My First Instrument

The first instrument I learned to play was the ukulele. I was probably around ten or eleven years old, living at Selfs Texas. Selfs is eight miles north of Honey Grove on FM100. During the summer when school was out, I would walk about a quarter mile up our black-top road to FM100 where the late Mr. Russell Davis (pictured) lived. Mr. Davis was probably in his 60's or 70's by then and could still play about any instrument he picked up. He had a room in the back of his house that he called his "music room." I can't remember every instrument he had in there, but I'm sure he had at least one violin, guitar, banjo, piano, washtub bass, handsaw, and...a ukulele!

Before I talk about the ukulele, I guess you would like for me to explain about the washtub bass and the hand saw, huh? To make a washtub bass, you take an old washtub, drill a hole right in the bottom of it, thread a long heavy cord through it with a knot on one end, turn the tub upside down, take a long wooden stick (broom handle), sit one end of the handle on the edge of the tub, run the cord to the top of the stick and tie it there. Can you visualize that? Now, to play it, you put one foot on top of the tub (really the bottom as it sits upside down), grasp the top of the broom handle with one hand, and pluck the cord with your other hand. Different notes can be made by applying the proper tension to the broom-handle.

How do you play a handsaw? Well, you put the wooden handle between your crossed legs, grasp the small end of the saw with one hand, bend a curve in the saw blade, and then use a fiddle (violin) bow to bow the smooth edge of the saw. (Don't bow the teeth of the saw. It's hard on fiddle bows!) The sound you get is an eerie whistling sound with a pitch that's dependent upon the amount of bend you are forcing on the blade. I think one has to be REALLY skilled to get music from a carpenter’s tool! Russell Davis could.

So, Mr. Davis grabbed his ukulele, handed it to me and proceeded to show me how to make various chords and strum rhythm. The first practice I ever received playing ukulele was playing second (as we musicians call it) to a fiddle and a handsaw! Believe me, this was hard! I just barely could tell when to make chord changes as Mr. Davis sawed away on fiddle and handsaw. I'm sure he called out the chord changes to me every now and then.

I think that, just maybe, I got some of the best ear training a young musician could ever get, right there in Russell Davis' music room, Selfs Texas, 1960 something!

Thanks Mr. Davis!

Bluegrass at Hugo

When I first started playing banjo in…1970…I think, the only thing I knew about bluegrass music was what I had heard on 33 RPM records, 8-track, and cassette tapes. I don’t think there was very much bluegrass on the radio then. Oh, you might hear Foggy Mountain Breakdown or Dueling Banjos (1972) on the Ft. Worth station, WBAP. I’ll bet there was some bluegrass played on local radio stations in Paris and Bonham, but I don’t remember listening to that much radio in my high school days.

My first exposure to real, live bluegrass music probably came somewhere around 1975. I had previously bounced around north Texas with J.T. Bryan, Joe Julian and Ross Whit, attending Texas Fiddle contests in different cities. I enrolled at Paris Junior College after I graduated from high school in 1975. There, I met Bennie Tschoerner, who taught several of my electronics classes. I think Bennie was the one who first took me to Salt Creek Park in Hugo Oklahoma. Bennie had heard “Little” Jimmy Hendley play banjo at Bill Grant’s festival in Hugo and thought, “If that little kid can play banjo, surely I can too.” So, Bennie bought an Alvarez banjo…that eventually became mine…after Bennie gave up on banjo pickin’!

The Hugo Bluegrass Festival at Salt Creek Park, as I always heard, was “the biggest festival west of the Mississippi”. I have never attended any other festival in the states surrounding Texas that was as big as Bill Grant’s. Bill’s festival always started on the first Wednesday in August and went through Sunday. Many attendees would set up camp in Salt Creek Park as much as a week before the festival officially started. And Bill had some of the biggest bluegrass bands in the country. I seem to remember the likes of Lester Flat, Bill Monroe, Rick Skaggs, Mac Wiseman and many more being there over the years.

Bennie and I usually hung out at a camp not too far from the “foot of the hill”, that was set up every year by the same group of guys. I’m not sure I can remember everyone’s name that was usually there. I know that Stuart Anderson and Steve Annis was there…a fellow they called “Five String”, and some others. We mostly sat around the camp jamming and sharing new licks we had learned, but we would often go walking through the woods, stopping to jam with other groups of musicians. Of course, we kept a close eye on the official schedule and would go back up the hill to see our favorite performers.

