My Dad taught me how to play the spoons when I was seven. Later, after I saw a man playing the bones in a minstrel show, he made me a pair of wooden bones. Dad played one handed and that’s how I started, but it wasn’t long before I decided the only right way was with both hands. For years I amused myself playing along with whatever was on the radio and listening to records and cassettes.
We were living way out in Stokes County eighteen or so years ago and one night I heard Jerry, Ellis, Lawrence and Junior playing old time music across the pond at Al’s house. I wanted to play with them but I was too embarrassed to ask if I could click along. Well, Annette went right over there and said, “Can my husband come play with you?” (just like she was my mother and I was three years old!) After that first night I fell in love with “old tyme” and now when I’m playing I am three years old.
There is for me a sense of connection with the rhythm of life when I hear a musical beat. The riffs and changes of percussion instruments seem so basic to me; I can imagine the glee that some Neanderthal felt the first time he banged his club against a hollow log. I can picture the warrior that he was fighting relate to the sound and instead of a brawl they ended up playing dueling tree stumps. Music soothes us physically and relieves our minds of pesky internal dialogue. Birds build nests from instinct. I think Mother Nature has given us musical instinct to make life less stressful.