Appalachian Heartwood - Our Hearts Still Beat

This is going to be a strange post. While I am up late, just pondering life, I'm keeping the fire going tonight. I always wonder how far to take this blog personally. These stories though personal are of the past ancestors and family mostly. It's always a tightrope on how much to reveal of what is actually going on in my personal present life. Should Appalachian Heartwood blog be only about feel good articles, historical stories, a few political rantings or should it take on more serious personal issues?

Just a pretty picture so I can link to Pinterest. LOL!

It's hard, because though I relish in the past and telling stories of my ancestors and of our area....I'm also living in present day Appalachia and dealing with new history and new issues that effect my family today.

These last couple years have been particularly tough. I know there are more people out there in our same boat. First, my new illness that blew my career to smitherines and now fighting for my son.  For the last year I've sort of changed roles with my son. When I became ill, he took care of me. Well now a crazy illness that we've never heard of is now racking his body and I'm trying, while still dealing with my own illness, taking care of him!!

James and Virginia Hale Stinson

It's why I haven't been writing much. I only have so much energy. Really his condition is quite serious...sometimes it makes the old history and stories seem quite trivial to spend time to even be writing about. But I enjoy going there to the past. Those stories of ancestors take me to another time and I escape this one, if just for a little while.

Our troubles are made difficult because my son is not working now and has no insurance. He stopped one job to take care of me (though he had no insurance at that job either and it was government!) and then had some odd jobs he did to make ends meet.

This illness just jumped on him SO FAST! First he started with a knee hurting and just swelling to the size of a grapefruit for no reason. Then it spread to the other knee and he started losing an unbelievable amount of weight. We would all love to eat as much as we want and lose weight but at some point you want it to stop.  He went from 180 to 120 in like 3 months.  He struggles to not lose anymore weight today and fights anemia.

No insurance leaves us applying for any program that can help.  When it first began it was test upon test. This disease acts like rheumatoid arthritis but his blood work is negative for that. They have him diagnosed with seronegative rheumatoid arthritis. REALLY?.... a weird disease we've never heard of? Suppose to be genetic in nature and it's moved so rapidly throughout his body. If you have to be sick, let it be a weird disease from a screwy ancestor. GREAT!!

In two years it's moved through every joint he has, knees, ankles, wrists, back, hips, he can't even stand up straight and has an elbow he can't straighten out and when he bends over he looks like a giraffe.

His health care revolves around what we can afford and what is available in the free clinic sphere. We've borrowed money from everyone we know. There is a clinic that is about 70 miles away that help him see a rheumatologist. Because he is not working ACA doesn't cover him. We live in Virginia and they did not expand Medicaid. He qualifies for Medicaid but it only covers pregnancy and that is not his problem!!

These doctors and clinics have helped him so much with their sliding scale fee but what we have problems with is medications and treatment!  It's nuts!!! This disease may be able to be controlled and get him functioning again, but not without treatment. We are having a time with that. He should be in physical therapy but affording it and getting him to those sessions is a problem. We focus on medications instead.

The medications are getting ready to change because we've tried the cheapest and it's not working. We are looking at pretty expensive medications, that can go to $1400 a month. We are left seeking medication programs that are disappearing at a rapid rate, because it's supposed by the drug companies the ACA Medicaid part will be expanded in the state. Our state legislature is nuts and behind on that matter.

Right now, I'm not having to worry about that, yet, as he had a gum infection and can't take the medication for the arthritis until that gets cleared up. Getting dental treatment has taken us MONTHS to just get a tooth pulled. He was in such bad shape the doctors I think were afraid to give the ok to have dental work. He just had that work last week and we are waiting to see if the infection clears up, so he can continue treatments for his disease.

So with no options on the state level, he had to apply for Social Security and of course because of his age and their weird judgement, he's been denied. He has doctors saying he can't work like this until he gets it under control.  The agency determining whether he can work or not has never seen him personally and is not taking his doctor's opinions about the matter. The state of Virginia because Social Security has denied him is also denying him Medicaid at another level. To the state one is either disabled or not and use Social Security to say so.

