Homemade American Music Transcript

- ♪ If I was on some foggy mountain top ♪

♪ I'd sail away to the west ♪

♪ I'd sail all around this whole wide world ♪

♪ To the one I love the best ♪

♪ Oh if I'd only listened to what my mama said ♪

♪ I would not have been here today ♪

♪ Lying around this old jail cell ♪

♪ Just weeping my poor eyes away ♪

♪ If I was on some foggy mountain top ♪

♪ I'd sail away to the west ♪

♪ I'd sail all around this whole wide world ♪

♪ To the one I love the best ♪

- Well, really the most important musical thing in my life was my bringing up. I was raised in Maryland, near Washington D.C., not too far from where we live now. My parents were formally trained musicians, and they composed modern music in the teens, and '20s and '30s. About the time of the Depression, they began discovering the rich folk traditions of our country and they raised me and my three younger sisters on mostly that kind of music. We sang a lot around the house, and we listened to commercial records by people like Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers and the Carter Family, and we also listened to quite a few field recordings made by folklorists of all kinds of traditional music, old ballads originally from England, fiddle tunes, Afro-American work songs, spirituals and blues. Our parents really impressed on us the importance of musical style, having good tunes and texts, and most important of all, keeping the music alive through our own singing and playing.

♪ Yonder comes my darling, ♪

♪ It's how do you know ♪

♪ I know'd by her pretty blue eyes, ♪

♪ Shine bright like gold, shine bright like gold. ♪

- [Alice] Growing up before there were radio and records, Tommy learned his music from his family and friends, in his community of Round Peak, North Carolina. He drove a motor grader for most of the 40 years he worked for the highway commission. Then, when he retired, he began to play more and tour some. Now he likes to stay home and people come to him to visit and learn his music.

♪ Rockin' in a weary land, land, ♪

♪ Rockin' in a weary land ♪

♪ Big-eyed rabbit's gone, gone ♪

♪ The big-eyed rabbit's gone, gone ♪

- [Alice] We've learned a lot from tapes and records but the best way to learn is to go visit, and we have a great time when we go to Tommy's, visiting with him and his family and playing lots of music together.

- I think you got a kind of a fast note here, didn't you?

- I double noted it right there.

- Show me again how you did that.

- I guess I did, I don't know. I don't know how I do it.

- You're catching that fast note over there,

- Are you doing that too?

- And rollin', rollin' up on those base strings. Phew, that's not easy, Tommy.

- [Tommy] I know it ain't.

- And you just do it.

- [Tommy] Well, it just come natural to me, you know.

♪ Should be tarrin' ♪

♪ Should be tarrin' and then again ♪

♪ C'mon Lula, c'mon Lula ♪

♪ C'mon Lula bring your hog and your bread ♪

- Oh my Lord! Now Tommy, can you do just a bit more?

- Could you try a little bit more of it? I think that she, I do too, I don't know.

- I'll do it right slow. I sort of slide that note right there. Now you're coming. You're doing all right, Alice.

- My parents were musicians. They were musicians in more of a classical tradition, and I'm sure that that influenced me. But I think one of the strongest influences was the feeling that stayed with me of the role that this music played in their lives. And I just remember those evenings we'd get together with people, and it was always really a pleasurable time. A lot of young people from out of the tradition are both going and living in communities, that's the most they do, and really becoming a part of the community and learning music and really kind of living the thing. And at the least they go down and make contact with musicians, and hang around and then go back home, and then come back down. That's kind of the way we do it. And it's good for your music and it's also good for your soul, really.

♪ All on Old Smokey, ♪

♪ All covered with snow, ♪

♪ I lost my own true lover, ♪

♪ From courting to slow. ♪

♪ It's courting it is a pleasure ♪

♪ And parting is grief, ♪

♪ One false-hearted true lover ♪

♪ Is worse than a thief ♪

♪ They'll hug you, they'll kiss you ♪

♪ And tell you more lies ♪

♪ Then the cross ties in the railroad ♪

♪ Or the stars in the skies ♪

- [Mike] Most old time country singers and musicians want a unique style, an identity all their own. Roscoe has created that for himself. I value the times we've spent together over the past 20 years. You didn't have to do it. You should have laid off a little sooner, Roscoe.

- Oh.

