“But they’s a lot of things that way you make, you know, just while you’re beatin’ around at it. I’ve got a snake. And, let’s see, where’s my ‘moisture’ at [a paddle with a rough head and a crayfish claw nailed to either side (ILLUSTRATION 39)]. And I’ve got me a bird at the house. My wife, she wouldn’t let me keep the moisture at the house. And that bird and snake, I just picked up roots and made them. I’ll run down t’th’house and bring’em up here and let you look at’em!” (ILLUSTRATION 40).
RAY MCBRIDE
Photographs by Ray and Steve Smith.
LEONARD GLENN
Leonard Glenn went to school with Tedra Harmon, and they still live almost within shouting distance of each other. He farms tobacco and sells an instrument once in a while to bring in an income for the family. His son, Clifford, also makes banjos and dulcimers.
On the day we visited him, it was rainy and cold, and although we had never met him before, he invited us in and showed us two of the banjos he had made. The one we were most interested in was the one made in the same style as those Tedra and Stanley Hicks made. Glenn got his pattern from his father who made banjos fifty years ago. His father used squirrel hides for the heads because they were thinner than groundhog and deer, and he felt they had better tone. Glenn did the same until recently when he started buying cowhides out of which he could get at least three heads.
When he was using squirrel hides, he’d put them fresh in a vat under about an inch of hardwood ashes and water. When the hair loosened, he’d scrape the hides clean, wash them thoroughly, and put them in the banjos immediately.
ILLUSTRATION 42
He could cut out the pieces for the head, the neck (for which he preferred cherry or walnut), and put in a skin in one day. He’d cut the pieces out with a band saw, and cut out the holes for the head and the sound holes with a jigsaw. Finishing work was done with a rasp, wood file, and sandpaper. Pegs were cut out with a jigsaw and then shaped with a pocketknife. Rather than trying for a high gloss, Glenn preferred simply to rub in a wax for the finish.
He’s sold many instruments—some of them ones he didn’t really want to sell. He’d set the price at two or three times what he thought they were worth to discourage buyers, but someone always came along with a checkbook.
RAY MCBRIDE
Photographs by Ray and Steve Smith.
ILLUSTRATION 43 The banjos that Leonard Glenn makes are similar in construction to those of both Tedra and Stanley (three wooden rings, a metal ring to hold the head, no neck extension, etc). There are several differences worth noting, however, as shown.
ILLUSTRATION 44
DAVE PICKETT
Dave Pickett is thirty-one years old and was born and raised in Davidson County, North Carolina. Both his great-grandfather and grandfather were blacksmiths, and his father was a machinist and gunsmith—all with their roots in the same county.
Dave has always been restless, searching for the livelihood that suited him best. He tried farming—he was raised on a farm, has worked a team of horses, and raised tobacco and grain—then he took two years of machine work in trade school, and later returned to school and earned an Associate Degree in mechanical engineering. He worked seven years in technical writing, the last three years of which were spent building prototypes of textile air conditioning equipment from engineering drawings. New he makes banjos and folk toys for a living, has a garden, and makes home brew. Finally he’s happy.
ILLUSTRATION 45
ILLUSTRATION 46
ILLUSTRATION 47
ILLUSTRATION 48 Dave has his pieces figured out so carefully that he can get every wooden piece he needs out of one 40″×3″×3″ piece of stock.
ILLUSTRATION 49 These plates illustrate another hoop style that Dave has used in the past.
ILLUSTRATION 50 The pattern for the side of the neck is traced off on stock and cut out with a band saw (top, right and left). Then top is traced off and cut (bottom, left). A slot is cut in the top of the neck to hold a steel rod that acts to counter the tension of the strings. The fingerboard covers the slot (bottom, right).
ILLUSTRATION 51
Dave got started making banjos entirely by accident. He had always wanted to learn to play one, but he couldn’t afford to buy one. A man he worked with came to him for some help in figuring out how to turn a banjo rim, and he got involved in the project and decided to go ahead and draw out diagrams for a complete instrument. He worked on them for a year polishing and perfecting every angle and joint, and then he built one. It was an impressive success.
He originally planned to build just that one, but people kept pestering him to build one for them also, so he finally quit the engineering job, opened a little shop with several other craftsmen in Winston-Salem (they share the rent and tools), and stuck strictly to banjos and folk toys. He guarantees the toys such as limberjacks, for a lifetime.
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ILLUSTRATION 55
It took a lot of moving around to find satisfaction but it turned out that none of the jobs he had tried during his restless period were a waste of time. He used his knowledge in engineering to design one of the finest banjos we’ve ever seen. Being raised on a farm he knows how to—and does—produce enough food in his garden to feed his family. And using his skills in machine work he can manufacture almost every part needed for his instruments.