Many of us have illnesses that are disabilities whether Social Security determines it or not. That whole argument that you have to be just about a vegetable to be disabled needs to be changed. He applied for Virginia Rehabilitation Services but has not heard a thing out of those folks either. It's called budget cuts.

Our wonderful State legislature instead of expanding Medicaid which could help him, have introduced a plan now to fund more free clinics.  Free clinics are a blessing but they can only do so much. It is not an answer for treatment nor for comprehensive care.

Let me give you another example of how that fails. Maybe over 10 years ago, I was working at the museum and at that time I wasn't year round full time. It was a non profit and I could not afford health insurance. I had injured my back years before and had all kinds of pre existing conditions. I could have been on disability years ago but I chose to keep working until I just couldn't go anymore. The museum could not afford to insure me.  I was a huge risk even then!!

When I priced insurance on my own, it was going to cost me all of my check leaving me $20 a month to live ON!! And the deductibles were WAY UP there. Insurance was totally out of the question if I wanted to eat and have a roof over my head.

I was on partial unemployment for a few months in the winter every year. I worked a couple days a week until we opened back up for the season. I fell on my way out the door to work one day on some ice on the sidewalk and landed on my right arm. The pain was terrible.

I drove myself to the free clinic 40 miles away. My car was an automatic and even then it was a trip to change gears, and I drove with my left arm. The free clinic sent me to the Emergency room because they didn't have an X-Ray machine and the doctor there was pretty sure I had broke something.

At the ER they did determine I had cracked my wrist bone and my outer arm bone. They sent me back to the free clinic without a splint, a sling.... without anything. Said I needed to see an orthopedic.   The clinic was just astonished they sent me back to the clinic without even a sling and broken bones! It seems the ER treated the patients from the free clinic they sent to them without insurance just a little different. They sent me back to the ER to get at least get a SLING, to put my arm in, while trying to find an orthopedic.

Now mind you, I'm driving a car back and forth with a broke arm and wrist.  All my family members who could drive had jobs they could not get time off to help. One family member's boss said, "You leave, you're fired!", because they didn't have any days off benefits. That's how callous we've gotten in this country.
Getting an orthopedic to see me with no insurance and no money..that was an adventure....one office said they'd see me but needed $1000 up front?  We could not pull together 200 dollars at that time!!

Well the free clinic only recourse was to send me to Charlottesville to the hospital program and orthopedic there.  That's 400 miles away!!  My car ....at that time had some problems. I think it was a water pump and I was treating it with kid gloves until I got back to full time work to pay to have it fixed. NO WAY it would make an 800 mile round trip.

So I did what I had to do. It wasn't a compound fracture, just cracks, so I decided to be as tough as my ancestors who did without. I just wore the splint for about six weeks and didn't use that arm. Thank Goodness it was only cracked.  I prayed a lot and kept working.

The ER visits (and they charged me for both) cost me $1500. Doctor another $300.  I made payments until I got it all paid. I always paid my bills. I had used that hospital prior to this but they had at that time gone from a non profit to a for profit. They were trying to force me to fill out a credit card application to pay the bill. I refused. For nearly $2,000 I never saw an orthopedic and had to beg for a sling. I made income just barely over a year for their poverty program.

I've never stepped foot in that hospital as a patient again and won't if I can avoid it at all costs. The way they treated me with my broke arm, I wouldn't suggest taking a dead dog there. Sometimes my arm with the weather changes hurts. My wrist gets funky from time to time but still works and I still use it. I had an X ray of it since then and it's healed the way it's healed. Now mind you this is long before the Affordable Care Act was even implemented and for those falling through the cracks it's still the same.

Now our Virginia state legislature thinks a free clinic system can provide comprehensive health care for adults and/or the working poor? If they can't provide care for things like broken bones (which we have the technology to mend) or help access medications and treatment for my son to get him back to a healthier state to work....how is this suppose to be a solution?

