Make'em Dance: The Hackberry Ramblers Story Transcript
Make ‘Em Dance: The Hackberry Ramblers Story
Transcription by Beverly Patterson
[Hackberry, Louisiana, home of the Hackberry Ramblers, is a small unincorporated community near the gulf coast in southwest Louisiana—about a 45-minute drive from the East Texas border. The 2003 film features band members
Luderin Darbone (1913—2008) fiddle,
Edwin Duhon (1910 – 2006) guitar and accordion,
Glen Croker (1934 – 2011) lead guitar and emcee,
Johnny Faulk (1925 – 2004) string bass,
Ben Sandmel, drums.
Country music singer/songwriter Billy Joe Shaver is the narrator. Others appearing in the film include folklorists Barry Ancelet and Nick Spitzer; musicians Ann Savoy, Michael Doucet, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Rodney Crowell, and Richard Thompson; and founder of Arhoolie Records Chris Strachwitz.
Luderin Darbone and Edwin Duhon formed the Hackberry Ramblers in 1933. Band personnel changed over the years, but Luderin and Edwin were still performing 69 years later when they were awarded a National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment of the Arts during a ceremony in Washington, D.C. in 2002. The film opens with the Ramblers on stage in Sheridan, Louisiana, in the late 1990s.]
Emcee: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Sheridan stage. This group has been together for close to 66 years. The Louisiana [indistinct] country sound with some Texas swing. Ladies and gentlemen let's welcome back the Hackberry Ramblers.
(Ramblers singing)
Hello everyone
The Ramblers are here.
Those Hackberry Ramblers will be here a while
We'll play y'all some music
And hope to make you smile
Nick Spitzer: The first thing I think you have to say about the Hackberry Ramblers is that they're still standing.
Rodney Crowell: The Hackberry Ramblers are the crown jewel of the Louisiana, Texas Gulf Coast culture.
Jimmie Dale Gilmore: They are a totally inspiring example of how music can remain a driving force through your whole life.
(Film title and names of featured performers)
Make ‘Em Dance
featuring
Luderin Darbone
Edwin Duhon
Glen Croker
Johnny Faulk
Ben Sandmel
(Opening narration includes early photographs of Hackberry Ramblers and other archival images.)
Narrator: When the Hackberry Ramblers first started making music, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a newly elected president. Electricity was still unknown in much of rural America, and you still saw more mules than cars on the back roads of Louisiana. French speaking Louisianans led isolated, hard, scrabble lives. But all that was about to change. New technologies like radio, records, and paved roads ended the isolation of rural life. Jobs in the oil industry brought money to pay for those luxuries, and a gang of outsiders into the region. The Hackberry Ramblers first emerged during this period of transformation. It was then that they first proved capable of hitting just about any curve the technology or popular taste threw their way.
Barry Ancelet: There's a remarkable connection to the past in their music, but at the same time, they are very innovative.
Nick Spitzer: Musically, though they're a fascinating mix. They're a mix of jazz, blues, old time Cajun music, country string band music. We think of these as old time musics now, but that was kind of an avant-garde move in a way, to mingle all those styles and then get them out into the media.
Ann Savoy: They have a part of the story of Cajun music that nobody else had, and they're very articulate, all the guys in the band. And they were just able to fill in the gap about that old radio era and what it was like. They're at the height of their success right now. Here they are going on national television, big talk shows. You know, your life is always going to be exciting. You don't know what's around the corner. Here are these guys are in their eighties, and they're on MTV, I think.
Narrator: In 1998, the Ramblers received a Grammy nomination for their album Deep Water. They didn't win the Grammy, but earned a great trip to New York, attending the ceremony and performing on MTV. The Grammy recognition was especially sweet for the band's co-founders, Luderin Darbone and Edwin Duhon, who first started playing together in 1933. Luderin Darbone is the band's leader and patriarch. He's kept the band alive through countless incarnations and personnel changes. Edwin Duhon co-founded the band but left after two years to take a job in Louisiana oil fields. The two make an unlikely pair. A devout Catholic, Luderin is soft spoken, never curses, and is quietly deliberate in everything he does. Edwin, meanwhile, can be downright feisty.
Edwin Duhon: Me and him, we organized the Hackberry Ramblers, and I'll tell you what, every once in a while he says he had a guitar player come in there when we organized. That's a bunch of crap. It's just me and him when we organized this goddamn thing.
