Crowe on the banjo: the music life of J.D. Crowe

273 Pages·2011·3.309 MB·English

by  Crowe, J. D.;Godbey, Marty

i-xviii_1-240_Godb.indd 1 8/3/11 9:27 AM
Music in American Life
A list of books in the series
appears at the end of this book.
i-xviii_1-240_Godb.indd 2 8/3/11 9:27 AM
University of Illinois Press
Urbana, Chicago,
and Springfield
i-xviii_1-240_Godb.indd 3 8/3/11 9:27 AM
© 2011 by the Board of Trustees
of the University of Illinois
All rights reserved.
Manufactured in the United States of America
p 5 4 3 2 1
∞ This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Godbey, Marty.
Crowe on the banjo : the music life of J.D. Crowe /
Marty Godbey.
p. cm. — (Music in American life)
Includes bibliographical references, index,
and discography.
isbn 978-0-252-07825-5 (pbk.)
1. Crowe, J. D. 2. Banjoists—Biography.
I. Title.
ml418.c76g63 2011
787.8'81642092—dc22 2011006827
[b]
i-xviii_1-240_Godb.indd 4 8/3/11 9:27 AM
Dedicated to
the memory of
Orval Dee Crowe
1916–1989
i-xviii_1-240_Godb.indd 5 8/3/11 9:27 AM
i-xviii_1-240_Godb.indd 6 8/3/11 9:27 AM
contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xv
1 I Never Heard a Sound Like That 1
2 I Just Wanted to Pick 18
3 The Road to Detroit: We Rehearsed 36
4 Louisiana to Wheeling and Home Again 54
5 Why Don’t You Come Down to Martin’s? 74
6 The Red Slipper Lounge 92
7 Rounder 0044 and the Convergence of 1975 113
8 The New South: Bluegrass, Country, and More 132
9 Burn Out, Time Out, and Second Wind 152
10 The New New South 171
Coda: Tone, Touch, Timing, and Taste 189
i-xviii_1-240_Godb.indd 7 8/3/11 9:27 AM
Notes 195
Selected Listening 211
Additional Reading 217
Interviews 219
Index 223
Illustrations follow page 112
i-xviii_1-240_Godb.indd 8 8/3/11 9:27 AM
preface
In the mid-1960s, my husband and I were deeply immersed in the
bluegrass music scene in and around Columbus, Ohio. At least once a week,
usually more often, we ventured into some dark, sleazy, possibly dangerous
“hillbilly” bar to listen to the excellent local musicians. Occasionally, some
of the “name bands” such as Bill Monroe, the Osborne Brothers, Reno and
Smiley, and the Stanley Brothers appeared in the larger ones, and we followed
them religiously.
We traveled to outlying towns for “package” shows in school and civic
auditoriums—if there was a bluegrass band in the lineup and we could find
out about it, we were there. We heard Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys
at the High School in Delaware, Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys
in Zanesville, Reno and Smiley and the Tennessee Cut-Ups in Springfield,
Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper in Ashland, and Flatt and Scruggs and the
Foggy Mountain Boys, booked with the Stanley Brothers, at the Dennison
Square Theatre in Cleveland. From information gleaned from their 5:45 a.m.
radio broadcast, we stalked Flatt and Scruggs in a 150-mile radius, managing
to see them twelve times in one calendar year.
i-xviii_1-240_Godb.indd 9 8/3/11 9:27 AM