Read no. 7

Greetings!

I’ve been dying to share this story with you. We returned to Florida with our family band to play a festival in February. We moved away almost 10 years ago so, naturally, it had been 10 years since many of the people had seen us. In those ensuing 10 years I have crossed the line from thirty-something to forty-something and, guess what? I don’t look the same. And it’s not only the incipient gray hairs. Things have shifted. Of course, a lot of folks told me I hadn’t changed a bit. Do I remember those comments? No, I do not. What I remember is someone coming up after our first set and saying “Murphy, you’ve put on weight!” Then, I suppose, trying to soften the blow, he added, “But you sure do have little feet.” Well, that pretty much ruined my weekend. Just knowing that I’d be telling you about it helped me grin and bear it, which I consider a big feat. Don’t even think about playing the bluegrass if you don’t have the tough skin!

Kallick Comes Back

(This report on Kathy is from the pc of Claire Levine, who also did the article on wibbers and childcare inside.)

A founding member of the Good Ol’ Persons over 20 years ago, Kathy Kallick is a standard-bearer for women in bluegrass. A tremendous songwriter and wonderful vocalist, Kathy has helped convince audiences and budding musicians that the female voice really is appropriate for bluegrass.

Kathy’s first solo recording. Matters of the Heart, was an intimate look into this songwriter’s heart and history. Beyond the broadest definitions of bluegrass, the contents ranged from ballads to old time rock ’n’ roll and honky-tonk.

This spring, Kathy returned to the recording studio—and to her bluegrass roots. In March, she spent six days in the studio with Little Big Band and Good Ol’ Persons bandmates Todd Phillips, John Reischman, Sally Van Meter, and (original GOP-er) Laurie Lewis. Most of the songs on the new release, Thoughts of Love and Home, are original bluegrass tunes, with covers of four traditional tunes. Kathy added a verse to the wonderful—but short—Red Allen classic, “Send Me Your Address from Heaven.”

Later this spring, Kathy will fly to Nashville, where she will be joined in the studio by Lynn Morris and Suzanne Thomas (of Dry Branch Fire Squad). The combination of these three extraordinary voices promises to make Thoughts of Love and Home an outstanding project for fans of great vocal harmonies. Kathy, who said she found in Sugarhill “the most supportive label,” expects her new project to be released during the summer of 1996.

New Coon Creek Girls Inside

I spent a wonderful two hours with the New Coon Creek Girls in March, doing an interview before their WAMU concert in Fairfax, Va. These are some fine, funny ladies. Vicki Simmons has been leading the NCCG since 1979, which makes them, to my knowledge, the only all-female bluegrass band to have been in existence this long. Their longevity is due to Vicki’s competent leadership plus the fact that she just won’t quit! I asked her if we could get a rundown of all the women who have played with the band. In roughly chronological order they are:

Jan Cummins, banjo

Kelly Cummins, guitar

Betty Lin, fiddle

Kathy Lavender, guitar

Wanda Barnett, fiddle and guitar

Pam Gadd, banjo

Pam Perry, mandolin

Annie (Kaser) Carpenter, banjo

Deanie Richardson, fiddle

Carmella Ramsey, fiddle

Phyliss Jones, guitar

Jennifer Wrinkle, fiddle

Michelle Birkby, fiddle

Kim Bibb, fiddle (fill-in)

The band today includes, in addition to Vicki on electric bass and occasional clawhammer banjo, Ramona Church Taylor on kick-butt banjo, Dale Ann Bradley on rhythm and driving lead guitar, and newest member Kathy Kuhn on fiddle. These ladies stole the show the night I saw them.

The only sour note in the proceedings came when one of the guys in the group that followed them said, “If they had been wearing mini-skirts, I would have been in the orchestra pit.” Puh-leeze! I thought we were past that! Another interesting note

concerned the jam with all three bands at the end of the concert. The NCCG couldn’t help with the singing, because the songs were all pitched in G, where men sing. Even the tenor was too low. Finally, with “I’ll Fly Away” floundering badly, Dale Ann stepped up to the mike, and “went around the comer,” as I call it, and singing in her high voice, belted out a lead worthy of Aretha Franklin. The crowd erupted with approval. (Just hearing Dale Ann again on tape made the hair on my arms stand up!) Then when two of the powerful male singers stepped up to the mikes to catch the harmony below Dale Ann, I understood once again why I listen to the bluegrass. That one number was worth the price of the ticket. More about these ladies inside.

—Murphy Henry (Little Feet)

Motherhood and Music

Children, go where I send thee

By Claire Levine

Women across the nation routinely juggle domestic needs with jobs and careers. Many—probably most—working moms feel torn between spending more time with their children and putting in more work hours. But the unique demands of a musical career add considerably to this tension. When both parents are traveling musicians, or in the case of single parents, the problems are even more complex. Rose Maddox was a very young divorced mother and full-time musician in the 1950s when she faced the tough balancing act of motherhood and career. Her solution was to send her son to schools with residential facilities, first to a military school and then to an Arizona ranch school. Today, full-time residential care is not an option for most mothers. So musician moms have learned to be more creative and more efficient about their child caring plans.