Glen Croker: My name is Glen Croker. Ladies and gentlemen, we're the Hackberry Ramblers.
Narrator: Glen Croker, the band's lead guitarist and MC was for many years the baby in the band. Glen joined the band in 1950's and is a generation younger than Darbone and Duhon.
Glen: Even though I've been with them for 40 years, I'm still one of the younger ones. You heard of the American Angler? You ever watch his program, American Angler? I'm known as the American Tangler. That's a joke, son.
Narrator: Of all the Ramblers, Johnny Faulk is probably the most rooted in the Cajun way of life. He plays music, likes to fish, hunt, and in the best tradition, cook.
Johnny Faulk (in the kitchen): You want to see what's in them pots? We've got one here with corn in. Ah-hoo! One here with Lima beans, ham hock. Smothered pork chops and gravy.
Narrator: Johnny has a large extended family that serves as a band's rooting section.
Unidentified speaker: So, how many people are traveling?
Johnny: Representing my family? There's 18.
Ben Sandmel (adjusting the sound): Balance. Just do it for me, okay? I just want to--just hit a little bit of that to make sure I can hear your guitar.
Narrator: Drummer Ben Sandmel is the band's wild card. A generation younger than the next oldest Rambler, Ben serves as the band's road manager, record producer, and booking agent. Ben produced Deep Water, and released the album on his own small label Hot Biscuits. He also works as a journalist. His published work includes a book about Zydeco music.
Ben (shaking hands with Ernie K-Doc backstage at the Grand Ole Opry): Oh, thank you. You were great, man. Your speech.
Ernie: Thank you.
Ben: It was something, man.
Photographer (taking group picture at the Opry): Look right into the lens right here. 1, 2, 3.
Narrrator: The late nineties and the turn of the century found the Ramblers healthy and enjoying their late career success. In December of 1999, they were invited to appear on the Grand Ole Opry. Their debut after 66 years in music only made it sweeter.
Johnny: It's every musician's dream really to appear one time on the Grand Ole Opry.
Luderin Darbone: This is a climax, really of our plan, because we've been hearing about the Grand Ole Opry ever since we first started playing, you know? And never thought we would ever get to Nashville, but we always had hopes that maybe, you know, maybe one day we would.
(Scenes of Lake Charles, Louisiana)
Narrator: The road that would one day lead to Nashville starts here in Lake Charles. The Rambler's hometown lies in far southwestern Louisiana near the Texas border. Lake Charles is a Gulf Coast oil town. It straddles the cultural border between East Texas cowboy country, and Cajun and Creole, Louisiana.
Johnny: Well, what you’re looking at are refineries.
(Rodney Crowell and the Hackberry Ramblers performing at the Country Music Hall of Fame.)
Glen: Here's one called the Pipe Liner's Blues.
Well I'm an old pipe liner, I lay my line all day
I'm an old pipe liner, I lay my line all day
I got four or five women waiting to draw my pay
(Rodney Crowell takes the lead, sings:)
Well you don't miss your water until your well runs dry
You don't miss your water until your well runs dry
You never miss your baby until she says goodbye
Nick Spitzer: The Hackberry Ramblers come out of southwest Louisiana, which is on an old border. It is the old French, Spanish border originally. And by the turn of the century when the oil fields came in and they discovered oil at Spindle Top around 1900 in Texas, you start getting a big influx of Anglos. People that don't speak French are coming to that area between Texas and Louisiana.
Barry Ancelet: There were huge changes. People for the first time in the history of their families, having salaried jobs, for example, with the oil industry and causing a tremendous social shift. This is the time that the Hackberry Ramblers started playing.
Luderin: I was born in Evangeline, Louisiana. My dad, he was a hard worker and he worked on the farm. And in those days, that was from daylight to dark. And a farmer's paid a dollar a day. And the oil fields, I think my dad, when he started, he got about four and a half a day. So, that was a big increase over that dollar, you know.
(Historic photos of oil rigs and drilling)
Narrator: Oil drilling paid better than farm labor, but the work was dangerous and sporadic. While Luderin was growing up, his father moved the family 11 times in 11 years, chasing a paycheck from Louisiana boom to Texas bust and back again.
