Chapter Two
The Hickory Stump and the Harmonica
Somewhere in my early teens, I came across a broken down harmonica. It didn’t have a top or a bottom, just the reeds. Most folks probably would have tossed it aside, but something about it caught my attention. I took it to Daddy and showed it to him. He looked at it, then looked at me and said, “If you can learn to play that thing, I will buy you a new one.”
That was all the motivation I needed. I went and sat down on a hickory stump and started fooling with it. At first, it didn’t sound like much of anything, just air and noise. But I kept at it. After about an hour or so, something clicked. I figured out how to play “Shouting on the Hills of Glory.” It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough to recognize. I walked back over and played it for Daddy. He listened a second, then said, “Well I will be damned.”
Then he added, “Go clear that patch of brush over there, and I will get you your new harmonica.” I spent the rest of that day working, cutting, hauling, sweating, thinking about that promise the whole time. And sure enough, he kept his word. I got my new harmonica, and I didn’t put it down much after that.
I kept practicing, learning more songs, figuring things out the only way I knew how, by ear, by feel, and by trial and error. Years later, another harmonica player watched me for a while and finally said, “You know you are playing that thing upside down, don’t you?” I didn’t believe him at first, but sure enough, I was.
I tried flipping it around and playing it the “right” way, but it just didn’t work for me. Everything felt backwards, and the sound wasn’t there. So I went back to playing it the way I always had. Sometimes what other folks call the wrong way is the only way that feels right.
About that same time, my brother Mikey came home for a little while. He showed me a few chords on the guitar, D, G, and A, just enough to get started. He taught me how to play “I’m in Trouble, Come and Get Me Mr. Jones,” “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” and part of “Wildwood Flower.” Then, just like that, he was gone again.
But those few chords stuck with me. I kept working at it, picking and strumming, trying to make sense of it all. Eventually, I figured out the rest of “Wildwood Flower” on my own. That felt like something, not just playing a song, but figuring it out without anyone showing me how.
Looking back now, I can see what was really happening. Nobody sat me down and taught me music the proper way. There were no lessons, no books, no rules to follow, just a broken harmonica, a few guitar chords, and a lot of time spent figuring things out alone.
That hickory stump didn’t look like much, but that is where it started to take hold. That is where I learned that music was not something you waited to be taught. It was something you chased down yourself.
When I was around six years old, one of my brothers had a harmonica for a little while, and I carried it around with me everywhere. I didn’t know how to play it. I would just blow into it and hum along, trying to make it sound like I knew what I was doing. I remember someone saying, “You’re not really playing that harmonica.” That didn’t stop me.
I even tried to play along with my dad one night while he was singing and playing for us. Looking back, it is kind of funny. He didn’t tell me to stop. He just let me pretend to play along. That surprises me now, but it probably meant more than I realized at the time. Not long after that, my brother had to give the harmonica back to whoever it belonged to, and that was the end of that for a while.
On Wood Street, when Daddy wasn’t home, I would pick up his guitar and just strum it. I didn’t know anything, no chords, didn’t even know if it was in tune. I would just strum and pretend I knew how to play. I never really asked him to show me anything. I guess I was a little scared to, and I wasn’t sure he would like me messing with his guitar.
Later on, when I finally did start learning, he would sometimes quote the old Tom T. Hall lyric about Clayton Delaney: “Son, you better put that ol’ guitar away… there ain’t no money in it, it will lead you to an early grave.” But after I learned a little, things changed. Me and Dad would sit up late at night playing music together. He would sing and play “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” by Willie Nelson, and I would work on picking out some lead notes during the instrumental parts. Those are some of the good memories, and they came during a time when there were also a lot of not so good ones.
Dad didn’t watch much TV, but he liked old westerns. I remember us watching Jeremiah Johnson and some old John Wayne movies together. He always said, “A day without work is a day wasted.” Work and whiskey, that was his way.
When he needed to buy whiskey, we would drive to Caney City. After we moved out to the country, it was Coffee City. He would always tell me, “Get you a soda water.” A few miles down the road, he would take a sip of whiskey and use my RC Cola to chase it. When he handed it back, I could still taste it. I can remember that taste even now. Years later, I ended up writing about those kinds of moments in my song “Whiskey in the Sand.” Times were a lot different back in the 1970s.
One thing I regret now is that I never asked my dad how he learned to play guitar. He told me once that during World War II, while he was stationed in France, he and some buddies went on leave to England. He bought a guitar there, but on the way back they were running late, had to run for a train, and somehow busted it up. He also mentioned a friend from Georgia who was a good guitar player. I have always wondered if that is where he learned, or if he already knew before the war. I never asked.
My grandfather Hagood died just a few weeks before my dad was born, so he never knew him. But my grandmother told me that the first time she met my grandfather, he was at a party, singing and playing guitar. So I guess I come from a long line of pickers.
Dad had a double bluegrass album by Flatt and Scruggs that I listened to a lot, and that is a big part of why I love bluegrass music. For a while, I even had a banjo. I would slow the record player down as slow as it would go so I could hear the notes to “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.” The pitch would drop way down, so I would tune my banjo low to match it, learn the notes, then tune back up and try to play it at speed. I never got very good at the three finger roll. I mostly played my own way, more strumming and picking, but I learned enough to carry some of those runs over to the guitar. Eventually, I pawned that banjo when I needed the money and never picked one up again after that.
I do have one thing I am glad I held onto, a cassette recording of me and my brother Mikey playing together, him on guitar and me on banjo. We played “I Saw the Light” and “Lonesome Valley,” along with a few others. It is the only recording I have of the two of us. Mikey died in a construction accident at age forty, and they played that recording at his funeral. It was hard to hear, but I am glad we made it.
After I had been playing harmonica for a while, I went to Gibson’s to buy a new one. While I was standing in line, a man behind me asked if I could play. He told me he and his brother had a bluegrass band and invited me to come play with them sometime. I told my dad about it. He knew them and said, “Those guys are professional bluegrass players, you will not be able to keep up with them.” Later on, he told me he regretted saying that, but by then I never tried.
It is funny how many people stick with you along the way. Some encouraged me. Some discouraged me. Some did not mean to do either, but their words stayed with me anyway.
I remember sitting down at a piano in a church fellowship hall in Tyler, just doing what I always did. A lady suddenly yelled, “Stop it! That offends me!” I do not know if it was my style or what, but it embarrassed me pretty good, and I just walked outside. Back then, I was a little tender hearted.
Another time, I opened for a gospel singer in Athens and played a couple of my original songs. Afterward, a lady told me, “You did OK, but you need to be more professional like the other guy.” She may have meant well, but I was not ready to hear that yet.
But I had more encouragement than anything else. In high school, I wrote a poem in English class, and my teacher wrote on it, “This is very good.” That stuck with me. Sometimes people do not realize how powerful a few words can be.
During a revival, Pastor Stanley’s son prayed over me and told me, “God has a work for you. It may not be preaching, but you can be a blessing to many people.” I have carried that with me ever since.
For a while, I tried preaching, but I could say everything I had to say in about five minutes, so I stopped.
I guess I learned to preach my sermons in a song instead.