♪ Well I'm just a-going over Jordan ♪

♪ I'm only going over home ♪

♪ Now I'm just a-going to see my mother ♪

♪ She said she'd meet me when I come ♪

♪ And I'll be free from every trial ♪

♪ And my body will rest in that old graveyard ♪

♪ And you can come and stand around me ♪

♪ And count the grave of a rolling stone. ♪

- I'd like to introduce a woman to you who was a very influential person as far as my own banjo pickin' is concerned, and also the banjo pickin' of my brother, Pete. She was a member of the Coon Creek girls, an all-women's string band back in the '30s, '40s and early '50s, and we're really fortunate to have her with us today. I'd like to introduce you to Lily May Ledford.

♪ Oh how many biscuits can you eat this morning ♪

♪ How many biscuits can you eat this evening ♪

♪ How many biscuits can you eat ♪

♪ 49 and a ham of meat ♪

♪ This morning, this evening, right now ♪

♪ Oh, I love my wife and I love my baby this morning ♪

♪ I love my wife and I love my baby this evening ♪

♪ I love my wife and I love my baby ♪

♪ Love my biscuits sopped in gravy ♪

♪ Morning, this evening, right now ♪

♪ Oh how many biscuits can you eat this morning ♪

♪ How many biscuits can you eat this evening ♪

♪ How many biscuits can you eat ♪

♪ 49 and a ham of meat ♪

♪ This morning, this evening, right now ♪

♪ Let's play it ♪

- I can't keep it up, you know, I just can't keep up that driving sound.

- Well, your arms give out or your hands?

- Well, it just kind of gets slower and slower and slower and I just can't keep it up, and it gets messy, you know? And I can't keep up the clean driving sound. And I was wondering if you ever had that problem, or if there's anything you ever did when you were learning?

- My spirits mount as I play, and I think that comes from within, that driving part of it. My spirits start rising and pretty soon I'm playing louder and faster as I go along.

♪ If you ain't got no money, baby mine ♪

♪ If you ain't got no money ♪

♪ Get yourself another honey ♪

♪ I'm going around this world, baby mine ♪

♪ Let's play it ♪

♪ Oh, I'm going around this world, baby mine ♪

♪ I'm going around this world, baby mine ♪

♪ I'm going around this world ♪

♪ I'm a banjo pickin' girl ♪

♪ I'm going round this world baby mine ♪

- Thank you, friends!

- [Mike] Looking back, I realized that Elizabeth Cotten was the first traditional musician I ever knew. While I was in my teens she worked for us once a week, cooking and helping with the housework and caring for us. That was the kind of work she did all of her life. I'd known her for more than six years before I found that she could play music. And when I did hear her play the first time, it was a really moving experience. And after that, Peggy and I started to try to play banjo and guitar like Libba Cotten. Libba's left-handed so she had to teach herself to play when she was a young girl. She makes up most of her songs. And now at the age of 85, she's performing more than ever.

- That's it.

- [Alice] You've always got some trick up your sleeve.

- Huh?

- [Alice] You've always got some trick up your sleeve.

- Yeah?

- You're always changing it. Never the same.

- Did I change that?

- Yes, in places.

- Oh, Michael, I...

- Many times.

- I was tellin' 'em, when I joined the church, they told me I couldn't sing those worldly songs. Worldly songs, I says, they come from your heart, just like a spiritual song, a church song which you might sing. I said, when you sing them, you sing them within, they're inside and they come out. I said, the worldly songs is the same thing, it's coming from inside, because the people that wrote those old songs about my girl's done mistreated me, or I don't know, I can't think of the words they said in those songs, but some of them's kind of pretty.

♪ One old woman, Lord, in this town ♪

♪ Keeps a-telling her lies on me ♪

♪ I wish to my soul that old woman would die ♪

♪ Keep a-telling her lies on me ♪

♪Oh Babe, it ain't no lie, ♪

♪Oh Babe, it ain't no lie ♪

♪ Oh Babe, it ain't no lie ♪

♪ I know this life I'm living is very hard ♪

Got it now? But nobody wouldn't ever play with me but you. And we never did play too many together exceptin' what I would play in your - when I was working in your home. Y'all would have the guests would come to see Michael and Peggy. They'd come in around right after dinner. You sit here and play the guitar, you play "Freight Train," and we'll do your work. They would! They'd wash my dishes, and do everything. I'd be sitting there playing "Freight Train."