Luderin: Back when I was about 11 or 12, my mother had wanted me to learn to play the violin. They didn't call it a fiddle, it was a violin. So, we moved to these oil field towns and there was no teachers. There was no demand for a music teacher.
Narrator: Because there were no teachers available, Luderin had to learn to play by correspondence course. He taught himself to read music, but was equally good at playing tunes by ear. Then in 1931, he met a 19-year-old upstart named Edwin Duhon.
Edwin: The first time we met, yeah, it was 1933.
Luderin: Before that.
Edwin: The work slacked up. I was an oil field worker. And then my daddy called me and told me that the work had started. So, I come on down and I asked my mother, I said, "Does anybody here play music around here?" Because I was playing music over there every Saturday night. She says, "There's a kid across the street over there, that plays some music." So, I got a hold of Luderin, and that night we practiced in our bedroom at the house and the old man run us off. It sounded so goddamn bad. He run us off, so we start playing in the old building, the one in the--his daddy's utility building. And we started practicing every night.
Johnny (in the car with Luderin and Edwin): I'm just driving. Where do you want to go?
To the place where we first organized the band.
Johnny: Yeah, but where's that at?
Luderin: Well just keep going. We're still a good ways from there.
Johnny: Tell me when you want to--
Edwin: You know where the church is?
Narrator: From Lake Charles to Hackberry where the band was formed, is a distance about 30 miles. It’s a straight line south through flat salt marsh and bilingual radio stations.
Johnny: We're edging up toward Hackberry now.
Luderin: So, now we'll step out here on old familiar grounds. Yep. I'll tell you what. Edwin lived over on that side.
Edwin: Benson Lease--My daddy run the Benson Lease. His daddy run the Moon Lease. And we started practicing. When I got back from St. Martin, we started practicing me and Luderin, right here--in this old building.
Luderin: Finally, there was another fellow there in Hackberry that played guitar also. So, we got him to come meet us. Well, it sounded pretty good, you know. A fiddle and two guitars.
(Images related to the early days of radio)
Narrator: In 1933, 19-year-old Luderin Darbone was studying bookkeeping and accounting at a Lake Charles business college. He learned that the region's first radio station was about to go on the air.
Luderin: I walked over there and I talked to the manager, and I told him I had to just organized a string band and wanted to see if we could maybe get a program on the air. So, he figured out that we could play on Monday morning. It must have been about six o'clock in the morning. You see, when we started, people didn't have too many radios. There wasn't too many radio stations. When they put up the station in Lake Charles, well, right away people started buying radios.
Chris Strachwitz: It was this freedom that must have just arisen at that time. It was hard times. I mean, this was at the beginning of the depth of the depression. And so, he was sort of almost forced to become a musician because he said he couldn't get a job in any place with his business training as an accountant. And so, he went out and hustled.
Ben: So, they were playing almost every night a different place and playing live on the radio.
Edwin: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Sunday night after we get through playing, we'd drive down and come over and sleep by the studio so we could broadcast the next morning.
Barry Ancelet: They were also the first group to amplify electrically, their music.
Edwin: And the first amplifier, I'm sure Luderin told you that, but I'm going to tell you this, the first amplifier that was bought, Mr. Darbone bought it. 50 dollars. And we had to have a converter.
Luderin: A generator to put on a car, and convert the DC to AC current. And then we had to run the car while the dance was going on. The car was sitting out there. So, I went out there and put that speaker way in the corner, that big hall in Pine Island. I said, "Boy, I better not let her start on that dern thing there because them women going to run out of there. They ain't never heard that before.
Luderin: And good night! People were astounded at first, you know. Music coming out on the other end, and us playing over on that end. So, it wasn't long after that when we played, we had crowds, people coming from all over to see and hear, you know.
Ann Savoy: The funny thing is they look very, you know, they looked very suave and everything, but they'd play in these really difficult places-- like Luderin would describe the chicken wire around the musicians with, beer bottles being thrown at the chicken wire. And the old smoldering kerosene lights, and mosquitoes pouring in these windows that had no screens, and they would sit there in the heat with these mosquitoes out in the swamps.
Luderin: And when we'd play music, we'd get through playing, and we'd be soaking wet--this perspiration.
Glen: I remember one club here in Louisiana, it was around the Oakdale area. I went over there to play and they searched me to see if I had a knife. I didn't have one, so they gave me one.
