Read no. 29

Greetings!

Just when I start thinking that things are looking up for women in bluegrass, something comes along to remind me of how much work we still have to do. The recent (April 14) Earl Scruggs concert and workshop in Dayton, Ohio, is a case in point. This has nothing to do with Earl. He was there with his band to play and he played. And it was a thrill to see him, as always. It was the workshop, which was planned as a tribute to Earl, that lacked a female presence: of the seven banjo players who participated in the workshop and later in the concert, not one was a woman. Of the four backup musicians who accompanied these banjo players on stage, not one was a woman. There was only one woman participating in the whole event and that was Rhonda Vincent, who with her band the Rage did three songs during the concert. Rhonda tore the crowd up with her kick-ass mandolin break on “Pike County Breakdown.” I was thrilled! You go, Rhonda! On the other hand, a remark by the emcee left me with my chin on the floor thinking, “He didn’t really say that, did he?” What happened was this: As Rob McCoury was leaving the stage after playing “Flint Hill Special,” the emcee told the audience that it took a lot of guts to play that tune in front of Earl Scruggs. He then said, “That’s a man’s tune!” I almost fell out of my chair. A man’s tune? What is it when I play it? When Alison Brown plays it? When Kristin Scott Benson plays it? When Lynn Morris plays it? When Roni Stoneman plays it? When my daughter Casey plays it? When Janet Davis, Sally Wingate, Robin Roller, Ramona Church, Donica Christensen, Kim Koskella, Susi Monick, Pam Gadd, Louisa Branscomb, Sonia Shell, and Connie Morris play it? PUHLEEZE! I felt like I was back in the stone age.

Wintergrass 2003 To Focus On Women In Bluegrass

But there is good news! The theme for the tenth anniversary of Wintergrass will be women in bluegrass! The Tacoma, Wash., festival, which will be held February 20-23, 2003, also plans to expand the event with a new feature, a living museum, called the Wintergrass Exploratorium. The Exploratorium, which will also focus on women in bluegrass, will run February 19-21, although parts of it may stay open longer. Photo exhibits, live luthiery demonstrations, painting, quilting, interactive music exhibits, lectures, and more are planned. The director and producer of Wintergrass are both women: Patrice O’Neill and Earla Harding. For the last couple of years the third member of the team has been Stephen Ruffo, an “honorary woman!” He and Patrice will be the

primary shapers of the Exploratorium. Some of the women already booked for Wintergrass include Hazel Dickens, Dale Ann Bradley and Coon Creek, and Rhonda Vincent and the Rage.

Sally Ann Forrester Scholarship

Dear Patrons of the Sally Ann Forrester Scholarship,

I would like to thank you for your contributions. I am on the verge of completing my first year of college as a Music Business Major at Belmont University in Nashville with a grade point average of 3.75. It would have been much more difficult for me to accomplish this without you. Your donations paid for all of my books as well as part of my living expenses. Once again the generosity of the bluegrass community has astounded me.

Over the course of the last two semesters I have been focusing my studies not only on bluegrass performance, but also on such areas as artist management and booking, and product development (studio production). The past year has been an exciting one for the bluegrass industry and I feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to live and study in Nashville where I’ve been able to witness some of the industry’s progress first hand. However, I must admit that I’m anxiously awaiting the summer and festival season; studies have definitely limited my time for jamming!

I am looking forward to my future years at Belmont and I want you to know how much your donations have meant to me. Thank you so much.

Sincerely,

Amanda J. Kowalski

Amanda was the first recipient of the Sally Ann Forrester Scholarship last year. If you would like to contribute to this year’s scholarship, please send your check to WIB, POB 2498, Winchester, VA 22604.

Inside read a delightful, insightful, marathon, off-the-cuff expostulation by Roni Stoneman. We also take a look at the new O Sister CD, and Claire Levine profiles Dee Ann Davidshofer. Happy wibbing!

—Murphy Henry

RONI STONEMAN: COMEDY AND TRAGEDY GO HAND IN

HAND

Roni Stoneman, the 17th of 23 children born to musicians Hattie Frost and Ernest “Pop” Stoneman, was the first woman to play Scruggs-style banjo on record. She recorded “Lonesome Road Blues" for the 1957 Folkways album American Banjo Scruggs-Style. The incredible narrative below was recorded April 19, 1997, at the Maryland Banjo Academy in Buckeystown, Md., in a workshop entitled “Women in Bluegrass." Fortunately, almost no one showed up. I say fortunately because this created a rare opportunity for Roni to talk to the few of us present in a serious vein. The only reason I haven’t published this piece before is because I lost the tape! The beginning is a bit abrupt as I accidently recorded over part of what Roni had been saying prior to this. One note: the Scott she mentions early on is her brother, Scotty Stoneman, who was a fantastically gifted fiddle player.

I guess I was about eight months pregnant with my oldest young ’un or my second young ’un and I had that banjo and I was scared to death that I couldn’t keep up with Scott on “Orange Blossom.” Scott, when he played, he didn’t play a song, he attacked it. That’s the way the Stonemans played. And Earl Scruggs came over to me and I looked at him and I said, “I play simple and plain and I don’t play so good.” [Whispers.] Because he was my idol. I mean he was anybody’s idol in those days. He was God. He played just the basic rolls, I mean he was good, and we thought he was King. And he put his hand on my shoulder and he said, “Always play simple and straight and clean and clear.” And I felt like I could do it then. I wasn’t intimidated. Earl Scruggs did not intimidate me. Because, I hate to say this and I’m not bragging, but it just happened that way, I happened to be the first female [Scruggs-style banjo player] to record on a recording. There was no girl banjo, three-finger-style banjo players when I was coming up. From what I could gather, I was the only one.

Then later on came little Wendy Holcomb. That was years later. Hey, that little ole thing could pick! She played on Porter Waggoner’s show for a while. But she was great. And I’d go up to her and I’d watch her. Because I was in awe of her. ’Cause it was the only [girl] I ever saw that played three-finger-style banjo in all my life. And I wanted to get to know her. I walked up and I looked at her and she looked at me. She was a little bit cold, was the word, and I just wanted to get to know her ’cause she played good. And she had some good rolls. And I wanted to learn some of them good rolls. I thought she played better than me. I said, “She’s playing better than me and I gotta do something about it.” Because when you got a bunch of babies, you can’t sit and woodshed. And that is the only way you’re gonna to learn to play banjo is woodshed. Ain’t that true?

Woodshed means practicing, of course. But you’ve gotta learn to woodshed. You gotta sit there and you gotta be dedicated.

I guess I was living in a very sheltered world of just music because, until I was in the third grade, I thought everybody played and sang. I thought the whole world did ’cause I was right out there in a pack of fifteen people that played music. So we were never singled out, “You’re a girl, you’re a boy.” As time went on, my brothers got to drinking pretty bad and my daddy and mom didn’t drink but whoever happened to be sober showed up to play with Daddy. [She laughs.] And a lot of times the girls got to go. But we were never, at home, belittled because we were girls. Within our own family.

