Mountain View - Friday/Saturday

Friday evening, after shopping downtown, some of us went to eat ribs at Bar None BBQ. While we were looking at the menu, I could hear a Hard 2 Git CD playing on the sound system! Did they see us coming?! After dinner we gathered on the porch to do some more picking and singing.

Saturday morning the whole crew met for breakfast at the Folk Center restaurant, or “The Skillet” as some call it. Sam sure has a lot of fans in Mountain View! The waitress at the rib place had asked us Friday night where Sam was. Then, at the Folk Center, a waitress there gave Sam special treatment by replacing his cold pancakes with fresh ones. Sam mentioned something about his cold syrup and she came back shortly with a cup of hot pancake syrup! After leaving the “Skillet”, Tammy, Stuart, Boyd and Debbie made a stop by the old rock amphitheatre where a wedding had just taken place. I think the rain had dampened the ceremony a bit.

Back in town, we wondered around until we couldn’t stand it any longer… Tammy, Stuart, Boyd and Andy Nichols went back for instruments and soon they were picking under a shade tree down town. Before long, all of Hard 2 Git and a pretty big crowd filled the yard. We finally broke up in time to make our dinner engagement at Country Time restaurant, which was also a surprise birthday party for Debbie Nichols and Abby Hayes. After dinner we returned to the town courthouse yard and listened to the Nichols family put on an excellent show. Stuart and Boyd joined the Nichol’s for a few songs before they concluded and then Hard 2 Git took the grassy stage. There was a LARGE crowd gathered to hear both groups. We all went back to the cabins afterward and…I don’t remember for sure, but...we probably played more music!

(Thanks to Debbie Hudgens for helping me remember all of these details! -Boyd)

To be continued…

Mountain View - Labor Day Weekend, 2009

Hello bluegrass lovers! Hard 2 Git spent the Labor Day weekend in Mountain View Arkansas this year. We arrived in three different automobiles at different times of the day. Some are early birds, some are not! Maybe we’ll “git” a bus someday and travel together. That way, those of us who tend to sleep later could climb in a bunk and let the early birds do the driving. Once again, it rained while we were there. Sam says it never rained while Hard 2 Git was in Mountain View until Debbie and I started going with the group. Friday evening we were sitting on the cabin porch and lightning struck in the downtown area about 500 yards from us. In a few minutes we heard sirens headed towards town. Reva said we should put the instruments up and take cover, but we continued to pick and sing anyway. The Hard 2 Git band wasn’t the only Paris folks in Mountain View that weekend. Others joining us were Tammy Huff, Jim and Sandy Lassiter, Ruth and Byron Dennis, Danny and Donna Taylor, Betty Sisson, Kay and Ronald Hays, Abbie Hayes, Brittany Birch, Marilyn and Norris Bolton, Tony and Leslie Cunningham, Jeff and RaeJean Bolton, Joshua Bolton, Arthur and Dorothy Brown, Arthur’s brother and his wife, and Arthur’s sister and her husband.

Boyd

To be continued…

Wikipedia

When I was a child, I remember sitting in my grandparent’s living room looking through their set of encyclopedia. I was fascinated that I could find information on so many subjects that interested me. (I did this when I wasn’t listening to Grandaddy’s bluegrass albums!) We didn’t have encyclopedia in our own home until several years later. “What does this have to do with Hard 2 Git?”, you might ask. Well, after having a great time this past Sunday playing gospel bluegrass with the rest of the band at First Baptist Church in Detroit, I was thinking about “bluegrass” on my way to work this morning. I couldn’t remember exactly why this form of music I love so much was called “bluegrass”. So, I thought…when I get to work, I’ll look it up on Wikipedia! Sure enough…the answer was there…along with a lot more interesting reading.

If you’ve never used Wikipedia, The Free (online) Encyclopedia, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/ and look up something! (Find the search box in the left-hand column and start typing in something. It may quickly auto-complete the word you’re typing and suggest what you’re possibly looking for. If so, just click on the subject you want. If not, just type something and click the SEARCH button.) You can probably even look up some of your favorite bluegrass musicians and read about them. You may even want to read about Wikipedia itself! You’ll find out that it’s content is continuously being updated and added to by people just like us. (That’s a scary thought!)

Here’s a link that will take you directly to the article I’m reading-> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluegrass_music . When you see words or phrases that are highlighted in the articles, click on them and you will be transported directly to the wiki article for that subject. After reading about THAT subject, click you browser's "back" arrow or button to return to your original article. You can literally get lost and spend hours learning with Wikipedia.

If you’ve never used Wikipedia, I hope you’ll find a greater fascination with it than I did with that set of old encyclopedia my grandparents had!

Boyd

Bluegrass in Hugo

When I first started playing banjo in…1970…I think..., my only experience with bluegrass music was listening to it on 33 RPM records, 8-track, and cassette tapes. I don’t think there was very much bluegrass on the radio then. Oh, you might hear Foggy Mountain Breakdown or Dueling Banjos (1972) on the Ft. Worth station, WBAP. I’ll bet there was some bluegrass played on local radio stations in Paris and Bonham, but I don’t remember listening to that much radio in my high school days.