The free clinics do what they can, and are a blessing, but I don't know what our legislators are smoking. Of course what do they care? They have good state insurance paid by taxpayers and are covered. I'm not seeing where they are earning it with protecting their constituents from a health care system out of control. Behind military spending, healthcare is what we spend the most tax dollars on and still some Americans like my son can't access it, while the rest of us are going broke trying to pay for what we do get. Our lawmakers keep making it worse.

Our story I know is not unusual. Stories like ours are happening all over the state, and the nation. Say what you will about the Affordable Care Act....it does address pre-existing conditions that kept me out of insurance. If not ACA we still need to address the failing issues with our health system and our access to health care.

We are suppose to be living in the greatest country in the world...why are we as Americans having to even live like this?

What is ya'll's horror stories with health care?

Jordan Efferson Bowling - Civil War Soldier Part 1

It's times like these I really miss Cousin June. Especially for the Bowling side of the family history.  Going to visit Thomas Edward Bowling Jr. i.e. "Cousin June" at his tavern at Frog Level, in Tazewell, Virginia would have helped me remember the story of Jordan Efferson Bowling and his participation in the Civil War in very short fashion.

I'd of taken the 45 mile drive down to Tazewell. Depending on whether I was in a hurry or not determined what route I drove. If I had time I took the slow route, Route 61, on the south side of East River Mountain. If I was short on time, I'd go through the tunnel and take the 4 lane traveling down Route 460 on the North side of East River Mountain. But I would cruise down the road listening to music, something like Jackson's Browne Pretender or other eclectic music, and note all the changes and recalling memories along the route. I love those long drives alone where you get to listen to good uninterrupted music and think about things. Was always a treat to take a drive and go see June.

I'd find a place to park in the tiny parking lot at his establishment that went by the nickname the Frog Level Yacht club. It was a joke as most who frequented never had ever even probably seen a yacht, except on TV, much less been on one.

I would have walked in the door and say, "Hey June!" and he'd say, "Howdy Cousin, been alright?" "We fine, n' you?" "How's your dad?" We'd chit chat a bit back and forth, catching up on current family news and then he knew I was there for family history, because I had a writing pad and a briefcase in hand.  I'd say, "June serve me a beer and I got a question for ya." He'd double check the other patrons there and make sure they had what they needed and settle down for a long talk.

I'd say, "Remind me of the story of......." and ol' June would say, "Now you talkin' about so and so, some other's son or daughter?" Because so many of the old Southern families, and the Appalachian families, the family first names duplicated over and over and over and you have to be very specific.

People think the nicknames are just for fun...no those nicknames are usually the only way we can get it straight to determine a specific person. Various branches of the family would repeat naming their kids the same names. For example, in one family we have 3 men named William Edward, and none of them are Juniors just the same first, middle and last names, all cousins. One we call Bill, one we call Bill Ed and the third we call Will Ed. I have two aunts named Betty Sue. One we call Betty Sue, the other we call Betty Sue Bill because she was married to an Uncle Bill.

June and I would get on the right person and then June would rattle the tale off and include every last detail and usually added some details I didn't even know. Then he'd tell me many times where to look for the information or who to contact. In trying to put this story together, I got my Jareds and Jordan's mixed up, my Henry's mixed up and my James!

Plus it's the Virginia Bowling/Bolling line, known as the Red, White and Blue Bowlings/Bollings. The variations of spellings DON'T matter, their names are spelled so many different variations for the same people in the actual records...one has has to do a lot of sifting to sort them out. The Red Bolling/Bowlings are some kin to Pocohontas through a Robert Bolling marrying the grand daughter of Pocahontas. For his story click HERE

The white Bollings are when the grand daughter of Pocahontas dies and THIS Robert Bolling marries another and has another passel of children. Then the "out of the blue Bollings" or Thomas "the Swan" Bollings, last I checked this was some guy named Thomas who made his way on a boat to America called the Swan. But no one is sure where exactly he is from in the U.K. or if he left America and then came back.