DON'T YOU DARE PLAY LIKE A GIRL!

Outside of the family, I started having problems. I never did think about it. [Roni sounds surprised.] I just wondered why I didn’t run across any girl banjo players. Maybe I was just too busy having fun to worry about whether the men were not liking me. I guess they just kinda pushed me aside [but] they didn’t bad-mouth me. Me and Bill Emerson had a little problem, but I thought we was just fussing and fighting among each other like brother and sister would. But he was the only one who made me feel like, “Well, I’m a girl.” But Scott said, “Just because you’re a girl, you’re not retarded. And don’t you dare mess up them notes. And don’t you dare play like a girl.” That means you play nyeh, nyeh, nyeh. [Roni says this in a high, singsong voice.] “And you gotta pull them strings.” And, of course, the banjo that Daddy made me, the strings were real high. So I thought you had to pull the strings hard in order to get a sound.

So then, when I was on Hee Haw, honest—now I shouldn’t be talking about that, because, in Nashville there’s a lot of politics. And I live in the world of Nashville. And I’ve been put down a lot. You know, it makes you afraid. A lot of people in Nashville are scared to death to tell the truth about things because they might lose their spot. And they can be cut off just like that, my dear. Trust me. But I’m gonna sit here and tell you the truth. Because what have I got to lose really? Other than the road show. And I’ve got that coming up and it’s good money on that.

See, Roy Clark’s family and our family knew each other. And Hester Clark, Roy’s father, was the sweetest, finest old feller you ever seen in your life. And he knew my dad, and my dad was a fine man, too. And we knew Roy Clark when we was playing all them honky tonks in D C. We called ’em “skull orchards.” You know, that’s the only place that bluegrass could be heard. Georgetown had the Shamrock. And you would go in there and hear some of the best with the Country Gentlemen. They were good pickers. Charlie Waller learnt to play the guitar at our house. This is true. Scott taught him when he was in high school. Charlie Waller was going to high school there in D.C. and he’d

come over there as much as he could. And Scott was always playing fiddle around the house and playing different instruments. He took Charlie downstairs, and [there was] a dug-out basement with that dirt floor, and there was a bed as you walk in the door on the right side. It was Daddy’s bed, because the boys played music all night. And Charlie Waller would sit on that bed and Scott would teach him to play the guitar. Now I saw that. And the same thing with John Hall and, I don’t know if it was the same Richard Green, but I remember some guy by the name of Richard Green played the fiddle [that] Scott taught. Well, he’s gotten kind of a little snotty, but he’ll grow out of that maybe. We all do. You know, you get to thinking you’re awful good. But no matter how good you are, somebody somewhere’s better. Daddy always told the boys that.

SKULL ORCHARDS

When I got on Hee Haw, I knew Roy [Clark]. Roy would play on our nights off at the Famous. We played six nights a week, six hours a night for $50 a week. We had 20-minute breaks during those six hours. I carried my babies [and] played music. That’s another thing—carrying your babies, having babies, taking off three days from work to have a baby, back up on stage playing because you need the money to buy baby food. And that’s true. [She laughs, but it sounds sad.] We had a bucket called the “pitch pot.” And Scotty would say, “If you don’t pitch in the pot tonight, tomorrow night we won’t have pot to pitch in.” But every penny I made went to feed a baby or pay for a doctor, ’cause I had a husband that didn’t work. See, at that time I was going through some rough times. But I didn’t know they were that rough. I was just knowing that I had a hard time.

Jimmy Dean played at a place right down the road from us called the Bucket of Blood. It was a honky tonk. And the reason it was called the Bucket of Blood, they would shoot each other a lot. And there was a blind piano player that got shot and that’s how Jimmy got the job there. And he had a bucket on stage called the “pitch pot.” It was a thing that everybody had. And that’s what most of ’em lived off of, the tips. So, I knew Roy. He was like a brother to me.

The Stonemans were such good pickers, not me, but the Stonemans were good pickers. We didn’t look up to anybody, we was just part of ’em. It was like your comradeship. And bluegrass pickers, I don’t care if they’re male, female, whatever, they should love each other. They should really not be jealous over each other, they should never do that. And at one time everybody was jealous over somebody or they was agin somebody. We thought [so and so] didn’t like us or Scott would say, “They don’t like us after you teach ’em how to play.” I heard Scott say that a few times. And it was true to some. But we couldn’t understand why they were disagreeable to each other. We thought, “Well, it’s just like a family that picks together stays together.” They really do.

It’s like you have to. And that’s the way it should be with the musicians. ’Cause we want to be like jazz and Dixieland. They stay together. Them old jazz pickers, they love each other. When they find out one is great they go, “WOW! I’ve got to learn from him.” But for a while there in the ’50s and ’60s, bluegrass pickers hated each other. Didn’t they? Didn’t it seem like they were jealous over each other? And we couldn’t understand that, so we just got away from that. Don’t play bluegrass, all they do is bad-mouth you. So then, I was thankful I got Hee Haw. I got Hee Haw by the ironing board lady. And I got that voice from Marjorie Main—Ma Kettle. And that was because she seemed like us. That family was like the Stoneman family. And she was accepted. They were on television, and I remember Daddy taking us to see a movie called Ma and Pa Kettle Comes To Town and I saw her with all the kids on that big old truck and I said, “Well, here they are and people loving her. Then we’re not so bad.” You know what I’m saying? And I liked her and my girlfriends liked Esther Williams. So I’d say, “Paw, get in hyear.” [Roni says that in her funny, old-lady voice.] And, you know, it’s so easy to do. And when we’d play these nightclubs and the drunks would get to fighting I’d say, “You old drunk, go sit down somewhere.” [Said in that funny voice.] And it’d make ’em laugh and they’d go sit down. I’d break up a lot of fights with that.

HEE HAW

So when I got Hee Haw, that’s how I got it. Not because I played. I used to go down there and sit for hours with that banjo, waiting for them to call me in there to see if I could be good enough to be on the show. But Tom T. Hall told me one day—I went to a party and I was hungry—and he said, “Roni, the producer of Hee Haw is in the other room. Sam Lovello.” And I said, “He is?” He said, “You ort to go in there and let him see you.” And he said, “You’re hungry, ain’t you?” And I said, “Yes, I am Tom.” And he said, “Come on, I’ll introduce you to old Sam.” We went in there and he said, “Sam Lovello.” And everybody looked at [Tom] ’cause he was a man and they respected him. He was a good [song] writer. And he said, “This is Roni Stoneman.” And I said, “Hi, how are you doing?” And he said [she laughs as she says this], “You’re what we need on Hee Haw. We have all the pretty girls we need.” [She laughs again, then cackles.] And I thought, “Well, hell, if it ain’t the banjo, I’ve got to use my looks.” And I had that space, that natural space [between her two front teeth] and my eye was crooked. Like old Raymond Fairchild— me and him never did see eye to eye. I love him. I love old Raymond. And I’d say, “Raymond, you’re not trying to do an album called Seeing Eye To Eye With Roni and Raymond?” Raymond loved me and I loved Raymond.