A Mother’s Memoranda

Claire Lynch found time to talk three days before her trip to the Grammy ceremony. Claire, who returned to performing when 14-year-old Regan was six months old, has developed an elaborate structure to assure child care for her two children. She has assumed responsibility for arranging child care, while husband Larry takes on other managerial projects related to travel and performances. The Lynches rely on a network of young women in the community, and Larry’s parents care for the children one weekend a month. Three or four days before they leave for a tour, Claire starts a detailed memo instructing the sitters about schedules, homework, baseball practices,

and more. “I shop ahead of time and I write out menus—simple things that young ones will be able to cook.” To keep things going requires high levels of organization and determination. Most of the time, things work out well, with the occasional small mishap. (Like the time Regan convinced the sitter to let the pet bird stay out of his cage during the night—and the poor creature had an unhappy meeting with the ceiling fan.) And Claire said her children have had to make small sacrifices. “We let them participate in only one activity at a time to keep things simple. My little girl, Christie, wanted to play ball, but she was already enrolled in dance class...” The best solution, Claire thinks, would be full-time, permanent help. But an extra $20,000 a year is not in the budget of most bluegrass musicians.

The Tiniest Traveler

Kathy Kallick was touring with the Good Ol’ Persons when her daughter Jenny, now nine, was very young. At the time, Kathy was married to Butch Waller, a popular California bluegrass musician whose performance schedule often conflicted with Kathy’s. So Kathy pioneered her way through a variety of child caring arrangements. From the time Jenny was three months old, she traveled with the Good Ol’ Persons on short trips, and at nine months she spent ten days on the road with the band. By the time she was three and a half years old, she had been to Europe several times and was an accomplished traveler. During these tours, Kathy would arrange for a friend or a fan to accompany the band and take care of Jenny. “But it usually wore them out and they found it wasn’t as glamorous as they thought it would be.” On some tours, the promoters arranged child care during the shows and sound checks. And fellow band members pitched in at other times, “so I could take a shower.” At one point, Jenny put her foot down about traveling. “She hated the smell of airplanes and she missed her dog,” Kathy said. From then on, Jenny stayed home, usually with her dad. Kathy said she sometimes arranged to fly home to see Jenny if the band had time off between weekend appearances. “Sometimes I’d spend all the money I made on the tour on airplane tickets.”

Today, Kathy is married to Peter Thompson, a journalist and radio programmer. They have an 18-month-old daughter, Madeline. Since Peter’s long-time ambition has been to spend more time at bluegrass festivals, he, Madeline, and Jenny accompany Kathy to her performances. “A second child would have ended my career if I hadn’t had such a supportive partner,” Kathy said.

Conscious Choices?

Murphy Henry reflected on the emotional and physical challenges of balancing music and mothering when her two children were younger. “We almost never took our kids to festivals or gigs. It was just too damn hard! It was hard to leave them, too. But I was a musician, and I was going to play. I never considered not playing.” But Murphy was the one in the family who organized the difficult task of finding weekend and evening child care.

Kathy Kallick took time off after the birth of her second child, and she has found the re-entry difficult. “In a really short period of time, people forget you ever existed. That’s a common problem for women who take time out to have kids.” Kathy noted that many male bluegrass musicians have children, too, but they find it easier to reconcile the conflict between careers and families. “It’s a different set of assumptions between the genders. A man has to be gone for his work, and a woman has to be around her family.” The issues surrounding music and motherhood beg for further study. Many of today's top women musicians have no children. Have these women made this deliberate choice because they recognize the conflicts between music and motherhood? And what are some of the solutions for touring musicians with children? Is this only a women’s issue? As younger women become a stronger presence in bluegrass, the conflicts between motherhood and music will become more apparent. Now is the time to discuss these issues so that the next generations of women will be less affected by the heart-wrenching choices between work and home.

Spotlight on… The New Coon Creek Girls

Eat up with playing

Murphy: Why don’t we touch on what we said about women moving through the band, moving to Nashville to take jobs with country bands.

Vicki: Well, okay. Mainly the fiddle players.

M: So how does that make you feel?

Vicki: I hadn’t thought a whole lot about it.

Ramona: It makes her mad! [Everybody laughs loudly.]

Vicki (protesting): No, not all the time.

Ramona: Oh, yes, it does.

Vicki: It’s aggravating in a way. I mean I’m happy for them to go and get the jobs, but I guess the initial reaction is, “Oh, God, here we go again.”

M: Do you feel like you’ve trained them and then they leave? [Vicki: Yeah.] Ramona: I know I was trained. I was a three-chord basic picker till I came with this band.

M: Well, that’s probably how Monroe felt a lot of the time. Don’t you think it [ticked] him off?

Vicki: The longer it goes on the less it bothers me because there’s always somebody else that wants to play and there’s somebody else that’s good. You kinda get adapted to it.

M: I think it is important to say that it’s aggravating.

