Interview #2 with Melvin Goins, 6 March 2014
At his home, 3541 Blue Ribbon Drive, Catlettsburg, KY.
Second Interview; by Tom Adler, with Frank Godbey present.

MG = Melvin Goins
TA = Thomas Adler

FG = Frank Godbey

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. . . Frank, I ain’t never seen nothing like this.  I’ve been around people, I’ve been to rest homes, and I’ve dealt with people, but I ain’t never seen nothing like this.  I mean, it’s a shame on earth that people have got no respect.  [TA sympathizes]  I’ll tell you what, that’s what’s wrong with the world right now, nobody don’t care for nobody.  No morals left.  Don’t care.  But hit’s facts.

I mean, in show business, I deal with this every day.  About what people’s doin’, how they mistreated people, they’ve lied, they’ve stole, they’ve took – Everything in the world, to make a name and get a dollar of money.

Ralph II is a good example.  I’ve worked that festival for forty-three years.  Forty-three years!   I helped Ralph Stanley start that festival.  McClure (Virginia).  I was the man that helped him start it, after Carter died.  I worked forty-one years with Ralph, well, Ralph gave it up two years ago, and gave it to Two.  He made two years there.

Well, it went on, and so, one day, I got this call.  Said, “Melvin, you ain’t gonna get to play the festival this year.”  I said, “Well, what have I done?”  I said, “We had a standing ovation up there with our show, we done our best to put on a good show.”   “Well, Dad’s gonna book the ones, that just, he plays their festivals.”  I said, “I’m gonna tell you something.  I can count ‘em on one hand, at the festivals he ain’t playing, he’s got people booked there ain’t playing.  Not a one!”  I said, “Everyone there ain’t got no festival he can play!  That’s just a scapegoat, is all that is.”

Well, it went on . . .  I wrote him a letter, son, that would burn the mail!  I went back to the early days when I took care of his uncle Carter, and Ralph, when they was gettin’ ready to quit.  They left Live Oak, Florida, and went out here, and I booked them little schoolhouses, anywhere they’d get to play for $100 a night, when they was getting’ ready to quit.  And January the 18th, 1966,  Ralph called me from the old homeplace, said “Melvin, would you try to get us a few shows?”  I said, “Well, I’ll do my best.” Well, I went on.  I did.  I done exactly–   I booked them in schools, three or four days a week, playin’ matinees.  And I’d try to book ‘em somewhere for Friday and Saturday night.  The last year Carter Stanley lived, he made a statement at the drive-in theater in Olive Hill, Kentucky.  Said, “Melvin, me and brother Ralph has worked more this year than we’ve worked in years.”

Well, I just took it for two weeks.  Two weeks is all I was gonna do it.  My last show was in Michigan, on a Sunday night.   Carter called me to the backstage, back in the back, said “Sit down, I want to talk to you.”  “Okay.”  He said, “You know, I know that today’s your final day with me and brother Ralph.”  And he said, “we hate awful bad to see you leave us right now,” said, “you’re a country boy, like we are, me and brother Ralph.”  Well, I said, “Carter,” I said, “that’s the way life is.”   And he said, “Will you do me a favor?”  “Well,”  I said, “if I can I will.”  Said “Would you care to stay one more month – one more month – and if you don’t like it, then you can go home.”  He says, “Just try it, one more month.”

Well, one month wound up being nearly four years with them.  Four years, almost!  Sparks, too – Sparks come in a show, February ’67, when Ralph fired George Shuffler.  He fired George Shuffler right at Morehead, Kentucky, crossin’ a railroad crossing there.  And George went to work with Bill Harrell, and Don Reno.  Larry Sparks come in the show then, took George’s place, February 1967. 

See,  Ralph had got a ticket up in New York one time, for makin’ a U-turn, well then they found guns and they found whiskey and everything on ‘em up there. 

But anyway–   We was getting’ ready to go do a session for King records.  We had to go in and do a new album for King Records.  And Ralph was in the back seat, and Curly was in the back seat.   And me and George was in the front seat.  George was drivin’ Carter’s car.  And just about the time we crossed a railroad crossing there, where there used to be a big old drive-in theater that the Chevrolet dealer owned,  Ralph said, “George, I want you to take this sound system – one of these things where we could just set down and record like you were talkin’ about – and get it fixed.” 

Well, he laid in on Ralph.  Oh, God, I thought they was gonna fight!  And he started in on Carter, “Carter Stanley– ” 

“Now you wait a minute!  Carter’s dead and gone, you wouldn’t get away with this if he was here.”  And he said “if you don’t think no more of the Stanley Brothers, or my brother Carter gone,” he said, “I don’t need you.” 

He said, “What do you mean?” 

He said, “As of now, I’m relievin’ you of your job! You can go where you want to go, and I don’t care!”

[5:01] Well, it was a bad weekend.   And I had to –   sing bass on the new “Over the Sunset Hill” album, I’d never sung bass in my life.  Ralph said, “We’re gonna lose the contract, if you can’t do something.”  Well, I said, “Ralph, I ain’t never done this.  It’s like a little boy in school the first day, just learnin’ to write his name!”  Well, he said “Would you try?”  I said, “Well, I’ll try, but don’t hold me to it, now ‘cause I ain’t gonna tell you I can do it.”

There I set, and those them big guys up there in them big studio–- glass things to record, and I sung one.  He said, “That’s a good ‘un, can you do good another one?”  I said, “Well, I’ll try the second just like I did the first one.”

I wound up singin’ bass on that whole album.  They laughed at me, they called me ‘Birch Monroe,’ they called me everybody.  They called me everything in the book, ‘the famous Chuck Wagon Gang,’ they called me everything!  Well, I know why they done it, to keep my spirits [up], maybe, so I’d keep a-doin’ it!  [simulating Ralph’s voice:] “Boy, you sound like you the man from Knoxville, Tennessee, and Brother Birch, you singin’ that old corn-husky bass!” [laughs]  I said, “Yes I am, something I ain’t never done!”

But that’s how it all wound up then.  I tell you, they’s been some funny things. . . the night that Curly Ray and Ezra fit [fought], beat everything that ever I witnessed.  I shouldn’t tell this one . . .

[TA says anything MG doesn’t want put in his book can be left out at that point.]

We was workin’ –   me and Curly Ray, and Ray was workin’ some dates with Hylo Brown.  Ezra had a restaurant in Pikeville, he run the restaurant.  Well me and Curly Ray was goin’ out and doin’ some shows with Hylo Brown.  Well, Hylo didn’t have a sound system.  Back them days, you had to carry a sound set.  So we was on our way to Bristol –  we had that show over there, 1961, for Nick Carter, WCYB in Bristol, done it for about sixteen months.  We was riding along. 

Curly–   I mean, Ezra hit Curly up for some pay, for using the sound set that they’d bought from Sears-Roebuck back in the ‘30s.  An old PA set they’d bought back in the ‘30s from Sears-Roebuck.  An old round one-metal horn, I’ve got ‘em right there in my barn now, and the little old amps.   Well, one word led to another, and Curly said, “By God, I’ve been with the Fiddlers since I was twelve years old.  I beat Natchee the Indian at a fiddlin’ contest when I was twelve years old, at Williamson.”  And he said, “I helped make the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers.  That name you got?  That was made after a highway runs through Virginia, ‘The Trail of the Lonesome Pine’, that’s where the name come from.  Me and Charles have stuck with you when nobody else did,” and said “Who would have been the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers if we hadn’t have been with you?”

Well, one word led to another.   Curly Ray, he was high-strung; he just retched and got Ezra right by the hair of the head, like that.  And him a-drivin’!   I said, “Lord God, fellas, don’t do this!”  I said, “we every one gonna get killed!”  I said, “Curly, don’t do this!” 

[8:16] He told Ezra, “Stop the car!”  We had an old 1950 Buick, bass fiddle tied on top.  Stopped the car.  Well, instead of Ezra gettin’ out on the driver’s side, he slid through the seat, and Curly Ray was standin’ out there with his fist drawed back.  Well, about time Ezra stuck his head out, he took Ezra right over the eye.  He hit the drain on that old car, and drove his big knuckles plumb back up here on his hand.  Aww, tore him–-  And we’s on the way to do a TV show, now!  And blacked Ezra’s eye, his eye all swelled up.  Well we got in over [there], and Nick Carter, owns the furniture company, he said “Boys,” said, “Curly, what in the world’s happened?” He said, “a bumblebee stung me!”  [all laugh]  That’s the funniest damn–   But here’s the kicker.  Went on, we had to go on and do that TV show that night.  There Ezra had that big blue eye, Curly Ray’d sit and hold the fiddle like–   He had–   Like his knuckle, hit had done swelled plumb up.  Told ‘em the bee had stung him. 

Well, we always made a point to do a gospel song on the program.  So we was singin’ “Walkin’ in Jerusalem, Just Like John.”  Well, everytime –  “I want to be ready. . . “ Everytime we come to that part, they’d stop and look at one another.  Well, I lost it!  I couldn’t help it!  Just died laughin’!  They’d just stop and look at one another.  I’d say, “Now go on, boys.” Every time “I want to be ready” come, they’d–   I guess Curly was waitin’ for him again, but anyway, they’d stop and look at one another!  Oh, I said, “Boys, don’t do this on a gospel song,” I said, “Lord God a-Mighty!” 

Well, we come back that night, Ezra took a shortcut, ‘cross the mountain, to get Curly Ray back so he could work in the mines the next day.  And he was goin’ down the mountain, buddy, it was an old rough road to Ash Camp.  Pow!  Boom!  Hittin’ them big rocks with that car!  Ezra was talkin’, he said, “I oughta just turn you and let you run away and go into that holler!”   And me a-settin’ back there–  Me and Ray was between two pillows.  I buried my head in that pillow, I didn’t want him to hear me a-laughin’!  I was a-dyin’ laughin’!  I thought he was gonna tear the bottom out of that car to get–-  Curly made him take him home, ‘cause it was a shortcut, on an old rock dirt road!  Son, I tell you, we run into some doozies!

Well, I shouldn’t a-got started on that! 

[TA:      Anything you want–  Later, when we come to try to make it a book, if there’s things you don’t want in it, we won’t put ‘em in there.]

Well, that’s just like Monroe.  Now here’s a good ‘un to put on your thing:

They was goin’ somewhere–  They was goin’ to Texas one night.  Joe Stuart and Kenny Baker–  That’s when Joe Stuart was workin’ with Bill.  And Kenny Baker.  And they stopped at this truck stop to get some coffee.   They was on their way to Texas.   So they–   Joe–-  And Kenny got off to go into the truck stop, get some coffee.  Well, they come back out.  They never did see Monroe get off the bus.  They come back out, and they got back on the bus, when it started out, they was goin’ down the road.  Done pulled out.  Kenny said, “Boys, you don’t reckon the Chief has got off back there, do you?” Went back there, Monroe was gone!  He wasn’t back there.  He had got off of that bus while they went into the restroom, and went into the restaurant.  And had him a morning paper; he was bad to read the paper.