Plus add that this family from the very first time it stepped on this continent there are instances where the tree doesn't fork too far and that has nothing to do with Appalachia. Cousins married well bred cousins as early as the late 1600's on the coast and in the Piedmont area of Virginia just like the Kings and Queens of Europe. A practice that continued when they moved west and south. The well bred Cavaliers were well bred.

They didn't marry brother and sister but there were an awful lot of kissing cousins in many of the old eastern Virginia families. This also occurred in all the original 13 colonies so it's not just a Virginia thang. I hate that it's always put as a stereotype for Appalachia because its not as true when you trace into all those genealogies down to the east coast.

If you have the blood line of a Bowling, Bolling, Boland, etc. in or from Virginia most likely you are kin, I don't care what you say, when you follow all those lines of all those well bred cousins...most likely your kin to every other Bowling line in Virginia. In all the variations of spelling, it doesn't matter. It's a fluke if you are not.

Those kinship ties also include some well heeled Virginians from the Randolphs, to the Jeffersons, to the Adams, to even the Lee's and Custis/Washington families. So much so that when Walter Plecker, the State Registrar of Virginia, went on his eugenics purity of race warped campaign with the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, he had to back down from those with ties to Pocahontas...which included the Bolling/Bowling line and all those well heeled kinship ties. For more on Walter Plecker click HERE. and HERE

Plecker was trying to make anyone with even one drop of native blood or black blood, people of color....and in Virginia at that time, that would have included many of those in office in the State, local and county government. It was an absurd law and I don't think they fancied being subjected to their own Jim Crow segregation laws and having to move to a black or people of color neighborhood. They were Plecker's boss, so exceptions were made for the Bolling and their kinship lines in Virginia.

The story of Jordan Efferson Bowling and his role in the Civil War deals with some kinship ties and I had to sort out those ties which is the reason for explaining some of the Bowling family history in part 1.

Took me a few weeks to sort out Jordan Efferson Bowling's history again and I FINALLY think I have it right but .....Yep....I really miss Cousin June and those drives to see him. Part 2 coming in a day or so.

West Virginia Coon Hunters String Band - Grand Daddy at The Bristol Sessions

In Search of Grand Dad's Music

View from the North Side of Big Walker Mountain

My grandfather, Wesley "Bane" Boyles was born August 5th, 1905 in a house on the north side of Walker's Mountain in Bland County, Virginia, just over the Smyth County line. Being one of seven children, he was the son of Geneva "Alice" Waddell Boyles and Alfred "Doc" Boyles. The family roots ran deep in the Appalachian Mountains since the late 1700's. His ancestors hailed from Western North Carolina to Southern West Virginia.

According to oral tradition, his father "Doc" Boyles played the fiddle and Bane at the age of three or four begged to be taught to play. His father thought him too young but his mother relented and allowed him to play his father's fiddle while his father was at work. His oldest sister said he was sawing out tunes by the age of six.

His mother related the story to his daughter Lena and said, "he always played the songs so fast in those days." One day she asked him why he was playing so fast and Bane told her he had to learn to play as many tunes as he could before his father got home.

Bane's father, Doc Boyles, in those days, worked for the Groseclose family (the very ones who began the Future Farmers of America Organization) at their store and on the Groseclose farm just outside of Ceres in Bland County, Virginia.

Bane, his brothers and sisters helped the family eke out a subsistence living on the small farm they were living way up on Walker's mountain. Bane Boyles always joked where he lived as a boy the mountains were so steep, his brothers and sisters were born with one leg shorter than the other, the cows had two legs shorter and when you planted potatoes, when it was time to harvest, you just had to dig a hole at the bottom of the hill and they would roll out.

The whole family was musical. According to his sister, my great Aunt Mable, the children all attended a church at Nebo called Zion Methodist Church just across the Smyth Co. line with their mother and her family.(There are five generations of family buried in that church cemetery including Grand daddy Bane.) All sang in the choir.