He sells the finished banjos for about $300.00 apiece (unless the customer specifically requests him to design and make parts such as the tailpiece and fingerboard himself instead of using commercial ones. In this case, the price goes up). It sounds expensive, but even at that price, Dave is lucky if he comes out making fifty cents an hour:
“I haven’t made a fortune, but I haven’t starved, either. What more can a person ask out of life. The main thing is I enjoy what I’m doing. I believe in enjoying what you’re doing. I come in at 8:30 or 9:00 of a morning, and you’re liable to find me here at 10:30 or 11:00 at night because I want to work; not because I have to. If things go bad, I just lock the door and go squirrel hunting or fishing. You set your own schedule. I have no one working for me. Everything I produce is totally from me. No outside help. Main reason is that I’m kind of a bad person to work for. People just can’t do the work like I want it done. I’ve tried to have a few people help me, but all they can do is assembly work. As far as making the parts, there’s just no way. Why pay somebody to do it and then have to do it over?”
He is always experimenting, improving and working on new ideas. Dave now plans to try his hand at something he gets many requests for—an old-style fretless banjo. It will be easier to build—and thus not as expensive—as it will have fiddle pegs instead of commercial ones, and it won’t need the metal reinforcing bar in the neck—the fretless banjo is tuned lower and so the tension on the neck is less.
But if what he’s doing now is any indication, the quality will still be flawless.
RAY MCBRIDE
Photographs by Ray and Ernest Flanagan.
DAVE STURGILL
Dave Sturgill’s roots in Piney Creek go back to the time of the Indian. Unlike many of his ancestors, however, he spent a large portion of his life away from the mountaias. After he graduated from high school during the Depression, he began to wander, covering the country from New York to San Francisco. “I got my education by traveling, and of course one of the things I was interested in, even then, was music, so I carried my instrument and played in clubs to make a little money.”
In 1938, he wound up in Washington, D.C., went to school for a year, worked for the Western Electric Company, and then moved to the Bell Telephone Company. He stayed with them for twenty-nine years in Washington, and was a general engineer in switching equipment when he left. He was fourteen months away from retirement, he had a wife and sons, “But my heart never left the hills. This was where I always wanted to be. There were riots in Washington then, and these hills looked so good every time I
came down here that I finally came down here and stayed.” He worked for a while in a small musical factory in Nashville that was foundering, then left, came back home, built a shop and dug in. His two sons, meanwhile, had been doing some wandering of their own—one worked for the Evans Steel Guitar Company in Burlington, North Carolina, for a while—but they, too, were circling closer and closer to home. Now they’re Dave’s partners in what has turned into a thriving business in guitars, banjos, mandolins, and dulcimers. Neither Dave, Danny nor John has ever regretted the move. As John said, “Being born in Washington was an accident I couldn’t help. I never did count that home. I spent all my summers down here. Now I’m here to stay.”
ILLUSTRATION 56
ILLUSTRATION 57 Below, ILLUSTRATION 58 shows the pieces that come with the Sturgill kit, as well as an example of the finished banjo the kit produces. There are several variations here (most incorporated from traditional instruments Dave has seen, such as those in the following illustrations) that we have not previously noted: the thin hoop, for example, that fits into corresponding grooves on the inside of the top and back. Note also that the commercial 6″ head is held into place by a wooden ring, which is in turn held in place by 5 wooden blocks nailed or screwed into the underside of the top. Note also the tailpiece—simply 3 brass brads driven into the top. The strings hook around their heads. Design and cut your own sound holes. Has fretted fingerboard. The diagrams that come with the instructions are pictured above.
ILLUSTRATION 58
ILLUSTRATION 59
ILLUSTRATION 60
ILLUSTRATION 61 The component parts of the most elaborate Sturgill banjo laid out. They include a fully inlaid resonator.
Recently Dave went to Washington to attend a dinner celebration that Bell was sponsoring. He ran into a friend there whom he had worked with, and they began to talk about the move he had made. Asked Dave, “Who was president of this company when you and I started to work for it?”
The friend said, “I’m not sure,” and thought for a few minutes. “It was either Mr. Wilson, or …”
As Dave tells the story: “I knew who was president at that time because I’d made it a point to find out. So I reminded him which one it was. I said, ‘Now that wasn’t even thirty years ago, and you’re not even sure who the president of the company was when you started.’ I says, ‘Think about this a little bit. Twenty years from now, there won’t be anybody working for this company that will know you or I either one ever worked for it. But,’ I says, ‘a hundred years from now, they’ll be people who will know I made musical instruments.’ ”
Dave is convinced that the move away from Washington saved his life—and his spirit. “When it gets down to a question of security, the only security you can possibly have on this earth is what your Creator gives you. It doesn’t come from anywhere else. He can take it all away from you just like that, or he can give it back to you. I don’t have to worry about health insurance because I figure He’s going to look after me. So I gave up life insurance, health insurance, pension—all the rest of it—but I have absolutely no regrets. Smartest thing I ever did as far as I’m concerned, because I know now that if I’d stayed there, I’d be dead. I was getting ulcers and high blood pressure. My heart was bothering me, and several other things. And all that’s gone now. None of it’s bothering me. I’m actually in better health now, five years later, then when I left there. I certainly don’t regret leaving all that behind. And nothing would ever get me back into it, I’ll tell you. Not again.