Anyway, when I got on Hee Haw, thank God I got the part, because it kept me out of nightclubs and I was able to support my children and educate ’em. ’Cause that, to me, was a sign of success. Educating your children. Getting ’em out of the poverty you were

raised in. Get ’em into education and they can go on with their life. Okay. I get on Hee Haw. For the first year, they didn’t even mention my name. Which is okay, I still had a job. And then the second year Stringbean [said], “My little friend for women’s lib, Roni Stoneman.” That’s how my name was announced on Hee Haw the first time. [Before that] nobody knew who the ironing board lady was. And Stringbean, I loved old String. I used to hang around him and Grandpa [Jones] all the time. So I said, “Oh, they mentioned my name!” And I was so excited. God, my name was mentioned.

STAND STILL!

Then I got to play banjo with them, with String and Grandpa and the rest of ’em. And I thought, “God, this is great!” Then, as time went on, I got a little bit more active and could dance and pick at the same time and make show. ’Cause that’s what I was trained for. Like vaudeville. That’s what bluegrass music really, in a way, is and good showmanship. But I danced around and then one day they came in there and Roy was standing on the left, Grandpa’s on my right, then there'd be Bobby Thompson. Which is the most underrated banjo player at one time ever in the world of music. Nobody bragged on him like they should because he was extra quiet.

And they came in there with four pieces of tape—the musical director—and they said [she demonstrates, stomping her feet down]: “One foot there [clomp]; one foot there [clomp].” And they said, “Now, stand still.” Okay, that’s cool. You notice I never had a microphone. Of all them banjo players, I never had a microphone. I mean everybody had a mike for their banjo. But I just had one. [A vocal mike.] And I had to sing in Grandpa Jones' key—which I love Grandpa, he’s like my father to me—but he sang [Roni sings], “Here rattler, here, here.” You know, try to sing harmony or in his keys and it ain’t that easy. So I stood still but then I started doing [demonstrates—I think she was knocking her knees together] and singing “Youdoodleedeedo.” You know, having fun but I kept my feet on those guides. I said, “Well, by God, I did. I didn’t move my feet.” But I was going, “Youdoodleedeedo.” And everybody liked that, see? Well [they said], “Don’t do that so much.” Well, I couldn’t help it. I wanted to do it and I did it. Kept on doing it. And Roy would look down. He wouldn’t say nothing. He’d look over and kinda cock his eye and never say anything.

Then one day we’re all in the studio, and you know how banjo pickers are, it’s ding, ding, ding, ding when they get together. Everybody makes a noise. Banjo pickers are a strange lot. So then Roy [on his banjo] went [she hums the intro to “Dueling Banjos”]: “Da-da-dunh-da-dunh.” And I heard it and I went [on her banjo]: “Da-da-dunh-da-dunh.” You know, just playing around. So they filmed it. Okay. So we had fun filming it and we didn’t know they was filming, we’s just playing. And then Roy got faster and I got faster and I got faster. Now Roy’s [main] instrument is the guitar. Well, I’d been used to picking

good then, and my fingers weren’t old like they are now, and I put it down the road. I flat-out went fast and it was clear and at the end he held my hand up, “Yea! The winner!” Like that, to me. And I didn’t expect that and I went, “OH! Okay.” And that was kinda fun. Then [someone said], “Everybody take five. Take five.” That was after we did it. But we didn’t know we was being filmed. I didn’t. Then Sam Lovello came over and he said, “Come here, Roni.” He said, “You shouldn’t have done that.” And I said, “Did what?” This is true, so help me. And I’m not holding it against anybody, it’s just the times. A woman learns that’s just the way it is. And I was so thankful I had a job. I didn’t want to cause any trouble. ’Cause Hee Haw was good to me. I fed my children. And he said, “You shouldn’t have done that.” And I said, “What?” He said, “You shouldn’ta out ran Roy like that.” I said, “OH! That. Sam, no. Me and Roy’s old friends. We’ve known each other from the old days.” Now Sam is from California. He don’t know the real soul of this music. And the real soul of the bluegrass musicians. How they really should be to each other. He don’t know. So I said, “NO!NO!NO! Roy’s okay. I was just playing. We wasn’t on tape. We wasn’t filmed or anything.” And he said, “Oh, yes, you were. And I said, “OHMYGOD.” And I got scared. “OHMYGOD. Just edit it out. Don’t use it.” And he said, “No, we’re gonna use it.” And I said, “Please don’t. Just take it out. Take it out.” Then I just went on about my business and said, “Just forget it.” He said, “Just don’t jump around so much.”

I was on that show 19 years. I got to play banjo by myself once. In 19 years. But that’s okay because I was thankful I had a job and they did have a lot of banjo pickers on there. And they didn’t need me but it’d been nice to been able to sit down and pick the serious stuff instead of do all that comedy.

You know, I did five character parts. And it was fun and I loved my friends but I got a call from a guy and he has a publishing company. He’s an Italian from New York. And he’s from the old school. “Hey, Doll Face.” [Said in an exaggerated New York accent.] He calls me up on the phone, the only human being in the world to ever call me Doll Face. Me and Raymond [Fairchild] look like twins. And I said, “Hi, how you doing?” And he says, “I’m in Nashville for a while, Doll Face. Come on down to Mario’s and we’ll have dinnuh. I’ve got some things I wanna tell ya’.” I thought, “Okay, I’ll get a free meal.” So I went on down to Mario’s Italian Place and he said, “Doll Face, they’re jealous of you on Hee Haw." And I said, “No, they’re not! What in the world have I got [for them] to be jealous over?” ’Cause you know I played the ironing board lady. And then I played Mophead and none of them were beauties. And it was fun. That was not something bad they did to me. That’s what I loved. And I said, “[They] ain’t jealous.” And he said, “They is too. I just rode back from L.A. with one of the writers of Hee Haw and they just had a meeting out there.” And I said, “They did? What? Is anything wrong?” And he said, “Yeah, it seems like the manager [of] Roy didn’t like you playing banjo on ‘Dueling

Banjos’ with him.” The manager didn’t like it—I don’t think Roy knew about it. He said, “You’re getting too much attention.” And I said, “Ohmygod, do you think it hurt my job?” No women didn’t used to—you know. You know your place. Okay? ’Cause I wasn’t a star. And Roy was the star. You gotta keep a star. You can’t have better musicians than you up there on stage trying to upstage you. Or somebody you think might be as good as you, especially a girl. That’s taking away some of the thunder. And you can understand it. You gotta look out for your star, you see. And I understood it. But I said, “I didn’t think they taped it.” He said, “Oh yes, they played it. And it was good and they got a lot of response out of it. And they really liked it. People liked it.” But the manager of Roy didn’t like it. And I said, “Did Roy say anything?” “No,” he said. “His manager didn’t like it.”

