Episode 4: Gary Joseph - From Gospel Roads to Honky Tonk Shows!

This week on Five String Holler, Banjo Barnett sits down with singer, songwriter, and music promoter Gary Joseph.

Gary’s musical journey has taken him through just about every corner of the music world. Growing up deeply rooted in gospel music, he learned the value of faith, family, and traditional music at an early age. As the years rolled on, his love for music led him into the world of bluegrass before eventually finding his home in country music as a member of The Country Troubadours.

Join us as Gary shares stories from a lifetime spent around music, the influences that shaped him, the challenges and rewards of performing, and what it’s like helping promote live music across Eastern Kentucky. From church pews to bluegrass festivals to honky-tonk stages, Gary’s story is one of dedication, passion, and a genuine love for keeping real music alive.

If you enjoy country music, bluegrass, gospel, and good stories from one of Eastern Kentucky’s finest musicians, you won’t want to miss this one.

Transcript

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How are you and welcome to the Live Screen Holler podcast with your host me, David Bangel Barnier. Let's get down to Holler and see who today's. Come on, gentlemen, take this to you, have to sit down, and let's get going. Hi there, friends and neighbors, and welcome to another episode of the Five String Holler Podcast. I'm your host, David Banjo Barnett. Happy to be here today with episode four. I just want to thank you folks so much for your support so far with this podcast. We've had such a great response. I appreciate all the downloads. If you shared one of our posts on our Facebook page, thank you so much. Yep, I'm getting the word for this podcast out there. But uh, episode four, we're here. I didn't think we'd get this far with it, but it's going really good. And like I said, if it went for your all support, we couldn't do what we do. So be sure to check out our Facebook page, Five Strange Holler Podcast on Facebook. That's where I upload everything about the podcast, all the guests that are coming on, all the information. And remember, our podcast is available on all streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, iHeartRadio, all of your podcast uh streaming uh uh providers you could find us on there. So uh today I have a very, very special guest. All my guests are special because Banjoe Barnett just loves his friends. But this fella right here, he has a I I always tell people I've got two dads. I've got Doug Barnett and this guy. But at the same time, though, he's he's like a dad, but then you know he's he's probably my best friend in the whole world. He was the best man of my wedding. I mean, we palled around together for years. And this guy here, he's done so much for the music scene around eastern Kentucky. Like ever since I've known him and been around him, like you, you know, all these festivals that we used to get that used to have around here, he promoted the fire out of them. I mean, he was constantly going to radio stations, taking flyers, hanging them out around town. I mean, anything to do with local music, this guy right here was putting in the time and the work to make it as the best as he possibly could. And he's done a he's done a little bit of everything. He's a jack of all trades. I mean, he's done radio, he's been a music promoter, he's a singer, he's a songwriter. I mean, there's not no end to his talents, but I'm so glad that he's decided to come join us here in the hauler today. And I want you folks out there to help me give a warm welcome to our guest for episode number four, Mr. Gary Joseph. Thanks for having me, David. Buddy, I appreciate you coming on the podcast here. I I mean I'm I'm tickled to death, even though I talk to you every day. Still, I'm glad to have you on here. Well, we're glad to do it. We'll talk about something other. Hopefully, somebody will find interesting somewhere in part of this for sure. Man, you've done so much. I mean, you've got so many stories about everything from bluegrass, country, gospel. It's just uh it's an endless, uh, endless gold mine of good tales about music. Well, I've been doing this for over 40 years, so I've been doing this longer than you've been alive, believe it or not. That's true. That's true. So, I mean, you know what? We'll just start off, you know, like everybody, most guests that come on the podcast always start off asking them like, so growing up, when did music come into the picture? I mean, I know that you grew up uh mom and dad, um had a couple siblings, a sister and a brother, am I right? Yeah. Okay. Uh tight-knit family around here in Leslie County over here in the Cutchin area. Yeah, real