The Foxfire 45th Anniversary Book

by Inc. The Foxfire Fund

  I guess it was politically correct for him to come. It was a benefit. He was a really nice guy. I never really was that big of a fan until I got to meet ’im and he got up there and did “Rocky Mountain High” and the “Annie” song, just with one guitar. He just brought the house down. He was a killer musician, a really good singer. He worked hard at making us feel comfortable with him onstage ’cause we were nervous. He’d put his arm around us and say, “Ahh, let’s have a good time,” and just made us really feel comfortable with ’im. He really worked hard at remembering all our names and stuff. We got a little part in the movie after that, a little two-minute scene in there. We were the band during the dream scene. So he came up in the middle of the night when we were still shootin’ up there. “Mike, Dean, Tom, what are y’all doing?” He talked to us and got the fiddle and started playing “Country Boy.” He really was an extraordinary musician and singer. Until you see ’im in person, you don’t realize what a good musician he was.

  I play the lead guitar in the band, but I end up doubling as the soundman. I end up settin’ up everything, and I enjoy that part of it, too, ’cause I’ve played in rock bands and country bands over the years, which have been more electric oriented. I’m kind of more into the equipment part and gettin’ everybody’s sound right ’cause that really makes it.

  An audience’s response when you really pull somethin’ off good is great—when you’re gelling and you pull off a great solo part and everybody’s, as we call it, in the zone. When everybody’s in the zone, and everything’s clicking, and the sound’s good, and the monitors are right, and you just have that magical connection with the audience, it’s just an unexplainable feeling. It’s in my heart when I really am totally one hundred percent happy. It is very spiritual. Oh, I love it, whether it be rock ’n’ roll or bluegrass or whatever.

  All of us are best friends. You won’t find more honest, good-hearted, Christian guys anywhere—good musicians. Plus, they got a good sense of humor and have a lot of fun. We cut up, and we joke. We’ve got to do stuff that we normally would never have gotten to do and got to go many places and open up for some big-name Macs [stars] that we normally wouldn’t have got to do. We have been good friends through it all and have done some good. I guess that would probably sum it up. They’re just the best guys in the world. I would like ’em and think the world of ’em if we didn’t play music, but fortunately, we get to get that music released, too. They’re all really good musicians, and I’ve seen ’em just grow up and get more and more professional about it. We all go huntin’ and fishing together and stuff. We go out on a fly-fishing trip every chance we get out west and spend a lot of time together. We set around the campfires playing in front of somebody; we’re setting around the campfire rehearsing or setting in Wayne’s basement playing. We got to do a lot of stuff that I wouldn’t have never got to do. I’d ’a’ been sittin’ at home playing with a rock ’n’ roll band somewhere, but it’s helped me in all my other bands. It’s helped me as far as getting out in front of people, just out in the general public, and seeing people and meeting new people. I feel more confident about looking people in the eye and shaking their hand and getting out in front of the crowd. I feel more comfortable ’cause we have done it so long, and over the years I don’t get flushed and red anymore. I just feel a lot more confident in any aspect of life, whether it be a job interview or anything like that. If I’m talking to a group of people or startin’ young folks out and playing music and encouraging ’em—I guess a lot of the stuff George Reynolds laid on me subliminally. I find myself doin’ the same thing, and I’m seeing young kids that are just learning to play guitar and all. I know how the fire was, how excited I was about it, and how excited George would get about us and encouraging us. I find myself doin’ the same thing, and I want them to experience some of the same things I have and the joy that I’ve got out of it, ’cause it’s been one of the most rewarding things in my life.

  Steve McCall

  I got into George’s class when I was a senior. Just before we started the band, that’s when I started learning more, I guess, and playing. He played guitar really well, and he offered guitar lessons, so I took lessons with him. I was really impressed with his ability. That’s probably the biggest influence on getting me started in playing. We were able to travel when the band did start. George took us all over to different high schools and a few colleges and this and that just to play, and the Tennessee Reunion at John Rice Irwin’s Museum of Appalachia, and it was really good for us. We got to play at the ’82 World’s Fair in Knoxville, and it wasn’t long before we got to play on the Grand Ole Opry.