Well, they said, “Ain’t but one thing to do,” said, “we gonna have to go back.  He’s still there at that truck stop.”  Well, they went back, and Monroe had walked out of the restaurant, he’s out on one of these lights, readin’ the paper!  He said, “Boy, make sure all the Blue Grass Boys are on the bus the next time you go!”   Out there, readin’ the paper and hit two or three o’clock in the morning, and told ‘em, said, “the next time make sure the Blue Grass Boys is on the bus.”

[11:45]  Benny Martin liked to killed him one time.  Benny pulled off at a place–   He fell over the hill right down about, and landed in a big brush pile.  He come crawlin’ up out of there, and his hair was stickin’ right straight up, looked like a brush pile.  And, well, he said, “That’s a good way to get a man killed!” and just got on the bus, and never said another word!   Benny Martin was drivin’, and let him out, and he fell over a hill where the high wall was right down over a big brush thicket!  And he crawled out of there!

Oh, man, I tell you –   They’s been things that, in this music, that’d be a caution, to watch it, and just tell it.  It’s unreal!

That’s my biggest problem.  I just like to live the past, like the song, “Livin’ In The Past.” I like it!

[TA: I brought you a CD I got from Marvin Hedrick’s old tapes, this is a show that you and Ray and Art and Larry Sturgill–

MG: Leslie Sturgill!

. . . and Bill Rawlings did at Bean Blossom, like, November of ’71. ]

MG: I remember it well.  That’s a keepsake . . .

[TA gives MG a copy of his book, so MG can get his name right.  Tells him about Grandpa Jones song, “Here Rattler, Here!” and MG gets it – “Adler” instead of “Rattler.”  They talk more about Tom’s book and MG’s hoped-for book]

MG: “This’ll be priceless, some day.  You talk about history for bluegrass–  Bad as I hate to say it when me and you’s gone, they’ll say, “Boy, that’s the way it happened.”

[TA: gives MG some pictures from Bean Blossom; they talk about who is in the pictures; maybe Dale Vanderpool; and about the pictures of girls clustered around MG at Bean Blossom]

MG: Oh, man, that’s keepsake stuff for me.  I’d keep a postage stamp, if somebody gives me one!

TA: [gives MG some pix of him and Willia, and clarifies that her name is spelled “Willia”; then TA asks MG to provide old pix for TA to scan and return.  TA has found some pix on the internet, including the one of 3 young Goins boys]

MG: That’s us three, that was made at the old home place on Sinai Mountain, right out of Goodwill.  That’s where I growed up with an old-time fiddler there, his name was Tracy Dillon. [TA shows him a pic of the Mercer Co. Ramblers, with Tracy Dillon]  Oh, yeah, that’s him!  He was the one that learnt me and Ray, and started us playin’, ‘fore we could ever sing a lick!

God sakes . . . that’s Pat Wright, right there, playing the tenor banjer.  I know him, he played the banjo back then.  And then, lemme see, Gordon Jennings . . .   Yeah, I know about three of those guys.  But he [Tracy]’s the one that learnt me and Ray.  Started us playing when we was just little old young boys.   He worked in the coal mines, and on Saturday nights and Sundays, we’d go over there and play and have jam sessions.  People would come from all around everywhere, and when we sit around on his front porch, and he’d make a big churn of lemonade, and we set there and played and drank lemonade.  That big old stone churn, I can see it settin’ out there.  And he smoked a pipe.  And his wife smoked a pipe.  But God, he could play!  He had an old German fiddle; that thing, when he played, you’d think it was hooked up to the electric!  “May I Sleep In Your Barn Tonight, Mister?,” “Pallet On The Floor,” “Get Along Home, Cindy,” uh, “Ragtime Annie,” “Old Joe Clark,” “Sally Goodin’,” –  he knowed all them old fiddle tunes.  Aw, he was one of the best–-  He was give up in that country, in that county, to be one of the best square-dance fiddlers ever walked through the door.  In Mercer County.  That’s where he came from.  And he worked in the coal mines in Goodwill, West Virginia.  With my daddy. 

[20:31] And walked back and forth to work.  They didn’t have a car to ride.  They had to walk two miles back in there to the old mines, at Goodwill.  Goodwill was a booming town back in them days, big money town. 

[TA: They say it’s a ghost town, now]

Oh, it is!  You wouldn’t know what it is, boy.  I went back there–  There’s a rock layin’ right over on my hearth, that I picked up when I went back there a year or two [ago], it’s a-layin’ right over there, with my name on it.  Come from there, it’s a rock from there, from Goodwill, where I came from.  I wanted to bring that home, so I brought that rock home, and my nephew, he wrote on it, where it came from.

[TA shows MG a picture: “Does that look familiar? Now that’s a picture of the tipple at Goodwill.”]
            Yes it does.  That’s the old tipple.  The old schoolhouse set right back down the road.  Four rooms.  It’s gone.  The old log church is gone . . .

TA: So your daddy would go to work there?

MG: My daddy worked there, and Tracy Dillon.  He worked in Goodwill there.

TA: Now they had shifts all day and all night.

MG: Yeah, day shift and night shift.

TA: When did your Daddy work?

MG: Daddy worked the day shift.  Him and Tracy both did.  Yeah, he worked the day shift.  And had to walk.  Small seams of coal . . .   Had to work on their knees.  Back then they had the old breast augers; they had a big thing across their breast.  And they’d drill them holes.  Then stuck the dynamite back in those holes, tamped them holes with that seam of coal.  Then they’d put a cap behind ‘em, and when they lit the cap, when the cap went off, it blowed the dynamite, it blowed the coal out.

I took the wires that my Daddy used, and made guitar string out of ‘em.  Scraped the insulation off of ‘em, and made guitar strings.  Couldn’t buy a set of strings.  Black Diamonds was a dollar at a drug store, get a dollar, but–  I didn’t have the dollar.

TA: How old were you when you did that, you think?  The first–  When you made your own strings?

MG: Oh, I was around eighteen years old.  Ray was sixteen when he first got the job with the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers.  I was two years older than Ray–

TA: 1952!

MG: I was about 18.  I was 20 when I come to Kentucky, went to work with Ezra and Curly Ray and them . . .

TA: I’ve got some more pictures. . . Does that look familiar? Now that may not be the school you remember –

MG: That is, that’s it! 

TA: But that looks bigger than four rooms–  That’s Goodwill school.

MG: Yeah, they’s upstairs and downstairs; it’s eight rooms.  No, wait a minute, it had– I’m trying to think if it had four rooms downstairs and four up.  I went to school when I was – This was for the small grades, down here.  And this was for the higher grades.  But that’s the school, right there!

TA: The first floor was for the small grades?

MG: Small grades, and the other’n was the big grades.  And we had to carry our own water, from an old spigot.  Water-bucket water, and fill an old stone cooler up.  And they had what they called a “coat-room,” that’s where you hung your coats up in the back there, and you brought your own jar from home, and you taped your name around it, so you’d know it’s your jar you’re drinkin’ out of.

TA: Yeah.  I think one of those two pictures of the school–  One of ‘em’s a wider view, you can see–   I don’t know if it’s a spring-house, or an outhouse, or– what is that there?  Must be the other picture. . .

MG:  Well, see, they burnt coal back in them days.  Coal was the heat, they had the old pot-bellied stoves, the old burnsides.  That was the heat they used.  And we had to carry our own drinking water in a big old water bucket, and pour it in that cooler, and it had a little spicket, you turn a little handle on it to get your water.

TA:  Well, I thought I’d bring you those…

MG: Boy, that brings back memories, God sakes above!

TA: How about this?  Is this C.B. Mullins’ store?  You mentioned a store the last time we were here, and that’s a store, but I don’t know if it’s the same one.

MG: Yep, that’s the old store.

TA: I’ve read there was also a little store at a place they called Frogtown.

MG:  Frogtown!  Meanest town that ever lived!  They had a cuttin’, a fightin’, a shootin’ every night there, every weekend.  Frogtown!

TA: But that was close to Goodwill, wasn’t it?

MG: It was just a mile or two down the road from Goodwill.  But it was a– They sold beer there, and the miners would all go there on the weekends, and drink. 

TA: At Frogtown. . .

MG: My daddy got stabbed with a knife there one day, in the knee.  Feller smacked a feller backwards, he popped a knife in my daddy’s leg, and daddy didn’t know he was cut.  And blood was just comin’ out ‘bout like a broomstraw.  And it was Ott Blevins, the one who stabbed him.  He got into another man, and a feller knocked him backwards, when he went backwards he stuck my Daddy right in the knee with a knife.  Had to take my Daddy to the doctor.  My Daddy lost two or three weeks of work.  And I never will forget it:  I had to go and catch an old mule, catch this old mule, and bring him there to the foot of that mountain, and put Daddy on that mule and take him home.  On a mule. Didn’t have no car, I had to take him home on a mule. 

TA: From Frogtown?

MG: Yeah, from Frogtown, right up on top of the hill there. Richard Minnicks was the man that hauled him from there, in a car, to see the doctor.  And brought him back to Frogtown, and I had to get a mule and go to the foot of the mountain, and load him up on a mule, and take him home to this old place [at] Sinai, right here.  We lived there, then.

TA: You said that was a place you couldn’t, you couldn’t drive to it, it was mostly horses or mules.

MG: Dirt road.  Only time you could get to it would be in the summertime, when a scraper would scrape the road.  But in the winter time, the ruts was so far that you was lucky to get a wagon and a team over it.  Hit was bad.  Yeah, hit was like that a long time. . .

But I woulda never thought I’d ever seen this!

TA: Is that Mullins’ store that you were tellin’ me about?

MG: C. B. Mullins! 

TA: You talked about the meat slicer he had. . .

MG:  That’s it!  The old road and the river – the Bluestone River – run right over from it here, the river run right over there.  And he had a big old porch set out in the front there, and everybody would go there and buy baloney and cheese. And pop was a nickel a bottle, RC Cola and Pepsi.   And they’d go in and get a block of cheese, you cut if off a big round roll, and baloney, and set there, and eat that.  And pepperoni –  and eat it out on the porch.
[26:52]  You could get a good meal for a quarter.

TA: Some good times, I’ll bet.

MG: Oh, Lord! 