Vicki: Well, it’s aggravating that these major county artists come right smack-dab to this band and yank somebody. We’re talking Patty Lovelace [Carmella and Deanie], we’re talking Holly Dunn [Deanie], we’re talking Pam Tillis, we’re talking Bill Anderson, Reba McEntire [Jennifer].

M: I know it is aggravating but there’s got to be a little part of it that makes you feel good.

Vicki (immediately): Oh, yeah. That we’ve got that kind of talent. It’s part of it. And I’m glad for them. I mean, I can’t blame them. They’re going out there and making 40 or 50 thousand dollars a year.

M: Do you feel like the talent pool of women players is bigger now, and it’s easier to find women players, or did you find that a problem back in the early ’80s?

Vicki: Oh, it was a problem. It still is a problem. We still have yet to find somebody else to play mandolin. That’s the hardest thing to find. It’s probably increased some, the pool,

but not a lot. It’s still hard to find good [players]. I mean you can find rather mediocre [players] but to find people who are really outstanding on their instrument, that’s hard. M: Sidesaddle out in California replaced two of their women with guys. Have you ever thought about doing that? Or do you just reject that out of hand?

Vicki: No, we’ve thought about that many times.

Ramona: We’ve come bad close to doing it.

Vicki: Come bad close. Because right now the standard of the music, we’ve set it so high that it’s up there. If a girl can’t cut it, we’ll get somebody who can. Fortunately, that hasn’t happened. There’s always been girl players out there that can cut it. But I wouldn’t want to let the music suffer just to have 4 girls up there. Now, Lance [Leroy, their agent] disagrees with me. But he might someday have to live with it. M: You’ve been at this since 1979. And you’re the longest-running all-female band that’s stayed together. Was it your band to begin with? You kinda went up to Renfro Valley and joined these other girls who had a nameless band.

How did you wrest control of the band from the rest of them? Did you beat them up? Vicki (talking over much laughter): No, it kinda evolved. Nobody wanted to do this and nobody wanted to do that and I wanted to play so bad I’d do whatever it took to get them to play. That’s how it started out. Everybody else was wanting to wimp out and I said, “Well, I’ll do that. Let’s go. Well, I’ll figure that out and we’ll go do this.” ’Cause I was eat up with it. I mean, it was bad. I hadn’t been playing that long and so that’s how that evolved. But once I played down there at Renfro, that was my first job. I was 25 before I had my first job playing music.

M: But before that you played with a family band?

Vicki: [When I was 12] I took my money that I got for Christmas and got this $35 Stella guitar and watched and learned how to play it on RET, the educational [TV station]. Then Uncle Jay, he learned late in life to play the banjo, and every time he’d come around I’d take the guitar down there [and say], “Now let’s play one.” It wouldn’t matter what he was doing, we’d go play. I just loved the sound of that banjo.

M: Did y’all ever do any stage shows?

Vicki: Nope, just for fun. But we’d do it all the time. We’d have big family get-togethers but I never got money for it.

M: So when you went up to Renfro, that was the first time you had played on stage? Vicki: Yep.

M: How did you learn to play—you played the bass when you went up there, didn’t you? Vicki: Yeah, that’s another story. [Loud laughter.]

M: You’d never played the bass before?

Vicki: Not on stage. I’d played it about three weeks. I was married at the time and [my husband], he was kinda wanting to get involved in the music and I thought, “Anybody can play bass.” [Explosive laughter from everybody.] So, I go rent this bass fiddle from Berea College. Meanwhile I’m trying to find one [to buy]. I wanna be able to play with Uncle Jay because he ended up having a guitar player, so my spot was gone. I had to find something else to play. And so I put those Flatt and Scruggs records on and would sit there for hours and play this stuff. And I was working at a florist [and this man from the radio station came around] and I said, “Do y’all have a swap shop? I’m looking for a bass fiddle.” And he said, “Oh, do you play one?” And I said, “Well, I’m learning.” “Well, you need to be down at Renfro. Mr. Lair is hunting for a bass player for this all-girl band he’s got.” And I said, “Okay, I guess I’ll do it.” And I went home and I never will forget it—we live on a farm—and they were housing tobacco, it’s in August, the last part of August, and my mother says, “Vicki are you sure you want to do this? You haven’t even had a hold of that thing.” And I said, “No, I’m not really sure.” And she says, “Let’s go anyway!” [Loud laughter from all.] It was kinda like if she’d said “no” I probably would have not done it.

But anyway I got out there and they never let us play but two songs and Mr. Lair said (Vicki talks in a deep, gruff voice), “Well, all right, would you like to have a job at Renfro Valley? I’ll give you $25 a week.” And, buddy, I just thought that was it. I’d hit the big time. I had me a job playing music. Hired by the founder Renfro Valley. So I worked one night a week for 3 years.

Then the people around there wanted us to come play for little fairs and things and I was wanting to do it. Mr. Lair presented us with this big contract that said [if you wanted] to stay there and play, you couldn’t play any other shows besides there. And you had to

sign it. See, that’s what he did to the original Coon Creek Girls. He had them in bondage pretty much for years. And I knew that. And, buddy, four years passed and he tried to do it again...And so Jan and I went down there to talk to him about it and I said, “Mr. Lair, I’d like to work this out.” And he was all smiles. But I said, “I’m not gonna sign anything that puts me just staying here at Renfro Valley.” And he says, “Well, I don’t need you.” I said, “It’s been nice knowing you, thank you for my first job.” And I was out the door.