But Bane Boyles was a little different from the rest of the family. Music was his passion. By the time Bane Boyles was a teenager he had learned how to play all the old mountain reels and how to call a square dance. He was called on to play many a barn dance, or family get togethers in the area.

In the 1920s the family moved to Bluefield, West Virginia. Bane worked odd jobs and continued to play music at barn dances, bars anywhere he could but in a larger area around Bluefield. In August of 1927, he was playing with a band that called themselves the "West Virginia Coon Hunters'.  They all seem to live around the Rogers Street area of Bluefield at that time.


West Virginia Coon Hunters 1927, Standing Left to Right Fred Belcher, Clyde Meadows, Jim Brown, Vernal Vest Seated Left to Right: Dutch Stewart, Wesley "Bane" Boyles, Regal Mooney, Fred Pendleton, Joe Stephens. Image Courtesy of  Birthplace of Country Music: Gift of Denise Smith

Front row L to R Bane's sisters Marie, Mable and Annie
Back row his brother Tom and Bane. Not pictured is brother Brown.

I never really knew about his history with the West Virginia Coon Hunters. He never talked about it. We had always heard that Grand Daddy Bane had recorded a record but none of the family realized it was at the now infamous Bristol Sessions, in Bristol Tennessee. In 2002, my Great Aunt Marie, Bane's baby sister, came by the house for a visit. She was leaving her husband and moving to Las Vegas. A bit odd especially since she was pushing 80 years old but Aunt Marie and all the women in our family always were of a very independent mind.

On her way she wanted to drop off a large box of family photos for me. In the box was the picture of the West Virginia Coon Hunters. She just said it was a band that my grandfather had played in. It was a neat photo but I was more interested in the pictures of my great, great, great grandparents just after the Civil War. Talk about a boon to the family history project!

About a year later I was in the doctors office at the clinic and picked up a magazine called Golden Seal about West Virginia history. In it was an article entitled, "On the Trail of a Lost String Band: The West Virginia Coon Hunters" by John Lilly.

I opened the pages and lo and behold was a copy of the picture I had with even more pictures of my grand father with the band and the story of the West Virginia Coon Hunters.

They were looking for information on this band that played at the Bristol Sessions. They had his name as "Bone" Broyles because they could not make out the hand writing on the back of their copy of the photos. The actual record misspelled his name as W.B. Bayles.

I was at the clinic because I had chronic back problems from an old injury, but I was so excited that the Doctor was having a hard time getting out of me what was wrong. I was more interested in knowing if I could have this copy of this magazine!! They let me have it for my health's sake!

I knew absolutely nothing of the Bristol sessions but soon a little research found they are called the sessions that gave birth to country music. Grand dad and the West Virginia Coon Hunters recorded the same day as Jimmy Rodgers. They recorded two songs, Your Blue Eyes Make Me Crazy, and Greasy String. I was amazed I had never heard of grand dad at the Bristol Sessions nor how it was the beginning of the Carter Family and others. Being in tourism I had known about the Virginia Tourism The Crooked Road initiative honoring the music of our area but they took the route south through Galax and missed our neck of the woods. They recently added Big Walker Lookout to the trail....at least grand pap was born on that mountain.

String Band music had become popular in the 1920's. It was different from traditional music in that guitar was added, maybe a mandolin and it had a sort of bluesy quality to it.

Ralph Peer of Victor Records placed an ad in local papers stating they were looking for new talent. He was amazed at the response of the mountain folks coming out of the mountains down to Bristol, Tennessee to record. The Bristol Sessions it is said changed country music history.

Wesley Bane Boyles and Band Norfolk Naval Air Station
Officers Club Image Courtesy of Birthplace of Country
Music: Gift of Denise Smith

West Virginia Coon Hunter's playing of "Your Blue Eyes make me Crazy" is said to be the forerunner of artists such as Bill Monroe and others. Later for a brief time, Grand Daddy even played with Bill Monroe. So my grandfather and the West Virginia Coon Hunter's were there at the very beginning!

