Interview with Doug Hutchens – 12 November 2005

1212 Va Nc Rd,
Spencer, VA 24165-3467 

(276) 694-8478 

DHutchens@pineygrove.stokes.k12.nc.us

Interviewed by Tom Adler at K&W Cafeteria, west of Winston-Salem, NC on 11/12/2005.

TA = Thomas A. Adler

DH = Doug Hutchens

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Doug Hutchens: Born January 26, 1952, in Stuart, Virginia.

Grew up watching Flatt and Scruggs twice a week on tv and Reno and Smiley 5 days a week before going off to school on the daily school bus.  Grew up in a rich musical area there in Stuart, right on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mts.

Had uncles who played music, and always had an instrument laying around.   DH learned basic guitar chords from his mother, who had played years before.  His uncle had an old 78 record player, on which he heard some bluegrass and old time music, e.g., The Bailes Brothers, "Going Back to the Blue Ridge Mtns." and there were also records by Bill Monroe which named Lester Flatt, and DH wondered "who in the world was this Bill Monroe," since he already knew about Lester Flatt from seeing him twice a week on tv. 

"They were on here in Winston-Salem, also in Roanoke. So I'd get to see the show on Monday or Tuesday night, and then again on Saturday night.   So I'd watch on Monday night, and I'd watch for this or that, and then on Saturday night I was ready to watch, then, I knew what to watch for. "

"I got my first instrument in the fall of 1963, I got a guitar, and then Santa Claus brought me a banjo for Christmas, '63.  Santa Claus didn't know what he was opening up there, like Pandora's box." 

First saw Monroe in 1967, perhaps in November, just after Roland White joined in, while Benny Williams was still in the band.  DH thinks Kenny Baker came back in to the BGB band after January of 1968.    Benny Williams played with a bandage on his hand that night, because he’d stuck his hand in the fan on the old bus.  That was the first time DH saw Monroe.  DH was in awe, and never dreamed that a few years later he’d know him personally.

DH saw various groups periodically, like Reno and Smiley, or the Stanley Brothers, when Rt. 11-W was the main route between Bristol and Washington, D.C.

On the day of the Fincastle bg festival, Carlton Haney brought Mac Wiseman and Bill Monroe and others over to a local tv station, and they did an hour broadcast at noon.   But Lamar, who had recently joined the band, went home to get his clothes, so David Deese played banjo with the Monroe band that day in 1965.

DH was not at the Fincastle festival, being only 13 years old. He wonders if a videotape of the tv show still exists. 

DH:  Me and a couple guys around the house, there, we got together.  And of course, our main influence was Reno and Smiley, because we saw them most of the time.

DH started off wrong, with one finger and a thumb, and then tried to add the other finger, and “it didn’t come easy for me.” 

DH would see a package show with Red Smiley, Monroe, Connie Smith, Bill Anderson, and other Nashville acts.  

DH saw Flatt & Scruggs at Sandy Ridge.  According to Earl, they probably played the Sandy Ridge School more than any other place except for the Grand Ole Opry.  It’s a school on the Carolina-Virginia border.  A small community, but the American Legion was active, and booked shows.   Flatt and Scruggs were supposed to be at Sandy Ridge on a Friday night in 1969, but had broken up the week before. 

DH: Raymond Huffmaster is responsible for the March 7 F&S poster from Hatch Show print, which they still sell at Hatch.    They didn’t do the show.  The Osborne Bros. were traveling in a Winnebago at that time, and DH expected to see the big Flatt & Scruggs bus, but only saw the Winnebago.  DH went on it, and saw Sonny sitting on the stage.  This was when he’d just got a six-string neck, and had little locks on the flange of his Vega banjo.   DH asked “Is something wrong with Flatt & Scruggs?”  And Sonny said, “Man, ain’t you heard?,” he says, “they broke up.”   And he sat there in tears, literally running down his eyes. . .    You know, he set there, tears streamin’ down his eyes, he said, you know, he said “I’ve never lived in a time without a Flatt & Scruggs.” 