BE QUIET!

And that was in October. We’s getting ready to go in the studio again [to record Hee Haw], And I was scared I was gonna lose my job. So I went in there and they had a bale of hay, and they put an Indian blanket on it. And they set me catty-corner. See, the band always stood up on a flatbed truck and we would all play beside each other and sing from there. But they put me, catty-corner, down, not up, on the stand and they had me there. And I didn’t say nothing. I thought, “Well, I deserve this.” And I sat there with my banjo and when they did “Old Dan Tucker” [she sings], “Old Dan Tucker was a mighty man, doodle, doodle, doodle.” And I was happy to do that. Then they came in and I was doing, “Doo, doodle-doo, doodle, doo, doo, doo” [this is banjo playing noise], but the camera would sweep and take me completely out of the picture because the fans probably would not have liked [the fact that I was not standing with everyone else]. They would have wrote in “How come Roni’s not [up there]?” Because they learned to like that old character. Okay? And so they sweeped it like that and so then they came in with another piece of paper, [and] two pieces of tape. Me sitting down. I ain’t lying. One foot here, one foot there. So I had to do like [more doodles like banjo playing], so I went [doodles] sitting down. Dumb ass. I should have just set still.

But that wasn’t the kicker. It makes me cry to this day, to think that I took it. They came in with a piece of tape, round tape, you know the white tape, whatever you call it, adhesive tape. And the floor director, he was told, I guess, to do it. It wasn’t his fault, it was his job. But they came in and I was playing the banjo and he took a piece of tape and taped it. My banjo strings. Taped my banjo strings. I swear to God. And he taped it down, and I didn’t have a mike in the first place, I don’t think. If I did, they probably had it off. But it was right down on the base of the banjo. He taped it right there so it wouldn’t be seen.

And I couldn’t believe he did it! And I just looked at him and I watched him as he walked away and I sat there a while and a lot of thoughts came in my mind. And I felt Grandpa Frost, my mama’s dad, and I felt him in me a little bit. And I said [said real quietly], “Just put the banjo down, don’t say nothing, just get your things and go home.” And I thought to myself, “Dad, what would you do?” Daddy said, “You got seven children and a retarded daughter to raise. You better stay right there.” I had a retarded daughter that has epilepsy, she’s a special child, and I had to finish. So I just sat right there for that whole season. We did, I guess, about nine banjo numbers, with my banjo taped. And I had to sit there and put up with that. I don’t even know if Roy [Clark] knew it. But I swear to you, that was the most—[she pauses here, as if she can’t think of the word]. You know, it’s alright if they come to you and say, “Roni, you gotta sit down here.” And tell you. But to degrade you? There ain’t no need in that. On my deathbed, I think I’ll remember how I felt.

And I sat there, because I had a special child with epilepsy that had to go to the doctor’s a lot and get her medicine. I was a mother first before I was a picker. I picked because I had to support my children. And I am one hundred percent mother. And there’s nothing in this world worse than having to hold a child with epilepsy [who’s going] into a convulsion, praying for her the whole time you’re rocking and holding her. Knowing you had to stay there in order to get the money to take her. You know, that kinda bothers you. And your pride, you have to take pride and, God, it’s that big around, and swallow it. So you could last on the show. So you wouldn’t have to play honky tonks. And the little money I got I was thankful for. And that was why I did that. So God was good to give me a craft that I could raise my children with. Because I’m a seventh grade dropout. And you can’t get jobs raising children easily with that sort of a background of no education. So I used that. I’m a pretty tough old gal because comedy and tragedy kinda goes hand in hand. And helps you through life.

I’m 59 years old next month and I am thankful for those years. Because they can’t be any worse than the past has been. I’ve been through some bad times and I’ve got a Ph.D. in dumbass. But I’m thankful for that Ph.D. At least I’m not hard or mean. And when I joke around with somebody, I do it in a manner of fun. And I do love people. So how much can you have? I’ve never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul, have you? [Laughs.] So you get to thinking, “I’ve been taken advantage of. I’ve been married five times and the first time I was married 15 years, had the children. The second time I married a school principal and I thought that God had been so good to send me this wonderful, educated, Ph.D.-in-English man that belonged to Mensa. How wonderful [that] he had been good to me and helped me be a family with my children and it helped me teach my children to have a good life through education. You know, you’re a mother and you really feel this way in your soul. And he turned out to be the most brutal,

physical—this scar on my face, I was cooking dinner and he knocked [me] plap. Like what did I do? You know women then [they think], “What did I do?” And [what I said] was, “Hi, honey, you’re home early!” What’d I do? And he said, “Well, you looked at me like you thought I’d been drinking.” So I got punched in the face for that. But they didn’t tell that in the book [The Stonemans by Ivan Tribe] because it was educators who wrote the cottonpicking book. But that’s okay, that’s cool. But I’ve learned to cope with that and I kinda grin at my stupidity. That’s right. Stand by your man. [She laughs a low laugh.] That’s where that came from.

NASHVILLE

I play in Nashville. See, I was never really introduced in the bluegrass field because I was pushed so much into comedy. You know, I felt kinda bad sometimes that the Stonemans were not kinda pampered a wee bit by the bluegrassers. Even though the Bluegrass Champs won first prize on the Arthur Godfrey Show. And they did [she sings], “Let me be your salty dog.” And Arthur Godfrey called them to his office and said, “What’s salty dog mean?” But he liked it. And he liked Donna’s mandolin playing. Her reaching up at that mike and going to town on it. And her so cute, dancing around and playing good. Wanted just her dancing, she was a showman. But they pushed me into [comedy]. And now that I’m in Nashville, I played at the Nashville Palace for two years. Two shows a night Mondays and Thursdays. I’d get up there and I’d do anything I want. I’d play country then I’d pick my banjo up and say, “Now we’re gonna do ‘Dueling Banjos’! Everybody get their clogging shoes on, we’re gonna have a little bit of bluegrass!” And that’s when I get to do my bluegrass stuff. But I had to play country with a country band because Nashville is not a bluegrass town.