  Probably Doyle Lawson influenced us a lot. Ricky Skaggs influenced us a lot ’cause he was just coming out. You know, he played a lot of bluegrass before he went to country. He was in his heyday about the time we were working on stuff and learning stuff, so we learned a lot from his tapes. As a matter of fact, we got to open up for him one time in Atlanta later on. Doyle Lawson influenced us, especially with the a cappella numbers that we do. I don’t know, there’s Doc Watson, you know—we’d listen to a lot of his stuff—and Tony Rice. We used to listen to him a lot.

  We just did it for fun. We sat down a couple of times and talked about whether we should try to play at festivals and do it for a living, but it always come out as a no ’cause we just wanted to have a good time and not get tired of it. We’ve had a lot of good opportunities through the years. I really couldn’t say what my favorite part about performing is ’cause I like it all. The worst part is puttin’ the sound system up and taking it down, especially late at night when you play till twelve or one in the morning and you gotta take the sound system down. We play for a lot of different things, like wedding receptions or background music for parties. I don’t enjoy doing that as much as I do concerts. We played down at Truett-McConnell College [Cleveland, Georgia] in the chapel there one time, and that’s probably one of the best things that we’ve played at in a long time—as far as people sittin’ and watching and paying attention to what you’re doing. I enjoy that type of thing a lot more than just playing for background at a wedding reception.

  Well, it takes a lot of practice to be good enough to be asked to play for people. You just gotta stick with it, and you gotta constantly learn new material until you get your reputation built up. It’s a lot of fun. I’ve really enjoyed it, and I wouldn’t take nothing in the world for it. If you’ve got a group that can get along as good as we have, you’re very fortunate. Try to look for somebody that you can get along with to start a band with. That’s one of the main things, being able to get along. As far as everything else, I guess you just gotta take it as it comes and play at every opportunity you get. You want to help your community any way you can.

  I thank the Lord for keeping us together. We are all really good friends. A lot of times when we practice, we’ll talk for two or three hours before we get to playing the music because we don’t see each other that much. We want to know what’s goin’ on with all our lives and get caught up. Sometimes we don’t get a whole lot done ’cause we’ll sit up and talk until it’s time to go to bed. We’re all like brothers; I’m an only child, so they’re the closest thing I got to brothers, I guess.

  Dean English

  The Foxfire music program when I was in high school went through a couple of phases. The main thing I remember about George Reynolds’s class was that every week, what you had to do was you had to learn somethin’ from somebody else. That was what you were required to do. And once every week or every two weeks, he would have an in-class show, or whatever you would call it. So everybody could show and tell what they’d learned. It worked out good for the people that really wanted to learn. He’d give ’em a good chance to learn any kind of music or whatever they wanted to do. George was always there to help you keep things in tune or work out any kind of problems with the vocals or whatever.

  When we started the band, I think we did a talent show. There was a little talent show that came
up, and we decided to get a couple of songs together for the talent show. I think there was four of us at that time; I think we got second place. After that, we started doing other little things and stayed together. Someone offered us a paying job, and I don’t remember what that was, but it probably wasn’t but fifty bucks or something. We just kept goin’ from there.

  George was a real good fella; he had a way of firing people up, and he’d get all excited about music, whatever it might be. It didn’t matter to him what kind of music it was, but he knew a lot. I guess you’d call it music theory, and stuff like that. It didn’t matter if it was rock ’n’ roll or old-time or gospel, he could help you do it, and he could do it himself. He was a big influence. I hate that he had to move off and leave everybody else here. He was well liked by the students and people in the community. He was also known to be really good with kids.