After Lester and Earl split up, the Osbornes started doing the Sandy Ridge thing, with Lester.  The two of them would do a double-header show. Sandy Ridge is a small town, but had a nice school auditorium.  Lots of other schools had shows, too.  Somebody at Sandy Ridge made it an annual thing.  Earl said they worked it once or twice with Monroe, and when they started out, the first time they went to Sandy Ridge, said, well, didn’t know whether they was gonna draw any or not, but they drew a good crowd, worked it once a year or sometimes twice.  Doug talked with Earl about this.  [respectful audience].

DH: Ralph Hill, used to make straps and things for Lester and Earl, they would send him two batches of 25 posters to put up ahead of their appearance.  RH got the second 25 on a Monday, and got a call from either Lester or Earl, who said, “Don’t bother puttin’ em up, we ain’t coming.”  They’d broken up [in 1969]. The guy has some posters of this show that never happened.   The guy who had the posters (Ralph Hill) had 25 posters.  A few years later he was trying to sell 'em for 3 or 4 bucks each as a 1960 poster.  [Off by 9 years!]  There was a picture of Earl with a Vega banjo on it, so I knew it was wrong. 

Raymond Huffmaster got one of those, and took it back to Hatch, so Raymond took it back to Hatch Showprint, and they still had it set up.

DH: When they were first starting IBMA, they auctioned off Monroe belt buckle that DH donated.  Also auctioned signed posters.

[205]  DH: Frank and Marty Godbey took me to Bean Blossom the first time, through about six pictures in Bluegrass Unlimited.  I first-- That was-- Back then, I could look at pictures and read a little bit, and-- I was there.   This had to be-- Well, it was Vic Jordan was playing with Jim and Jesse-- well, with Bill, because there was a picture of he and Bobby Thompson doing a banjo workshop, and there was one of Kenny Baker standing there, uh, it'd probably be '68.   But I had seen--  And heard Bill talk about Bean Blossom on the Opry, we could pick it up in the wintertime. 

He would always work a Saturday night there, and then he would go, "Uh," so and so's gonna be at Bean Blossom, Indiana, tomorrow," and usually they would leave out of there Saturday night, and we would work up there Sunday.  He would always call it the Brown County Jamboree, uh, "Porter Wagoner's gonna be with us at the Brown County Jamboree tomorrow evening, and we're leaving out tonight after the show. . . "   [DH has tape of BM announcing the Phuzz Street Knucklebusters, and you can hear him ask Baker "what's that name?" and DH taped it from Berea College.  We had made the big time, then!  Our name had been mentioned on the Grand Ole Opry.]

[How the Phuzz Street Knucklebusters were named:
“Glen Lawson, and John Neff were in the band . . . the choir director at Berea introduced them at Berea, and said they needed a name, and DH made up the name on the spot.  They later tried to change the name, but ended up staying with that name.  Monroe, asked about it at Bean Blossom, said "It's different.  You need to have something that's different."]

[260]  [similarities of band names: "Blue Mule" in Virginia and in Canada;  "Blue Grass Express"]

[275]  DH: I'd heard Bill talk about it [Bean Blossom] during the time that Pete Rowan and Lamar Grier was there.  I first started listenin' to the Opry.  And exactly how I got to listenin', I'm not sure.  Our old radio at the house wouldn't pick up WSM.  It'd pick up 2 or 3 local stations, and that's it.  But I had an uncle who'd just bought one of these brand new Lafayette radios, and he run a dairy farm.  And on Saturday morning and Sunday morning, he needed his radio back early.  So I would go down and borrow the radio on Friday night, and many a time I would go to sleep, settin' there with the radio, I'd have to keep turning it just to keep the signal coming in.  But I can remember the night where-- I'm not sure whether it was either Lamar Grier or Vic Jordan had to leave, and Larry McNeely filled in on the second set at the Opry, because they had a child born, that they had to leave.  So-- Lamar bein' there, it'd be '66 or early '67, I guess.  But about that time I started listenin' to the Opry, and I heard Bill talk about Bean Blossom from there.

But I found out about Bluegrass Unlimited from a guy named Bill Sykes, who used to be around the Roanoke area, very involved with music up there.   He passed away a couple of years ago.  But Bill did an Osborne Brothers show at Stone's Dairy Barn, and -- the year escapes me, but whenever "Up This Hill and Down" first came out.  The Osbornes were there that afternoon, and were playing a show, and I got to talking to this guy named Bill Sykes, and he tells me about this newsletter that's coming out of Maryland.  And of course at this time, I'm fifteen years old.  And he give-- I've still got the piece of paper, he wrote it down, "Bluegrass Unlimited," something something, Wheaton, Maryland.