tight. So, you know, grew up around family, cousins, aunts, uncles, and all that. So just talk about that. And like when did music sort of just come in the picture? I know you've got some pretty good stories. Well, it's come in real early. I don't know how early, probably three or four. Uh, of course, grew up in church, so that was always a big part of my entertainment was the music in the church when I was little, because that's all we did. We didn't have TV. Did have a radio, and uh actually had a little bitty small transistor radio I'd listen to every night, keep it under my pillow so it didn't wake mom and dad up. But listen to the stations out of uh Atlanta and Louisville and Nashville, and of course the local stations around here, and uh the more I listened to it, the more I like music. What was you listening to, like what artist? Uh, it was a a little of everything. I listened to everything from uh Conway, Twitty, and Loretta, Hank Williams, and uh eventually I got up to ACDC and KISS and some of that stuff, so I like it all. So early on, mostly country music. Mostly country and bluegrass. Uh that was the only thing that mom and dad didn't think was super evil, even though they thought it was still evil. They didn't think it was as evil as the rest of it, so I kind of got by with some of it. Yeah, I know I know back in the back early on days, you know, some of the older folks kind of uh sometimes I guess these new forms of music that was coming out, they they quite didn't agree with. I know that, you know, back early on, which I'm sure you was around to witness it, you know, Loretta Lynn was coming out with all these country songs about called the pill and uh don't come home with drinking and singing about stuff like that, you know, to us compared to the music nowadays, that's harmless. Oh yeah. But back then it was like a oh my god, you know. It was. And of course, Conway with never been this far before. And that was another one that was kind of iffy back then, it's like probably what to me rap is today. Right. Uh of course I guess mom and dad put the same way about my music I do about some of the newer stuff, so right, right. So you're listening to this little radio under your pillow. Um has do anybody play like around at that time, like you got any like uncles, cousins, guitar players, piano players, or well, uh just all the music I heard then was probably church music, just a guitar, the church we grew up in when we was sort of when I was smaller, just had a flat top guitar, that was it. And then my uncle, he had an electric guitar down the down the haller, and I learned a little bit from him and listened to him for a little bit and started getting interested in wanting to do more. So about what age did you Well well let me ask you this, what did you pick up first? Like what was your first instrument? Uh probably guitar, I think. I remember dad had a Manlin when I was lesser than I got the guitar, and one time I I figured how to do the picking and he would do the the noting on it, and we had it going pretty good. Then that kind of stayed away for three or four years, and then I think I was nine or maybe ten years old, I got my first guitar. Still got it in there, believe it or not. Buddy Young restored it for me a few years ago, and I've still got it hanging on the wall in there. So Yeah, I've seen it. I I believe it or not, I've got my first guitar too. Yeah. Mine was a little harmony. Yeah. It's hanging on the wall at the house. This one probably don't even didn't even have the name Harmony. It's probably cheaper than the Harmony, but uh it's valuable to me. So do you remember how you got it? Yeah, uh well, dad and mom got it for me for my birthday. I think I was ten or eleven, maybe, and I got it from birthday, and they gave twenty five dollars for it, and for them that was a lot of money. I mean, back then because we were raised poor. So I I appreciate that and nobody I don't care nobody ever showed me a chord, I was watching everybody else, and by the time I got it, I knew five or six chords just from looking at everybody else's fingers. But took me a long time to catch on how to do it, do it right. Dad could play guitar, he could do the Carter family stuff, he could play note for note perfectly. If it came to changing chords and playing rhythm, he didn't have a clue. Guessing what C chord was, he had no idea. But he could play the lead notes perfectly. And I started doing that and I finally figured out that weren't working for me. And one day it just opened up to me and I could hear chord changes pretty good. So what kind of music was you playing at the time when you're a little guitar? Yeah. Probably gospel, southern gospel pretty much. That's all I really really knew. What's some of