Made me wish I could have gone back in time and learned to play the mandolin he tried so hard to teach me. He did teach me a song or two and I am now working on trying to get his versions of a couple of songs recorded because they are not like other versions I've heard. His version of Copper Kettle does not sound like Joan Baez nor Bob Dylan's. Mainly they changed the dialect from the mountain version.

Shortly after recording at the Bristol Sessions Bane was caught transporting and manufacturing illegal liquor and sent to prison thus ending any chances he had of a recording career. The band West Virginia Coon Hunters went on to record several albums and existed for many more years. In those days you had to be pretty clean cut to be in the record business or at least it had to be hidden well. For the family moonshine tales click here.

Before he was arrested, Bane Boyles had fell in love with Stewart Burress daughter, my grandmother Hazel. He left her pregnant and not married when he went to prison. My mother Lena was born in 1929. Hazel, Bane and baby Lena were living with Stewart and grandma Mae in the 1930 Census and all three going by the name Boyles. But Bane Boyles did not marry my grandmother Hazel until 1931.

My mother was in her 40's when she learned the truth when she had to have a copy of her birth certificate. She was so upset she actually rounded her parents up and marched them both before a notary to get the name corrected on her birth certificate.

After prison Bane Boyles did his best to settle down in Bluefield. He learned several trades; he was a barber for a time, an electrical worker and a car mechanic. He just couldn't give up being a rambler playing music and it caused a lot of friction in his marriage with Hazel.

It was said he would work a job long enough to get enough money to hit the road to play music in another town. The marriage suffered between Hazel and Bane because he would travel to every opportunity to play his music, dropping everything, often leaving Hazel with six kids, little money, bill collectors and no word of where he'd left to. As my mother Lena said, "My daddy was a scoundrel, but he could play a damn good fiddle."

Lena Boyles, Wesley Bane Boyles, Jimmy Boyles (banjo) Bill Boyles
Image Courtesy of Birthplace of Country Music :Gift of Denise Smith

Lena was taught to play a guitar and her brother Bill to play the banjo and guitar and her little brother Jimmy was added. It was a time when it was the most settled she said she had ever seen her dad. He taught his children to play so he could take them with him at the area barn dances to help to support the family with his music. It didn't work out very well. The children revolted because of the late nights and not a lot of money really coming to them or the family.

Hazel and Bane separated in the 1960s. They never divorced. Bane continued to play music where ever he could. He was invited many times to play at the local radio stations in and around Bluefield WV with various local acts.

My favorite memory of my grandfather Bane was when my dad was in the military and every vacation we would head "Up Home" from where ever we were stationed to visit with mountain relatives. It is one of my first memories of my grandfather. I was 5 or 6 years old. Grand Daddy Bane was living in Ada, WV. My mother and father took me with them to visit.

The house was just a two-room shack with a porch up on a steep bank. Dad parked the car at the bottom of the hill because it had rained and you could hardly walk to the house much less drive to it. We slipped and slid walking up the hill as I heard the sweetest fiddle music I'd ever heard in my life accompanied by a guitar and a mandolin. When we got to the house I could see my grandfather through the screen door standing playing his fiddle. He always dressed very neatly and he was in a pair of dress pants with a white shirt and shoes so clean and shiny they sparkled.

I just thought he looked so out of place in this mountain shack on a muddy hillside. We stayed most of the night into the wee hours of the morning. Momma picked up the guitar and my daddy even joined in with his harmonica. Everyone picked and played all night, saying things like "Do you remember this one?" or "Have you heard this one?" and someone would begin the tune and the others just joined in.

I still remember jars of moonshine sitting on the kitchen table too. They passed round and round just like the music. I fell asleep on his bed on top of everyone's coats listening to that sweet mountain music as a lullaby.

Grand daddy Bane continued to play his music to his dying day. I remember all us relatives in his later years, taking turns to drive him to every fiddler's convention in the area and just dropping him off. Galax, Roncevert, Lebanon, he'd hit them all if we would drive him. He tell us not to worry he'd find a way home and he always did. Might be a week or three later but he would show back up.

