As we drift through the middle part of May in North Florida, my thoughts turn fondly to one of my favorite experiences, Music Junction in Rogersville, Tennessee on any Thursday night of the year. I wonder who played last week and who will have a new song to sing this week. I wonder what corny jokes Rosie will crack this week and whether or not some stranger has dropped in to get a taste of mountain music from its people.
Our last evening at the Junction (held at the recreation department, no charge, thank you!) was April 22, 2010. The evening was mild; spring was in full force in East Tennessee. Little league baseball was going on right down from the building, so we parked in the grocery store parking lot and walked down to the building. A bower of wisteria, laden with clusters of blooms perfumed the air as we entered the small space and found seats. The crowd was good; the musicians had already started. One of the band members was singing.
The absolute best things about Music Junction is the "house" band. Now none of these musicians are paid, but most of them are there week after week. I have become a "groupie" OF THE fiddler, Gene Vance, but there are other musicians who are probably as good as he on their instruments. There are always acoustical guitars, electric guitars, a banjo, and sometimes a bass. One of the guitar players will also break out his harmonica sometime during the evening. In times past, there has been a keyboard player, Linda Bright, but she is absent from the band, fighting a valiant battle against cancer. Currently there is a young boy whose grandpa is breaking him in on the drums. He's learning, and it is good to see that the band accepts him and the audience, too. His little brother, about four years old, sits in with the band to and he strums along with great seriousness. He has been known to fall asleep on his stool.
We had missed Rosie's welcome and first joke of the evening, but after three songs, she introduced Ernie Graves and old time rocking blue grass performer. If you get Ernie off to the side and get him to spinning tales (not too hard to do!), he will tell you about his days with Bill Monroe. Ernie is eighty years old, if he is a day, but he still has power to his voice and music. He knows he is a star and his swagger as he leaves the mike and struts through the audience lets you know it!
A regular, Junior Bradley, was on next. Now, to me, Junior is a true East Tennessean. He keeps a straight face all the time. He is totally without artifice: What he is,is what you get. Junior always does hymns and gospel music opening with Beulah Land, a crowd favorite, and finally ending with Amazing Grace during which he asked the crowd to stand in join in.
Gene followed Junior with a rousing Orange Blossom special as the highlight of his performance. His fiddle purely sang the sound of the rails, and the harmonica added its plaintive sounds.
The next performer, Betty Miller, came down from the coal mining region of Eastern Kentucky, Loretta Lynn country. We had met her last October, but she hadn't shown up for any of the April nights before this one. Klep asked her if she was planning to sing, and she said, "No." But when she was asked by Rosie, she went out and got her lyric book. Betty doesn't play an instrument, but she sings her songs full out and clear. The voice gives the strength to the music and the expression. She stands with her hair gleaming white, puts back her head, and sings her heart.
A young mandolin player, Ryan Hennard performed two numbers, shedding his nervousness on the second to a rousing round of applause.
Two regulars, Pete Smith and Hugh Kyle Rogers followed Ryan. They each sang about five songs, demonstrating that those who kept order to each evening's performances, were nervous about filling the evening. On a normal Thursday night, it is three songs and you are off.
While Hugh Kyle was performing, a group of musicians slipped in with instrument cases and headed back stage. Actually it is where the coffee pot is located and near where the bathroom is.
Rosie introduced them as the Cloud Creek Band and they headed into the old favorite, singing about that good old mountain dew followed by Like a Fox on the Run. By this time the crowd was fully with them as they segued In the Jailhouse Now, and several other banjo twanging, mandolin singing, fiddle in the background songs. Their O Come Angel Band was beautifully harmonized, Their "Rocky top, superb. The final number left us all laughing and clapping as they did their do wop, Stay a Little Longer with their lead singing falsetto.
The evening had been a good one. We stood around after helping fold up the chairs and store them, talking to Rosie and Gene, hating to turn loose the evening. Just as we had surmised, Rosie told us that they worried they would not have enough music to fill the evening, but instead, as usual, there was good music and then some. Rosie told me that she felt that there were no better musicians anywhere. Most of these people could have gone other places and made it in the music business (some of them have.), but they choose to live in East Tennessee, to go to their jobs each day, to raise their gardens, and to rear their children. But on Thursday night they gather and make their music together.
Such a delight their music is. As one woman from the audience said to us as she was leaving, "I feel guilty for not paying! I've paid a whole lot of money to hear a whole lot of music that wasn't as good as this."
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