And I never will forget it:  all the boys had bicycles back in them days.  I never had a bicycle.  I had a homemade wooden sled and a wheelbarrow wagon that I pulled around.   And I seen some boys–  Boy, they had this pretty red bicycle there one day.  I had me one nickel in my pocket, to get me a bottle of pop.  I told ‘em, I said, “You let me ride your bicycle, I’ll give you this nickel that I was gonna get my pop with.”  So I gave him my nickel, to ride his bicycle.

TA: Wow!

MG: Five cents.

TA: Did you know how to ride it?

MG: Yeah, I could ride it, I stayed right up, good!  He said, “You rode before?” I said, “No, but I had to learn, like you.”  So, uh–

Man, them’s memories.  That old river still runnin’ there, cold–

TA: Bluestone.

MG: Bluestone.  Best little river to fish in ever was.  Had an old place there called the “Deep Hole,” that we swimmed in.  It was a deep pool of water.  That was where my Grandpa lived, at Cliff Yards.  It’s where the railroad track was all at, when they sent in railroad cars, for the N&W.  My Grandpa, he worked for this railroad company–

TA: Was that– Kelly?

MG: Kelly, yeah. That was my grandpa.  He lived and, he pumped water for them big steam engines.  He started walkin’, he started workin’ on the railroad when he was twelve years old, carrying water for the section crews. 

TA: Working for Flinroy – you told us.

MG: That was his brother, Uncle Flinroy.  That was his brother.  Toughest man–  Aw, he was grouchy, and he’d–  Man, he’d drive you like slaves!  Well, Grandpa never would say [anything] to him, ‘cause he knowed the nature of him, he was raised up with him.  But he was one of the bad ones.  Told a boy one time–   This boy’s got a job, uh, Robison boy and a Bailey boy, he hired ‘em.  And they’d get in and steal people’s chickens and everything in the world.  This Del Robison, one day, he was layin’ down, pullin’ weeds– Layin’ down!  He said, “These weeds just don’t fit my hand.”  He said, “Don’t nothing fits your hand but a chicken’s leg!”  [Laughter]

Said, “Nothing fits your hand but a chicken’s leg!”  [ All laugh ]

TA:  That’s funny!  Well, I got another picture; maybe this’ll bring some memories, too.  I asked you on the phone–  Was this the Shenandoah Playboys?

MG: Yeah.  August of 1953. 

TA:  August, of ’53.  Tell me everyone–  I see you there, of course . . .     

MG: That’s Ray, that’s me, that’s Paul Williams, and Joe Meadows. 

TA:  Paul . . . ?

MG: Paul, right here in the middle.  Playin’ bass. 

TA: Paul Williams!

MG: That’s Paul Williams.  That’s Joe Meadows–  Ralph was his real name.  When he went to work with the Stanley Brothers, they named him “Joe,” cause they didn’t want two Ralphs. So his name was Joe in the Stanley Brothers.  They gave him that name.

TA: I always wondered why he–   I knew he was Ralph “Joe” Meadows, but–  That was ‘cause of the Stanleys.

MG:  “Cousin Winesap.”  That was the comedian name, “Cousin Winesap,” back in them days.  Everybody carried a comedian back in the days, like –   Like Monroe used to carry “Cousin Wilbur.”  All the bluegrass bands back in the old days carried a comedian, and most of ‘em was bass players.

TA: Why?

MG: Well, that was kind of like the “Little Darlin’,” used to play with Flatt and Scruggs, that sort of was the highlight–   That was always in the latter part, up towards the end of the show, they come out and done their little comedy acts, and their little jokes and stuff.  Yeah.

TA: I miss that. . .

MG: That was in August, ’53, and me and Ray took the job with the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers in November of ’53.

TA:  So, how long did this band play together, the Shenandoah Playboys?

MG: ‘Bout a year or so.  We had to get up, and, and–   Get up and–   We had to go on the air live at 5:30 every morning, [at] Bluefield.  We had to sign on.  We had to go over there and do it live.

TA: How’d you get there?

MG:  We had a 1947 Pontiac car.  My uncle owned the car; we rode his old big blue car.  He had a blue car, a 1947 Pontiac.

TA:  Was that . . .

MG:  That was Bernard.

TA: Bernard Dillon.

MG: Bernard.  He owned the car.  And we’d–   Me and Ray and Clyde rode with him, back and forth, in that car, big old car–   Looked like an ambulance, big old long car.  But that’s how we got back and forth.

TA:  You and Ray, and . . .

MG:  Paul and Joe.

TA: And Paul and Joe.  Okay.  So he would just drive you down there. . .

MG:  Bernard–-   Oh, no, he played a Chet Atkins/Merle Travis guitar.   Man, I mean, he had fingers that long, and he could–   He played so much like Chet and Merle, it was unreal!   They was his idols!  Just like EK [Eastern Kentucky University?] is our idols in Kentucky, ball team.  But that was his idol.

And of course, that’s the only uncle I have.  He lives in Bucyrus, Ohio, now.  He’ll be 80 years old this comin’–

TA: Bernard?

MG: Yeah, Bernard’ll be 80 years old this comin’ June.  And it was six months difference, mine and his age.  Yeah, six months.  It’s my only uncle, that was my mother’s brother, the only uncle I ever had.

But that’s Paul.  I bet if Paul would see that now, he’d say, “Where’d you get that?” 

TA: Well, I found that–

MG: But that’s been sixty years ago!  That picture!  Been made sixty years ago, last August.  Sixty years ago, that’s when that picture was made.
[32:21] TA: Well, I found that on the internet.   There’s a lot you can find, if you go lookin’ for it.

MG: Oh, Lord, Lord . . .   Well, I can say one thing, I know you’ve been busy!  I never thought I’d ever see anything like this!  This brings back memories, right here . . . memories that I had just about forgotten, or things that I had done . . .

TA: Well, tell me those memories!  That’s what I want to draw out of you.

MG:  Well, back then in those days, you know, like I said, transportation was not too good.  Well, I left Kentucky in nineteen and fifty-seven, and went back to Bluefield, and went to work with Cecil Surratt on a daily tv show.  Six days a week–   We had five days a week, and then we had the jamboree in the auditorium in Bluefield on Saturday night.  Well back then, I couldn’t even drive.  And I never had a car.  Well I had to take that – an old Gibson guitar I had – and I had to walk two miles up an old mountain dirt road, and through the woods, and he would pick me up every day at the top of the mountain, in a 1953 Chevrolet car.  He was from Coalwood, West Virginia, Cecil Surrat.  A great singer!  A good song-writer.  But he would pick me up there every day, and bring me back and drop me off, and I’d walk back out down through the woods, and back home.   Never had no car to ride in.  And later on, then, I went and bought me a little ol’ car, a 1947 Plymouth.  I bought that little old car, paid a hundred and fifty dollars for it, at Steier’s Motors in Bluefield.  And the old man had bought the car brand new, and traded in on a new Chevrolet.  And I bought the old Plymouth car for a hundred-fifty dollars, and I thought I was rich!  [Laughs]

Yeah, paid a hundred and fifty.  And the thing about it, Ray come along and was gonna buy the car the same day, and he said, “Well, now, they’s been a Goins here,” said, “he come by, and I’m holding this car for him!”  So Ray wound up buying a 1950 Ford off of him.  A car, a 1950 model Ford car.  And I got the 1947 Plymouth.  Boy, I thought I’m – “Man, I’m the big man now!”  I felt like Elvis Presley in a limousine when I got that old Plymouth car.

But–   That was my second car; the first car I bought from a cab driver in Pikeville, uh, in 1953.  I gave him seventy-five dollars for it, it was an old ’37 Pontiac.  I give him–   A cab driver, I give him seventy-five dollars for the old car.  And I still didn’t have no driver’s license! Funniest thing about it! 

‘Course, me and Ray and Curly Ray, both was single back in them days, when we first come to Kentucky; Ezra was the only one married.  So, uh–   We done this radio show every day, you know.  So, one day we was on our way to do a show, and–   Beautiful girls would foller us everywhere we went.  Man, they thought we was God!  ‘Cause we was on the radio six days a week.  They couldn’t–  All they’d do is hear us, they couldn’t see us, so they don’t know what we looked like! So when we would get off the radio station, there’d be three and four carloads of girls there, with brand-new convertibles, new cars, wantin’ to take us out to eat, or foller us on the show!  Looked like a caravan, goin’ down the road behind the Fiddlers, with that bass fiddle tied up on that old ’50 Buick!

So, I run across this beautiful girl.  She was a Thacker girl, she worked at the drugstore there in Pikeville.  I thought she was one of the prettiest girls I ever laid my eyes on. 

Well, I got hooked up with her.  She didn’t get off till ten o’clock in the night.  She had to work evening shift.  And she lived about twelve miles from there.  Uh, Thacker was her– Christine Thacker was her name.  And, so–   I wanted to take her home one night, on a date.  And I didn’t know how I was gonna do it.  I didn’t have no driver’s license then, neither.  But I could drive good, man, I could drive just like a whiz!

Well, there was a sergeant, State Police, settin’ in the trailer where we was at, you know.  This sergeant State Police from Booneville, Kentucky –  Eddie Cornett – and he said “uh, where you wantin’ to go?”  I said, “I want to go up to around Millard, up there, and take this girl home,” I said, “she gets off at ten o’clock.”  Well, he just reached back and felt, and throwed a handful of keys in my hand.  His cruiser–  His keys to the cruiser and everything, there’s a whole list of keys.  I said, “Wait a minute!” I said, “You know, I don’t have no driver’s license, now what if the State Police stops me?”  He said, “I am the State Police!”  So I pulled up in that black, unmarked ’52 Ford.  They would–   Of course, Highway Patrols had them high-speed cars.  I pulled up, and I seen her walk out.  I said, “Over here!”  She said, “What in the name of God are you doing with the Highway Patrol’s car?”  I said, “I come here to take you home.”  So I went up that river, son, and, of course, that Highway Patrol car would run!  So there I was makin’ about sixty or seventy miles an hour, takin’ her home!  And she said, “I’ll tell you one thing,   you’ll not haul me no more in no State Police car, unless I go to jail for something!   [All laugh]

I sat there–   Son, she come out and seen that car, her eyes was big as white doorknobs!  Scared to death!   I just kinda grinned. . .  ‘Cause I already had been [?] what I was gonna do.  I went back home, took the car back.  Eddie was still settin’ there at the trailer with Curly and Ray.  He said, “Well, I see you made it all right.  Said, “What–  The next thing you do, you need to get out and get your driver’s permit, get your driver’s license.”  Said, “I know the man that gives the test down here.”  And I said–  Oh, he said, “Clark gives the test,” and he said, “you need to go down and get your driver’s license.”  So I did.  I went there and got my driver’s license in a 1957 car.  This man owned a store, and he let me borrow his car – red and white – to make my driver’s license in.  1957 Ford.  So that was my first set of license, that I got, in ’57–   I mean, in that ’57 Ford. 

