A place to show off my part of Appalachia and the people living there. Our history, genealogy, mountain crafts, i.e. beadwork, gardening, quilting, corn husk crafts, farming, stories, and general matters of interest.
I'm so lax with this blog. I'd probably have a lot more followers if I'd post more. Ah...what the heck! It's for at my pleasure really. Just something to keep me going and hopefully entertain a few. So forgive me reader if I'm not prolific at blog posting.
West Virginia Coon Hunters
Grand dad Bane front left
This week coming up is the 90th Anniversary of the Bristol Sessions. Called the "BIG BANG" of country music. I've been invited to see a premiere of a documentary entitled, "Born In Bristol". My daughter and I are traveling to Bristol to see it. The Birthplace of Country Music is putting this show on for the anniversary. Looking forward to it. I'm also donating some family photos of my grandfather Wesley Bane Boyles. My copy of the original West Virginia Coon Hunters, etc. I've been assured I can still use copies of them. Better be..they are all over this blog but the originals need a safer home now.
I was thinking about how Appalachia has given so much to this nation and the world. Country music and blue grass music would not be country and blue grass music if they hadn't recorded these sessions. Country music artist consider the Bristol Sessions, "the Bible". Grand dad would be tickled about all this attention.
My dad used to say that Appalachia was the backbone of the U.S. We carried so much of this country and help build this country, in the background, most folks don't realize. They always tried to break our back but we are still way too strong. We still sing about it all.
Well it's official...I have Meneire's Disease that is causing my vertigo. Yee Haw! Since last September it's been a wild walk. I walk like I'm drunk when I get an attack. I know people who see me stumble around wonder, "What is she on?" I can say for certain now, I have a new empathy for drunks. But...I woke UP. It's a good DAY!!
Any way, this post has been on my mind for some time and in draft. Back in 1971 or 1972, my grand daddy, Wesley "Bane" Boyles came to live with us for a time. The man lived to play music. Here is a link to his story. He would pick up his fiddle and Momma, at the time, would play guitar with him...... sometimes. But she was busy running a household. He got it in his mind, while he was living with us, to teach me to play a mandolin and teach me to play a few songs so he would have someone to play music with.
I was a teenager....I was more interested in Creedance Clearwater Revival than bluegrass music. I hated what I called, "the nose twanger singers" of blue grass, people who sounded like they were singing out their nose in a high pitch. No offense, some people say it's not bluegrass with out it, but it's never been my favorite bluegrass. The playing may be excellent but the singing hurt my ears.
He invited some folks over to play and that's what they sounded like. He could not convince me to learn anything until mom said bluegrass did not have to sound like that to be bluegrass. That the old time music she remembered did not sound like that and I didn't have to sing through my nose. So he tried to accommodate me and to convince me, taught me a few songs that more modern day folk singers had recently recorded at that time.
He gave me a mandolin and when I would not practice, took it back. That was the end of the lessons and then I think he moved to Bristol that year. Gosh I wish I could go back, but I was a dumb kid and the modern world was calling.
I remember the names of three songs he tried to teach me, Fair and Tender Ladies, Copper Kettle and Shady Grove. I don't remember how Fair and Tender Ladies goes, that was the one he had me working on when I quit...but I continued to sing Copper Kettle and Shady Grove to my kids as lullabies. Poor kids!!!
Through the years, I've heard versions of these songs and realized my grand pap taught me a different version of both of these songs. Since he was at the Bristol Sessions and one of the original old time, old timers...I thought I ought to share these before I go.
So about a year ago, I recorded myself singing Copper Kettle. The versions out there changed the dialect and with that changed the words and the tune. I didn't know even writing it down, how to get that across. Now I'm not a singer, maybe in my youth I could carry a tune.
Today I'm a bathtub baritone, sounds great under water. I was going to re do this but since I've got this hearing, balance problem, losing hearing in my right ear, it's much WORSE than it was a year ago! I put what I recorded a year ago up on You Tube last night. I'm sorry you have to suffer through it but, I overlaid pictures to watch on the video as I'm singing to make it a bit more tolerable. I hope someone that can sing can bring it out and sing it as I learned it.
Now as for Shady Grove, Shady Grove is a popular tune the only difference is the story behind it and the words. I'm just writing the lyrics down he taught me and what he told me about the song.
Grand daddy Bane called Shady Grove a "roaming dandy" or "ramblin man" song. Basically he warned me if any feller sings it to me...RUN. They ain't gonna be faithful! That's why I think there are so many versions of the lyrics. They have been personalized to fit the singer. He even taught me changing lyrics when you learn a young lady's eye color. Get their eye color right and sing it to them, with the catchy tune, it would make them swoon, I reckon.
Just as he knew about moonshine, he'd know about this one TOO! I'm sure from the experience of being a rambling music man! Think about it...what is the significance of a "shady grove" other than a place for lovers to meet away from prying eyes?
Shady Grove - Lyrics
Chorus: Shady Grove, my little miss,
Shady Grove, I say,
Shady Grove, My little love
Better be on my way.
Went to see my Shady Grove,
She's standing, in the door.
Shoes and Stocking's in her hand
Little bare feet on the floor.