They got one little place down there, as I know of, on Broadway, just now got it. [The Bluegrass Inn.] A little ole band was playing down there the other night. And I had this businessman, he took me out to dinner. All prissied up, you know, and he’s the big president of some big company. He’d never been around bluegrass in his life. I’m cleaned up, I look pretty good. I rinched off in the creek. And I’m in high heels and this suit going, “I look good. I look like Tammy Faye Baker.” [Laughs.] Just like he liked. So I said, “I’m going in here [the Bluegrass Inn]. Come on. You can go with me or you can go home.” I went in there and I sat down and I said, “Do you like this pretty good?” And he said, “Yeah, I find it quite interesting.” “Okay, fine, cool, ’cause I’m gonna be here for a while.” So then I’m going, “We’ve got bluegrass here in Nashville. Yea! Yea!” And the little girl that played [then Roni corrects herself], the woman that played bass, her timing was perfect, she never missed the beat. And then I got up and played. I just wanted to play with them. I wanted to play [she sings], “I wonder how the old folks are at home.” And get down with them instead of playing country all the time. And they let me play. They let me play. [She sounds surprised.] And I was so proud they let me play.

And come to find out they play four straight hours without a break. At the Bluegrass Inn on Broadway. They did not have a break in four hours. And that poor little old thing played that bass four hours. And the reason that they play four hours is in case somebody comes in. I don’t know who they were. It was a young man from England and he played banjo and he played dadgone good. And I was proud. And when I got there, I played the bass first. Because I don’t want to push in. But I wanted in on it. Y’all understand when you want to play with somebody. And you ain’t played bluegrass in so long. And I wanted in on it. You know, they were so proud to have me there. And I said, “Honey, no, I’m just one of y’all. Don’t say Roni Stoneman from Hee Haw, just let me get up there and pick with you. Can I play your bass?” “Oh, I’d be glad for you to so I can take a break.” “Okay. [Sings an arpeggio like this:] “Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.” Because I played the bass when I was pregnant a lot. ’Cause you could lift it up and put your tummy right in that little old clunking place. [Laughter from audience.] And then nobody knew you was pregnant. Well, I played there, and then I played his guitar and then I sung some. [She sings,] “In the pines, in the pines.” You know, some of the traditional stuff. Some good stuff.

And they had one microphone. Like the good old days. But they didn’t know how to get in and out of it. And I was gonna try to teach ’em [because] you want ’em to do so good, you want bluegrass to tear the house down, you want [the audience] to say, “Hot damn, that’s good!” And you’re up there going [makes singing noises, no words], and you know you can get more out of the audience, more in your tip jar, more of your tapes sold, if you just do some energy, see. So I said, “You’re behind the bass, man, and there’s room for you right there.” I said, “You play good fiddle. Come on out a little bit.” He said, “I can’t. I ain’t gotta a long chord.” He had an electric fiddle. And I said, “No, your chord’s long enough.” So I get up there and I play bass and I got him by the belt buckle and I had to do it in a funny way so he won’t get mad, ’cause men, you have to play games sometimes, you know. No, I’m sorry. I don’t mean that. I don’t mean to put y’all down, ’cause God, I’ve been married five times—girls are not my bag—so we do need you fellers, we need y’all to love us and to care for us and be behind us. We need that more than we need anything else. A woman’s heart is a very fragile thing, and when she picks and grins, particularly in bluegrass, [it] is a fragile thing to her, too! [She laughs.] All we ask is a little respect and understanding and know that we love you anyway in spite of yourself. [She laughs.]

Anyway, when I got up there to play, I said, “You’re too good. Get up there in that mike.” And they had one mike and I thought, “Oh, that reminds me of us as children.” So I got him by the belt buckle and pushed him up and he went, and looked at me like, “What are you doing?” And I went, “Bear down on it. Eat that mike! Get down in there!” And

people started coming in off the street and I went, “YEE HAW! Let’s hear that music!” And I was up there, and I wasn’t playing anything, I was doing this. [Claps her hands.] Then I’d push him, then as soon as he finished his bow lick I pulled him back. [Laughs.] Then I went to the guitar player: “Up here!” [She makes arpeggio-like mouth noises.] You know, like Scott did and like the Stonemans learned.

I was trying to teach them our way because the Stonemans are dying off and there ain’t gonna be any more. No more. And you know why? Now, they got enough

grandchildren. But we saw our brothers die off from drinking. We saw our brothers drink themselves to death. And play every night. Because at one time [in] bluegrass you couldn’t go no place but a honky tonk to play it. And that’s bad. We used to play down on 12th and New York Avenue in Washington, D.C. We’d play up there and Charlie Daniels was across the street. In the Rocket Room. And so we had to be competing against Charlie Daniels. Not competing against him, but trying to get the crowds to come in to see us, too. So Donna got her mandolin electric so she could dance around but it was an electric made for her mandolin so it wouldn’t distort the sound of the mandolin but made it louder where she was free to get away from the microphone some. ’Cause we was competing with rock and roll. Right across the street there. So you had to learn to get in and out [of] that mike and how to do this and dance around and how to keep up. And you had to be as good at showmanship as the people across the street who was playing rock and roll. We were competing. We were the competers. Okay? But then as time goes on [and we thought about] our children we said, “Dear God, don’t let ’em play.” ’Cause I wanted mine to be educated. I wanted ’em to go on with their life and have a good life.

My son Robert, I got one son, one child that plays, and he plays guitar and he plays such good flattop guitar and he can [play with] drive and he looks like Scott. And Raymond Fairchild saw him and started crying. Down at Maggie Valley. I took him down there and Raymond saw him sitting there and he looked back and he had a dip of snuff [Roni talks like she has snuff in her lip] and he goes, “Roni, he looks just like Scott. Scared me for a while there. I thought he’d come back from the dead.” That’s the way Raymond does. And I love his mannerisms. He said, “Me and Scott did some serious drinking.” And I said “No kidding, Sherlock.” [Laughter.] And he cried. He sat there the whole time [and] he looked at Bobby’s hands and he cried. But Bobby [said], “Mom, I’m not a picker, I’m a welder. I’m gonna be a welder. I don’t wanna be picking.” And Van, my youngest brother, who died two years ago, he’s got two sons, Randy and Van, Jr., that play so good, but they won’t play music. So the Stonemans are going away.