Narrator: And so, began several years of touring in a model A Ford. Traveling on unpaved roads at a top speed of 35 miles per hour.
Ticket Agent (at the airport): Mr. Duhon, I need your formal ID. Your driver's license, please?
Edwin: I don't know what kind of plane we're going to be riding. We're going to be riding a--
Ticket Agent: You'll be on a jet out of Houston.
Edwin: Huh?
Agent: You'll be on a jet out of Houston. Jet aircraft.
Luderin: We'll go from here to Houston in a covered wagon.
Agent: Well, not quite that bad.
Narrator: Today, Edwin and Luderin are still traveling partners.
Agent: This is your boarding pass out of Lake Charles. You see? Here's your boarding pass out of Houston. Return ticket, all right? They'll want to see your bag receipts.
Luderin: We don't have to check in in Houston?
Agent: No sir. Go straight to your gate. I circled it for you.
Edwin: Luderin handles all that.
Narrator: They are both widowers who live alone. Their enduring bond is the glue that holds the band together.
Luderin: I got your ticket here. You want it now?
Narrator: They still practice once a week, drive together to gigs, and room together on the road.
Edwin: Me and Luderin always sleep in one room. We're always together. Always.
Luderin: We work together all right.
Edwin: There's no problem. We never had any kind of trouble. You're not going to know a person as long as I have known him. 67 years. You know, you know damn good and well we can get along.
Narrator: The burdens of traveling with a senior band are shouldered willingly by drummer and producer, Ben Sandmel.
Ben (on arriving at destination): You guys got everything you need?
Yeah.
Ben: Okay. Edwin, I got a bag of hamburgers in the van.
Edwin: Yeah?
Ben: Yeah, so you'll be able to have something to eat between the shows.
Edwin: How much I owe you?
-Ben: Huh?
Edwin: How much am I owe you?
Ben: Oh, we'll worry about that later.
Edwin: Oh no, you tell me how much it is.
Ben: We'll worry about that later.
Edwin: Oh, oh yeah. We'll worry about that to hell. And you have to pay for it. I'm going to pay you back.
Ben: Well, it was a deluxe hamburger. It's a hundred dollars.
Edwin: Nah, bullshit.
Ben $99.99.
Edwin: I'll tell you about the three bears.
Ben:
Edwin: You don't want-- I used to box and wrestle. You don't want to get hurt.
Ben: Okay.
Narrator: Ben joined the band in 1987 after sitting in with them. Since then, he's brought the Ramblers out of semi-retirement and introduced them to the national and international circles where they play today.
Barry Ancelet: Ben's running around like, you know, the young man he is, compared to them. Sort of herding them like cats into airplanes and onto stages all over the country and giving people a rare opportunity to hear this remarkable connection to the past.
Ben: You know, the guys are very, super dependable. So, I never have to worry about anybody being late. No one in the band drinks, you know, no one is going to try and steal the TV out of the hotel room. Or come back home and, you know, do an Elvis and pull out their 357 and shoot the TV or something. None of the, you know, horror stories you hear about taking bands out on the road. No one's going to get busted with drugs.
Ben: We're early.
I think you tied it up.
Ben: None of the typical problems that people talk about with musicians, and especially expecting musicians to be late. Those things don't happen. There have been times, bless their hearts, when I've asked them to come to my house at noon and they've shown up at eight o'clock in the morning.
Ya-hoo!
Ben: As a road manager, having to find where the Catholic church is and what time mass is would be probably one of the more unique aspects of my particular situation. And Mr. Darbone does like to go to mass every day, pretty much insists on it. And he's not happy if that can't be arraigned.
Catholic Priest: Every place he goes, New York City or Chicago, the first thing he does is calls up, finds out where the closest Catholic church is. He hasn't missed a mass. How many years?
Luderin: Started in '57.
Priest: In '57. Started going to mass every day.
Ben: So, none of these--
John’s voice off camera: What were you going to say?
Ben: All I was going to say is that we only have one girl chasing the band.
John’s voice off camera: One girl chasing who?
Ben: Oh, I couldn't mention any names.
John’s voice off camera: Okay. You don't drink, you don't smoke, you don't drink coffee.
Edwin: I don't do alcohol, and I don't do drugs, and I don't play no slot machine.
John’s voice off camera: What about women?