Yeah boy!  I tell you, it was –

And Curly Ray, and Ray, ‘course, they were wilder than steers in a corn-patch!  They was wild, boy, I mean– Women!  They had women just everywhere they went.

I had to stay home, do the washin’ and all the cookin’ and everything, and then they’d come in, bring a whole two or three carloads of girls there to the trailer! 

And, I tell you, it was war–  

And Curly Ray–  Ray got to stayin’ all night up there – now I got to tell you, this is confidential –

TA: Okay.

They’s stayin’ all night at the State Police barracks; Ray and Curly, this Eddie Cornett let ‘em stay there.  And Captain Sanders come around every morning and done an inspection.  And he said, “Now boys, you’ve got to get your hind ends out of here, and get out,” he said, “Captain Sanders’ll be around to do the inspection.”

Well, they done it as a joke–   They dressed up in all them Highway Patrol suits.  And settin’ there with guns pulled on one another’n.  Yeah!  Had pictures!  And them–   That stay–   He said, “Damn if you won’t get ever’ one of us fired,” said, “he can’t see these pictures!”  But there they was, in them Highway Patrol suits –  I got ‘em somewhere – standin’ there with guns drawed on one another!  With the State Police uniforms on, Kentucky State Police!

TA: You have those pictures?

MG: I don’t know where they’re at. 

TA: Well, that’s all right, like you say, that’s confidential.

MG: I have got ‘em, but this is confidential.  I would never want anything like this put in a book or anything, ‘cause I wouldn’t want to get into it with the state.  But it’s the facts!  I seen it, I know it, I’ve seen the pictures.

TA: Yeah.

MG: And Curly Ray–   He got to layin’ out at the State Police barracks, set right below the, uh–   the State Police barracks there.  And they’s a little drive-in theater–   They’s a little drive-in restaurant called the Baby Ritz Drive-In.  Well, they served the best hot dogs you ever eat in your life.  Well, Curly Ray–  This woman–   She come around waitin’ on him.  They’s twenty cents, the hot dogs was.  Homemade chili and everything on ‘em, good!  They made good hot dogs–   Matlock would’ve committed suicide, if he’d a-got one of them. 

Anyway, I went home, and I said, “Curly, I’m gonna tell you something.”  I said, “I met the prettiest woman that you ever laid your eyes on.” I said, “Her–-  She’s got coal-black hair,” and I said, “it hangs plumb down her back.”
[41:09]  “Where’s she at?” 

I said, “She’s up here at the Baby Ritz Drive-in.”  Well, he said, “Let’s go up there.”  He said, “I want to see her.” Well, we went back up there, and he loved hot dogs, too, Curly Ray did.  She come around – the woman he married later on through life, you know.  She said, “Sir, can I help you?”  “Yeah, bring me two hot dogs, and don’t forget to put onions on ‘em!”

Well, he got them two hot dogs – forty cents, twenty cents apiece – eat them hot dogs, and–  Said, “Well, I think we should go now, we’ll see you–  ”  Said, “Where do you live at?”  She said “I live at Rockhouse, [unintelligible], –  City, Kentucky, up a holler.”  Said, “I’m Flem Jones’s daughter.” 

Well, he was the meanest man that ever walked, old man Flem, her daddy.   Oh, my God!  He didn’t dread the devil!  But he was a good man, too.  But he had a big family.  Well, Miss Verdie, that was her daddy, ol’ man Flem Jones, was Verdie Jones’s daddy, you know.

Well, from that day on, he never looked at another woman.  He wound up marryin’ that woman.  He married Verdie.  She worked there at the Baby Ritz drive-in.  And Eddie Cornett – that sergeant – married the girl that run the restaurant, there!   They both married out of them two restaurant–   Curly Ray got Verdie, and Eddie got the girl’s parents, that he married her.  Out of the Baby Ritz Drive-In, there in Pikeville. 

TA: Baby Ritz?

MG: Baby Ritz Drive-In.  That was the name of it, Baby Ritz Drive-In.

TA: Like R-I-T-Z?

MG: Yeah.  They served good hot dogs there.

But I got ahold of Timmie, Timmie Cline, later on down the road.  One day we’s ridin’ along, I said, “Well, Timmie, you owe me a lot of thanks.”  He said, “What [do] I owe you for?”  I said, “Well, hadn’t been for me, you would’na been here, and you wouldn’a had Curly Ray for your daddy and her for your mother!”  [Laughs]  Said, “I’m the man that delivered you!”  [Laughs]

TA: That’s funny!

MG: Yeah, I said, “I’m the man that delivered you!”  I said–   “Well, why didn’t you tell me this?” I said, “Well, sometimes you don’t tell things [when] you first learn it, you tell it later on.”  But I said, “Little man, you could look at me–   Hadn’t been me, you wouldn’t be here!”

TA: Oh, that’s funny!

MG: But I tell you, boy, back in them days, hit’s unreal what people done and got away with!  Right today, they’d jack the jail and put you under it!  I’m tellin’ you, this day and time–  

But I don’t mean to take up all your time. . .

TA: No, no, no, no!

MG: I’m just sittin’ here goin’ through some of the old stories . . .

TA: I’m here to learn about these stories! 

Here’s some other things I wanted to leave with you.  This is just stuff I found.  Remember, we talked about “Flinroy” and you weren’t sure how he spelled his name, you said it might have been “TW” or “TF” or something like that–

MG: “TF”, I guess.

TA: Well, I found his death certificate.

MG: See his–  Flinroy was his–   They called him–  My grandpa named him “brother Flinroy.”

TA: See, here’s his information from the state of West Virginia.  That was his death certificate, Flinroy.  And it lists where he was born – Red Sulphur Springs…

MG: That was my grandpa’s oldest brother.

TA: I found some other things, too.

MG: I don’t know how in the name of God you have–  you accumulated all this!

TA:  I’ve just started.

MG:  Let me tell you, this is walking history.  This is walking history, right here.

TA: Well, here’s another thing I found.  You talked to me about your father, Glen Floyd Goins?

MG:  Yes, sir.

TA: And I started to try to look him up, and first I couldn’t find anything.  And then finally I found the register where he married your mother, Pearl–

MG: Pearl Dillon, my grandpa’s daughter.

TA: And this is the register of marriages, and it says–  “Glen Floyd Goings.”  And he spelled his name different, with a “G”: G-O-I-N-G-S.

MG: Well, it’s supposed to have been G-O-I-N-S.

TA: But they had it with an extra “G.”

MG: Well, some people–  You can spell it two ways: G-O-I-N-G-S or G-O-I-N-S. 

TA: Yeah.

MG:  But I growed up with it G-O-I-N-S.  I didn’t put the two “G’s” in it.  And Daddy didn’t either. 

TA: Okay.  I wondered about that.

MG: No, my daddy, he took the “G” off, and just put it G-O-I-N-S. 

TA: And it says here, that, uh–

MG: ‘Cause my grandpa, that’s the way my Grandpa Goins–

TA: Walter. . .

MG:  That’s the way my Grandpa Goins, he spelled his G-O-I-N-S.

TA: And so this G-O-I-N-G[-S] is wrong?

MG: That’s wrong!

TA: But I thought you might want this.  This is the marriage registry for Glen and Pearl, and–

MG: How old was–  Does it give her age, or–

TA: Oh, yeah!  Yeah, let’s see–  He was 25 and she was 22.  And it says he was from Sand Lick, and she was from Simmons.  It gives the name Reverend J. R. Belcher, married ‘em.

MG: I remember the old man Belcher.

TA: And it says they got married on August the first of 1932.  I kind of highlighted that.  You keep that too . . .

MG: Oh, man! My brothers will go crazy to see this! 

TA: Well, good!

MG: Now, they’ll absolutely–  Well, none of my family knows a thing about any of this.

TA: Well, I’m trying to find it out.

MG: My, uh, all of my brothers, and my sister–

TA: Judy . . .

MG: Judy.  They–  Well, it’d be a nightmare to them, to see this stuff!

TA:  Well, let me ask you about your family, too, here’s one more thing.  This is kind of a chart that I made, and I keep changing it, as I learn more.  But here’s you–  And Willia.  And I got her name here W-I-L-L-I-A.  And so, everywhere you see a circle, that’s a woman, a square is a man, and if there’s a line joining ‘em like that, that’s a marriage.  And so–  I know I got to get some of this straightened out.  Isn’t Willia–  She’s not your first wife, is she?

MG: No.

TA: Second or third?

MG:  Uh, third wife.

TA: And again–  I’ll say once again, a lot of this is so I can understand it.  We won’t have to put anything in a book that you don’t want there.

MG: That’s right.  Curly Ray’s wife was my first wife’s aunt.

TA: Verdie?

MG:  Flem Jones, uh–  Wimpy Jones, that was Wimpy, the oldest one of Flem Jones’s son, it was his daughter, Pauline.  And that’s who my son Greg is by. 

TA: OK, yeah, ‘cause I’ve got Greg’s name.  And then I’ve got two other children: Barbara and Billie Jo.

MG:  Them’s my step-children.  Them’s Willia’s daughters.  Them’s Willia’s two daughters.

TA: Okay, see, I can fix this up, so that it shows things right.  The other thing that I–  When we were here the last time, I made you try to remember all your brothers’ names.  And I think I’m missing one.  There’s you, Melvin–   And Ray.  And then Walter.  Is Walter still alive?

MG: Yeah.  Yes.

TA:  And Roger?

MG:  Roger, he’s still alive.

TA: And then Donny.

MG: Donny.  James . . .

TA: Harold, James, and Conley.  Now is there one more that I’m missing?   ‘Cause that’s–  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.  Oh, I guess that’s all of them: eight boys, and Judy.

MG: Well, countin’ me, there’s nine boys.

TA: Oh, nine boys, then I am missing one.  There’s one more in there, somewhere . . .

MG: Lemme see . . .  We got Conley in there.  We got Judy.

TA: And Judy.

MG: And, uh–  We’ve got Harold.  We’ve got James –   Flatt!  Lester!  That’s him!

TA:  His first name is Flatt?

MG:  Kelly.  Kelly Lester.  Named him after Lester Flatt, and my grandpa, Kelly Lester.

TA: I’ll write that in there.  Kelly, K-E-L-L-Y?

MG: Kelly Lester.  He’s named after my grandpa.

TA: Kelly Lester Goins.  Is he still alive?

MG: Yeah, he’s still alive.

