Baldassari, and I went on stage first and played a few songs and then brought Michelle out. She stood there at the mike, cool as a cucumber in front of the large audience, and kicked the tunes off at a breakneck speed. Since Butch hadn’t rehearsed with us, Michelle didn’t know if he was going to take any mandolin breaks or not. So she had to look over at him during the tune to ask him non-verbally—with eyebrows and facial expressions—if he wanted a break. She did this with much aplomb and without missing a note. When Butch tried to shake off a break, Michelle just kept looking at him till he played. Then she would calmly follow him with her own break. Such poise!

Even though we are seeing more young women in bluegrass, I am still astounded—and delighted—to have met a ten-year-old girl who plays mandolin so well, so fast, and with such confidence. Butch himself praised Michelle for her “natural technique” and said that “playing seemed pretty effortless to her.” Through the years, when I have seen instrumentally-talented young boys being touted for their prowess, I have often wondered where the equivalent young women were. Here is one—Michelle Porter. Michelle, the only child of Liz and Gene Porter, was born March 29, 1990, in Racine, Wis. She moved with her family to Knoxville, Tenn., when she was three, and started playing mandolin the summer she was eight. This year she is in the fifth grade at Hardin Valley Elementary School. Her mother Liz, 39, is a geologist who works with an environmental consulting firm; her father Gene, 43, is a power systems engineer who has his own company. He is also in the process of building Michelle a mandolin. Right now she is playing a Kentucky A-model.

Why did you start playing mandolin?

Because during the summer my dad wanted to learn banjo, and he borrowed a mandolin for me so I would have something to do while he practiced. I thought it would be neat to play an instrument, but the mandolin was my dad’s idea.

Why did your dad choose the mandolin?

He knew that a lot of other kids played the fiddle, and he didn’t know many kids who played the mandolin, so he thought the mandolin was kind of an original instrument, I guess. And I thought the mandolin was more fun to play.

Did he ask you which one you would prefer?

Yeah, and actually I think part of it was also because the person he was taking lessons from was the person who I was going to take lessons from and that person I don’t think knew how to play the fiddle. So the mandolin worked out better.

So when you were first taking lessons, who were you taking from?

Ed Wing, who teaches at Pick ’n’ Grin in Knoxville.

How was Ed teaching you?

Pretty much reading tablature. He’d give me notes to a song and usually a tape to listen to how it sounded and then see if I could work it out between lessons. Then I’d come back and he’d fix up parts of it that I didn’t quite have.

I’ll bet you picked that stuff up pretty fast, didn’t you?

Yeah.

How much do you practice every day?

Anywhere from thirty minutes to five hours. Every now and then I skip a day or two. Do your parents have to push you to practice?

When I started, practicing wasn’t one of my favorite things to do, but now I enjoy it. I especially like to practice with my Dad.

How does your dad help you?

The main thing that helped me was his guitar backup. When I started to play a lot, my dad switched from banjo to guitar to learn backup for me. He would help me to keep my timing. But he would also sit down and help me work out certain parts of songs. Were you listening to much bluegrass when you started playing mandolin?

Actually, before I started playing, my dad listened to a lot of bluegrass, and I didn’t like it. But now it’s my favorite type of music.

Do you make up your own breaks to songs?

Yeah, I do some by ear, like When The Angels Carry Me Home and In The Pines. Most of them I learn from books, but if we don’t have a book that I can listen to and learn off of, then I’ll just do it by ear.

So how did you know how to do that? Was that easy for you?

At first, it wasn’t, but when I had done it a lot, then it got pretty easy because most of the tunes you can take licks from different tunes and make it so it sounds like another tune. So at a jam session, if somebody plays a tune that's not too difficult, if you don’t know it, can you just make up something on the spot?

Yeah, if it’s got the basic chords in it, then usually I can.

You told me you go to jam sessions every week. How many do you go to?

I usually go to Bradbury and Rocky Branch on Tuesdays and Fridays, or I practice with a bluegrass gospel group on Fridays. I also go to lots of festivals and jams whenever I can.

When did you start going to these jam sessions?