STONEMAN TV SHOW

But we had four and a half years of our own television show. I don’t know if y’all remember it or not. It was out of Nashville. It was in 280 markets. Well, we never got paid. We did five TV shows a day and never got paid a cent for doing ’em. They took advantage of the Stonemans. The managers took advantage of us. They had power of attorney over all our money for eight years so we got paid a salary each week. Two hundred. And they said they was gonna invest. This is how [one of them] gave us the meaning: “You people are just a bunch of hillbillies and you never had anything in your life.” And my father was alive and he was sitting over there in a big old chair. And I had babies. Four babies. And Barbara was having seizures quite often and I was running her to Vanderbilt every time I could. And myself, I didn’t even own a car. And he said, “You people are just hillbillies and you never had anything and you’ll just spend [it]. You’re multimillion-dollar talent”—this is right after we won the Vocal Group of the Year for the Country Music Association [1967]—“and you don’t even know your own talent. And you don’t know how to take care of money and you’ll buy things like a car, houses, things you don’t need. So we need power of attorney to invest your money. So when the gravy train is finished off the track, you’ll have some money.” So I thought, me with my babies, I was drowning. I thought, “That sounds reasonable. I’m ready to go for that.” We signed a power of attorney for eight years. And so we had a television show four and a half years and we worked five TV shows a day, half-hour shows. Now that’s hard work. We did that and we played Printer’s Alley, six shows a night. Then we’d hit the road or we would do albums. And we got $200. We were never paid for any session we ever did, we never got money for our songs. They took them. And nobody knowed it. They kept us from being on the Opry, which we didn’t know. They said, “The Stonemans are on the road on Friday and Saturday night and they’re making more money than they would if they was on the Opry.” ’Cause the Opry at that time was only getting $60 per person. So we didn’t know that. They took care of everything.

The Stonemans, at that time, reminded me of abused women. I’m not saying all men are abusers, they’re not. Men are loving, kind people but there’s a few that’s out there [that] are squirrelly. Trust me. So the Stonemans were like abused women. First an abusive man will start getting control. And then they get to believing that their word is the truth and nothing but the truth so help me God [and] that they have the say-so. And we stand back and let it happen to us because we were taught that that’s what it is. The man gives the final word.

When I first got married, Gene Cox played. I taught him how to play banjo. He had a banjo, had a Gibson, first Gibson I ever saw. He had a banjo but he didn’t know the rolls. And I taught him the rolls. Okay. But when I married him, I quit playing banjo and went to the bass so he could play the banjo and he was more important. He was the

man. You understand what I’m saying? And that’s the truth. Because I just assumed, “Well, he plays banjo, and I’ll learn to play the bass and he can play with Daddy with the banjo and I’ll just play bass or something. Or either let him play with Daddy and take my place.” Because he was the man. He was the leader of the home. Well, he never wanted to work again. [Laughs slightly.] He never gave me one bit of child support in all our lives. And I got a son 40 years old. When my first child was born, [my husband] was playing with Daddy somewhere. I called up and said, “I’m ready to go to hospital now.” You know, me and Shotgun Red had an IQ test and guess who won? And he said, “Can you wait till I finish playing ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown’?” Honest to God, that come over the telephone. And I said, “NO! Come right now, I gotta go to hospital.” And that was my first baby. I was scared to death. But “wait till I finish playing ’Foggy Mountain Breakdown’.” I’m gonna write a damn song on that. Sings: “Can you wait, can you wait, till I finish playing ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown’?” But I’ll never forget that. So it’s been an experience being a girl in bluegrass. It’s been an experience being a girl in country music because I play the banjo. I mean how many country bands have a banjo in it? So I had to learn to be a comic, had to learn to do everything, dance, [be] funny, do silly things, and then pick up the banjo and do something fast and breakdown. That’s why I play fast, [to] get the audience ready.

But I was honorary chairperson for three and a half years for retarded children. And I learned a lot. I learned that special children with hyperactive problems or autistic children can’t handle a banjo. It’s funny, isn’t it? They get to rocking and they have to call the doctor or the nurse to calm ’em down. So I noticed that, so I started playing slower and they still wanted to dance. And then I said, “Well, maybe they’ll like the guitar better.” ’Cause I didn’t want them to get too hyper. So I played the guitar and I’d sing [she sings], “Michael row the boat ashore.” And then the autoharp was mellow to ’em. And they liked the autoharp. Even so-called normal people, when you play for the so-called normals, and you’re playing the banjo, what do you get, in the audience? When the country band’s up there playing any kind of song like [she sings], “Does she sound cold and bitter” [then in a funny voice she completes the line of the song]: “I beg of you.” That’s when I wanted to come out like Ida Lee. [From Hee Haw.] But when they’re playing that and then you come up there, “And now we’ve got Roni Stoneman gonna play one on the banjo!” What does the audience do? (Makes dah-deedlediddle-diddle-dee banjo-type noises real fast.) You know, you’ll do it. Even normal [people], YEA! They’ll get all hyped. You can bring an audience alive, just like that, with banjo. It never has failed me. And the faster—hot dang, she’s good! No matter if you’re good or not, if you’re fast, WOW! So you can imagine what it would do to special children. So you have to slow down for them.

But a banjo is a special instrument. It’s not a romantic instrument. I don’t think it’s romantic. And it’s a heavy instrument. I’ve had two bladder repairs and a hernia repair from that dumb thing. [She laughs and the audience laughs.] I think I pissed on every show from Nashville to Vegas. [More laughter from the audience.] I did. And when I did, I would have to smear it in the floor so nobody would see it. [Loud laughter.] I was pregnant one time [and] I was on a stage in Vegas. We’s playing Caesar’s, honest to God, the Stonemans were really going to town. [She makes doodley noises like a string band playing.] Playing really good, you know. And I stomped my foot to go faster, and I’m out like this [indicates a belly size] and I peed all over. [She laughs.] The stage was the kind of wood that gets darker when water hits it. So I had to smear it. And I was humiliated. And embarrassed to death. But I had to keep playing. So Daddy said, “Well, I’ll be dadblame, if somebody didn’t spill water on the floor.” [She just cackles laughing.] I’ve had some fun times. And that’s all I’m gonna say. And I’m sorry I talked too much. WIB

Dee Ann Davidshofer

By Claire Levine

One of the West Coast’s most popular bands is Sam Hill, a nine-year-old group noted for its original songs steeped in the bluegrass tradition. For five years, Dee Ann Davidshofer has been the bass player in a band that previously appeared to be a musical male bonding experiment. During that time, Dee Ann’s bass playing has impressed fans as strong, solid, and absolutely in sync with the band’s style and focus. Dee Ann’s credits include service on the Oregon Bluegrass Association board, including a term as president. She is currently on the board of directors of Wintergrass, held annually in Tacoma, Wash. For ten years, Dee Ann has volunteered with Portland’s listener sponsored radio station, KBOO. Once a month, she hosts the Saturday morning radio show “Music from the True Vine, ” offering listeners a wide range of music within the bluegrass genre.

Dee Ann is married to Chuck Davidshofer, a partner in a local music shop and bass player for the Sawtooth Mountain Boys.

How did you get involved with bluegrass?

Someone dragged me along to a live show that was sponsored by the local public radio station in Anchorage. That particular night was a fiddle festival. I didn’t know anything about it, and my friend just dragged me along.

I walked in, and there were four fiddlers on stage playing together, and I was just mesmerized at this live performance. And I still haven’t figured out the connection—I went out the next day and bought a banjo—a really bad banjo, a really cheap banjo—and signed up for lessons.