♪ Freight train, freight train run so fast ♪

♪ Please don't tell what train I'm on ♪

♪ They won't know what route I've gone ♪

♪ When I am dead and in my grave ♪

♪ No more good time here I'll crave ♪

♪ Place a stone at my head and feet ♪

♪ Tell them all that I've gone to sleep ♪

♪ Freight train, freight train run so fast ♪

♪ Please don't tell what train I'm on ♪

♪ They won't know what route I've gone ♪

♪ If you see the gal of mine ♪

♪ Tell her once for me ♪

♪ If she loves another man ♪

♪ I'll set her free, I'll set her free ♪

♪ On Bowling Green ♪

♪ Oh, good old Bowling Green. ♪

♪ Sailing through this whole wide world ♪

♪ Sailing through it alone ♪

♪ Sailing through this whole wide world ♪

♪ Ain't got no home, ain't got no home ♪

♪ But Bowling Green ♪

♪ Oh, good old Bowling Green ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

- [Mike] We're urban people, and we chose to learn this music. But my grandparents from rural West Virginia and Illinois were raised with this music and like others, chose to reject it. Now instead of fiddling, storytelling and unaccompanied singing around home, most people's musical lives are dominated by big business through TV and records. Fortunately, there are people like Elizabeth Cotten, Tommy Jarrell, Roscoe Holcomb, Lily May Ledford and Dewey Balfa who are an inspiration to us, and although our lives are different from theirs, they encourage us to learn their music and help carry it on. This music will always be an important part of our lives too.

- We work together, I work with the Harmony Sisters, Mike works solo and we spend a lot of time booking, practicing, trying to keep a step ahead and not stay broke, and raising a family and being on the road isn't any picnic either, trying to balance all of that. They're great kids, and you dream a lot about how it's gonna be easier when they're teenagers, but you can forget that. Ow, I missed it, I missed it, I missed it.

- [Mike] We haven't figured out how we're gonna end. Why don't we figure that out.

- Yeah, okay.

- [Mike] Let's try the last time through. Working together, we've shared a lot. But it's not always easy. Marriage and music performance are each intense enough on their own, they're not very structured. When you put them together, it can be pretty volatile. We have to work on keeping perspective on apparently simple decisions or controversies about a few words or chords in a song, or what is a clean house.

- [Alice] Okay.

- Well, you don't have to put that last sixth note in there.

- I'll want to put the sixth note in, I like it. When I first met Mike in the mid '50s, he was playing bluegrass music in Baltimore with Hazel Dickens and her brothers. They were really all kind of learning, and I remember they played every chance, any place. Then, in 1958, Mike began leaning more towards old-time music and he and John Cohen and Tom Paley formed the New Lost City Ramblers. Tracy Schwarz joined in '62 after Tom left. They were the first urban group to play traditional music in traditional style, and they were the first introduction for lots and lots of people to old-time music.

♪ Saddle up the gray ♪

♪ You better get away ♪

♪ Gonna get no supper here today ♪

♪ Put up the jug and blow out the lights ♪

♪ Ain't gonna get no dinner here tonight ♪

♪ Ah, dee liddle, liddle, liddle, liddle, loo ♪

♪ Liddle, liddle, liddle, liddle, liddle, loo ♪

♪ Ah, dee, liddle, liddle, liddle, liddle, loo ♪

- [Mike] Hazel and Alice's friendship became a professional musical partnership in the early '60s. They had strong, unusual harmonies and material and different backgrounds. Alice's West Coast upbringing and Hazel's roots in west Virginia. ♪ Got the weary, weary ♪

- [Mike] In the late '60s, they developed into first rate songwriters.

- [Alice] We became much more conscious people, both as women and as songwriters who were concerned with what's happening in the world.

♪ Hot summer night in the Beaufort County Jail ♪

♪ Beaufort County Jail ♪ ♪ Mm-Hmm ♪

♪ Locked her up, jailer kept the key ♪

♪ Jailer kept the key ♪

♪ He did, he kept the key ♪

♪ Black woman in a white man's jail ♪

♪ No one to call a friend ♪

♪ Jailer watched that woman by day and night ♪

♪ Woman by day and night ♪

♪ No mercy in a white man's jail ♪

Musically, my songs are based in tradition and as far as what I write, well, all this music we're playing and talking about comes from people's lives. And I try to keep in touch with that whether I'm writing just from a mood or writing about someone else's life, or my own.