Well, we went to one when I had just started playing—I’d been playing for about three months. We thought it was gonna be kinda laid back, and we walked in the room with all the fast picking in it and we just went back into the car and put our instruments back and came back and listened. [Laughs.] Then when I’d been playing for about six months, we started actually going and playing there.

When you started going to this jam session, were these people that you knew or were these all new faces to you?

There were pretty much all new faces.

Did you feel like you were accepted by them? Was it hard to break in?

Actually, they were all really nice. They let me in and Paul Reagan was one of the main people that let me join in and stuff. But there were a lot of other people that made me feel like I was invited to be playing there.

What are these jam sessions like?

Usually there’s a bunch of different rooms, and depending on what kind of music you like, is what room you go into. Like there’s usually a room that has most of the older type music in it and then one that has some faster picking and the fiddle tunes and stuff. So my guess is that you go in the room that has the fastest picking?

Yeah.

Are the jam sessions you go to mostly guys with just a few women there, or is it more evenly divided?

No, it’s mostly guys, with a few women there.

But that doesn’t bother you?

No.

Do you play any real gigs with a band?

Yes, I play a lot. I play with a band called Chosen [a bluegrass gospel group], a group called Daybreak in Dixie [a traditional bluegrass group], and any other band that invites me to join in for a song or two.

So all the other players in both groups are men, and a lot older than you, too. How do you feel about being the only young person in the group?

It’s kinda fun. It’s neat to play with kids my age, but I like playing with almost anybody. What kind of songs do you play with Daybreak in Dixie?

Cripple Creek, Bill Cheatum, Blackberry Blossom and then George [the guitar player] likes to do some of the older music like In The Pines and Little Cabin Home On The Hill. What kind of music does Chosen play?

They do more faster gospel music instead of the slower kind. Like When the Angels Carry Me Home. When we play at churches, we do play bluegrass gospel, but last night we played bluegrass gospel mixed in with just a little bit of plain bluegrass. Do you know any other young players?

I know a banjo player, a fiddle player, a Dobro player, and a few mandolin players who are all 13 or younger.

Are any of these girls?

Two are girls—they’re both fiddle players. Sandra Holloway is 10 or 11, and Emily is 11. They used to come out to the jam sessions, but I haven’t seen Emily lately, and I haven’t seen Sandra a whole lot lately either.

When they would come out to the jams did y 'all kinda pal around together? Yeah.

Would you kind of stand close to each other and jam?

Yeah

So that was kind of fun having other young people there?

Yeah.

Do you know many other female bluegrass players?

My Aunt Peggy plays guitar, and she has a couple of female friends I’ve met. I also know Sandy Monday and Joyce Creek from the Creek Mountain Band, one of my favorite groups.

Tell me about your Aunt Peggy. What's her last name?

Milliron Zornick.

Is that your mom's sister?

Yeah.

Do you get together and play sometimes?

Well, it’s kind of hard to because she lives in Buffalo, New York. We enjoy playing together, but we don’t get to real often. She’s been playing for a while now, I think, and she likes to sing a lot. She sings stuff like Orphan Girl and Freight Train. And she’s starting to pick up a couple of leads on her guitar. She’s doing really good on that. Do you think your mandolin playing is inspiring her to play some lead on the guitar? We really like to pick together, and when we do get a chance to do that, she usually has another lead learned that’s one of my songs which I like to play with her a lot when she does.

Your mom “readily admits she has no musical talent whatsoever" yet her sister has musical talent. What’s going on there?

I don’t know. Well, one time she tried to pick up the guitar. And she was messing around on the guitar for a while. And she’d been working on Blackberry Blossom, I think it was,

on guitar for a real long time. Well, she went out of town for two days, and came back and I had Blackberry Blossom down on the guitar. And so that kind of just did it. So you not only play leads on the mandolin, you play leads on the guitar as well? Yeah, I just got a guitar about a month ago. I got a baby Taylor. And I like to mess around with it.

Can you play guitar leads to most of the tunes you play on the mandolin? Some of the things, yeah. I’m trying to learn some of the stuff out of Steve Kaufman’s flatpicking guitar books. It’s got Cattle in the Cane and Black Mountain Rag, and I’m trying to learn some of those.