I am still looking for some cassette tapes he told me he was making before I married and moved away. His goal was to record every song he knew on this little cassette player he'd bought at a pawnshop. The last time I visited him in a one-room apartment in Bluefield WV he had boxes of these tapes. No one in the family seems to know what happened to them. I pray they are still out there somewhere.

Bane Boyles died in the Spring of 1975. Grand Daddy Bane told my mother he was so afraid he would be found dead alone in his apartment. I remember she said she prayed with him that the good Lord not allow that to happen. He didn't. Instead Granddaddy Bane died on a creek bank, on a beautiful April day, sitting in a lawn chair fishing with one of his best, long time friends at Grose's Bottom in Bland county.

It was one of his favorite spots to fish. He sat in his chair and his friend thought he was asleep when his line went to bobbing. His friend called out to him but he didn't respond. His friend reeled the fish in and said he caught the biggest fish he'd ever seen come out of Wolf Creek. But Wesley Bane Boyles was dead and didn't get to see it.

Now his fiddle playing is being heard the world over on the Bristol Session series along with such greats as Jimmy Rodgers and Mother Maybelle Carter. He didn't get to see that either but at least I can set the record straight that he with others, were a part of something so big and in his part helped to influence so many and give birth to country music.West Virginia Coon Hunters Greasy String  And Blue Eyes Make Me Crazy

I would love to hear from the other members families and their stories. Also any comments are welcomed.

Appalachia Mountain Music Tradition - Jim Lloyd and the Skyliners

Ok so I lied. I thought I could keep this going and well ....looks like I've been busy. Back to it.  I've been excited lately by so much goings on. Went on a date Saturday night to Independence Virginia. I love what they have created at their old courthouse. The lower floor is home to the Historical Society and the upper courtroom is now the Baldwin Auditorium. Went with partner, Ed. We went to support Jim Lloyd and the Skyliners. They just released their cd, "Songs from My attic".  Jim is the owner and operator of the barbershop at Rural Retreat and this music is Old Style mountain music.

I have to say I was raised on the old style music. My grandfather, Wesley Bane Boyles played at the Bristol Sessions. Grand daddy Bane was born in Bland County but had moved to Bluefield, WV in the twenties with his parents. He played with a band called the West Virgina Coon Hunters. His career was cut short though. He was arrested for making illegal spirits. I don't hold that against him. I did a bit a research looking for his arrest record while over at the Craft Library in Bluefield and found the newspapers had recorded that between 1927 and 1928 there were 137 moonshine stills captured and busted up.....most of those named as involved were kin to me.  Yes, it was a family tradition.

As was the music. As I listened to Jim Lloyd with band members, Mark Rose and Trevor McKenzie play the old style music, I was transported back to a time when all of my family played some instrument and this music. Instruments leaning against a wall with folks sitting around a kitchen table, or on a porch. Many played more than one and it depended on the song they wanted to do whether they picked up the mandolin or the bango.  I fell asleep many a night listening to that sweet music. I forgot how much I missed it. I also had forgotten how much of a part of our life this music was. Sad songs, happy songs, funny songs. Listening Saturday night put me back in time and I really enjoyed it. Especially their version of Johnny Cash's  Ain't No Grave.

There are not many young ones taking up the music style these days. But the band member Trevor is in his early 20s and I can't wait to see what he does when he grows up. And as I looked around the Baldwin Auditorium most of those in the audience were my age, not that I'm that old, but not many young folks.

I thought to myself that I have failed to pass on this tradition. All the musicians in my family that played this music have passed on. Now I'm making it a mission after hearing this group to cart my grandchildren to a show or two.  If you get a chance Jim Lloyd and the Skyliners put on a great show and the cd is pretty good too.

Left Trevor McKenzie, Mark Rose & Jim Lloyd

Jim Lloyd and the Skyliners

The new cd is "Songs from my attic" and it was produced by Mountain Roads Recordings