M: Ramona, you want to chime in here and tell us about being on the road and having a kid. [Emily, born 2-22-95.] That must just kill you.

Ramona: I think about it, you know you can’t help but think about it but I try not to get on the one track of just thinking about her. ’Cause if I did, I wouldn’t be here right now, I’d be home. I about quit once over it, it was just ripping my heart out to leave her. M: Did you think that having a baby would ever change your thinking about playing? Ramona: Well, I knew in my mind that there would be a lot of changes and I’d have a lot of responsibilities but the reality, big-time was never there until the moment I had her. The moment I had her it was like, WHAM, just like somebody had just slapped the fire out of me and said, “Okay, you’re in for it now.” [Laughter from all.]

M: Dale Ann do you have kids? Are you married?

Dale Ann: I’m divorced and have a little boy, Gerald. [He’s 8.]

M: How do you handle being away from him? Who keeps him and how does that work? Dale Ann: I’ve been fortunate to sing most of his life at Renfro and with the girls. I guess he was about 14 months old when I started working at Renfro and there with the girls so my parents have just helped me raise him. I couldn’t have done it without them. M: So you were working at Renfro in another group before you met up with Vicki? Dale Ann: As a solo artist.

Vicki: See, we’d been working down there at Renfro—let me butt in just a minute ’cause you won’t brag on yourself. [Laughter from Dale Ann.] And ’Mona and I’d hear her sing every week and we’d just be dying, we’d just be thinking, “Oh my God, she sings ’grass,

she’s the only ’grass female singer we’ve ever heard. Gosh, she’s good, wonder if she’d ever want to play with us and she seemed so happy at Renfro we thought... Dale Ann (interrupting): No, everytime they’d walk out on stage, I’d run out of the dressing room and I’d sit there and I’d think, “Oh, I wish something would happen and I could...[the rest of the sentence is drowned out in laughter].

M: So how did y’all finally get together then? The spot came open...

Vicki: Yeah, Wanda decided that she was gonna pursue other [interests]...she was wanting to play a different style. So, I talked to her about it and I said, “It doesn’t seem like this is what you want to do and it’s not what I want to do so why don’t we set a date and you go do [what you want to do].” So that’s what we did and in the meantime, Dale was under contract, take it Dale...

Dale Ann [immediately finishing Vicki’s sentence]: ...at Renfro Valley, just had a couple of years left on the contract. Actually, Vicki had sparked my interest years back when I had quit playing music and really wanted to play again. We had met years before when I was about 20 and I was with a little local band from Kentucky and we went up to play this Marlboro Country Music Festival and there was the New Coon Creek Girls in the same competition, you know. We ended up making it to the finals, both of us did, and I thought this is what I want to do, I want to be a New Coon Creek Girl!

Vicki: We didn’t even know her at the time. We got done and we were all going to the bathroom and we heard somebody cut down on the “Muleskinner Blues” and we just went, “Who is that? Wait a minute! Where’d she come from?” And it was actually my mother, years later when we were hunting for somebody, Mom says, “What about that girl that played with that little band over at the contest?” And I thought, “Oh, yeah. Let’s track her down.”

Dale Ann: Yeah, and so Vicki called my house, and I had been wanting to play and couldn’t get no way to play, and she said, “Just come on up. I’ll have stuff cooked and we’ll just sit around and talk and pick.” And that’s what we done. But at the time she was looking for a lead instrument and what I played was the guitar. But just going to her house that day kinda sparked my interest back to where I knew I had to do it. So then I got hired at Renfro Valley. Vicki told me, “Even if you don’t play with us, please do play. Don’t quit.” So they came back to Renfro when I was there...and I’m not a big advocator of things being predestined but it kinda feels that way sometimes and it’s kinda planned out for all of us, this particular bunch, to be like we are.

Vicki: ’Mona’s got a good one about when she came to the band.

Ramona: Go ahead...

Vicki: Well, Annie quit on a Tuesday and we had to play Mineral, Virginia, on a Friday. M: Did you have a clue?

Vicki: Yeah, we had a clue so I had kinda been on the lookout. And then up at Shinhoppie [New York], Raymond Fairchild told me about this girl banjo player, Ramona. And I said, “Well, that’s good.” But I’d already gotten Gena Britt’s name and I’d already talked to her. And I said, “I’ve got this other girl but I’d love to listen to Ramona, too.”

So we get back home and Raymond called me up. Said [talking deep and imitating Raymond], “This is Raymond Fairchild. Found you a banjer picker.” Said, “Ramona'd like to do it.” Said, “She’s the best banjer picker you’ll ever hear.” Said, “You need to listen to her before you listen to Gena Britt. You won’t want nobody else.” [Everybody screams laughing at this.] So—this was kinda fate, too, I was supposed to listen to Gena—but I was immediately faced with having to fill this slot on Friday. Gena was playing with somebody and she couldn’t do it. So I said, “Raymond, give me her phone number.” He said—(Vicki turns and asks Ramona), “Were you right there?”