Where in the world do you find time to practice mandolin and guitar—and what else did you say you were learning now too? Fiddle?

That’s the main thing I do, ’cause I don’t really do any other sports or dance or anything. So pretty much after school, I get done homework and then we practice and mess around and stuff.

Do you have a fiddle teacher or are you trying to do that on your own?

I’m trying to learn fiddle on my own because the notes are actually the same as they are on the mandolin. So, it’s just a different style of how you play it.

How’s the bowing going?

Pretty good. I still get a couple of squeaks and squawks [laughs] but I’m starting to get the hang of it.

How long have you been messing around with the fiddle?

I’ve had a fiddle for about a year, but I really got interested in it about four or five months ago. I had a beginner’s fiddle, like a student fiddle, that I was trying to mess around with, but it’s a three-quarter size, and I’d never played one of the full-sized ones. And I realized that a full-sized fiddle is actually a lot easier to play, because the strings are spaced farther apart. Somebody just let us borrow [a full-sized fiddle]. Do you sing?

I do, but I definitely don’t enjoy it as much as I enjoy playing.

So what about Sandy Monday and Joyce Creek? Do they live around you?

Yeah, they live, I think, in Townsend. And Sandy plays bass and Joyce plays guitar and I like to play with them a lot. They play in the Creek Mountain Band.

Do Joyce and Sandy do a lot of singing in the band?

Joyce does, like, harmony singing. She doesn’t usually sing lead. And Sandy doesn’t usually sing, she plays bass.

When we played together at Steve Kaufman’s camp, you seemed very at ease on the stage. It didn't seem to scare you very much. Have you always been that way? Yeah, I never really minded getting up there. The very first time, a little bit. When was the very first time you got on stage to play?

It was at the fire station next to Simms Market where a bunch of people just get together and kind of go up on stage and play and sing. The first time I went there, luckily my dad was with me. Otherwise I don’t think I’d have gotten up on stage. But after going there about two times, I didn’t mind getting up on stage anymore.

So one of the groups just invited you to come up on stage and play with them? Yeah.

How did they know that you played? Were they some of your jam session friends? It was Paul Reagan.

So he invited you up. Did you play well or did you mess up a lot?

Actually, I did pretty well the first time I got up there.

Who are your favorite mandolin players?

I like Sam Bush and Butch Baldassari a lot.

Do you know any other female mandolin players?

I saw Rhonda Vincent play once when I first started.

What are some of your goals in bluegrass?

To be a great mandolin player and keep having fun at it.

Would you like to lead your own band someday?

I don’t really care as long as I can still jam.

Michelle will be attending the IBMA World of Bluegrass in Louisville, Ky., where she will be a part of the Young Emerging Talent Workshop at FanFest on Saturday, October 21, at the Masters Workshop Stage. Other young talent will include Billie Renee and the Cumberland Gap Boys, Katie Penn & Friends, Ryan and Mark Holladay, Benji Flaming, and possibly Jed Bulla. Stop by the Workshop Stage and tell Michelle you read about her in Women in Bluegrass! WIB

Email Exchange

Toni Murphy:

Got a question for you. I remember reading an in-depth article about Kathy Kallick and Laurie Lewis in an earlier issue this year. Is there any way you could resend me that issue? Someone here mentioned they wanted to do an article on women in bluegrass in the Bay Area. Also, let me know if my subscription has expired. I definitely want to renew and keep receiving the newsletter. (I can’t remember things like I used to with a 13-month-old to take care of.)

Murphy Henry:

I’ll send another copy. Didn’t know you had a baby! Congrats! Believe me, I know how that changes your life!

Toni Murphy:

Thanks for resending the article. You’re right about a baby changing your life! I can see some advantages to having your children earlier as opposed to later. Keeping a band going with a toddler is a new dimension in organization and prioritizing. I thank the Lord our daughter can sleep through Daddy’s loud (no offense) banjo playing and most full-band practices to boot! I finally understand what some women have discussed in your newsletter in previous years about trying to find time to play and record with kids. I GET IT NOW!!!!! WIB