TA:  You can keep that and I’ll fix it up– 

MG: That’s it, that’s the crop.  I always used to tease my Daddy, I said, “You got a baseball team.  Nine boys and one girl!”   He said, “Well, I don’t know about no baseball,” but he said, “I know I got nine of you!” [laughter]

TA: Oh, that’s good!  Well, you keep that too, and–   It ain’t right, but I’m gonna–  As I learn things, I’ll fix it.

MG: Well, just like that name there– The name come to me.  You know, so many years like that, you just ain’t alert, like you can remember back when you was a young man.  I mean, you’re lucky–  I’m just lucky to remember so much of this stuff right now.  But it actually is the truth, and I know it ‘cause I been there! I’ve seen it all happen, come to the past.
[50:34] Well, you know, it’s great that you done the research on this stuff like this. . .   Something I never would have dreamed of ever seeing or hearing.  But it means a lot to me and my family to know the real truth, how it all happened, what it looks like and everything.

TA: [phone rings] Is that your phone?

MG: Yeah, I’ll get it, I’ll be right back.  [Melvin answers phone, talks for a few minutes (with David Bowlin)  about upcoming dates, etc. . . .   And about Buddy Griffin, “the chimp!”  And about his search for regular musicians who can work with him regularly, without having to take off from day-job work; about Ralph II buying a new Prevost bus for $110,000;  ] 

TA: Calling Buddy “the Chimp?” [laughs] I know Buddy pretty well . . .

MG: I named him “The chimp” ‘cause he’s got the biggest set of ears in the world!  You know, he’s rode a bicycle a long time backwards!  [TA laughs]

MG: Well, getting back. . .

TA: Who was that, by the way?

MG: That was David Bowling.  He worked with James Monroe, and he worked with Monroe, and he worked with Larry Sparks for years. 

TA: Yeah, I think I’ve met him, a long time back . . .

MG: Been off and on with me about twenty years.  Good boy. What he tells, you can take it to the bank.  He’s dependable.  I mean, you know.  He is dependable.  And to me, a man is only as good as his word.

TA: I’m glad to listen in and hear about all the jobs that you’ve got comin’ up, and lined up.

MG: Well, you know, I don’t have as many jobs–   I’m not goin’ back to California, here but–  Some of these places, they rotate their talent.  They have it ever the year–   Some of them’s already bookin’ me for the year 2015.  And–   Just like the place out near Branson, Missouri, the man called me–  I worked out there this past year, on a Friday and Saturday, and, uh–   But he’s already booked me back for next year out there.  It’s the week of the 4th.  Starvy Creek, at, uh–  Conway, Missouri.  Great big festival.  Has two a year.

TA: I’ve heard of that.  Yeah.  I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard of it.

MG: Oh, my God, let me tell you something–  You talk about a festival, it’ll curl your hair!  Conway, it’s not too far out of Branson, there.  It’s a big festival.  In fact, I went there and helped the man, when he first started, and worked for cheap wages.  And he said “What do you think?  Said, “You’ve had some experience in festivals.”  I said “Yes!”  He said “Do you think I can make a go of it here?”  I said, “To me, it looks like it’s a go.”   So he’s tried it now, he’s doin’ two a year there.  Doin’ one the 4th of July weekend, and one the third week in September, the same week as Poppy Mountain.

TA:  Well, all right!  Let me shift gears here, and take you way back. . .

MG: I don’t mean to–

TA:  No, no, it’s okay!  Whatever comes to mind is good.  And like I say, I’m tickled to hear about “The Chimp.” 

FG:  Oh, yeah!

TA:  Do you call him that to his face?

MG: Oh, I call him The Chimp. 

TA: From now on, when I see Buddy–

MG: Say “Whaddya say, Chimp?”  He’ll say, “Damn, you been talkin’ to that Melvin!

TA: I wanted to take you back, way back to the beginning again, um, childhood days, when you first got interested in music.  You told us about how you would stop in the middle of the day, and go listen to WCYB–

MG: “Farm and Fun Time”!

TA:  That’s right.  But when did you first start to actually want to play?  And how did you get instruments?
[1:03:25]  MG: Well, uh–  I really–  I got to listen to every–  The Stanley Brothers, and Charlie Monroe, Curly King, the Tennessee Hilltoppers, they had a two hour jambor–   show there every–   five, six days a week, and each band, like the Stanleys, and Ch–  They all got two fifteen-minute shows.  Lester and Earl…  They all had two fifteen-minute shows a day there, to take up that two hours time.  And I used to–  I loved music.  I loved music! 

Never will forget, this is the funniest thing ever happened to me with the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers.  In 19 and 52, Ray was workin’ with the Fiddlers, and singin’ with Paul Williams.  Well, on the weekends, I’d go up there sometimes, they played a place called Glenwood Park, out in Princeton, right out of Princeton there. [TA: Yeah!]  And, so I went up there one day, and Ezra back then was draggin’ this little old trailer around, that they done candy shows on, sold for twenty-five cents.  Go to different places of business, and it’s free!  And sold the candy for a quarter a box.

And so I went up there one day, well, Ezra–  I think Ezra had Flatt & Scruggs or Don Reno or somebody booked into the park there.  And boy, I really wanted to go see ‘em.  That’s ‘fore ever I got into the music business, but–  I loved the tone of a banjer!  ‘At’s what I wanted to learn to play, but I couldn’t.  Ray learnt to play the banjo, I said, “Well, I might as well learn to try to play guitar.”   Well, this woman’s–   Curly Ray’s sister Margaret –  she’s all the time gettin’ jokes on you.  She said, “Well,” she said, “you know, I would let you go and pay you seventy-five cents a day and a glass of Kool-Ade, if you want to ride, and help me with the concession stand.”  She had a big block of ice, settin’ on that little old trailer.  She said, “you can’t let this block of ice fall off,” said, “you got to hold it!” 

“My God, I’ll be froze to death [by the] time I get there, tryin’ to hold a block of ice, keep it from slidin’ off that trailer.”  So I finally got it back in the corner, got my feet against it, where it wouldn’t freeze my hands, and I had to hold–  set on that block of ice, about ten or twelve miles, from Bluefield all the way to Princeton, to Glenwood Park.  And she give me seventy-five cents!  She give me seventy-five cents to ride that trailer and hold that block of ice and not let it fall, ‘cause that’s what they used to put their pop in.   Took an ice-pick, and–   But that’s some of my experience I had, ‘fore ever I got into it.

But gettin’ back to the old days – Farm and Fun Time – like I said, when I was a boy growin’ up, you know, back when I was– probably fifteen or sixteen years old – I knew–  That show, I loved that show!  Come on every day.  The Stanley Brothers was there, and Charlie Monroe, he worked there and Flatt and Scruggs worked there.  Well–  That was before ever I got into the music business, but I loved the sound of this music. 

And especially a banjer!  I thought a banjo was a masterpiece.  I was so dedicated to it, ‘fore I ever learnt to play a banjo, I went and bought me three picks, just like Scruggs and Ralph used.   And I would go to school, and I would slip, and put my hand down under my desk on my books and make out like I was pickin’ a banjer!  Wasn’t payin’ a bit of attention to what the teacher’s talkin’ about; I had my mind on that banjo, and I had my hand under that table, tryin’ to get that roll, like I seen them do!  Yep.  But Ray learnt to play the banjer.

TA: But where’d he get the first banjo, and you–  Or where’d you get a banjo from?

MG: The first banjo I bought, I give six dollars for.  No, let’s see– I give six–  I give five chickens for it!

TA: Tell me about that.

MG: He was an old railroad conductor, he worked for the N&W railroad, and his name was Tom Helmadollar.  Well, in the spring, I would plow people’s gardens.  Go and plow their garden and stuff, you know.  Uh, I may have told you this, I know, but I’ll tell you again.  But anyway, um–  I plowed his garden, and he give me three dollars.  And I set in the back of the wagon, eatin’ my lunch, and I went up to collect my three dollars, and uh, –   He retch in his pocket, give me three one-dollar bills.  Settin’ out in the livin’ room–  He was a railroad conductor, for the N&W railroad.  Good ol’ man.  And I seen the neck of this instrument behind an old battery radio sittin’ over in the corner, looked like cobwebs and everything, all over, it was covered up.  And I asked him, I said, “What kind of a instrument is that over there?”  He said, “That’s a banjo.”  Well, he played right in my hands, ‘cause that’s what I liked, that’s what I wanted.  And so I said, “Would you sell that old banjer?”  Well he said, “I might, if I could get enough for it.” Well I said, “if you sold it, what would you charge me for it?”  He said, “Six dollars.”  Well, I said, “I ain’t got but three.”  I said, “Three dollars is all the money I’ve got.”  “You got any chickens?” “Oh,” I said, “yeah, we’ve got plenty of chickens.”  Said, “Bring me five big fat hens, and I’ll give you the banjer.” 

So I had to run–   I run every step of the way back home, ‘bout two miles.  Went in.  It was gettin’ way up in the evening, you know, the evening, you know, I’d been out, and–  My daddy–  I know my daddy had gone to bed.  I never will forget it, he worked [in] the mines, had to get up at 5:30 in the morning.  I said–   Well, my daddy played old-time banjo, and my grandpaw played old-time banjo, the old drop-thumb, like Grandpa Jones.  And my grandma’s brother, Castle York, they played old-time banjer.  Clawhammer they called it. 

I said, “Daddy, Daddy, I’ve got a deal!”

He said, “What kind of deal you got now, a-wakin’ me up–  You know I’ve got to get up and go to work in the morning.”

I said, “Mr. Helmadollar would let me have that banjo for five chickens!” I said, “I didn’t have but three dollars, from plowin’ his garden.  He told me if I’d give him five big fat hens, he’d let me have the banjer.”

Well, he said, “Get out of here, and go on up there to the smokehouse.” Said, “Get this old coal-oil lantern” – this old lantern burnt kerosene oil.   Said, “Go up and catch you five chickens off’n the roost-pole.” And he said, “You better get you a sack.”  We had stock, so I got a feed sack off of the old log building there, and here I go to the chicken-house with that oil lantern.  I went up there, went to jerkin’ chickens off – hit was dark! 

Well, I made a mistake!  I got a rooster.  I got a rooster, instead of a extra hen!  So there I was, with four hens and a rooster.  Well, I had to pack ‘em, in a sack, all the way back to where he lives.  Well, the funniest thing happened, that rooster went to crowin’ in that sack with them hens! He went to crowin’!  Scared me to death!  [Melvin imitates a crowing rooster, as TA and FG laugh]

I said, “Lord, God!  I know he’ll back out on me now, he finds out I’ve brought him a rooster instead of an extra hen.”  Well, I thought, “how’m I gonna do this?”