  We’re a lot older than when we started; I guess we know more types of music and stuff. When we first started out, we only had about eight to ten songs. People told me that it’s unusual for a band to stay together this long. We’ve never really been on the road and just played music as a profession. We’ve always enjoyed what we do, just like out here at the Foxfire Festival, we just have a good time. We might play music together; sometimes we would go on fishing trips together or huntin’ trips. We’ve always been that way. We aggravate each other sometimes, but we get along. I’ve heard a lot of bands don’t stay together like that. If they do, it’s just a huge struggle, and I think part of the way we do this is we don’t take it extremely serious. It helps us kinda keep the fun, I guess you’d say.

  It definitely makes it better if you got a good audience. No doubt about that. There’ll be some places we play where there’ll be two thousand people there and somethin’s goin’ on and nobody’s really paying attention that much. Then there are places where there ain’t but ten people, but they’re paying attention, and we just play better. Otherwise, it’s just like we just jam! If we’re somewhere playing, and we realize that somethin’ else is goin’ on, some huge event or whatever, and we’re just playing, we’ll just play whatever we want. We’re okay just to please ourselves. You want to enjoy it, and generally we do, but you definitely enjoy it more and it makes it the best when you got a really good audience.

  There’s just tons of memorable moments in our musical career. We’ve had so many funny things happen. We’ve got to go play at a lot of places and meet a lot of people that we would never have been able to meet otherwise. We’ve had a real good time. I’m so glad that I was here and able to be a part of it—and I still am—and I’m real glad that it was with these guys.

  Tom Nixon

  I started playing music when I was in, I guess, the first grade. I was always interested in music and beatin’ around on the piano and beatin’ around on an old guitar that we had. My grandfather was very musically talented. He could play anything, and the whole family on my dad’s side was, too—some on my mother’s side, but mostly my dad’s side. I guess that’s what sparked my interest. My cousin, Filmer Kilby, gave me my first guitar when I was in the second or third grade. I can’t remember which one. He showed me a few chords on the guitar, so did my dad, and that’s where the interest started. From there, I again used to beat and bang on the guitar. I showed a little more interest in that than I did something else. As time went on, by fourth grade I kinda backed off a little bit. I’d be more interested in sports and that sort of thing. That went on until about the eighth grade, where I met some of The Foxfire Boys. I was still playing a little music at home and at church. I was singing some and learned how to play the bass at church and the guitar some. When I saw The Foxfire String Band, at that time, they had a music class, and some of that class was playing in the gym. I remember being in the eighth grade and goin’ down to an assembly. We went down, and I seen some of them play. I had my buddy with me, and I remember saying, “Ah, they ain’t no good,” but they were, actually. I really wanted to be down there with ’em. One of the members playing the banjo was Dean English, who lived on Persimmon at that time and rode my bus. We didn’t have a whole lot to say to each other because he had just come to the community. He just moved here to go to school. His family is from here, and we got to know one another on the bus. He’d heard a tape of me playing with my cousin, Filmer. We got to talking ’bout it, and he invited me to come down to the music class. This was in the eighth grade during Georgia history class. I would tell the teacher I had to go to the bathroom; I started taking regular bathroom breaks. Mrs. Brown began getting a little concerned, wanted to know if I was sick as a couple of weeks went by. Then, of course, I told her what was goin’ on. Then she let me, once I got my work done, go ahead and go down to George’s class. The music performance class is what it was. She let me go down, and I would go down and just pick with ’em and have a good time participating in whatever was left of the class. That’s the story of how I got affiliated with the band to begin with.

  Then as I moved on to the ninth grade, I was able to take Foxfire classes. I took music performance with George as an elective. That’s how I got to know the guys in the band a little better. They were staying after school for practice on Thursday evenings. I played the guitar—everybody played the guitar. They didn’t need a guitar player. They had a bass player, banjo player, and a guitar player. They really needed a mandolin—nobody played the mandolin. My grandfather had an old mandolin. I wish I had got to play with him some, but I never did. He passed away in ’76. I sang some with ’im, but I never really got to play a lot of music with ’im. He had an old electric mandolin, and I got that and took it to school. I would mess around with it, but I didn’t know the first thing about it. I guess that’s where I became more involved ’cause George knew some about the mandolin, showed me how to tune it, and showed me some chords. He gave me some tablature, and I learned some songs. There was a benefit at the Clayton Elementary School; that was my first public performance with the band.