I remember spending a lot of time visiting the vendors that were always there. It was better than any music stores in Fannin and Lamar counties. You could find all kinds of bluegrass instruments, records and tapes. There was also plenty of places to buy food and drink.

I always looked forward to going to this festival each year, but it was awful hot in August. I remember strapping my banjo to the sissy bar on my 1979 Yamaha 750 motorcycle and driving from Greenville to Hugo in the later years. When the festival was over and I returned home, I could still hear music ringing in my ears for at least a day or two…literally!!! I don’t remember the last year I attended the festival before it shut down. Debbie and I married in 1984 and we both attended at least one or two festivals after that. I was pretty much wrapped up in the Country Music scene during the 80’s and didn’t go to Salt Creek anymore.

Steve Annis has been converting some old photos to digital format recently. Here is one he sent yesterday. See more of the pictures on my website, http://www.banjoboyd.com .  Maybe some of my fellow Hard 2 Git band members will blog more about the great times at Salt Creek Park. Ah, the memories!

My Greatest Teachers

On the left is my grandfather, John Henry Edelhauser. He is playing my first guitar, an Old Craftsman, given to me by Roy Free. The gentleman on the right is Russell Davis. Russell taught me to play the ukelele, which was the first instrument I ever learned. My grandfather's lap steel can be seen lying in the old recliner. These two men taught me in the beginning.

My friend Gary Moreland of the Bois d'Arc Bottom Band wrote a song about my grandfather. I would like to share it with you...

HE'S TEACHING THE ANGELS TO PLAY
by Gary Moreland

Sometimes our memories bring a smile to our face
Whenever we choose to look back
One I remember was my first old guitar
I bought putting groceries in a sack
And another was that kind old man I knew
Who somehow came to be
Someone who taught me a song or two
And left so much more with me
His music still lives thru one of his own
Whom I'm sure he is proud of today
As he looks down from heaven with a smile on his face
From where he's teaching the Angels to play
He's teaching the Angels to play
They're all gathered round him today
In his old overalls and a smile on his face
He's teaching the Angels to play
In his circle of friends I hope to be
When all of the Angels gather to see
That grand music show in our home far away
All of those people Mr. John taught to play

For my friend Boyd

Jeff Newman

Original post: 10/31/05 Yahoo 360

My first formal training in playing the pedal steel guitar came from the World's Greatest Steel Guitar Instructor, Jeff Newman. Jeff was not only the best instructor around, he was one of the greatest players in the world. I first attended one of his weekend seminars in Dallas, somewhere around 1978. I later went on to study E9th steel guitar at his school, Jeffran College, in Hermitage Tennessee. (That's a trip to Nashville I didn't want to return from!) In the early 1980's, Jeff invited Buddy Emmons (Worlds Foremost Steel Guitarist) to teach at his school. Needless to say, I was in two of Buddy's classes at Jeffran College also. Some of the other students in my classes at Jeffran included Tim Lusby (Darrel Singletary), Steve Palousek (Ray Price, Gene Watson, etc.), John Fabian (Carter Steel Guitars) and Jeff Pederson (Clint Black).
Jeff Newman was killed in the crash of his ultra-light aircraft on April 7, 2004. He had other airplanes too and we would often talk about flying when we visited at steel guitar conventions every year. This picture shows Jeff Pederson on the left and Jeff Newman in the middle.
I miss Jeff...

A Past Blog from September 2005

My first blog entry (on Yahoo 360, and not shown here on blogspot) was the beginning of a chronological series on my musical interests and history. But, I'm going to jump ahead to the present and mention a reunion I attended this past weekend.

