When I was learning to play, we would meet at the home of one of the two brothers, usually Friday or Saturday evening. Sometimes others would join in and play. Also, their houses became a stop over spot for traveling musicians. Sometimes I could make it, sometimes school activities prevented that. One weekend the Stoneman Family (not the whole family of 22!) stopped to play. I missed that one.
Another time, I had a school function and they told me about their weekend visitor. The guy was a tremendous singer, but couldn’t play guitar worth a lick. His name? Charlie Pride; yep, before he made it big. He was just making his way to Nashville to try to make it in the big city.
So many good memories of playing guitar, learning, and listening to stories. They learned from my step-grandfather. He was born in 1872 and learned classical violin, and then when he was 18 (1890) he began working on the original railroads in Iowa. He learned many old timey songs and many Civil War songs. He and my grandmother and my father (11) moved to northern Minnesota in 1931. In the late 1940’s he began teaching these two brothers, especially the old timey music. I knew him only briefly, he died when I was 4. But I remember him playing fiddle. And they passed many of those songs on to me.
Here is a photo from the 1940’s and my comments.
Bluegrass 1940’s style. The banjo player is the one who made my guitar, and is featured in the YouTube video up thread. The man on the right is the older brother, who made my first guitar. That is my grandfather in the center with the fiddle.
When we got together, we all played guitar, and sat in a “circle” alternating playing lead and the others played rhythm and back fill harmony. We would play the same song through three times so that we each played lead on the song. What a great experience. In addition, the older brother would play fiddle, and the younger one (in the video) played mandolin. What a great way to learn the songs and play interchangably. That served me well over the past 50 years.
Wow, many memories coming back to me.