I started playing with a group of women, because at the time nobody else would play with us because we were so bad. But we eventually formed a band and played for about two and a half years. And we got gigs basically because we were women—you know, it was Alaska. We were very popular. I was 21 then, in 1981.

I played banjo for a few years, and I ended up selling it. I don’t think I had enough exposure to people who knew how to teach it well, plus at the time I was married to a musician who was very critical of people who were not as good as he was. I had a tendency to internalize that, and I stopped playing all together, which is too bad. But it didn’t keep me from knowing that I really enjoyed the music—that was the thing that I really had the heart for.

How did you make the transition into the bass?

I had just moved to Portland, and I’d seen an ad for an Oregon Bluegrass Association jam. I’d been here for about two months, and I knew that I wanted to get involved somehow, so I went to the jam. And the very first person I met was Ken Brown [former president of the Oregon Bluegrass Association, promoter and tavern owner], I had a guitar with me, and I was just beating on the guitar.

Ken called me about three months later and said that he was going to put together this band, and would I be interested in playing. And I said, “Sure.” I had an electric bass at the time that I just dinked around with. I knew nothing about it. He asked if I wanted to play guitar or play bass, and I said, “You know, I think I want to play bass.” So I did. Gordy Euler at the time was our guitar player, Chuck [Davidshofer] was our banjo player, and Dave Trainer was our fiddle player. Ken put that band together, and by the first rehearsal he had a name for the band and he had about four gigs lined up. And we all looked at him with the deer-in-the-headlight look, like, “What are you thinking?” And he quit about three weeks later! But the rest of us stuck it out.

And Chuck hated that electric bass so bad that he found the bass I’m still playing today—it’s one that he salvaged from a high school, something that had been given

away to his store. He fixed it up and said, “Here, learn this.” So I did. And I haven’t regretted that at all.

Has being a woman affected your interactions with Sam Hill at all?

At first it did. At first they were definitely much more well-behaved! But it will have been five years in May, and I think they’ve finally figured out that it’s okay, that as far as they’re concerned I’m one of the guys. And that’s fine. I don’t mind that role at all. In fact, I’d rather have it that way than to feel like I was being treated deferentially because I was a woman. I don’t want that. I want to be treated as an individual. And they’ve been very good about that, actually.

Pat is a little bit more aware of the gender difference; he’s a little more sensitive to it. Last year, we played at Sisters [Oregon], and we were staying in a house. Generally, everybody just grabs whatever room they want. And he said, “You know, I think Dee Ann should have the room upstairs—it has its own bathroom.” He will be the one who would think that up. The other guys are more, “Every man for himself.”

And you’ve had occasion where you’ve had to share a room with a guy, and it’s been fine. . .

Oh yeah, actually, it has. Pat and I have roomed together. Doug and I have roomed together, too. Generally, Pat and I share hotel rooms. It’s a hoot, we sit in our respective beds and use the remote control. And he’ll talk to me until I fall asleep. Once he said, “I was talking to you, and I realized you were snoring.”

It was very strange at first, because I have a hard time sharing a room with people I don’t know, even women, and then add to that the element of gender difference. But Chuck doesn’t care. He thinks it’s pretty funny.

Here’s a funny story. At Wintergrass, we went out the week of the Wintergrass Academy—and I shared Stephen Buffo's suite [Stephen organizes the Wintergrass Academy], but I had my own room in the suite. Stephen and I and Mike Bub and Robby McCoury’s wife, Lisa, went out to this jazz club. On our way to the club, Mike was trying to figure out everybody’s relationship. Stephen said, “Yeah, Dee Ann’s married, but her husband lets her come stay with me for the week.”

And Mike says, “God, I love bluegrass people!”

You got involved with the Oregon Bluegrass Association through your first jam. Did you see it as a way to meet people?

Yes. I moved around so much when I was growing up, we just used to dive in. That’s how you meet people and get involved and develop a community of people. And the bluegrass people made up the community that I wanted to associate with. So that’s why I got involved with the board. I was president for three years. I left in 1997. And you accomplished a lot. You left the organization in really good shape. I think it was in pretty good shape. It didn’t feel like there were any weird dynamics going on.

Maybe the first time in the organization's history . . .

Now, this may be the result of a gender difference. I looked at my role as building a team. There’s no prestige in running a bluegrass association. It’s hard work, there’s not a lot of recognition. Mostly all you hear are complaints. You don’t hear the positive stuff. But I think what happens on boards—and this may be a male thing—is the desire to be in control, to be the leader of the pack.

How does it feel being in a band that’s the greatest thing since sliced bread? It’s really weird. I just look at us as being the same, doing our same old stuff. It’s not like we became an overnight success. This band’s been together for nine years. It is difficult to deal with sometimes.

Are you getting more national attention?

Yes and no. We had a lot of radio airplay with the last CD, but we’re still on the West Coast. We’re still that band from out west. But when you’re in your own backyard... we feel we don’t get the respect we like to think we should. We get buried down in the poster with everybody. We’ve thought we should rename ourselves AAASam Hill so that we get listed first.

How long have you been a programmer at KBOO?

About 10 years—hard to believe. That was a total whim, a spur of the moment, “Sure, I’ll do it.”

Did you have to work really hard to learn what to play?

I had no idea. I remember that first show Gretchen Amann and I went in about 6 or 7 o’clock in the morning to the KBOO library. And we were deathly afraid of playing CDs. We didn’t know how to work the CD player. We only knew how to work the turntable, so we did nothing but vinyl.

We actually had a plan. We were going to start out with classic stuff and move into more progressive stuff as the show went on. And then after I started doing the show by myself, Chuck started giving me ideas. He would bring in CDs from the store and say, “You might think about putting something like this on.” He’d bring stuff home that I never had listened to before.

Is it true that the bluegrass show is one of the biggest fund raisers on KBOO? It is. It’s not a myth, I saw the numbers in the fall pledge drive. Part of it is the time slot. Saturday morning is prime radio listening time for a lot of people. But I also think that it’s because there is no other option for bluegrass in this town. People are just flocking to it. Is there an “O Brother" effect?

Yes, I think so. When I first started doing it our goal would be $1,100 for three hours, and we would count ourselves really lucky if we got that. Now our goals are [around] $3,400 per show. People really are listening.

As I recall, you inherited an affirmative action position at KBOO. The station required there to be at least one female programmer on the bluegrass show..

I’ve been sitting on the program committee for the last several years, and I’ve gotten a whole different picture of what KBOO is about by doing that. And I think what a lot of the bluegrass audience doesn’t realize is that bluegrass is just a small portion of KBOO’s programming and audience. One of the station’s directives is to have gender, race, and religious parity, because they want it to represent the larger community. And bluegrass is a good-old-boy genre. Ten years ago, most of the music on the radio was done by men and all the deejays were men. There’s this whole other element of the music—there is a woman’s voice in there, and it needs to be in there.