My first exposure to real, live bluegrass music probably came somewhere around 1975. I had previously bounced around north Texas with J.T. Bryan, Joe Julian and Ross Whit, attending Texas Fiddle contests in different cities. I enrolled at Paris Junior College after I graduated from high school in 1975. There, I met Bennie Tschoerner, who taught several of my electronics classes. I think Bennie was the one who first took me to Salt Creek Park in Hugo Oklahoma. Bennie had heard “Little” Jimmy Hendley play banjo at Bill Grant’s festival in Hugo and thought, “If that little kid can play banjo, surely I can too.” So, Bennie bought an Alvarez banjo…that eventually became mine…after Bennie gave up on banjo pickin’!

The Hugo Bluegrass Festival at Salt Creek Park, as I always heard, was “the biggest festival west of the Mississippi”. I have never attended any other festival in the states surrounding Texas that was as big as Bill Grant’s. Bill’s festival always started on the first Wednesday in August and went through Sunday. Many attendees would set up camp in Salt Creek Park as much as a week before the festival officially started. And Bill had some of the biggest bluegrass bands in the country. I seem to remember the likes of Lester Flat, Bill Monroe, Rick Skaggs, Mac Wiseman and many more being there over the years.

Bennie and I usually hung out at a camp not too far from the “foot of the hill”, that was set up every year by the same group of guys. I’m not sure I can remember everyone’s name that was usually there. I know that Stuart Anderson and Steve Annis was there…a fellow they called “Five String”, and some others. We mostly sat around the camp jamming and sharing new licks we had learned, but we would often go walking through the woods, stopping to jam with other groups of musicians. Of course, we kept a close eye on the official schedule and would go back up the hill to see our favorite performers.

I remember spending a lot of time visiting the vendors that were always there. It was better than any music stores in Fannin and Lamar counties. You could find all kinds of bluegrass instruments, records and tapes. There was also plenty of places to buy food and drink.

I always looked forward to going to this festival each year, but it was awful hot in August. I remember strapping my banjo to the sissy bar of my 1979 Yamaha motorcycle and driving from Greenville to Hugo in the later years. When the festival was over and I returned home, I could still hear music ringing in my ears for at least a day or two…literally!!! I don’t remember the last year I attended the festival before it shut down. Debbie and I married in 1984 and we both attended at least one or two festivals after that. I was pretty much wrapped up in the Country Music scene during the 80’s and didn’t go to Salt Creek anymore.

Steve Annis has been converting some old photos to digital format recently. Here is one he sent yesterday. See more of the pictures on my website, http://www.banjoboyd.com/ , in the PHOTO GALLERY. Maybe some of my fellow Hard 2 Git band members will blog more about the great times at Salt Creek Park. Ah, the memories!

Boyd

Mr. Bill Grant's Bluegrass Festival - Hugo, OK

The bluegrass festival in the first week of Aug. in Hugo Ok. had it's on personality among festivals, a capsule of good people brought together by the love of old time music. It must have been around the year 1980 when my dad Hub and I started out on an early Saturday morning toward Hugo not knowing exactly where Grant's Bluegrass Festival was or how the bluegrass style of music would change our lives. We found not only the festival grounds but a large group of people that came to be some of our best life long friends. People that care more about the people on the old rustic stage at Hugo than the people on the big stages around the world. We sat there and saw people like Joe Stuart sing the Eastern Gate. Emmitt Suliivan, Josh Graves and many bluegrass entertainers let the sounds of those acoustic instruments ring up the hill through the trees in Salt Creek Park with vocal harmonies like I had never heard. As I sat there overwhelmed by the music and the friendly people I decided that if I had a dream it would be to be to play that music and it would be special if I could do it right there on that very stage. The following morning I called my brother and dad and had them meet me at the local music store and we all bought bluegrass instruments. From there the festival at Hugo became our home on the first week of August for many years to come. We would take our camper on or around July 4th and each weekend we would be there to jam with the people as they brought their campers in up until the festival started. My wife Anna and I have memories of so many good people that we could hardly wait to see each year. As I think about it, all of the members of The Hard 2 Git Bluegrass Band have the Hugo festival as a common link. Sam and Reva were there camping with us through the whole thing. We met Stuart there and became good friends as we jammed together each year. When we needed a banjo player for Hard 2 Git, I called Stuart just from that past friendship. He has been with the band from day one. Boyd won the banjo contest in the late seventies, which was a great accomplishment.