Ramona: I was RIGHT THERE. [Everybody laughs.] He said, “Sit down.” So you know I ain’t gonna tell HIM “no” so I just sit right down there and do whatever he says. He says, “You’re gonna play with these girls.” So I said, “Okay.”

Vicki: So after I found out about Gena I called him back and I said, “You say this girl can go? How old is she?” He says, “SHE’S SEVENTEEN.” I thought, “Oh, no. Oh, God.” [Everybody laughs.] I always feel so responsible when they’re that young. But I said, “You say you think she can do this?” He said, “YES. WHAT TIME DO YOU NEED HER WHERE?” So we told her, and told her what to wear and stuff and, buddy, had never heard her play. We picked her up on a Thursday night—all this transpired on a Wednesday— and I thought, “Well, she’s little Miss Confident.”

Ramona: I had to be! I had to get this job! I didn’t care if I had to stand on my head! Vicki: I said, “Ramona, we got two sets to do, the first one’s at four o’clock tomorrow. You want to listen to these tapes?” And some of it was kinda complicated stuff. I mean it

was different stuff. I put ’em on and she just said, “Well, it won’t be no problem.” [Everybody laughs.]

Ramona: I was gonna get on one string and wear it out.

Vicki: I thought, “Oh, God, reckon she can pull this off?” I just said a big prayer. I just thought, “I hope she can do what she says.” And you know Raymond Fairchild’s not gonna steer you wrong. If he says somebody’s good, somebody’s good. So, we got in there and I heard her play for the first time about 2 o’clock before we went on stage at 4. And, Carmella, [the fiddle player] this was her comment. We started into some tune [“ ‘Dusty Miller,’ ” says Ramona. “I’d never heard it in my life.”] But, anyway, we got into that thing and the banjo player we had before would pass, would never take it, wouldn’t try it. So Ramona just [jumped] right in there and Carmella looked up and said, “Oh, there is a God.”

M: When y'all were first on the bluegrass circuit, y all were pretty well accepted, weren't you?

Vicki: Yeah, pretty much. In the mid-80s, it was accepted but it was still kind of a new novelty thing. I don’t think that’s how people think about us now. I think they like the music. And that’s why I like it. If I had sat down in 1979, that first night at the barn dance and said I want to play music for X amount of years and this is how I want it to be, if I’d even had a goal like that, which I didn’t, this is where I’d want it to end up. Everybody’s respecting it because of the music. Just because of what they hear.

M: Well, Ramona, what about you and the banjo? As a banjo player myself, I was always the only girl banjo player that was ever around. Was that the same with you? Ramona: Well, there were three. Gena Britt was one of them. And there was this other girl from Woodlawn, Va. Her name was Jennifer Banks. They seemed to be at a lot of festivals that I went to. We picked a lot together but most of the time we were in different jam sessions. And we were the only females that were in the jam sessions. M: I always felt like it was a constant test to see how good you were. Did you ever experience that?

Ramona: Well, no, I never did really with the guys. Now, you don’t like to say this but at times I felt like maybe Gena or Jennifer has looked at me like that. But as far as me ever looking at them like that, I mean no. Gena, now she’s been playing two years

longer than me, and I can remember when she was playing and I wasn’t. And I remember admiring her because she played and I wanted to play. I wanted to be like her. And maybe when I was 7 or 8, you say, “She’s got all these big jam sessions going; I wish I could have one big like that. One of these days I’m going to beat her.” M: But you never felt a lot of competition from the guys?

Vicki: They couldn’t touch her! [Laughter from all.]

Ramona: No, I never tried to prove myself, I just enjoyed playing. And I still don’t try to prove myself. I will have to admit something. In Michigan, where we were playing [recently], Gena came in there and she had the banjo and she’d been on the bass and I thought, “Here we go again.” And me knowing what a banjo player she is. I thought, “Well, this means war.” [Everybody screams laughing.] I thought, “You know, that’s not what I’m gonna do. I can play so good, and she can play so good, if both different styles, and that’s stupid.” And I just immediately dismissed it.

Vicki: The competition came in where you all were in banjo contests together. The competition actually used to be a competition.

Ramona: But even during competitions we were always buddies. We always got along. One time I remember being at this festival and I hadn’t been playing long and I was standing there, playing in this jam session, all men but me, the only banjo player, and we were having a great time. And this man walks up, he had played with somebody that was a big name to us, you know, he comes in there and gets his banjo out and he immediately steps right in front of me, backs me off from the whole circle. And so here I am standing up playing, he starts taking all the breaks, I don’t get one. So, I packed my banjo up, I go right across the fence, and I [thought], “Well, I’ll just get me a jam session up.” And they just finally had to quit, there wasn’t nobody listening to them, they were all coming over to our jam session. That was my way of getting back at him. But he just stepped in there like I wasn’t nothing, wasn’t nobody, and me just a [little kid]. M: Dale Ann, did you participate in many jam sessions?