[DH's first issue was the last of the mimeographed 8.5x11 or 8.5 x 14 size BU's with an Osborne bros. discography, and the small books started.  He would "devour "  each issue.]

[DH:  Next year, August or September's issue had this little thing that Godbey's had done, with pictures of Bean Blossom-- and DH told Frank and Marty several times "You took me to Bean Blossom."

[The next year DH wrote to the Bean Blossom Chamber of Commerce to find out how he could get there (still too young to drive), and got a reply from the Nashville Chamber of Commerce that he still has, where they said, No, BB was 40 mi. S of Indy on Hwy. 135, but no rail or bus service, etc.). 

[DH: In fall of 1969, at the Lake Norman Music Hall, DH met Calvin Robins for the first time.  Butch was getting ready to go into service.  DH got with Calvin, and mentioned Bean Blossom, and Calvin said "How'd you like to go next year?"

"And so the next spring, along maybe April, he shows up down at the house one afternoon, one Sunday evening, I was working on my uncle's dairy farm, milking cows.  And he came by and said "You still want to go to Bean Blossom?"  I said, "Well, yeah!" -- Of course he always went at least ten days beforehand to help Bill.  Calvin was an electrician, or taught electricity.  And so he would go up and help string lights, and stuff like that.  And so we went on, went up, and that's how I got to know Bill.  About the second day I was there, I just kind of fell in helping with whatever.  Silver Spurs, he came over every day and would help. He was puttin' up his sound stuff, and all this stuff.  With Spurs always around, and Birch and Bertha, they would come over every morning, and Calvin, and--   You know, they would have an extra lawnmower there and needing mowing, so I just hopped in and started doing that.  About the second day, Bill--  We was all sitting there somewhere, and he says, "Who hired you?"  I said, "Well-- nobody."  He says, "Who's gonna pay you?"  I said, "Well-- I didn't know I was getting' paid."   And uh, he was just kind of curious of what I was there.  I said, "I'm just here with Calvin Robbins."  He said, "Well, you're doing fine," he said, "I just--  I didn't know where you come from."   And so we-- As time went on, we got to where we'd pick some in the evenings.  We'd work till late in the evening, then we'd pick some, and then get up and hit it again the next day.  Most of the time we'd go over in the entrance way of the barn, over there.  Back at that point in time, Bill would--  They would bring the bus up, and he would either stay on the bus there, or I guess part of the time he would stay in the cabins down there, too.  But we'd usually get together their in the entrance way of the barn.  It wasn't over six or eight people there, at the most. Bill was working on "Tanyards" about that time.  And uh, there's a neat picture that I've seen published two or three different times, where it's a picture over Calvin's shoulder, and Bill's playing.  I can tell by the way his fingers are, that's what he's playing.  It's just a neat tune, the way he would do it."

[DATE?  DH: "That would be '70.   I was there and we spent the whole week, and by the time the festival started, see, I'd been there ten days, and Bill was very comfortable with me around.  I mean, I'd work the gate a lot.  And then in the early mornings we'd get up, usually me and Calvin and sometimes Birch or different ones,  we'd go and do what we'd call "beat the bushes":  see who's in tents, and make sure they had tickets for that day.  You know a lot of times in those days, you'd sell an individual ticket for each day.  And you'd go check and make sure that they had tickets for that date, since they would come in and buy a one-day ticket and pitch a tent.  And'd be surprised at how much money you would come back with, from beatin' the bushes there.   And time after time, you'd go in like that, and'd be four or five people sittin' there, and then each one of them had to buy another ticket there, you know."

410:  [Where were people camping?]  "Well, they had just opened up, I think, the area past the power lines, way on out.  Calvin used to--  The way the old road came in over to the park there, his campsite was the second campsite there, on the left, right along the fence.  Up on the left, Calvin's was on the left.  Now in '70 and '71, Buck White was right beside us, right behind us.  I don't remember who was right in front of us there, closer to the gulley.  But that was pretty much Calvin's camping spot, right there.  He had a pop-up camper.  And so I would go, and--  I was in hog heaven. 

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