And I said, “Mr. Helmadollar, I got you – ” I said, “I’ve got you chickens.”  I didn’t want to lie.  He said, “Well, go out there and get that big old washtub, stick ‘em under there till daylight in the morning,” said, “put a stick or rock under there so they won’t smother to death.”  I did.

Well, I got the old banjer and I left.  Boy, I go down the road–  Had the old hide head.  Didn’t have no back on it, then.  The old-timers, like Stringbean, they didn’t have any resonator on the back.  Boy, I’d go, and I’d look at that, and I said, “Boy!  This–  This is it!  This is the mash–  This is what I want!”

But I–  I didn’t learn to play it.

But anyway, that was the first banjer that I got.  Paid, um, give five chickens for it.

Well, it wasn’t the best banjo.  Hit was an old–  But to me, I thought it was a masterpiece, because it was a banjer.  That’s all I cared for.

So one day I was sittin’ on this porch, C.B. Mullins’s porch, and uh–  This feller. . . his name was Earl Foy, he worked in the coal mines.  

TA:  Earl what?

MG: Earl Foy.  F-O-Y.  Earl Foy.  And he worked in a mine.  He said, “I’d like to get somebody to dig out a basement, so I could put me a furnace on the house.”  Back then, they put them old coal furnaces under your house, for heat, you know.  And he said, “I’d like to have me a–  Have my dirt all moved out.”

I said, “I can dig you a basement.”

“Oh,” he said, you mens?” 

I said, “Yeah, me and my brother and my uncle.” 

Well, I knew he got paid on Friday.  I knew he got paid at the end of the week.  I said, “well, how much would you pay us to work and dig that basement out?”

He said, “Sixty-five dollars.” Man, I thought I’d robbed a bank! 

Well, Friday evening, I told Ray, I said, “this is the last wheelbarrow full of dirt,” I said, “We’ve got it done!” And I said, “He’ll be here in a few minutes.” Well, I seen that old 1948 Dodge car that he was drivin’ pulled up the driveway there, C.B. Mullins’ store.  Cut out.   Back then, the miners had to clean up at home, they didn’t have no bathhouse.  They had to clean up and wash at the house, take baths.

I said, “Well, Earl,” I said, “let’s go up and take a look at your–  where we dug your basement out, see if it suits you all right.”  He said, “Yeah,” he said, “it’s fine.”  Well, he said, “let’s go back down here and sit down.”  So we went back there and I seen him reach and get that envelope out, with that money in it.  Back then they paid you, you know, at the mine.  Give me three twenty-dollar bills and a five, for digging his basement.

Well, I figured out what my next move would be.  So I went home.  I told Ray, I said, “Ray, you know that banjo we looked at in Bluefield, West Virginia, twenty-seven dollars and fifty cents?  It was a Kingston, at that music store?”  Said, “yeah.”  I said, “Boy, we could get that, we’d really have something!”

So he said, “Well, what you got in mind?”

I said, “Well, let’s me and you slip off and go to Grandpa’s and stay all night.”  So we got behind the washtub, we washed, cleaned up, took a bath.  Mommy said, “Where you boys a-goin’?”  I said, “Oh,” I said, “we’re going over to see Grandpa Dillon, and Grandma.”  Mommy’s dad and mother.  I said, “we might stay all night.”  Well, she said, “Have you told your Daddy?”  I said, “No, if I tell him, I’m afraid he won’t let us go.”

So we went on over there.  Well, I don’t think I slept two hours that night.  I couldn’t wait to get started.  I didn’t have time to wait on the bus, we hitched-hiked!  Eight miles, from where my Grandpa lived at Cliffyards, where he worked for the N&W railroad.  We hitched-hiked all the way.  We beat the first bus that run there to Bluefield.  Went to Bluefield Music Store.  And the banjo’d been took down.  Feller by the name of Ray Brooks, that I knew real well, worked there, you know.  And I went in, I said, “Ray,” I said, “what happened to that ol’ banjo you had settin’ in the window out there?”

He said, “Well, we’ve got it in the back, doin’ repair work on it.”  It’s an old Kingston.  I said, “Is it still for sale?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, “it’s still for sale.”

I said, “the same price?”

“Yeah,” he said, “for you, twenty-seven dollars and fifty cents.”

I said, “Well, we want it!”

So I took twenty-seven dollars and fifty cents out of that sixty-five dollars, and bought the banjo.  We had to take the rest of the money to buy our school clothes, to go to school. 

Well, I was wondering how I was going to take this home, and how I was going to get it over on Daddy.  Well, I’d seen the Stanleys, and I’d seen them all, how they–  Monroe–  How they used to all wear them them big white hats, and play their music out at there at Glenwood Park.  I used to go to shows out there – well, that one, where I like to froze to death on the block of ice. . .   Well, anyway, we–  I told Ray, I said, “Let’s go buy us a hat!”  Ray said, “A hat?”  I said, “Yeah, a straw hat,” I said, “it’s warm weather.”  I said, “A felt hat’ll burn you up.”  So we went to Woolworth’s Five-and-Ten Cents store, and bought us a dollar straw hat.  Paid one dollar for it, apiece. 

Boy, we put that straw hat on.  And here we was, a-goin’ down the street, with not a case nor nothin’, just a swingin’ that banjer!  Well, it costed thirty cents to ride the bus home, back to West Virginia, where my Grandpa [lived] –   two mile on – as far as it went.

Well, you know, everybody was dyin’ laughin’, ‘cause they knew we’s country hicks, you know.  Well, [we] went back to that little ol’ store where the man paid us.  I said, “Well, Ray, hit’s gonna soon be dark, we gotta go home.”

Well he said, “What are we gonna do about Daddy?”
            Well, I said, “I don’t know what we’re gonna do about it,” I said, “but we’ve got to go home.”

We lived in an old log house, called the old Walls place, back on top of a mountain there, about–  About so many miles from Bluefield, you know.  Well, Ray always put me in front.  If anybody got the first lick from my Daddy, I got the first lick.  I got the first whippin’. 

So – I never will forget it – we had that old gate, that old gate we went through in the yard, [with] an old twenty-penny nail and a big old piece of chain we dropped over that nail, to keep the gate shut.  Here Ray was, behind me, and I retch over and got that chain–   Well, I dropped that chain, and when I dropped that chain, it ringed.  I still had the banjer behind me, I made sure.  He’d tear it all to pieces! 

And, uh, I never will forget it, Daddy was sittin’ out in the yard, layin’ in the yard under a snowball bush.  He would rest, ‘cause he worked in the mines all week.  He was layin’ propped up in old chairs, and a pillow, resting his back, ‘cause he’d worked him, loadin’ coal all week, thirty, thirty-two inch coal.  I never will forget the words, he said, “Something wrong with your arm?”  I said, “Oh, my God…”  He said, “Why have you got your arm behind you?” 

I said, “Well, Daddy, don’t whip us–  Don’t jump on us, because –  We love music.”  I said, “Me and Ray went and bought us a banjo.”  He said, “Let me see it!”

I thought, well, this is the end of the line, right here.

He looked at it, and the first thing he done, he counted the brackets on it.  Every one of the brackets on that banjer.  ‘Course it had the back on it.

“Well,” he said, “it looks like it might be a pretty good banjer.”

Well, my Daddy could do some old clawhammer stuff.  Never will forget, he played a bit of “Pretty Polly” on that old banjo.  Boy, he thumped that old banjo. “Well, this is pretty good.”

So that was the first decent banjo we got.  And then my first cousin, he stayed with us, he worked in the coal mines.  Second shift.  He had an old Harmony guitar, a Harmony.  And, uh, he just used it just to gin-whack around on.  He said, “Melvin, would you like to have this old Harmony guitar, the old archtop, you know, like Maybelle played the “Wildwood Flower” on?”  But it’s an old Harmony, cheap guitar.

I said, “Yeah, boy!”

He said, “I’m gonna give you this guitar,” said, “Ray’s got the banjer,” said, “Ray’ll probably learn to play the banjo,” said, “you play the guitar.”

I said, “That sounds like a deal!”

So that’s how we got started.  Then we would listen to “Farm and Fun Time,” and got the sound of the music, and’d go upstairs of a night, after Daddy’d go to bed, and we learnt, try to play and sing.”

TA: Who was the cousin that gave you that Harmony?

Lurman Duncan.  Lurman.  L-U-R-M-A-N.  Daddy’s sister’s boy.  He’s the one gave me the old guitar, the old Harmony guitar.  And the banjo, we give twenty-seven dollars and a half for it at Bluefield Music Store.

TA: And then you started in to playin’, you and Ray . . . ?

Me and Ray started tryin’ to play.  That’s when we went to walkin’, and going to Tracy Dillon’s house, and he learned us to play them old-time fiddle tunes.

TA: So Tracy’d play fiddle, and you’d play guitar–

I’d play guitar, and Ray played the banjer.

TA: Did anybody show you how to play the guitar, or show Ray . . . ?

Ray–  I don’t know how in the w–  it come to Ray.  Of course, Ray had heard of Stanley, and he’d heard of Scruggs, and we used to go to Glenwood Park and see some of their shows.  Well, Ray seen how they done it, so he said, “That’s what, that’s the way I want to learn it, the ‘three pick.’”  So Ray got his idea from Earl Scruggs.  Made a great banjo player.  And that’s how Ray got his idea of playin’ the banjo.
[1:190:36] Well, back in them early days, Lester Flatt used a thumb pick.   Charlie Monroe used a thumb pick.  And all those old folks used thumb picks.  Well, I couldn’t get the thumb picks workin’, so that’s how I wound up gettin’ a straight pick to play the guitar.  So I’d thrash that guitar, boy, and I’d–   Back then, I couldn’t even get a full G-chord on the guitar.  I’d note that bottom string and that top string with my thumb, that was my G.  Just those two strings, I would note it.  That’s before I ever learnt to get the full G.  That old Harmony guitar.

But I learnt–   Tracy, he said, “You boys’ll be all right, just keep on comin’ back,” said, “I’m gonna learn you some of these old tunes,” and said, “then you can work on some of your singin’.”

So we learnt–  That was our first thing we learned to play, was fiddle tunes.  And then later on, me and Ray got to singin’ together.  Well–   I didn’t know how we’d sound, but–   I knew I could try to sing lead.  And Ray could sing tenor.  He was a good tenor singer, from the first begin. 

So that’s how we wound up being the Goins brothers and the Shenandoah Playboys.  Ray was playin’ the banjer, and I was playin’ the guitar.  That’s how we got ‘em, that’s how we started.

[TA: So how did you meet Ralph Meadows and Paul Williams to get the Shenandoah Playboys together?]