“I’m not saying you should go completely back to Nature. That’s not the answer either. They talk about the good old days. Well, I was raised in those, and I don’t want to go back to oil lamps and outdoor toilets. That’s a little too much. But there are things that are a lot more important than how big an automobile you’ve got, or how big your bank account is. I was into it up there. An hour and a half fighting traffic every morning to get downtown. An hour and a half fighting that traffic every evening to get back. I’d be a nervous wreck every time I got on the job, and I’d be the same way when I got home. And, boy, I started asking myself every day, ‘Why? Why? What in the world am I fighting this for?’ ”
ILLUSTRATION 62 The walls of Dave’s shop are filled with instruments they have made—everything from mandolins and fiddles to guitars and banjos.
ILLUSTRATION 63 The evolution of the banjo from its simplest form to the Hicks-Harmon-Glenn variety to the most modern, complex form worthy of an Earl Scruggs.
ILLUSTRATION 64–ILLUSTRATION 77 illustrate four varieties of banjos which Dave has in his collection. They are documented in the following four groups and in the “Dave Sturgill” section of the comparison chart (ILLUSTRATION 81).
ILLUSTRATION 64
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ILLUSTRATION 67
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Dave’s time away from the mountains, as well as the fact that the original grant for the land he now owns was made to his four-times great-grandfather and there has never been anyone but Sturgills and Indians on it, has made him passionately committed to his land and people:
“The picture that’s been drawn of these mountains down through here has been wrong—so much of it—through the years. When I was with Bell, I had several assignments up in New York City. I’d be up there sometimes for two or three weeks at a time, and those people would find out where I was from—that I came right out of the edge of the Smoky Mountains down here in the Appalachians—and they would call me ‘Hillbilly.’ They’d get a big kick out of it. And I’d say, ‘Yeah, but there’s one big difference. You can take any boy out of those hills and turn him loose in New York City and he’ll get by. But take one of you fellows down in the hills and turn you loose; you’d starve to death.’
“But the picture most of those people had of those mountaineers was pure Little Abner. Now that’s where they got it from—the comic strips. And that’s the truth today, even. Ninety per cent of the population, they think of everybody down in the mountains in terms of Little Abner. They don’t realize it’s not that way any more.
“We had some people come in here last summer when I was writing this history of my family. One woman I corresponded with was from Portland, Oregon. Her ancestors had come from here and she was very interested, and she had some information that I didn’t have. She passed that on to me, and we incorporated it into the book. But her daughter came by here last summer and called and introduced herself, and she said she wanted to come down and take a day and visit. And I told her I’d be glad to meet her, to come on down. And so she came on in here into the shop, and the first thing she said after she introduced herself was, ‘Tell me something. Where is this Appalachia I’ve been reading about and hearing about all my life? The picture I’ve always had about this country was little shacks and people sitting around on the porch.’
ILLUSTRATION 75
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ILLUSTRATION 77
“And I said, ‘Well, I could take you to a few places like that, but we’d have to hunt for them. They’re pretty scarce, and they’re still a few here, but …’ ”
Dave, and most of the true mountain people, have humorous stories tucked away about outsiders that have come in looking for REAL mountain folks. We have more than a few ourselves. And the humor is often touched with a sense of anger. Dave told us his favorite:
“I’ll tell you the best one I heard of all. Up at Laurel Springs where there’s a motel, service station and so forth, a couple of years ago this big car from Pennsylvania pulled in there to get some gasoline. And the man and his wife got out—middle-aged couple—and they were straight-out tourists all the way, with the colored glasses and the shorts, the camera, the whole bit. So while the man was putting gas in the car, the woman came around
and started talking to him. Says, ‘Where can we go to see some real genuine hillbillies? This is the first time we’ve ever been down in here.’
“And he says, ‘Well, lady,’ says, ‘I’m sorry,’ said, ‘you can’t see any now.’
“She said, ‘Well, why?’
“And he said, ‘Well, it’s out of season.’
“And she says, ‘Well, I don’t understand.’ Says, ‘What do you mean it’s out of season?’
“And he says, ‘Well, they’re all up in Pennsylvania teaching school!’ ”
As a young boy, Dave made his first banjo because he wanted one and was too poor to buy it. He took a plywood packing crate, set it in the creek until it came apart, and then wrapped a strip of its thin wood veneer around a five-gallon can and held it in place with rubber bands until it dried to form the hoop. Then he whittled the neck out with a pocketknife.
His interest in music came naturally. His mother could play instruments, as well as his grandfather and great-grandfather on her side. In addition, he had an uncle who liked music so well that he cleared a half-acre of land down on the river, kept it mowed, and built benches in between the willow trees. “There was a little sandy spot there where they used to land the boats. And us kids twelve, thirteen and fourteen years old, we’d get down there and play and dance and sing until three in the morning—and sometimes it would go longer than that. Dancing on the ground. He’d take wood down there and pile it up for us—always kept wood down there—and he’d build a fire and sit down there and listen to us play.”
Mountain Music Fills the Air: Making Banjos and Dulcimers: The Foxfire Americana Library (11) Page 3