what's some of the the gospel singers and and family bands back then you was listening to? Yeah. Cook duet, that's before it was the singing hooks, it's when just Mum and Dad, I I remember them. Mm-hmm. And uh of course Dad he had a lot of bluegrass tapes, but they were all gospel bluegrass, and of course, Ralph Stanley and the Stanley brothers was his number one thing. He they were his hero, so a lot of that stuff, and he played it so much I hated bluegrass. But uh come down a few years later I heard the seldom scene and Jimmy Martin and my taste changed. I started liking bluegrass then. Was that the aha moment with with bluegrass music? It was when I heard John Duffy and Charlie Waller, that was didn't sound like the Stanley Brothers. Now I like the Stanley Brothers, but I heard so much of it back then that's all I knew, and then I just got sick of it. You remember what song you heard that kind of Uh I don't remember for sure which one it was, but uh maybe I I said Seldom Seen, but it's probably the Country Gentleman at that time because Charlie Waller was singing. And uh I c I can't remember which ones it was. There's a lot of 'em. I I do remember bringing Mary home, I remember that one. Oh yeah. Yeah. I remember that one that the Seldom scene did. One of my first I remember the first country gentleman song I ever heard um was uh Matterhorn. Yeah, I remember that one too. Yeah, Matterhorn was the first one. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, did that and then started in grade school and probably about the fourth or fifth grade, the Dolans brothers come to school every year. Yeah, Melvin and uh Ray used to do that. They used to go travel to schools and put on concerts. Tell us about that. That was the first real show that I ever saw in my life was when they come to the grade school, Hazel School. And uh, of course they were characters, they have a bar suit they'd put on, and they'd do a whistling contest, make you eat crackers and see who could whistle the fastest after that. But uh it was so fun, and I that's when I guess I really fell in love with music when I seen what they were doing. Because that's the first thing I'd seen outside the church was mostly just guitars up to that time, and then banjo coming uh in there, and then uh a few times that he brought the whole band with him, which you had the fiddle and the doghouse bass, a few times it was just him and Ray, but it was it was good. And I did finally get to meet Melvin and promoted a show with him, so that come full circle around, that was a big thing. So when you first saw him in school, what year was that? Not trying to tell you age or nothing. I was I was just curious. I don't care. I'm I'm 60 years old, will be in October, the good Lord's willing, so I'm glad I got to live that long. So I was probably I don't know, probably uh 75, 76, somewhere through there, I'm guessing. Cool. So cool, cool. Then uh a few years later, the Osborne brothers started coming to hiding to the Richard Nixon Center, so they would take all the grade school kids over there, and we got to watch the show over there, and that's when I heard pretty much real country music because they brought the steel guitar and everything with them over there. They had the whole the old rig, the steel drums. Yeah, was it Ronnie Reno playing bass for them or get or singing with them? I like remember it was great. I I can't really remember a song they sung, but I remember I I really did like it. Right. So that got me hooked on to it even more. Yeah, the the Osborne Brothers, they kind of I mean, I know some of the early Stanley Brothers recordings had drums in them, I'm pretty sure. But I think the Osburns kind of broke the ice with the whole Gideon because and I I think I read somewhere where Sonny simply said they was working package shows with Merle Haggard, and you know, they've got amps and drum sets and everything, and they're getting impaired with the banjo guitar, mailing the bass, and it's it's kind of dead air, yeah, trying to play with that kind of a magnitude of a sound. So, you know, here they had to put pickups in their instruments and use big fender twin amplifiers, and it it you people had to hear them, and it worked. It worked. Yeah, and even the people that didn't like it when they heard it, didn't know what was on, they liked it. I heard Bobby tell one time that he was at the Opry playing and he had the same manlin that Bill Munro had, and he had to had a pickup stuck in his manlin, and he talked to the sound man, and he said, I'll leave you a little short chord, nobody won't see it, and you plug it in. And they got up and played, and said when he got off stage, Bill said, I don't understand it. Said, your manlin's just like mine, but yours sounded