We, uh–   That’s when we moved to Bluefield, we got a job workin’ on the radio station every day.  Five-thirty in the morning, and two o’clock of a day, doin’ live shows.

Well, Joe Meadows only lived about ten miles from us, Camp Creek, West Virginia.  Joe lived at Camp Creek.  And Paul lived over at Max Meadows, Virginia, Paul Williams.  His last name was Paul Humphrey, but he went by the name of Williams.

But I knew Paul when he used to work with the Fiddlers, when he used to work with Ezra, back when he was young, and Ray.  And I knew Joe Meadows when he worked with Rex and Eleanor Parker, and the Merry-Makers.  He played fiddle with Rex and Eleanor, the Parker family.   Fiddle!   Well, that’s how I got acquainted with him.

And, uh, so–  Then when we went there, why, Joe was just workin’ just little jobs where he could get ‘em, so we talked Joe goin’ to work with us, playin’ the fiddle.  And me an Ray.

And Paul Williams come through there one day, just a guest.  But he had knew Ray from the past, when he worked with the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers, back in the early days.  Well, he knew Ray.  Well he just come by to say “hello” to us.

Well, that’s where we came up with then, with the picture we had made, in August of 1953: Joe Meadows on the fiddle, Paul Williams on the bass, Ray on the banjo, and me on the guitar.  That’s where the Shenandoah Playboys come up, so we wanted to give it a name.  So that’s how it got its name.

[TA: How’d you come up with that name?]

Well, I thought of the “Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.”  [sings: “In the Shenandoah valley of Virginia, there’s a place waiting for me . . .”   Clyde Moody!  That was a number one hit when he worked with Monroe.

[TA: Yeah, Waltz King!]

Shenandoah Waltz!  So that’s how, where I come up, and I just put “Shenandoah Playboys.”  That’s how it come up.  I was always a wild feller, to come up with names, you know.  But it worked…

[TA: Yeah! So the Shenandoah Playboys–  You kept playing on the radio, out of Bluefield…]
[1:23:00]   Yeah, until we got the job to go to work with the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers. 

TA: Did you play live shows too?

MG: Live shows.  They was all live.  And we had to hitchhike wherever we went, we didn’t have a car to ride when we’s workin’ at Bluefield, until we come and took the job with Ezra, in November, ’53.

We had a little ole dance–    Had a little ole dance we had, played once a week; we made about twelve dollars.  And we made enough money–   We couldn’t afford to walk and get back as far as home, so we checked in an old hotel there, Drake Hotel.  And was livin’ in it –   [TA: Bluefield?]  In Bluefield.  We’s livin’ in the old Drake Hotel, we’s payin’ six dollars a week for rent, for stayin’ there, and we had a dollar a day to eat off of.  Do this for six days. 

And I would go home, and the old man –  Mr. Green, they called him – he said, “If I catch you cookin’ in here,” he said, “you’re out of here!”

Well, in order to keep from starving to death, and surviving–   We didn’t have any money to buy anything with.  We sold little ole black-and-white pictures for twenty-five cents apiece, a few of them.

I went home one day, I said, “Mommy,” I said, “we’re getting hungry,” I said, “That six dollars don’t go very far, that dollar a day.”  And I said, “What did Daddy do with that old big traveling suitcase he had?”

She said, “Well, hit’s downstairs in the basement.”

“Uh, you think he would care if I went there and got it?”

She said, “Well, what do you want with that suitcase?”

I said, “Well, we want to take some food back with us to cook,” and my Grandmaw gave me a little ole hot plate, one-burner hot plate.  So I stuck that little old one-burner hotplate down in that suitcase.  And Mommy give me some Irish potatoes, and we killed hogs and we had stuff, just rough like we’d eat at home, and I put it all in the bottom of that suitcase.  Well, I studied, “How’m I gonna do this?” 

So I camouflaged it by layin’ some clothes over top of all of that stuff.  So if he made me open the suitcase, he’d just see clothes.  So that’s how I got away with it, carryin’ food in there to cook off of.

[Frank Godbey: “He didn’t smell anything . . . ?”]

MG: I was desperate to play.  And we liked to burnt the place down one morning, cooking . . . I did. . .

[TA: Tell me about that.  I think I’ve heard this, but you tell me again!]

MG: Well, anyway, this little ole one-burner hotplate– I would, uh–   We had our own eggs, I’d fry eggs, and we had our own hog meat, and fried potatoes and stuff, you know.  And I done all the cooking. 

I done all the cooking.  Well, I told Joe Meadows, back then, I said, “Now Joe, you and Ray get that banjer and fiddle, play it just as loud as you can play it, so they won’t hear this stuff a-fryin’ and cookin’ in the grease!”

So Joe got the fiddle out, and Ray, they’d play there while I was cookin’, so they wouldn’t hear it. 

So I was cookin’ there one morning, and somebody knocked on the door.  I thought, “That’s old man Green right now, what am I going to do with this skillet full of eggs and bacon and stuff I’m cookin’ here?”  And Joe said, “Keep on playin’, Ray, keep on playin’!”

[1:25:54]         So this kept right on.  Well, there was two colored maids comin’ in to clean the rooms.  Well, I thought it was old man Green.  Well, I knew, they kept knockin’, they wouldn’t leave; I knew we’s gonna have to open that door, sooner or later.  Well, the room was plumb full of smoke.  I had the big old window raised.  We was on the third floor, above Jimmy’s restaurant.  Get a good meal for seventy-five cents; we didn’t have the seventy-five cents. But anyway, the room was plumb full of smoke, fryin’ that bacon – you know how that stuff’ll smoke when you cook it.  Them two black ladies walked in, and you could see the white ball of their eyes, said, “Umm, umm, what’s goin’ on here?”  I said, “Well,”  I said, “we had an accident this morning.”  “What happened?” I said, “Well,” I said, “this restaurant right down here has killed us; that fan drawed all the smoke out,” and I said, “hit’s drawed it right up here in this room where we’s at.”

[Laughs] I had run, had grabbed that hot plate and stuck it in a dresser drawer.  And them eggs and bacon and stuff was still fryin’, cooked in that drawer.  And I looked down ‘tween my legs, and all at once I seen the blue smoke come boilin’ out of them dresser drawers!  That stuff was still fryin’, cookin’ in that dresser drawer! 

Well, they laughed, and they left.  I said, “Now Ray, they know what we’s a-doing.”  But I told ‘em, I said, “We’re starving to death!”  “Well,” said, “you boys, you white boys, get yourselves decent, we’ll see you later.” 

Away they went!  So I got away with that!  I knew I had to do something, but that was a scapegoat!  To cook it, and put it in that dresser drawer.  I thought we’d hide it – but the smoke still come out the drawer, and it shut up!

[TA:  Just so I get the time right–  That was when you were with Ralph – Ralph Meadows – and the Shenandoah Playboys. . . ?]

That’s right, that’s when us three was together, and my Uncle Bernard.  [TA: And Bernard!]  But he wasn’t in this picture; he was home that day.  So Joe come by, and us three–   And Paul just come by as a guest, to see Ray.  He’d worked with Ray in the past, with the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers, in 1952.  This was August, ’53.   So Paul was just come through, a-visiting.  And we talked Paul, and– Paul was a good bass player.  So we talked Paul into playin’ the bass, and having a picture made with us.  So that’s how it come about.

[TA: Did Bernard play bass?]

No.  He played Merle Travis / Chet Atkins guitar.   [TA: So when you had– ]  I don’t know where we come up with a bass at, back then.  I can’t remember how we got that bass involved in the picture, but I know– Might’n–    Was one there at the station, when “The Whispering Strings” – “Whispering Strings,” they had a Saturday show, every Saturday.  They called theirselves “The Whispering Strings.”  Arnold Lively and his brother, and The Whispering Strings, and they had left their bass there at the station.  So that’s where the bass come in.  “The Whispering Strings.” They had left that bass in, that upright bass, and we used it for the picture.

[TA: So that–   the picture of the Shenandoah Playboys, with Paul Williams, that’s, you say, about August of ’53, and that was about when that episode with the hot-plate happened, right around then?]

That’s when it happened.  We was playing a little ole dance at Spanishburg on Saturday night, called “Christian’s Place,” at Spanishburg.  And we was playing a square-dance there, on Saturday night, that’s how we came up with the twelve dollars.  That’s how we came up with the twelve dollars.

[TA: I thought that was your radio pay . . . ]

No!  We didn’t get anything for playin’ the radio.  The radio was all free, just for advertisement.  We come up with the twelve dollars by just playin’ that –  we had that little dance to depend on, that’s all we had.  There wasn’t no pay to play on the radio.  It was free.

[TA: But that got you the publicity so you could get– ]

Well, that got us publicity, but–   In order to do that, we had to stay in this old hotel, and had no car to ride, and slip some food from home to cook, to keep from starvin’ to death.  That’s how we survived!

[TA:  So did you have any fancy clothes, your hats and things for–   ]

No, we was lucky to have overalls and a chambray shirt.  We didn’t have many clothes.  In fact, we had to, uh–   We had to–  Daddy would give people clothes, the Goodwill stores, and some of the stores would–   People would give us clothes, and we’d go through ‘em and see what we could wear.  [1:30:11]   We just had hand-me-downs.  We’s so poor, had such a big family, we couldn’t afford to buy clothes.  Couldn’t afford to buy ‘em!

[TA: That was tough times for everybody.]

It was tough times.  I mean, hit was– You know, you had to be dedicated, and really want to play it, to went through what we went through with.   But we went through all of that in order to be where I’m a-settin’ today, in  Boyd County, Ashland Kentucky, with bluegrass music.   That’s been sixty-two years ago.

[TA:  When did you first – you or Ray – when did you first actually write a song of your own?]

Uh, you know –   I can’t remember.  What song–   I mean, what song are you talking about?

[TA:  Well, I’ll ask you later, I’ve got long lists of the songs, but I’m just wondering– ]

Oh, okay.  Well, back in those days, we just sung–   I’ll tell you, we didn’t do any writing to begin with, ‘cause we just sung songs that we’d heard the Stanley Brothers do, Flatt and Scruggs, and Monroe–   That’s what we survived off of.  Because we figured they was good songs back in them days, and they were!   So that’s what we–   That’s what we survived off of, was the Stanley Brothers’ singin’, WCYB in Bristol, Flatt and Scruggs, Monroe, and Curly King and the Tennessee Hilltoppers, and old-time square-dance fiddlin’ on Saturday night, from our cousin.  Yeah.

[TA: So you didn’t really start writing anything till later.]

No.  No.  We didn’t.  What I–   That’s right!  It was later down through the years before we started writing some songs.   I mean– 

[TA: I’ll ask you about all of that sometime, too, but I’m trying to understand the early days, for now.]