You might say that this was a "family reunion" of sorts. You see, the very first real band I ever played music with has become a part of my extended family. A couple of the members lived in my hometown of Honey Grove and the others lived within a 25 mile radius of HG. We gave this band the name, "Bois d'Arc Bottom Band (or Boys)"

It all began when Gary Moreland and I met some guys from Wolfe City and Gober at a filling station in Ladonia one evening. Gary and I had begun to play music at night on the square in Honey Grove as we met in search of something to do in "Smalltown Texas." As we learned to play and sing a small repetoire of bluegrass numbers together, we eventually went from there to the live studio room of KFYN radio in Bonham to present a weekly show called "Bluegrass American Style." Just guitar, banjo and no room for errors, we hammered out about 30 minutes of live music for a handfull of Saturdays. Then, we showed up one Saturday to discover that the disc-jockey flew the coup...with my very first guitar; a yellow, f-hole archtop, Old Craftsman acoustic. Needless to say, we didn't play anymore at KFYN. Shortly after that, we met the rest of the soon to be, Bois d'Arc Bottom Boys.

Members of the BBB shown in the attached picture were /are (from left to right): Kelly Connell (bass), Gary Manning (piano), myself (banjo only at that time), Mike Erwin (drums), David Trout (rhythm guitar), Gary Moreland (guitar), Phillip Rozell (standing, harmonica), and Bob Robinson (sitting, lead guitar). And, everyone sang...except me. I don't think I could have found that eighth harmony part to sing if I had wanted to!

The BBB performed at rodeo dances, clubs, VFWs, county fairs and opry houses over the span of about 3-4 years. Yes, it seemed like 10-15 years. There were times when we played five nights a week in Denison Texas. Needless to say, we got pretty tight...musically. I eventually started playing steel guitar, and I have to say that my playing style was greatly influenced by the band's repertoire of progressive county music (Willie & Waylon, The Marshall Tucker Band, etc).
So, to make a very long story short, these are my "musical brothers." And, in 1997, after 20 years of not playing together, we decided to have a reunion. It took place at the VFW in Bonham Texas and I think we sounded as good or better than we did 20 years before that. Several of us went on to play with other bands from 1979 to 1997 and that sharpened our pickin' skills even more. But when we got together for that first reunion, it was pure original Bois d'Arc Bottom Band, just like we had never stopped. And, the taste of that reunion has led us to do our best to repeat it every year, as long as the good Lord allow us!

Early in March of 2009 I joined my first bluegrass band. I have always enjoyed playing bluegrass, but it was always sporadic and sometimes part of what Bois d'Arc Bottom was doing. In my earliest years of banjo playing, I traveled most of northeast Texas with Joe Julian, J.T.Bryan, Ross Whit and sometimes Stuart Anderson, mostly attending Texas Fiddle contests and playing Texas fiddle music. I always felt that I lacked true experience in playing REAL bluegrass banjo. Now that I'm in a real bluegrass band, I'm playing dobro all the time! Here's how that came about...

I have known most of the members of "Hard 2 Git" for a pretty long time. I can remember me and Gary Moreland playing at PJC in the mid 70's and Sam Bolton was on the same program. I usually ran into Sam at one of his convenient stores in Paris (BoMart). And, over the years I have shopped at Village Jewelers, owned and operated by James and Anna Martin. James used to have the band, "Simply Gospel." I remember several years ago hearing that Stuart Anderson had joined the Hard 2 Git band as their banjo player. I was surprised that he had joined a Paris bluegrass band.

About a year ago, Hard 2 Git's regular dobro player, Jonathan Perry, moved out of town and left the band dobro-less! Jonathan also maintained the website for H2G. Since I had run into H2G several times at the Lake Bonham Hoedown as I played with Joan Kelton, James happen to ask me if I knew anyone that could build a website. I told him that I had designed a few and might could help out. From that conversation, I became the webmaster for H2G.
One evening James asked me to come over to his home so he could settle up with me on the cost of the website work. When I got there, Debbie and I sat down in their living room and visited for quite a while. All of a sudden James said, "Now, here's what I really wanted to talk to you about." He told me that the whole band had agreed on asking me to join Hard 2 Git as their new dobro player. They also wanted Debbie to be a big part of the band. (Maybe she will blog about the "fun" she's had with H2G!)

Since joining H2G in March, we have played in Lone Star, Pickton, Bonham, Tom Bean, Paris (FBC and Cowboy Church), Sulphur Springs and Mountain View, AR. We usually practice once a week at the Martin's in Paris or Stuart's home in Commerce. Our schedule of shows can be seen at http://www.hard2git.com/ .