so much better, so it's so clear out there. And Bobby said, I said, I don't know what's the difference. He said, You got the same manlin I got, Bill. So he actually liked what he heard, but he just didn't want didn't want to do that. But so that's just innovation, you know. Yeah. A lot of them a lot of the bluegrass guys back in back then were kind of iffy about plugging in. I I do know I've had two or three people I've met over the years tell me this, although some people will argue against it. But there was a small period of time I think in the late 60s, early 70s that Ralph Stanley actually tried plugging in. Because I had a friend that had a guitar, like a guitar cabinet, speaker cabinet, that had Ricky Lee's name in it. The guitar player used to play with the Clinch Mountain Boys, Big Tall Boy, and Ricky Lee. So there was a time period they everybody was trying it because they was trying, you know, different things. Of course, you know, some of them stuck with their their their ways, and I'm glad they did, though, because you know, the Stanley brothers kept that traditional sound alive just by being who they were. Absolutely. You know. Yeah, that's that's good for for everything. So there's plenty of room in music for all kinds of stuff. There is. There's the progressive and the traditional, and it can w work right side by side, and and there that's the good thing about music. It it's it's different for everybody, but it does everybody the same way. It makes them happy. Right. And of course, sounds like when you saw the Osborne Brothers and and all their uh glory back then that that made you Oh yeah, I started. It did, and about it was about that time a little later that I got my guitar, so probably the first song I learned how to play was probably Wildwood Flower, I think, or maybe I saw the light. But of course everybody learns that Wildwood Flower pretty well. And me too, yeah. That was probably one of the first songs I learned to play on the guitar. So I fooled around doing that stuff and learning a few little things here and there. Then I got in high school, and the first year I went to high school was 1980, I think. And that first year John Anderson came to hiding for the first time. I think he came three or four times total. But that first time he came, uh I was really wild and amazed. And uh I was sitting on the right side of the Richard Nixon Center, and he was walking upstage. There's a guitar pick fell out of his pocket, and uh, I just eased my way over, picked it up, and I showed it to you a while ago. It was laying on the table, but I may put it up, but I still got that guitar pick to this day, and I wouldn't take nothing for it. So that that pick you uh when you saw John Anderson, it it belonged to him, fell out of his pocket. Yep, it did. He was walking up the steps on the right side of the was swinging out this time. No. So this this was before swinging. This first year his he had he had just had uh uh You're lying blue eyes, that was his hit. Then he came back the following year and and he had a uh old chunk of coal was on the charts that year. What about 1959? Was it out yet? I don't remember. I don't remember. That's that's two songs I remember that he did. Uh he did a lot of them. Yeah. But it was it was an awesome show. So, of course, John's mom's from Leslie County, so that made it even more special and still does. Oh, John Anderson's mom's from Leslie County? Yes. Wow, I did not know that. Yeah, his I think his mom and and the high school prince or assistant principal Cecil Hoskins, they were either brother and sisters or first cousins. I can't remember, but they were really close related. Wow. So that's how he ended up in Leslie County for three or four times. He came back later after I'd got out of school and he did a show on the football field, but I didn't make it to that show. But still got memories from all those way back there. So Right, right. Anybody else did you see early on back then? Well, there was also a rock band came to school then when I was a freshman, and their name was Free Fire. And they did some uh Oriol Speedwagon stuff, and I was totally blown away with that. I mean, it was a full rock show. Wow. And I don't think schools let them do stuff like that now, but I mean this was it was full blown and it was great. I don't think I've ever heard of the the group. Do you know what happened to them? They I have no idea. I don't know. Don't know where they came from or anything, but they were really good. Wow. So I got a lot of my education in school for music, I guess. Well, hey. Gotta get it somewhere. Gotta get it somewhere. So I did that for a little while. Me and my cousins played around a little bit here at the house and just picked some, learned a bunch of