Well, I do that. I do that. Oh yeah. Shit, I'm hotter as a firecracker. I guess maybe that's what keeps me going. You know, you have to, you can't stop. You can't stop. Actually, John, for your information, for your information, John, I changed cars every two years.
John: All right. Okay.
Edwin: I'll be trading this car here in about another three, four months. Every two years. I'm not going to drive an old car with old tires. I am not going fool with that. I want to drive a good one. And I ain't married either.
Glen: Come up on the recording where he can hear it please. This is a 90-year-old man over here. Do what?
Narrator: Like any long-term relationship, the one between Glen and Edwin has had its ups and downs.
Edwin: He's way in left field.
Glen: You listen when I announce the song right there then you'll know what it is.
Edwin: Yeah, if you announce it. But half the time you don't announce it.
Glen: Well, rock and roll songs, they all the same.
Edwin: You stop and start right up.
Glen: Well, yeah, that's if I do one of them rhythm and blues, they all the same. All got the same chords.
Narrator: Their disagreements over music break down along generational lines. Edwin prefers to concentrate on the old Cajun repertoire, what he calls French music. Glen favors a broader mix with honky-tonk, country, western swing, rock and roll, and rhythm and blues.
Johnny: When I started with the Hackberry Ramblers, we played a four-hour dance, and played maybe two French waltzes during that four hours.
Yeah, that's right.
Johnny: But yet somebody in the band will tell you, "Well, we're a French band. I want to play my accordion."
Yeah, oh yeah.
Edwin: No rockabilly. That's a bunch of shit.
Johnny: If I live to be 89 years old, I'll probably be worse than him.
Edwin: Poo, poo, poo, poo, poo. No I don't like that. I get mad and upset. But then I remember, hey, the man's 89 years old.
Ben: So, if you can work off of this, that would--
Glen: “Colinda” is a good one.
Narrator: When it comes to choosing the set list, it's often Ben who's caught in the middle.
Glen: Well, I'm not being difficult. Just telling you it's a good song.
Ben: I know. It is a good song. Well, so is “Stairway to Heaven.” Not tonight.
Glen: I know sometime we're a pain and aggravation to him. I know that. But that's one of the things that he has to put up with. We're old.
Chris Strachwitz (selecting a recording from his collection): I think this is another one of my favorites. “Hackberry Trot.” But it's pretty beat. And it really has his lilting fiddle playing that he does.
Narrator: In 1935, Luderin Darbone and the Hackberry Ramblers began recording for RCA records. In the next five years, they would make more than 80 records for the RCA Bluebird label. Some in French, and some in English.
[Luderin: Well, I heard that the RCA was going to be recording in New Orleans. They auditioned us at the St. Charles Hotel. But then right away they said, "Well, we'll record you." I got to try this one here.
(Michael Doucet playing the fiddle)
Michael Doucet: When I first discovered this song called “Fais Pas Ca,” it really tied it in because I was always looking for the blues element in Cajun music.
Luderin: Well, when I first met Michael Doucet, he came over here. And he had a copy of this. They had put it on an album with other music. This tune that had been played more than all the other records. Oh, he liked that tune there.
Michael Doucet: He played a lot of popular music in those days, you know, from “Fais Pas Ca,” as I mentioned before, to Rendezvous in Honolulu, you know, and so I think it was very important in development of fiddle music in Louisiana. It's French, it's hillbilly, it's vaudevillian, it's got jazz and blues and Dixieland in it. And it's a new music.
Narrator: The 1935 version of the Ramblers featured Luderin, Lennis Sonnier, and Joe Werner. There are many historic recordings including the first version of “Jolie Blonde” under that title. The song is now informally regarded as the Cajun national anthem.
Jolie Blonde, gardez donc, quoi t'as fait!
(film cuts to recording of “Wondering”)
Wondering, wondering
Who's kissing you
Narrator: In 1937, the trio scored a hit with the Joe Warner song, “Wondering.”
(song continues)
If you're wondering too
Every hour through the day
Since you went away
I've been wondering if you
Are still wondering too.
Narrator: The Ramblers' longevity is due in part to their ability to continually reinvent themselves. They've embraced new styles and technologies while remaining rooted in tradition. Working with younger artists is in keeping with the band's forward looking attitude.
Emcee: That's Jimmy Dale Gilmore.