Dale Ann: My father is a hard-shell Baptist preacher so I didn’t have any musical instruments at all. You just sang. I was 14 or 15 when I started singing with a little group there and didn’t even play any instrument till then. So I think just the a capella singing is how I got interested in figuring out how the harmony works. I think I always wanted to hear that chord. There wasn’t anything there except to find that part that was missing.

M: How’d you hook up with Raymond, anyhow, Ramona?

Ramona: This guy I knew from down at home, he played bass, and he happened to get a job in Maggie Valley playing for Raymond in the house band and he was telling Raymond about me. And so he called me up and says, “Come up here to Maggie Valley, Raymond Fairchild wants to hear you play.” [And I said,] “Okay, gotta go, Dad.” I went up there and he said, “Just sit in and just help us fill out tonight. And we’ll just play something everybody knows.” And so I just filled in that night and Raymond said, “She can do it.” I think the thing Raymond liked about me was that I never had been one to waste time between songs.

M: So was that your first big job, your first paying job?

Ramona: No, my first paying job was I worked in a place called Tweetsy Railroad in Boone, N.C. I played there in a country band, and I’d come out and play two or three instrumentals. And that was $75 a weekend, and that was good for me being 10 or 11 years old. Then Raymond was the next job. He’s the one that helped me get where I am today. I give him all the credit.

M: What’s your history of playing, Kathy?

Kathy: Well, I started out—I’m from Indiana—at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, [Virginia], I moved there the day after I got out of high school and played in a bluegrass and clogging show. I worked there for 3 years and while I was out there I also played in a band called Nothing Doing which spun off into Cloud Valley. Then I moved to Nashville and worked at Opryland in a bluegrass show there for 5 years. I've always done a lot of freelance stuff around Nashville, too. Then after I quit out at Opryland, I worked at Twitty City one year in a country band there. That was pretty interesting. Then I got the job with Porter Wagoner. He’d had an all-girl band and at that time, when I joined, he’d hired some guys back so it was half-and-half. So we traveled all around and I got a whole new education. Traveling with the big boys.

So I did that for 4 years then that was about all of that I cared for. I got a divorce during that time. So then I stayed home and—no, I don’t have any kids— took a day job because I bought a house, and pretty much became a workaholic at that point, continued all my freelance stuff at night and worked during the day and played on weekends. That’s kinda where I’m at right now. Just recently joined with the girls... M: How did you get an interest in playing the fiddle to begin with? Were you a violinist?

Kathy: Ever since I was [little] I was always beating on cans or whatever I could get to make some kind of sound. Had all the toy guitars when I was 4 or 5 years old. Then I took piano lessons when I was in first grade. And I guess it was about the 4th grade, I got a guitar for my birthday, a real one, it was a terrible one, with action [real] high. And eventually I got to where I could play the guitar. Then finally in 5th grade you could take string instruments so I started playing in school. I played in the Junior High and High School orchestras. And when I was about 16,I went to a string competition for all the schools in Indiana. And out in the hallway there was this little kid playing “Turkey in the Straw” and everybody was just looking at him and right then was when I decided I was gonna do that. So one of my first albums I got when I was 16 was the triple Will the Circle Be Unbroken. And there was Vassar Clements and I was eat up with it and thought “God, what could I ever do to sound like that? What’s he doing?” I didn’t really understand all the keys but I had a good enough ear where I could pick up things real easy and I learned how to play just listening to albums.

M: But you weren’t associated with any other people at this time that were playing. Kathy: Well, in Terre Haute there was this Old Time Fiddlers [gathering] every third Sunday of the month. So we went down there one time. Of course, I thought I was in hog heaven then. And one of the old fiddlers was pretty durn good and he kinda got me going, squared me away a little bit on what I was doing. Then I started going to fiddlers’ conventions and entering some contests. Just was consumed by it in high school and I rushed home to practice with my albums. Just hours and hours and hours of playing with albums.

M: So is this the first all-female group you've worked with? [Yeah.] What are some of the differences in working with them?

Kathy: I’ve been really lucky. I’ve always been around people I liked. Not many problem bands that I’ve been in. But it’s a lot easier traveling, I suppose, especially in a van situation, with all women. Men and women are so different that there’s always gonna be problems there at certain times. Of course, women have problems, too, amongst themselves, but I pretty much don’t have any trouble getting along with men or women. I never think about being a woman or a man when it comes to music. When I play the fiddle I just play it like anybody else as far as I’m concerned. I don’t really think about whether I’m a woman.

M: What advice would you give to women coming up, Vicki? Younger women that want to play music.

Ramona: I’d say stick in there and do what pleases you and don’t worry about what other people think.

Vicki: And learn your instrument, learn everything you can and listen to all kinds of music.

Kathy: They need to study up and be professional just like the men that are getting the jobs and you need to learn from the men how they’re doing things at rehearsals. If you get in a band with all men, just act like a man and just go right ahead [loud laughter from all]...you know what I mean. That’s what I’ve always done—I’ve just acted like one of the guys and that’s always worked the best for me.