♪ I was just a little skinny girl out the California way ♪

♪ I turned up my nose ♪

♪ At baby dolls, playhouse and fancy clothes ♪

♪ All I wanted in the whole world ♪

♪ Was to ride the western range ♪

♪ And to count myself a friend to Mateo ♪

♪ Oh, he was a cowboy ♪

♪ Come up from Mexico ♪

♪ And I never asked him how or why he came ♪

♪ But the days I spent there by his side ♪

♪ Were the happiest days of all ♪

quiero decir gracias a Mateo.

- Alice likes to write songs and tunes, and I write some tunes. But mostly I bring together some elements of traditional music which have never been brought together in that way before. Like in taking a Leadbelly song and putting panpipes to it and a mandolin.

♪ Who's been here since I been gone ♪

♪ Pretty little girl with the red dress on ♪

♪ Who's been here since I been gone ♪

♪ Pretty little girl with the red dress on ♪

♪ Left me here to sing this song ♪

- About Mike's mountain playin', I do know that if I made another record with a lot of American traditional music in it, or music that I write that's sort of quasi-traditional, if I had a mandolin player, I would definitely want Mike to play on it because I just love the way he does it. He can get up and slide around on that thing and play the slitheriest mandolin music of anybody.

♪ I breathe her name into the air ♪

♪ It goes and I know not where ♪

♪ And if you look in the heart of a friend ♪

♪ You'll find her name written there ♪

- [Mike] Every year mostly during the summer, we play at music festivals in the U.S. and Canada. At the festivals, people hear a lot of different kinds of music and have an opportunity to learn at the workshops and classes. The festivals have created a community of musicians from a variety of traditions And we meet mainly at these festivals. We get a chance to socialize, play tunes together and trade musical ideas. And this strengthens our music and makes us more determined to carry it on.

- [Man] Wahoo!

- [Alice] It was at a festival like this that we first met Dewey and we've become close friends with him and his family. Dewey has always encouraged and supported us. He loves sharing his music, and he loves it when we and others can join him in a Cajun song or two.

- I met Alice at a folk festival in California about five years ago and immediately felt very friendly with her, and we had good talks and I felt she was a very warm person. And we always enjoy playing music together.

♪ Well anyway, I guess I'm gonna stay ♪

♪ So, c'mon now, your mama's gonna stay ♪

♪ In the early morning light ♪

♪ I creep on down the stairs ♪ That was nice.

- [Mike] Young people all over the U.S. are picking up this kind of music now and not only playing it well, but like Stefan, they're expanding on it. 20 years ago, it was often lonely trying to find someone to play old-time music with, but it will never be that way again.

♪ John Henry told his captain ♪

♪ A man ain't nothing but a man ♪

♪ Before I'd have let that old steam drill beat me down ♪

♪ I'll die with a hammer in my hand ♪

♪ Die with a hammer in my hand ♪

- Almost. This'll be the last stanza.

♪ John Henry told his shaker, ♪

♪ Lord Shaker, when I sing ♪

♪ Throw the hammer from my shoulders ♪

♪ Bound to hear it when she rings ♪

- All right!

- And Bill Monroe has a very different voice than anybody who's ever sung lead for him, but he manages to produce the notes, and also slide into notes, and release notes, and hit the peak of volume at the same time as his lead singer. At least that's the ideal situation that he reaches for. And that's what we also reach for.

♪ Or he would not have gone ♪

♪ So doggone far from me ♪

♪ Lord, Lord ♪

- Thank you! Thank you! I feel like we're picking up this music from where it was left off. And we're gonna carry it on. And some of us will want to play it like it was, And some of us will warp it around a little and mix different elements together. And then some of us will write new tunes and songs, based in tradition. And that's pretty much the way tradition has always worked.

- [Alice] And it's not just a question of keeping the music alive, but of integrating it into our own lives, and of it's having meaning alongside the way we live now.

♪ Fly around my pretty little miss ♪

♪ Fly around my daisy ♪

♪ Fly around my pretty little miss ♪

♪ You almost drive me crazy ♪

- [Man] One more, go ahead.

- [Man] One more!

- [Alice] All right!

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Homemade American Music

1980 | 40mins