People came from all over the world to compete in the instrument and band contests at Hugo. Can you believe that our dobro player is one of the best banjo players in the world. What does that say about our banjo player? As time and experience went by, we formed our own bluegrass band Simply Gospel, which was made up of my brother Danny Martin, James Roberts, Van Barton, Joe Worley and myself. James Roberts wife, Linda, joined the band in the later years. Mr. Bill Grant booked us on the Hugo festival in 1988, 1989, 1990, and 1991. The Hard 2 Git Bluegrass Band played the festival in its last year around 2005. Salt Creek Park holds a special place in the memories of all of us who were able to be a part of those times, where friends were made for a lifetime through the love of bluegrass music. James Martin

Early Days at Bill Grant's Salt Creek Park Festival

Early Days at Bill Grant's Salt Creek Park Festival

At the request of Boyd Hudgens, I will describe some of the early days at the Hugo, Oklahoma Bluegrass festival that was held at Bill Grant's Salt Creek Park the first week of August each year. The official festival dates were from the first Wednesday of August to the following Sunday. I believe the festival ran each year from about 1969 until 2004.

My brother, Wayne, had been going to the festival for several years with a friend of ours, Hal Parker. Hal loved the music and is really responsible for getting us both to go. I was in graduate school (1971-73) when he first urged me to take off and go to Hugo, but I resisted. I attended for the first time in 1974 after I had been working at East Texas State University in Commerce for a year. Wayne and I drove up on Saturday morning and sat in the rain all day and listened to every band. There was mud everywhere and, in spite of the rain, an enthusiastic crowd. We drove back to my apartment in Commerce late Saturday night. I was already hooked and we drove back to the festival on Sunday.

I had just gotten an Alvarez banjo the Christmas before and was really working hard to learn to play it. I remember listening intently to the banjo players at the festival. Of all the banjo players we heard that weekend, I remember thinking that Alan Munde, Little Roy Lewis, and Sonny Osborne were the best. After all these years, my opinion has not changed.

I became aware of the "parking lot pickin'" when we left the festival on Saturday night. There was a small group of pickers under a covered place near where we had parked our car. I was astonished at how well they played and how much fun they were having. I learned everything I could during the next year so I could participate at the 1975 festival.

At the 1975 festival, I took a tent with me and went alone to the park to camp. I don't recall which day I went, but I'm sure it was before the festival officially started. I found a place to camp at the bottom of the hill and put up my tent. The first person I met was a picker named Ivan Burton. We didn't introduce ourselves, but he gave me a card that had his name on it. Underneath he had written "5-String," indicating what he played. I immediately began calling
him 5-String and still do. He was a friendly, interesting and helpful person and we became good friends.

The atmosphere of the festival was strong enough to immediately put you in another world. I have been to many festivals over the years and have never encountered one that was so exciting and joyful. Perhaps 5-String and others around our camp helped a lot. But I think there were just many ingredients that were magically combined at that time. People were still influenced by the hootenannies of the 1960's, the sixties themselves, and the Bonnie and Clyde (Foggy Mountain Breakdown) and Deliverance (Dueling Banjos) movies. There were many young people so eager to learn to play. They didn't mind traveling long distances, living in a tent for a week, and getting to know complete strangers to swap licks.

We played and laughed and watched contests and bands all week. I'm sure we didn't eat well or sleep well, and we probably didn't smell too well either. But we were so happy. We made friends with the Kriehn family from Bryan, Texas. I remember Doyle Marshall from Arkansas being there also. On Sunday morning 5-String prepared to leave. He and I talked about how we would meet in the same spot for the next festival.

At the 1976 festival, I am sure I arrived on the Sunday or Monday before it started. The Kriehns, 5-String and several of the others who had camped nearby were in the same places. A community had started to grow that would continue for quite a few more years. I moved to Norman, Oklahoma in 1977 to attend the University of Oklahoma. While in the area I met Steve Annis, a fine mandolin and guitar player. He joined our Hugo camping group in 1978 or 1979.

I had met Boyd Hudgens and Gary Moreland at a fiddle contest in Jefferson, Texas at some point. I'm sure I was encouraging him to come to the Hugo festival. We had started playing at his house in Honey Grove about once per week. Since I always learned how to play a little better by watching him, I knew I wanted him around. I also thought that no one should miss the enjoyment that was so plentiful at Hugo.

I don't recall the first year that Boyd came to our camp site. But through him, I met Kelly and Janice Connell, Joe Smith, and probably lots of other fine pickers. I must have also met Boyd's wife, Debbie, there but I can't recall doing so. Much later, I met James and Anna Martin, Danny Martin, James and Linda Roberts, and the members of Simply Gospel.

The Hugo Festival was most influential in my life. This is partly true because of the people I met there and how much I learned from and enjoyed them. The festival was also a powerful motivator because I wanted to be able to play well and to have a large body of songs that I could play. All year long I would anticipate and prepare for that week. Of course I had to (and did) maintain other parts of my life, but the first week of August was always close to my attention. I would study and practice to be able to enjoy that week to the fullest. There is a lesson of life in all this. In most things a person does, the harder you work, the more fun you have.

Even though the Salt Creek Park festival is no more, the connections formed there continue to shape a significant part of my life. I am lucky enough to get to play with Boyd (and Debbie), James and Anna, Sam and Reva Bolton in the Hard2Git Bluegrass Band. We have such good fun. I likely wouldn't know these people if I had not sat through that rainy 1974 festival.

Stuart Anderson