Vicki: If people are gonna try to do this professionally, treat it professionally. M: You handle the business of this band, right? That must consume an incredible amount of time.

Vicki: It does. I mean weekly. It’s like I’m spread so thin now that I don’t get to go practice like I should. ’Cause there’s all this stuff: products to be ordered, reservations to be made, interviews, correspondence...it’s endless. Banking, bookkeeping. M: I think people don’t realize that. Somebody has to handle the business end. Vicki: I don’t mind it, I’d just like to have time to do it. I’m bad about wanting to do things right.

[Background information was gleaned from a November 1988 Bluegrass Unlimited article. The New Coon Creek Girls: A Legend Lives On: With Overdrive, by Brett F. Devan.]

Maternity Guitar

by Nancy Pate

Onie Baxter, of Carrollton, Ga., played guitar throughout her pregnancy, right up to the night before her older daughter Joanna was born on June 25, 1958. “Get your maternity guitar,” the other band members would tell her. After this first child’s birth, child care wasn’t much of an issue. For one thing, Onie and her husband J.N. weren’t playing

regularly at the time because J.N. was in the army. And later on Joanna would willingly stay home with her Grandmama. She was more “tame” than Jane, the Baxter’s second daughter, Onie said. Jane always wanted to go.

In 1968 Onie found herself playing “maternity guitar” again. Jane Baxter was born in February of the year and was only three months old when she accompanied Onie and J.N. to her first bluegrass festival, Union Grove. The Baxters took part in the band competition at the festival as members of the Bluegrass Five, the band in which they’ve played together now for over thirty years.

It takes a lot of good help to be a mother and play bluegrass. But “it can be done,” according to Onie. The wives of the other band members pitched in to look after Jane. “Don’t you stop playing,” they would tell Onie. If they ever resented helping out, they never showed it. Onie said, “They always encouraged me to play.”

Joyce and Hughie Wylie, themselves parents of three boys, especially enjoyed Joanna and Jane, and felt they were their little girls. Curtis and Hazel Whitman were another pair of good friends who often held baby Jane while her parents played. If Jane cried, Curtis would give her his pocketknife to gnaw on. “But if that didn’t work, they would get up and drive her around,” Onie said. Curtis gave Jane that pocketknife when she grew up.

As Jane grew older and took to running around the festival grounds, Onie didn’t have to worry “like you do now.” If her child disappeared for a while, Onie consoled herself with the thought that Jane knew everybody and everybody knew Jane. Sometimes Jane wanted to come on stage with her parents, but Onie wouldn’t let her. She didn’t want her daughter on stage before she’d earned the right to be there.

Onie always wanted her girls with her when the band traveled. She felt more comfortable when they were together and didn’t feel guilty like she did when she left them behind. If her daughters weren’t with her, she missed them.

In Jane’s case exposure to the music helped form a musician. Even at three or four years old sitting on her mother’s lap, if the banjo wasn’t in tune or if someone was singing a wrong note, Jane would say, “Mama, that doesn’t sound right.” “Small children absorb more than you realize,” Onie said. “I’ve seen Jane sing a song in a jam session that she’s never attempted before; it’s all in her head from hearing it.” A musician’s daughter couldn’t have a better role model. Onie never felt uncomfortable being the only woman in the band or jam session. “The men always treated me as an

equal,” she said. And she’s played in plenty of jam sessions with many fine musicians: Curtis Burch, Tut Taylor, and Herschel Sizemore among them. Of course, no one teases her about her maternity guitar these days. No, now, Onie says, “They call me Boss Lady."

WIBLETS...

Murphy,

I took up the banjo after my 3 kids were young teens. Here is my best “kid story.” I was attending a weekly evening class learning to play banjo. Our teacher took us on field trips to hear live bluegrass. At the time my husband was working out of town so he wasn’t home evenings with the kids when I went out.

One night I was out quite late on a field trip. When I got home there was a BIG NOTE on my kitchen table from my oldest daughter, 18, and in big letters it said YOU’RE GROUNDED!, because it was so late she couldn’t wait up any longer. She, being in charge for the evening, certainly expected me to be in much earlier. Well, I got the point! Actually, my kids and husband were always very supportive [especially] of my need for time to practice at home. Now, with another woman (mandolin) and man (guitar, banjo) from that same class, I, with my husband on bass, continue to play as the Back Porch Pickers. I took up guitar to play when not on banjo. We’re all retired now and this is keeping us young!

—June Streamer, Hamburg, NY

Ratifications

By Casey Henry

Lately I’ve been branching out, expanding my horizons. It’s a thing all teenagers have to do and my time has come. I’ve joined another band.

