1- "I was born February the seventh, 18 and 98, down here at West Norton; born in this county, the same county I'm living in. I retired out of Kentucky. I worked in the coal mines, commenced coal mining when I was just a boy. Never got to go to school too much. "
DID YOUR PARENTS WORK IN THE MINES? "My father was a carpenter and a blacksmith, but I had brothers that worked in the mines, much older. I was the youngest child out of a family of ten. There's 5 boys and 5 girls. My oldest brother had a boy just . lacked 5 days of being as old as me. I started working in the mines when I was 12 years old, but I went to school a little bit after that. I got a seventh grade edu- cation. I was working in the coal mines at Pardee, Virginia, for Blackwood Coal and Coke Company in 19 and 27 when two men from New York and one from Ash- land, Kentucky -- a Carter, and I forget the other two men's names from New York -- (came) to pick up mountain talent through Tennessee, West Virginia, and Kentucky and Virginia, and they came to Norton Virginia. I borrowed an old banjo -- I happened to be in town that day -- Pardee's about 6 or 8 miles from Norton. I borrowed a banjo from a fellow, McClure, run a music store, a little cheap banjo. I started to play two pieces for them, they was in a big hurry, they was over at the Norton hotel trying out this mountain talent. They tried out about 50 or 75 musicians. They· was standing around there up in the ballroom and I wondered why they hadn't signed them up for to make phonograph records, because I stood around and pitched them high as a dollar, dollar and a half at a time -- I mean nickels, dimes, and quarters -- to hear them play. They wasn't nothing but playing I was working on a coal machine. I took that old banjo up there and they asked me did I play it, and I told them I played one kind of like it a little bit. They told me to go and give them a piece. I played about a verse of "The Country Blues" -- I called it "Country Blues," it was really "Hustling Gamblers. "
2- WHERE DID YOU LEARN THAT SONG? "I learned that from a man from Tennessee, where I don't know. Named Crawford, Homer Crawford, and he played the old way -- banjo -- in the old way of playing. So I just played a little of that and I noticed they all marked
it "good" on their papers; and they asked me to play an- other one and I started out to play the "Down South Blues" a song that I'd learned. I heard some of it on a phonograph record back years bef.ore.this. It played on a piano, but I commenced playmg I.t o.n the banjO and sang it and put an extra verse or two m It that I made myself. So I just played about two verses and I notic.ed they marked "good" on that, and they came around WIth papers wanting to sign me up to go to make phonograph records, and three weeks from that time I was on my way to New York to make phonograph records. And none of these here good musicians standing around there -- didn't sign nary a banjo player but me on the rounds they come that time. They Signed about three guitar players, and there was two fiddlers. "
3- DO YOU REMEMBER ANY OF THE OTHERS? "They signed up John Dykes, Hub Mahaffey, and Miss Vermillion -- I can't think of her first name -- from Kingsport, Tennessee; and Hub Mahaffey he seconded on the guitar for me on some of the pieces that I played and put on phonograph records. So we went to New York and I made four records, and they offered for me to make two or three more while I was there, but I thought on the contract I was under I'd just make them four -- eight songs. So, I got two contracts for to make phonograph records for The Brunswick, Balke and Callender
-Company of New York. And a lot of people thought I
quit on them just because I didn't have the opportunity
to make more phonograph records, but I had a contract-- two contracts -- one to make 12 songs with me and the guitar player -- anyone I'd want to get -- and then I could get a band of musicians if I wanted to and make 12 more -- 24 songs. And I had a little domestic trouble and I decided I'd quit and went back in the coal mines
and retired out of the coal mines, and I'm a retired
coal miner now. 65 years old, and I didnYt think I ever would play anymore. And my banjo, I let a fellow take
it to keep. I let him hold it for security for a little money I got off of him, and I went back and gave him back that money 25 years afterwards and picked up the banjo. He was a single man at the time I let him have
the banjo, and he had a family and one girl married at
the time that I went back to take my banjo. He was …..from -- a Kinser boy, at Hayman, Kentucky. His wife, she's a schoolteacher, she taught school over there. Adams girl he married, Reba Adams. So I went back to Kentucky and went to work in the coal mines and I was working for the Elk Horn Coal Corporation at Jackhorn, Kentucky, and I retired from there back when I was 60 years old. I'm 65 now and I'm drawing my welfare pension from the United Mine Workers and also my Social Security now. "
4- DID YOUR PARENTS PLAY MUSIC AT ALL? "I had my oldest brother, he fiddled a little bit and he had an old banjo, he'd play it some. That was the only one .to play any music to amount to anything. I got me a banjO after
I was married. I married when I was young, 20 years old. Commenced playing, and I played for parties, bean stringings, and first one thing and another where they'd have a little party in the country -- used to -- and I was just playing for the fun of it. I played a couple of these
pieces for the people from New York and they gave me an opportunity to make some phonograph records, and I could have made some more but I decided to quit. I got dust on my lungs, and I've not got too good a breath. I don't pretend to play much. In fact, I belong to the . church now and I'm living a different life to what I lIved whenever I was younger. I'm living for the Lord as much so as I know how. "
"In taking up learning to playa banjo, whenever I was learning how to play, why there wasn't very many people that played a banjO around through the country that I
ever heard. I heard one colored fellow, Negro, played in a band with a bunch of other colored fellows. They had about 4 instruments. "
CAN YOU REMEMBER WHAT INSTRUMENTS? "They had a fiddle guitar and a mandolin and a banjo. "
WAS THAT AROUND HERE? "In Dorchester, Virginia. I heard them playing for a colored dance one night and I was just a boy and I listened to that fellow pick the
banjo. They was playing "Turkey In The Straw" and I " watched him make the chords on "Turkey In The Straw, and I decided I'm going to get me a banjo I'm going
to learn how to play. So I just taken up playmg and
taken up my own method and my own way of playing. I donYt play the way the fellows nowadays do at all, and I never seen another one play just exactly like me, but I learned one boy how to play, a fellow Maggard, Odus Maggard, and he'S made several phon