It's restless in this deep water
I'm caught between right and wrong
My love is just like deep water
Your love won't last that long
Narrator:The Bob Wills tune “Deep Water” comes from the Western Swing era of the 1930s and '40s, which greatly influenced the Ramblers' music.
Ben: And by the '40s, as I understand it, they had evolved into a Western Swing orchestra, when they were playing at the Silver Star.
(song continues)
Deep water
So deep in love with you
Narrator A dimly lit, low ceiling joint, the Silver Star attracted all the major Cajun and country acts of the day. Hank Thompson, Bob Wills, Cliff Bruner, they all played here. State-of-the-art swing bands swapping numbers with the house favorites, the Hackberry Ramblers.
Johnny: We stayed on the stage and Bruner would play over on the floor over there. The judge would call how many peoples on the floor. And then we'd crack down on “Jolie Blonde.” We'd pack them. We'd win every time. We'd beat them every time.
Narrator: By the forties, the Ramblers had expanded numerically and musically from an old timey trio into a large swing and sophisticated outfit.
Glen: I used to sneak in the Silver Star. At the end of a dance-- I would be playing somewhere with Eddie Schuler and we would stop at 12 and they would stop at one. And on the way home, I'd sneak in and, 'cause I was underage, I'd sneak in and I'd listen to him. And you know, the funny thing about that, I can remember saying to myself, "Self, one of these days you're going to be playing with that group." And thus it came to pass.
Oh C. C. rider
See what you have done
Oh C. C. rider
See what you have done
You've gone away, dear
I'm the lonely, lonely one
Glen: I started playing professionally at 16 years old. Started with a group called the Reveliers. Head man, Eddie Shuler. He had played with the Hackberry Ramblers for a long time and decided to go on his own, and asked me if I wanted to play with him. I was elated, man. Yeah, this is a chance to make some money. They were playing western swing. And then when I joined them, it seems that I brought a different dimension. Oh, I started doing stuff like,
Well come along my baby
There's a whole lot of shaking going on,
Yeah, come along baby
We'll take a bull by the horn
Well come along baby
There's a whole lot of shaking going on
Shake it baby, shake
I said shake it baby, shake
Ben: In the sixties they brought in Glen Croker. And that changed the sound of the band again into sort of a post World War II honky-tonk country band.
Welcome along baby
There's a whole lot of shaking going on
Come along baby
You know that you can't go wrong
Come along baby
There's a whole lot of shaking on
When you start rocking, you know, everybody gets into the act. Even the older people.
Audience responses to band’s performance: Yahoo! Yeah! Yeah!
Narrator: Despite being energized by the honky-tonk stylings of Glen Croker, by the early sixties, the band had hit a wall.
Luderin: It was beginning to be hard to get dances. And we were playing mostly just parties. And I don't know, I had a steady job. Decided well, probably just quit playing.
Ben: Things had gotten very slow for the Hackberry Ramblers and the group might have disbanded had it not been for Chris Strachwitz from Arhoolie Records. A major record collector, and at that point, he had started his Arhoolie label, I think in 1960. And was doing a lot to document music. All types of traditional ethnic roots music, around the south and around the whole country.
Chris Strachwitz: I knocked on the door and here was this nice, wonderful, pleasant man. And I asked him, "Are you Luderin Darbone?" He said, "Yes, I am." And he invited me to come in and I don't know, I was just amazed. And I said, "Do you still play with your band?" And he said, "Well I guess we could get them together." “Because” I said, “I would love to make a record if you still sound like that, like on those old records.” So I said, “I believe I just should record you right in your living room here.” I thought it sounded just wonderful.
Narrator: At a time when Cajun music was rarely heard outside Louisiana, the Arhoolie Record
Richard Thompson: I bought the Hackberry Ramblers album because it looked fantastic. There's these old geezers, and half of it's in French. I thought, "Well, you know, whatever this is, it's got to be great." I mean the Hackberry Ramblers were a terrific hybrid as Cajun music is. But it was very evident at that time in that band. We had a guy playing steel guitar--country western kind of steel guitar. And you had the very traditional fiddle playing and the accordion playing. So, a really lovely kind of collision of cultures.