Now, here you probably expect me to say I’m playing electric guitar in a local rock band, but it has gone the other way entirely. I’m playing banjo in a local gospel group, the C.O.P.S. (Christians On Patrol Serving.) I get to play banjo the whole time (!) and they

even let me sing. :-) And singing is easy and enjoyable, to comment on one of Murphy’s favorite subjects, because there are two other women in the group. When I sing in C, D, and E, they can easily tenor me and the three other men can sing baritone and bass. I am not left in the uncomfortable situation of singing the whole song by myself. Playing with the C.O.P.S. has also been a great opportunity to practice my banjo backup and develop breaks to some unlikely songs. I think backup is one of the hardest things to learn because you really have to play with other people. I suppose I could sit in front of my record player and play along with Flatt and Scruggs but when I manage to carve some time out of my schedule to practice I want to be practicing lead breaks. When I’m trying to hold my own in a jam session I want to be able to lay down an impressive break because everyone else is too absorbed in what they are playing to notice whether I can play backup or not.

Most of the songs the C.O.P.S. play are basic three-chord gospel songs but ever so often a weird one comes along. “Just A Closer Walk With Thee” is one of those. For starters, I can never hear it without singing the words to “Just A Bowl Of Butterbeans,” which makes for an amusing situation on stage when they are singing reverent praises and I am thinking about cornbread and pregnant women. [“She’s not pregnant as she seems, she’s just full of those good ole butterbeans.”] It was also quite a challenge to come up with a banjo break. The song has these long pauses which you have to fill up with something. Try it sometime and see what I mean.

Playing with the C.O.P.S. is an enjoyable learning experience where I get to play banjo even though I don’t get paid. (The band never takes money.) I look at this playing as good practice for when I go to the University of Virginia this fall and join a band down there. I will have at least a little experience playing with people other than my parents. Her proud mother attended her first performance (at a church) and was thrilled, especially when Casey used a lick from Foggy Mt. Chimes in one song!

more WIBLETS...

Dear Murphy,

Here's my subscription for another great year with WIB. I particularly enjoy your interviews with successful female bluegrass musicians.They offer a wealth of knowledge and experience from which we can learn.

Recently, I was in a jam situation and was asked if I needed to “take a break” from playing bass; that is, this person was “willing” to play for a while and give me a “break.” I remembered the advice from Suzanne Thomas and Mary Jo Leet (Dry Branch Fire Squad) “don’t ever let them have your guitar...” I politely replied, “No, I don't need a break,” and kept on playing all night long! (Grin.)

—Toni Murphy, Raleigh, NC

Hi, Murphy,

Your newsletter is very interesting and I make sure my copy gets around...This is my second year as president and producer [of the Thousand Islands Bluegrass Association and Festival], I am not a musician but I shall “toot my own horn.” Our festival last year ran so smoothly it was scary... We have a large hospitality tent for band members only where we provide food, refreshments, a place to tune up, etc. We also arrange fishing trips for those who love to fish. We think it is important to create a relaxing and friendly atmosphere for the musicians who spend a lot of time on the road.

I just wanted to remind you of us folks who don’t play an instrument but love to listen to live bluegrass.

—Gerry Kirkey, Clayton, NY

To That Mansion in the Sky

Sister bluegrass musicians and all of bluegrass lost a real pistol with the passing of Pearl Campbell, from Tuscumbia, Ala., on January 6,1996. Pearl played for over 20 years with the influential Campbell Trio. Her son, Terry, played bass with the Front Porch String Band and now plays with Highstrung. Her last stage show was the all-female jam at Owensboro, Ky, in September 1995. Pearl and her sister Belle, and Belle’s daughter Pearl Dean drove all the way to Owensboro from Alabama just to be a part of that jam. After not seeing Pearl for many, many years, it was a joyful moment when I hugged her neck at the FanFest.

Claire Lynch said that when Pearl showed up at the jam “it was like a reunion for us. We stood squeezed together at the back of the stage and strummed and sang our hearts out together. It was a very special moment. And now that she’s gone, it means even more. That was the last time we saw Pearl. God bless you Pearl! We’ll miss you dearly!” Claire said it for all of us.

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One more wiblet...

from Holly Tashian, Nashville, TN:

I remember trying to practice with my 2-year-old son always putting his hands across the strings to stop the sound. Today, that same son, 21, is a musician himself with an album on Elekta Records. I think Barry and I knew instinctively not to take our children on the road with us. For years I’ve paid a housekeeper to take care of the boys and the pets. Sometimes she made more money house sitting than we made on the road... Remember the Ladies! IBMA Awards nominations will be coming up soon and, as Abigail Adams said to John, I urge you to “remember the ladies.” Not just because we are women but because, as women, we are often overlooked. Lynn Morris’s CD Mama's Hand, now at the top of the BU chart, should be a strong contender for Album Of the Year. Lynn, Laurie, and Claire Lynch are three inspiring lights on the bluegrass charts now and, ladies, we thank you.

All-Female Jam at IBMA: It doesn’t look like there will be an all-female jam on stage at FanFest this year. (They need to spread the spotlight around.) But, I would definitely be interested in promoting an informal all-female jam at the hotel. I am not a late-night picker so I can’t host the jam myself, but I will show up and I will promote it. Can anyone take up this project? I would like for us all to get together. As the song says, “the more we get together, the happier we’ll be!” Let me know.