Early on, I was accused of playing more women’s music than men’s music. And I went back to my logs to see at what I was playing, and I think about 15 percent of the music I

played was by women—and 85 percent was not! But there was this perception that because I’m a woman, I am going to play women’s music.

But I had an all-women’s show this month, the whole three hours was women playing music. And I had nothing but positive calls. A lot were from men, saying, “This is really good music.” Well, yeah. But there are also a lot more women out there playing and leading their own bands. They’re no longer the backup singers—the bass players! Who’s your favorite bass player?

Missy Raines. She’s amazing. And you know what I like about her? I like the way she presents herself. There’s just something about her. She’s very feminine; she doesn’t have to be one of the guys. But by God, she plays her instrument with more strength and more ability than just about anybody. But she still has this whole feminine thing going with her. I just like the whole combination. And I should probably take a lesson from her.

I was at Wintergrass, and Keith Ameson said, “How come you don’t wear dresses? You ought to wear dresses.” I said, “No, I want to blend in with the band.” And he said, “You know, that’s the mistake that women make!” But Missy doesn’t. She’s not afraid to be who she is. WIB

O SISTER!

THE WOMEN’S BLUEGRASS COLLECTION

Here’s something to celebrate: the new compilation CD O Sister!: The Women's Bluegrass Collection from Rounder Records. As far as I know, and Rounder’s Ken Irwin concurs, O Sister is the first compilation to focus on women in bluegrass. This project was Ken’s brainchild and was actually in the planning stages before the O Brother movie came out. The title, of course, is simply clever marketing! And it must be working. As of May 1, O Sister had been on the Billboard Country charts for 22 weeks, peaking at #35 in January. According to SoundScan, the CD has sold over 75, 000 copies. When you factor in artist, vendor, and mail order sales, the number is probably closer to 80,000. This first-class project features 19 cuts from Rounder’s deep catalog of women artists: Claire Lynch, Suzanne Thomas, Delia Bell, Hazel Dickens, Alice Gerrard, Rhonda Vincent, the Cox Family, Ginny Hawker, Wilma Lee Cooper, Kathy Kallick, Laurie Lewis, Lynn Morris, Alison Krauss, the Stevens Sisters, Carol Elizabeth Jones, and Phyllis Boyens.

If you keep up with current recordings and reissues, most of these songs will be familiar to you. Four come from Heart Of A Singer by Hazel Dickens, Carol Elizabeth Jones, and Ginny Hawker, including my favorites “Time Is Winding Up” and the Molly O’Day song “Coming Down From God.” “Mama’s Hand,” written by Hazel and recorded by Lynn Morris, won IBM A Song of the Year in 1996. Although most of these cuts are from newer projects, songs from older recordings by Delia Belle, Wilma Lee Cooper, Phyllis Boyens, and Hazel and Alice provide a welcome taste of what I can only call the “old style” of bluegrass music—recordings made before technology made everything, even traditional material, sound so slick. These songs not only give the CD a balance but also harken back to a time when many women sang with a hard-edged delivery.

It is interesting to note that most of these women are still backed up by bands who are primarily male. Missy Raines, Mary Gibbons, Lynn Morris (clawhammer banjo), and Andrea Zonn are the only female side musicians. But that is a step in the right direction. A number of the featured singers do not play instruments at all. Others—Alison, Suzanne, Alice, Hazel (bass on “True Life Blues”), Wilma Lee, Kathy, Laurie, and Lynn—do. And the ironic thing is that one of the strongest cuts on the CD, “Eight More Miles,” features women playing all the instruments! This live cut, recorded at the IBMA Awards Show in 1999, features Laurie on fiddle, Claire on guitar, Lynn on Scruggs-style banjo, and Rhonda on mandolin. All these women take strong breaks on their instruments and share the lead singing. Missy anchors everybody with her bass playing. This song proves, once again, that women can do it all: they can sing and they can PLAY! What an inspiration!

In addition to all this excellent music, O Sister also includes well-written, perceptive liner notes by Marty Godbey. With her permission, and that of Rounder Records, I am reprinting part of them here. I supplied a title to this section because I love this particular phrase from Marty’s notes.

“A Musician is a Terrible Thing to Waste” The O Sister Liner Notes by Marty Godbey

“It has long been an axiom in the study of history that each generation stands on the shoulders of its predecessors; in the history of bluegrass music that has usually meant that musicians rely on the styles defined by the music’s originators, reaching out from the standard to put their personal stamp on the music they play.

“There is, however, another interpretation: today’s musicians are able to do what they do because earlier generations have opened doors and cleared pathways, sometimes only by dogged perseverance and determination that led to the comparatively easy life of present-day performers.

“This is particularly true of women in bluegrass. Although there has been a long history of successful and popular women in country music, from the moment that bluegrass music began to be considered as a separate form— sometime in the late

1950s—women have been a rarity in bluegrass bands.

“Theories for their absence cover a wide range, from the mountain-machismo attitude that women were second-class people who ought to be at home cooking or looking after children, to more educated, but still limiting, artistic, or practical explanations—women sing in keys that are difficult for instrumentalists; women band members present problems in traveling, especially with the restricted budget that has, all too often, prevailed in bluegrass bands; and wives and girl friends of male performers do not like having their men associating so closely with other women.

“Whatever the reasons—or excuses—this has been an unfortunate, and occasionally tragic, loss to those who appreciate bluegrass music, both as performers and as listeners: a musician is a terrible thing to waste.

“As times and attitudes have changed, and women have had the opportunity to prove that talent and musicianship are not sex-linked characteristics, an increasing number of female performers have become accepted as integral parts of bluegrass bands. Elbowing their way in, in the early days, as parts singers or bass players, they have gradually assumed larger roles, and now are featured singers, play lead instruments, and head their own bands.”

Well said, Marty! And now I’m out of room! Buy the CD and get one for a friend, too! WIB

Kid’s Perspective

This hilarious story comes from Tina Furtado, mother of my three youngest students, Gina, 13, Malia, 12, and Christina, 10. These girls and their friend Cath, 13, are sitting around the house, fooling with their instruments. Teresa, 7, another sister, has seen her sisters take banjo from me. She, too, is learning banjo now from Gina. All the men in her life–father, brothers–play other instruments with little or no interest in banjo. A year ago, Cath’s brother, Johnny, 12, tried a bit of banjo on his own, but things fizzled out quickly. So Teresa says, “Cath, isn’t it weird that Johnny wanted to learn banjo. Isn’t that really weird, Cath?” The older girls kind of chuckle and say yeah. “Because,” Teresa continues, “whoever heard of a BOY playing banjo?” Tina, of course, explodes with hoots and guffaws and runs off to tell her husband. As she leaves, she hears Gina explaining, “Well, Teresa, you know there was Earl Scruggs. He was a boy...”