Narrator: The next year the band was invited to play in Berkeley, California. The Berkeley Festival was the Rambler's first trip outside their old stomping grounds of Louisiana and East Texas. They would not make another run like this until a 1991 trip to New York City. Since then, to quote Edwin—and pardon his French—the band is just like horseshit. They are everywhere.
(At the airport) Excuse me.
Thank you, sweetheart.
Uh-huh, you're welcome. Enjoy your flight.
Ludering (in the car in Nashville) Can you imagine the number of hearts that were broken here in this town? Guys hocking their—everything they own just to come to Nashville.
- Ben: Just to try and make it?
- Yeah.
- Ben: Quite a few.
(Back stage at the Grand Old Opry)
See they're tuning up the bass, Bill.
(Passing Charlie Pride and Little Jimmy Dickens)
Thank you so much.
Thank you, ma'am.
We are marking today now. Boy, they’re here.
I'm sure of that.
Glen: (introducing himself to Johnny Russell) Glen Croker.
Johnny Russell: Well it's nice to meet you.
Glen: Nice to know you.
Johnny Russell: Nice having y'all.
Down to the right.
Someone singing: I'm sitting on top of the world
Johnny Russell: Y'all said, "I'm going to be on the Grand Ole Opry if it's the last thing I ever do," didn't you?
Luderin: That's just about it.
Photographer: All right, here we go. All right, let's do it again.
Edwin (to Jimmy C. Newman): Come on. You tell us how old you are.
Jimmy Newman: I'm 72.
Edwin: I'm 89.
Johnny Russell: 89. My mother's 88, 87. But you stay away from her. (laughing)
We are about ready to go.
Opry Announcer: Sweet potato casserole, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy. So come on out, try all the new menu items at Shoney’s. It's your neighborhood family restaurant. Once again, heeeere's Porter Wagner.
Porter Wagner: All right, thank you very much Harold. Welcome back to our show, folks. I want you to meet some very special guests tonight on our Grand Ole Opry. And I hadn't heard these guys before, but I know they're great. And a guy that's also an honorary member of their great band, which is called the Hackberry Ramblers with their honorary member Rodney Crowell. Make them welcome ladies and gentlemen.
(Ramblers play Pipe Liner Blues with Rodney Cowell singing lead)
I'm an old pipe liner, going to lay my line all day
I'm an old pipe liner, going to lay my line all day
I got four, five women just waiting to draw my pay
I got nine little puppies and one old shaggy hound
I got nine little puppies and one old shaggy hound
Got to have all the dogs to keep them women 'round
When you see me coming better raise your window high
When you see me coming better raise your window high
(off camera comment) Real high, Rod
And when you see me leaving
Better hang your little head and cry
Uh-huh, cry
Porter Wagner (as band leaves the stage): The Hackberry Ramblers.
Johnny: We were a raving success.
Rodney: You guys all got to sign my guitar.
Huh?
Yeah.
We just played along. We're not the main thing.
Rodney: Y'all are the main thing. I know a main thing when I see one.
Luderin: It's fantastic to do something that you thought about for sixty-some odd years.
(unidentified woman): That must be amazing. Did you ever think you'd be here?
I never thought we'd be up here.
Edwin: We woke that crowd up, didn't we? Oh man. I'll tell you what.
Luderin (holding out bills): Edwin, get you some gas. (Puts money in Edwin’s car tray.)
Edwin: You didn't have to—you didn't have to do that.
- I'll stop and get some gas on my way going.
Luderin: Whenever—when you get a chance.
Edwin: Oh yeah, yeah. Right here.
Edwin: I thought you wanted me to go further, but I see you live right here. Let me get out and unlock the car so you can get your suitcase.
Luderin: Oh yeah, my suitcase.
Edwin: All right. Hey. Oh, talk about glad to be home, man.
Narrator: Just how long the Ramblers can keep on playing is anybody's guess.
Luderin: I told the fellas, I said, "Well, we got an album coming out. We just well continue playing." So, they all agreed and sure enough, we did. And here we are, still playing.
(Ramblers on stage during European tour)
Emcee: It is the first time they are in Europe.
Narrator: In 2002, they fulfilled a long-time goal by touring Europe, appearing at festivals in France and Holland.
(In Washington DC to receive the NEA National Heritage Fellowship Award)
NEA Presenter: For their contributions to the excellence of Cajun music, the National Endowment for the Arts--
Narrator: In addition, Luderin and Edwin received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
NEA Presenter: Please come forward for your award.