Chorus
Next 3 are changing verses were based on a girl's eye color. If you were singing for your gal you knew their eye color.
Cheeks are Red as a blooming rose,
Eyes the darkest brown,
She's the prettiest thing I know,
The prettiest thing in town.
Cheeks are red as a blooming rose,
Eyes the prettiest green,
She's the prettiest thing I know.
The prettiest I've ever seen.
Cheeks are red as a blooming rose.
Eyes the prettiest blue.
She's the prettiest thing I know.
The prettiest to be true.
Chorus
Every time I pass this way,
It's always dark and cloudy.
Every time I see my girl,
I always tell her howdy.
Chorus
Wish I had a pig in a pen,
Corn to feed him on.
I'd give it to my Shady Grove
To feed him when I'm gone.
(This one about a pig, I was amazed to hear the Grateful Dead do a version of a song with this in it. But I originally heard it as part of Shady Grove.)
Chorus
Peaches in the summertime.
Apples in the Fall.
If I can't have my Shady Grove,
I want no love at all.
Chorus
So there you go. I hope others are taking my examples and begin to think about sharing some of the Appalachian songs, culture, story and traditions that are passing out of time that they know. If I could go back...I'd pick that old man's brain for the knowledge that went with him when he passed in a heart beat. But I will share what little of it I did get. P.S. If anyone performs these songs please record it for me and send me a link!!! THANKS.
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.
In dealing with any illness it is the symptoms that make it worse. In this blog, coming up on July 4th, 2013, I have about 9 drafts of articles and each one I have quite a bit of material for. With Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, (what they ended up giving me as a diagnosis when I didn't recover from the virus's I had), and heart problems, the worst part is having the energy to put together those ideas while being so tired. When you are tired the brain fog takes over and so I have to work when my mind is not as tired or the articles won't make sense. Even to me.
I went to my doctor's this week and his frustration is the same as mine. There is no cause for Fibromyalgia nor CFS and thus no cure. All he can do is treat symptoms and those can change on a daily basis. What is the connection to the two diseases or to tick diseases? I was diagnosis with Fibro years ago and laughed at it. I thought it was more my working 2 jobs, while going to school full time with 2 kids and a disabled husband as the cause of aches and tiredness. Worked for years with it before developing full blown Chronic Fatigue Syndrome two years ago.
But research on these illnesses are coming out. Some hope comes through in articles like this: Cause for Fibromyalgia mystery solved. Vascular... imagine that as a possible cause. We have hope that one day the causes and cures will be found. In the meantime I juggle symptoms while trying to live some kind of a normal life.
So I thought I'd list some of the articles I'm working on. My last one...thank goodness I had been working on for a while. Ya'll tell me if this blog gets too disjointed and doesn't make sense. Be my editors so to speak.
Articles In Process:
Jenny Wiley story - Jenny Wiley was a woman who was captured by Indians in 1789 in Bland County, Virginia and taken to Kentucky. Quite a famous case in our area. I was working on that research when I became ill. I am still working on it but writing as I go. It will take a while to get that post up because there are some loose ends and it depends on my brain as to whether what I find makes sense but I am getting there. What I'm learning so far is the official story is a bit flawed and I have to verify those flaws.
Ned Sizemore Clan- You are Native but You Can't Claim That Tribe - Many folks in my area are kin to Ned Sizemore who was a Native American out of North Carolina. His family applied to claim on several different rolls for benefits and recognition. Each one was quite odd in that none of the commissioners denied they were Native, they just denied them rights of each tribe they said they belong to. A new Melungeon DNA project proves their Native blood line. I'm working on that article to discuss the problems with Native American Appalachian Ancestry and trying to have a connection or recognize that. This one may be two articles. I am toying with that.
Search for Grand Dad's Music. This is the story of my Grandfather Wesley Bane Boyles who was a member of the West Virginia Coon Hunters. A band that played at the infamous Bristol sessions in 1927. The Birth of Country Music. This one is about finished and will be posted first. Mainly because I wrote most of it for the family years ago.
Moonshine Beneath the Pale Moon Light- Story of moonshiners in my family gathered from news articles and oral history. I'm trying to record the song Copper Kettle (kind of the family anthem) the way my grandfather taught me. But the old mountain dulcimer won't stay in tune. And these days I sound like a bathtub baritone, great sounding under water!!
Outhouse Stories- Build it Down Wind of the House, Boys - This one is a further take on the outhouse in Appalachia. With stories gathered from family and friends of their experiences with having to use an outhouse.
Places in our area. Different events places I visit. Have a couple of those in the works. Have to promote our AREA!!
And many, many more. But I am tired this week. The illness is beating me up pretty good. So I will quit for now. Some have asked why I don't write a book....well I am doing that too... a novel...began years ago.
But I don't know what the future holds. This illness has thrown me for a loop. It is more important for me if we are going to dispel the myths about Appalachia than Appalachian people are going to have to tell their stories. This is just my family and mine. There are so many good Appalachian bloggers. I really enjoy +Dave Tabler blog, +Gary Holbrook website and Granny Sue the storyteller and antique hunter. Please spread the word and subscribe to all of us. And if you have one about Appalachia let me know. I want to do a list on the side bar to promote that too. Blessings to all.