  Obviously, I was the last to graduate ’cause they were all older than me. I guess the highlight of high school was the tenth grade because Dean and Wayne were there. They were in the twelfth grade, and I was in the tenth grade. Mike had just graduated, and Steve had graduated a couple of years before that. Those were considered our successful years. We got to play a lot of places and travel a lot with Foxfire and play at high schools and some colleges and met a lot of girls. We thought that was really cool and neat. We were pickin’ up jobs and making money for our music, but after the other boys graduated, the cycle continued on. I can’t speak for them, but I began to play in what we called The Foxfire String Band, which, by the way, used to be our original name. And then we changed it to The Foxfire Boys after our appearance on the Grand Ole Opry. We were introduced as The Foxfire Boys.

  That name was an accident. I know it was. I don’t know, maybe Roy Acuff just could remember Foxfire, and we were a bunch of boys, which makes sense. It kinda has a bluegrass ring to it. Foxfire String Band has more of maybe a “folksy, old-time” ring to it. We primarily played bluegrass at that time. We still do, but we do a lot of other types, too. I was in the ninth or tenth grade when we went to the Opry. That was an experience—very exciting, real nervous, but it was a really big deal, especially at that young age.

  Meeting John Denver was another fun time, and we’ve warmed up for several big-named bands: Mark Collie, Terri Gibbs, Billy Joe Royal, and several others. We’ve been real fortunate to get to open shows for some of those folks. The Atlanta Olympics was not so much a big deal to us because Atlanta’s just right down the road. It was just like goin’ to Atlanta to play, but it was a fun experience. We had a good time. It was very crowded. Playing somewhere far away for a few thousand people, you feel like you’re performing, and you’re just trying to perform. If the crowd’s caught up in it, it can be just wonderful. You get that charge of energy from the crowd, and you just play hotter, and you play better. On the other hand, [I like] playing for a benefit in Rabun C
ounty, and one of our favorite places to play is the Satolah Fire Department. It’s more enjoyable to do that. We know everybody. There’s that sense of community and family, and we’re just having a good time. We’re playing for us, too, and we can let our hair down instead of being puppets—doing a puppet performance. We can just jam. I guess that’s the major difference. They’re both fun.

  We’ve always aggravated each other, not in a bad way but pulling jokes and that sort of thing. There’ve been some comical things that have happened. Mike Hamilton most of the time gets the butt of the jokes. From the very beginning he has always gotten that, I think, because he’s such a great guy. He’s easy to get along with, besides the fact, I guess, Wayne and myself are the two meanest in the group. We’ve played some pretty bad jokes on ’em.

  We all go camping together, huntin’ together, fishing together, and hanging out together. Besides the music, we’re a family. We’re just family rather than just band members. Every time we get together, somethin’ funny always happens.

  PLATE 83 Dean and Tom are the owners and operators of Blue Ridge Music, where they use the Foxfire teaching approach with their students. See the Spring/Summer 2010 issue of The Foxfire Magazine for more details.

  It’s really extraordinary that we have been together this long, most of us. ’Course George has gone on [moved to Tennessee]. We all like the same things. When we come together to practice, we hardly ever get any practice in because we’re interested in what’s goin’ on with each other and talking about huntin’ and fishing or guns. We all have similar interests—talking about family. That’s probably one of the main reasons that we’ve stayed together and that we don’t have a clear boss. We have Wayne, who schedules most of our gigs and holds some things together for us, but we don’t have a band leader. We all become leaders at particular times when the situation calls for it. I think that helps, and I think that team play works best. Those two reasons, I would say, are the reasons that we’ve stayed together so long, and it’s a blessing, too. I just can’t believe we have been together this long. It must be the grace of God, literally!