Glen: Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to kick things off with a song about a very sad fellow, one called the “Poor Hobo”.
Narrator: Thrilled by all their recent success, the Hackberry Ramblers keep looking toward the future, while preserving their special corner of the past.
Glen: People ask me why they've been together so long, and I tell them it's because we use the kiss pencil, K-I-S-S. Keep it simple, stupid.
And it's the style that the Hackberry Ramblers perform in as which—It's music to be played outdoors for people to dance to.
Narrator: Whether playing before thousands of people at a festival, or for a few friends in a backyard crawfish boil, the band has one goal: make them dance.
Luderin: We always tried to play dance music, and that's why I guess we don't play anything but something that makes you want to dance, you know.
Ben: We are not the slickest band out there. Though we can still get them going. And I think that's really the bottom line.
Luderin: I don't know, for some reason, I guess I just have the energy to spare. Edwin used to be like that too, but he’s got to have his chair now. Of course, he’s 89 too. He’s getting up there.
[Film Dedication]: “In memory of Johnny Farque 1934 – 1997”
Edwin: We didn’t play our theme song.
(Credits scroll while Luderin and Edwin sing the Ramblers’ theme song.)
Hackberry Ramblers are back on the air
To play all the tunes that you always like to hear
We gladly do your request
If you will let us know
The tunes that you like best
Over the radio
Had a little theme song. We haven't practiced that with the accordion and fiddle. I was playing lead guitar then.
CREDITS
Producer, Director, Writer, Editor John Whitehead
Co-Producer Ben Sandmel
Director of Photography Matt Ehling
Narrator Billy Joe Shaver
Field Audio John Sims
Vernon Norwood
Michael Figlio
Chris Polacheck
Additional Camera Jim Kron
George Spies
Walter Bardell
Post Audio Joe Demka
Ezra Gold
Additional Mixing Jake Springfield
Tim Watson
Online Editor Michael Sandness
Additional Editing T. J. Larson
Main Title Design Todd Nesser
Production Assistants Richard Gregg
Andy Rothschild
Suzanne Scholten
Mary O’Brien
Ann Marie Berger
Aislinn Pares
Location Research Randall LaBry
Still Photography Philip Gould
Legal Counsel Greg Eveline
Trip Aldredge
Archival Sources Arhoolie Records
Bob Dellores
Library of Congress WPA, FSA Collection
MTV Networks
Pavek Museum of Broadcasting
NBC News Archive
The 1999 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival was produced for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival by Festival Productions, Inc. Quint Davis and George T. Wein, Festival Producers
MTV Network’s “Music City Tonight” used with permission by MTV Networks, 1994 MTV Networks. All rights reserved.
“MTV Live” used with permission by MTV: Music Television copyright 1998 MTV Networks. All rights reserved. MTV Music Television, all related titles, characters and logos are trademarks owned by MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International, Inc.
“The Grand Ole Opry” is a registered trademark of Gaylord Entertainment Company. Used by permission.
Vintage Guitars courtesy of Dakota Dave Hull
Special thanks
Lt. Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco
Pam Breaux
Dr. Carrie Chrisco
Nell Croker
Eddie Darbone
Eddie Mae Faulk
Pete Fisher
The Jack Jarnigan Family
Shelley Johnson
Phillip Jones
Aaron Levine
Susan Levitas
Kurt Loder
Buddy Miller
Bruce Morgan
Jay Orr
Ellen Pryor
Mary Richardson
John Rumble
Sonny Schneidau
Maxi Sonnier
Laura Tennyson
Liz Thiels
Kyle Young
The Country Music Hall of Fame
Isle of Capris Casino and Hotel
Lee Brothers Dance Hall
McNeese State University
New Orleans Convention and Visitors Bureau
Southwest Louisiana Convention & Visitors Bureau
Executive Producers Gabrielle Vetter
Peggy Scott Laborde, WYES-TV
Funding for this Program was provided by:
Vetter Communications Corporation
The National Endowment for the Arts
The Louisiana Division of the Arts
The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation
The Arts and Humanities Council of Southwest Louisiana
Produced in association with WYES-TV New Orleans
This program was produced by Fretless Pictures which is solely responsible for its content.
Copyright 2003, Fretless Pictures. All rights reserved.