Okay.  That–   That was the early days, that’s how it all started.  Yeah.  I never will forget, our first audience we had was two big bluetick hounds.  [TA laughs] I built this little ole stage – I probably told you about that – out of log poles.  [TA: A little bit, but–   ]  I went into the mountain, took a axe and a crosscut saw and cut these trees down and made a stage.  Split the maple open, took the bark off of it – it was in the spring, the sap was rising –  made the floor out of them little ole wooden poles, and I went and cut another little pole and drove it down in the middle of the stage, and put a Carnation milk can on it, and that was the microphone.  And I had two dogs for an audience!

[TA: Were those family dogs?]

Yeah, it was my grandpa’s huntin’ dogs, his hounds.  It was his two: Queen and, uh–   I’m trying to think of the other name – but anyway, that was my grandpa’s huntin’ dogs.

[TA:  And the time you did that, when you went out –  you and Ray went out there on that practice stage, you already had the twenty-seven-dollar and fifty-cent banjo, and the Harmony guitar?]

I had the twenty-seven-dollar and fifty-cent banjer, and the Harmony guitar. 

TA:  And so the two of you would go out there–   ]

And my Uncle, he had an old Gibson, that he had an electric pickup put on the inside of it, back in those days.  And he played the electric guitar, the Merle Travis and Chet Atkins.

[TA: Oh, man!  I bet that sounded great!]

Oh, God!  I’d like to hear some of that today. . .   But that was our first love, and some of our first music we played when we first started.  [TA: Yeah!]   It wasn’t no bed of roses, I’ll tell you right now, but we wanted to do it so bad, we just wouldn’t give up. 

And I know, the first radio show we done, Gordon Jennings let us play a Saturday morning show, and we were so worked up, you know–   Didn’t even have a decent guitar.  Couldn’t get it in tune;  that’s when I’d use those cap wires, try to put on that old guitar, that my Daddy bought.  Gordon Jennings let me play his old triple-ought Martin guitar.  Oh, God!  Triple-ought Martin!  I thought I was driving a Cadillac!  ‘Course, Ray had the twenty-seven-dollar and fifty-cent banjer.  But, uh– 
[1:34:05]   We was so wound up, and I got back home, I said, “Mommy, did you hear us today?”

“Yeah. . . ”

I said, “Mommy,  you guess what?”  She said, “What?” I said, “Everybody knows us now, we been on the radio!”

[TA: Got famous, right then!]

Right there, that was the first nail we drove!  [TA laughs]  Gordon Jennings give us that opportunity.  That was our first radio show.

[TA: And that was WCYO?]

WKOY.  [TA: Oh, WKOY . . . out of Bluefield?]  Yeah, but just right there across, over the Virginia line.  Bluefield, West Virginia and Bluefield, Virginia borders!  It borders.  You go out of Virginia right into West Virginia, just a jump across the street.  It’s like Bristol “Farm and Fun Time,” in Bristol, Virginia and Bristol, Tennessee. [TA: Sure!]  Same way.  Same way.

[TA: Yeah, I’ve been looking on maps to find all these places you’ve talked about, like you mentioned–-   Conley died when he was living in Duhring.  And so I’ve found Duhring, and Goodwill, and all these places on the map–  ]

Well, that was our–  The old fellow says, that was our stomping ground.  That’s the ground we walked on, and traveled on, and went hungry on, sleep on, in order to be in music business.  [TA: Yeah!]  We was so dedicated that we just didn’t want to take the answer “No!”  And we didn’t!

[TA: I’m glad you didn’t!]

We didn’t, cause, you know–   I’ve done things, and been places, and worked with some of the best entertainers in the world, bluegrass and country.  And I wouldn’t take a million dollars for the experience that I’ve got.  Hadn’t been for that, you know, I probably wouldn’t be settin’ here today.  ‘Cause we were so poor, when I was growin’ up – sixteen years old – I was my own attorney, in court.

Two boys had broke in our little log house, that we played on the weekend, and tore it all to pieces.   [TA: Oh, no!]  And I was the only–   I was my own attorney.  So these boys–  I had all the proof, and they was gonna get two years apiece for breaking and entering.  That’s when I was about sixteen years old.  [TA: Huh!]  And, uh–  But that’s why that, then, I –  before my Daddy hadn’t ever got disabled to work, and then I thought–  Well, I’m gonna manage some way, I just ain’t gonna take no for an answer.  I’m gonna go to law school.   I liked the way–  I loved law work, and I said–  I’ve won my first case, and I said that’s what I wanta be, a lawyer. 

But I didn’t.  ‘Cause my Daddy got disabled to work.  I had to quit school when I was a half a year in the tenth grade, and go to work, so we could eat, and wouldn’t starve to death.  [TA: Yeah.]  Yeah.  Twenty-four dollars a week.  [TA: What kind of work?]  Worked at an old warehouse, an old feed house.  I loaded rail–  a big old boxcar, of feed, sugar and salt and stuff like.  Stacked ‘em twelve-high.  Farm Bureau in Bluefield, Virginia.  [TA: Bluefield.]  Farm Bureau, that was in Virginia, now.  Farm and Bureau, in Bluefield, Virginia.  I worked for about 40 cents an hour, six days a week.  Sure did. . .

[TA: Man. Tough times . . .   Well, listen, that’s probably a good place to stop for today; you know, I don’t want to wear you out, but I love your memories, Melvin!]

You ain’t wearin’ me out, and, uh, I just– I’m glad you’ve taken your time, and you and Frank here.  You can always talk to somebody better than you can talk to yourself! I’ve learned that.  [TA laughs, “Oh, yeah!] 

I just hope you can be around, some of the things we’re gonna–  Hit’s just like this Clinch Mountain Reunion.  Now they’s gonna be stories told there and things done there that’s never been done, with Ralph and Larry, and me. [TA: Sure!] 

And I told–  asked Ralph about it, he said “Yeah, I think it’ll be great.”  Well, I wanna do it, Tom, while I can still remember.  [TA: Sure!]  Stuff, you know. . . Me’n Ralph, and Larry, and brother Carter, and Leslie Keith, Pee Wee Lambert. . .  That was the Stanley Brothers’ first band, in 1946,  was Carter, Ralph, Leslie Keith and Pee Wee Lambert.  That was their first–  That was their first show.  Went to work at WNVA in Norton, Virginia.  And later on they went to Farm and Fun Time in Bristol, on Christmas Day. 

[TA: Started making those Rich-R-Tone records!]  Started makin’ those Rich-R-Tone Records! [TA: “Little Glass of Wine.”]  “Little Glass of Wine.”  [TA: I love that music!]  Me and Ray recorded that for Starday, “Little Glass of Wine,” 1961.

[TA: I’m gonna come back with a list, sometime, of all the recordings; I’m getting that together too, and that way I can say, “Well, how about this song, how about–  Who wrote “Across the Sea Blues,” and who wrote this one, and who wrote that one?”]

Well, “Brown Eyed Darlin’”  – uh, Ezra’s daughter and Paul Williams wrote “Brown Eyed Darlin’” while Bobby Osborne was in the Marines.  [TA: Yeah!] That’s where it came from.  Gene Masters wrote the song “Dirty Dishes Blues.”  [TA: Yeah! That’s a great one!] Jack Adkins wrote “Windy Mountain.”  I mean, you know–   [TA: Yeah!  Hobo Jack!]  Hobo Jack.  He wrote “Windy Mountain,” and gave us the words to it.  Worked for a gas company there in Pikeville, and gave us the words for it.  In the spring of that year, uh, ’53 or ’54 –  ’54!  Me’n’Ray and Curly went down there on the Big Sandy River, under a apple tree, was bloomin’, and we worked “Windy Mountain” out.  Recorded in February, 19 and 54, that “Windy Mountain.”

[TA: Well, I’ll –   when I come back, we’re gonna go through – slowly, we’re gonna try to go through all of that, ‘cause I think all of that belongs in your book.]

Well, it would be a help, maybe.  Maybe people–  hit’ll be questions that people would want to know, and read about.  I just–  I just want to do it like we’re talkin’ about now, not make any note for me.  I just want to tell it how I’ve lived.  [TA: That’s right!]  And how I started, and where I’m at today. 

[TA: And I’m doin’ this taping because I want it to be in your words.  You know–  I’ll help pull it together, but it needs to be YOU!]

When I’m gone – I hope it’ll be a few more years, but I want my family to know what I stood for.  [TA: That’s right!]  I want to leave memories that my family’ll remember me, that’s how he lived.  [TA: Oh, yeah.]  And my people, people like you and Frank over here, uh, y’all been around the music, and you know the backgrounds, and –   You need somebody when you’re writing something like this, knows history about this music.  I mean, if you don’t know history, you don’t–  he ain’t got no questions to ask!  You gotta know, and you and Frank has been around the music business a long time, and Frank’s wonderful wife Marty Godbey was one of the best friends I ever had.  [TA: Dear lady!]  She always had a big smile!  [TA: I bet she always sent you a birthday card, too.]  She did!  [TA: Me, too!] She always sent me a birthday, Marty.  And I really followed the woman, I thought she was one of the prettiest girls I ever saw.  She always had a million-dollar smile!  [TA: That’s right!]  Great lady, Marty Godbey.

And Frank, too! You know Frank’s a good ole-timer, he plays banjer stuff! 

[TA: He plays banjo and mandolin, and guitar.  He’s a good guitar player]

You know, I might get short and have to call him someday!

[Frank Godbey:  Well, Melvin, you may not remember, but back when Marty and I used to come out and hear you, uh, you and Ray and Art would show up, and Danny Jones wouldn’t be there, and you’d come out in the parking lot, and you’d say, “Hey Frank, have you got your mandolin with you?”  And I’d always have my mandolin, because there was always a chance I’d get to play, so–  I played–  I played with you down at Ernie Couch’s–  you remember Ernie Couch’s?

MG: Oh, yes, down at Manchester, Kentucky!

FG: Manchester.  I played with you a couple times down there, and I played with you up at the, uh–  Mount Sterling, I think it was!

TA: And I’ve played on a stage with you at Poppy Mountain!

MG: Uh, you did!  [TA: I did, you know, playing banjo.]  Well, I don’t have your number, but I want to get it.  I’m gonna go and get a piece of paper right now and write your number down. 

TA: I’m gonna shut this down, but we’ll do it again next time!

MG: Okay, Tom.

TA: I’ll be callin’ you when we can get together again.

MG: Atler!

TA: Adler!  “Here, Rattler, here!”

MG: [singing] “Here Rattler here, here / Here, Rattler here / Call ol’ Rattler from the barn / Here, Rattler, here” . . .   Atler!

[end of tape at  1:41:59