Merle Hagrid stuff and uh some uh well, all kinds of stuff, George Jones and all kinds of that good stuff, and then I got involved in church when I was about seventeen or eighteen. So I started doing Southern gospel pretty much all I did. Now I know you're a pretty good piano player, so was getting into church, was that about the time you started playing the piano or Well it was not long after that. When we got down there there still was only nothing but flat top guitars when I started going to church. There was always there. Right. And uh then we got a 12-string guitar, my cousin did me play it. Then we saw other people using a bass guitar, and me and my cousin we decided we wanted one, and I had an old Kauai Tesco guitar that my uncle had gave me when I was probably thirteen or fourteen. So we decided we was gonna make us a bass, so we took two strings off of it, put four or six strings off the guitar, the four E-strings on it, and made us a bass, and that's how I learned how to play bass. Wow. And we did that for probably a year or two. Then we brought a guy named Buddy Hubbard to church, and he was a great singer from Auburn, Virginia, around the Norton area. He was a great gospel singer, and he had a keyboard player with him, and I got interested in playing piano. And we bought a I actually had a little small organ. You've probably seen those little things that are about two foot long. It got all the notes on one side and the keys on the other side. You turn them on, it's like a vacuum cleaner powering up. Yep. Yeah, the little tabletop one. I don't remember what the name of it was, but anyway, I learned the k the chords for a piano on that little organ. Wow. And one day I was sitting around and I figured out the the theme to the Waltons on it, and I said, I can do this. And we went and bought an electric piano at the church. We taught the pastor into going by us a piano, and it was a little old small thing, and actually I traded for it last year and I've got it back. Really? First piano I learned on. Yeah, it's a R D Sonic, it's made by multi-voice. And I've got it down in the building. I pushed it up one time since I bought it back, but uh Wow. Yeah, it hits electric piano, but it's it's not worth a lot in money, but it is to me because it's what I learned to play piano on. That's amazing. Hey, if you can recover stuff like that, I mean that's that's that's yeah, that's beyond amazing. Absolutely. So that's where I learned to do that at, and we did that for probably eighteen or twenty years. Did lots of third churches, and we traveled with two or three different bands and uh all over Kentucky and Virginia and Georgia and just Tennessee, different places. We did Southern Gospel, did that for a long time. And then around 2001 or two or somewhere through there, I got in the mood to want to do bluegrass. Before we get into the bluegrass part though, uh talk about the gospel part. Because I you had a yeah, I remember you had a couple funny stories you told me about going to Georgia and uh like the cattle riding the brown Cadillac, your dad had a Oh yeah, well. Tell us about that. Well, actually to Georgia, we went to a black AME church down there, and uh it's probably 10, 12 of us went in a suburban. We all fit in the suburban. We didn't fit, but we were in there. We were crowded. And we went down there in this big old church. We didn't none of us had ever been in a church that big in our life. It'd probably seat two, three thousand people. We used to thirty, forty people being a big crowd for us, so we went down there and uh of course they treated us so good. It was a black church, but uh it was really great. They told us to get up today, said we've got all kinds of instruments, you don't need to bring anything. They had this old piano and it was so bad out of tune, it was pitiful. And my cousin was playing it, I was playing bass. And and actually they had a good bass, so I was alright on it. But he couldn't do anything on that piano. But when when we quit, that guy got up there, was a member of that church, and just a piano. I don't know if he had it tuned different or what it was, but he made it come alive. I bet you they had good music down there, didn't they? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And that that building was probably 150 foot long, and we went down in the basement and they had a table from one end to the other and full of food for us. And we absolutely ate. That's a big thing about gospel music. You get to eat a whole lot. Well, I'd say there was good cooks down there too. Oh, they were. Absolutely. Yeah, we did a lot of homecomings around here and a lot of different things, and it was You get to eat good when you play music. That's one good thing about it. Most of the time you get to eat good. Even what we do now, we get we if we don't get cooked before we cook ourselves, right? Right. That's it. That's it. So musicians likes to eat, singers likes to eat. But we done that for a long time and uh still enjoy gospel music. Kenny Henson, in my opinion, is probably the greatest singer that was ever born. Absolutely. And doubt anybody else. I don't I don't know if God could do it again or not. I guess he could, but I've never heard nobody could sing like Kenny Henson. He's still my favorite of all times. Now I've got a favorite country singer, I got favorite rock singers, bluegrass singers, and gospel singers. But if I had to pick one out of all, I think Kenny Henson would probably be my favorite of every bit of it. Oh Lord, yeah, absolutely. And for those out there listening to this episode, if you've never listened to Kenny Henson, I need you after this episode to go on to YouTube. Type in Kenny Henson, call me gone. You need to listen to this man. Absolutely. I mean, you know, we we've got our country legends that we love to hear saying, you know, the the golden voice of the country music like George Jones, Keith Whitley, um Daryl Singletary, all them guys that's got that, you know, smooth voice with all them curls and inflections, but you need to listen to Kenny Henson because that man right there is absolutely incredible. Absolutely. Uh Lefty Frizzell and Merle Haggard, known for putting all these syllables and all these words that they sang. They said they would put 10 syllables to a word that usually had one. Well, Kenny can put twenty syllables in that same word. And it really I mean, he just stretches it out and it'll it'll tear your heart out. There was always talk that uh Kenny was offered several times to come record country music and he wouldn't do it. Yeah. I think he recorded one song that was kind of in the middle one time, and that was it. But it was good. But he didn't need to. I mean, he could do the gospel and I mean they could tear him and the rest of his whole family they could tear it up. And actually I got to meet Kenny's brother. Kenny had already died, but when I was uh working for Big Lots Furniture in Hazard, uh huh. I assistant manager one Sunday morning I was there, and well, Sunday afternoon, I think we came in at twelve, but anyway, this guy came in with glasses and curly hair, and I didn't pay much attention to him. He walked up to him and he said, Sir, have you got one of these stores in Nashville, Tennessee? I knew his voice as soon as he spoke to me. I said, Sir, we sure do, but your name's Ronnie Henson. I said, and you're my hero. And that was one of the greatest things that I can remember about retail music, or retail business, was getting to meet one of my heroes, which was Ronnie, which is Kenny's brother, which wrote the songs that Kenny sang most of. Kenny did, I think he wrote Call Me Gone. I think Kenny wrote that one, but the Lighthouse, which is probably their biggest hit ever. Yeah. Oh, yeah, the Lighthouse, that's a classic. Yeah, Ronnie wrote that on a piece of toilet paper one time and threw it away. What? Yeah, he p he wrote it on a piece of toilet paper and he threw it away. He didn't think it was going to be any good. Yeah. And uh, of course, the rest of it's history. Wow. So that was a big part of the gospel music, and I I loved it and I still do. But uh, I got to see the old them and uh primitive quartet, which is a bluegrass gospel. I got to see them several times in the early eighties, and man, they were they were a big influence on me and still are. I think I seen the other day that they're doing their final tour this year. Uh several of them have died, but there's several of them left. And it's it's not a quartet. They always call themselves a primitive quartet, but there's usually five or six of them at least. Yeah, I think they retired, they're doing something else now called Primitive Road or something. That's another guy doing that, but now they're also doing a tour this year. I know he plays band, Joey. He's the guy who plays band who sings that song about telephone and heaven. Yeah, yeah. He's got that primitive road, I think, band they're doing. It's kind of like an old uh, you know it is, and it sounds a lot like them. Right. And I think he he may have played with them one time or something, or he's related to them. I don't remember exactly how it is. He was the he was playing the band. Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. But now the actual quartet, the actual guys were still doing a final tour this year. Oh, really? Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, but one of them had surgery the other day, but he said he's gonna be re alright and he's gonna recover and finish this tour up. But uh they were a great influence on me and still are, so that's and then that's kind of stuff like that got me into the bluegrass music. And uh one day I was driving up the road to my neighbors, or driving home from work, and my neighbor and a bunch of guys down there parked, all kinds of cars were side of the road. And they were sitting in his dad's garage, and I heard a banjo and guitar and a manlin, and I stopped by and said, Can I come play with you all? And they said, Come on back. And I went, come up here and got my guitar, and that's what got me into bluegrass. Do you remember who it was? Like who the people was? I do, and uh of course the guy that owned the garage down there, his name was Greg Davidson, and uh he wrote a lot of good songs, and me and him wrote some together, and uh Rob Cornick, which became once we put together the band Little Creek Grass, Rob and Greg was part of that band, and I think Kenny Pennton was there that day, and then Odell Mullins uh was a banjo player that night, and John Caldwell, he's another banjo player, and he he got killed in a car wreck a few years ago. Yeah, I remember him. Yeah, he was one of the finest people I ever knew in my life. Yeah, he was a good, good old fella. He was. He really was. But anyway, we started the band. None of us didn't know what we were doing. I did some stuff in church, but church stuff's different than bluegrass shows. Uh when you go to the bluegrass show, they expect you to know what you're doing. Church, the churches we went to, you didn't have to, you just got up and done it because you was doing it for the Lord. Of course, we had fun with it. We tried to do it as best we could, but when we started putting together the bluegrass band, none of us didn't have a clue what we were doing. We had seven or eight people trying to do a bluegrass band. That don't work. No, that that that could be a cluster. Three or four guitar players, and we like we loved every one of them, and we all was trying our best, but it just it didn't work. It finally dwindled down to about four or five of us. And uh, of course, we made a lot of flops along the way, but we had a lot of fun along the way. When we first started, Greg had his own tuning on Manlin. And then it was it was a weird tuning. He saw Ricky Skagg's uh CD and bought it, and Ricky had his finger on one string on the on the Manlin, and for some reason Greg thought that was a key of G that uh Ricky was playing out of. I don't know where he got that idea, he'll tell you that today. And so he he came up with this tuning, it was a weird tuning. And for a long time, that's the only tuning that he knew. He finally got to be paid in standard tune, he learned how to do it. But I mean, we were we were all like that. I mean, we we had no idea what we were doing. We tried to put together a bluegrass band. Just home homegrown. Yeah, it was homegrown. I've actually got a CD we made, and uh it don't play uh I don't put it on YouTube or anything. But uh good good old days, I learned a whole lot from them, and we had a lot of fun. We traveled a lot together. We actually one year uh was uh probably been playing four or five years, I'd been going to Oswald Brothers Festival a few years then, and I'd met Josh Graves, and about not about that time Josh got real sick and had to have his legs removed, and they were having a benefit show for him down in Birmingham, Alabama, and a lady messaged me from down there and asked me if we would like to come and play. Of course, for us, we thought that was the biggest thing in the world. Right, right. So I went, I was working there and still at B Lots and had a pretty good job, so I went and rented a van myself, and uh we all got in there and drove down to Birmingham, did this show. Bobby Osborne was supposed to have been down there and he got sick, I think. No, Bobby was there, that's right. Jimmy Martin was supposed to be in there, and Jimmy was in the hospital at that time. So we we got to play with several guy people down there. Got down there and had a great time. Then the old guy Rob that was with us, he said, boys, I'm going back home tonight. We had planned on staying on I guess probably a seven or eight hour drive or something or down there. Right. So we had no choice, but we played, drove straight back. We I mean we we left at two o'clock in the morning, I think it was, or and we got down there in that evening, played the show, came back home, and got back two o'clock the next morning. Wow. Of course there was all kinds of good times on that trip, but I can't can't really say here on there, but uh we we had we had some good times. Really now? Oh yeah, I I would embarrass one of the guys if I was to was to tell, but it was fun. But anyway, that was that was part of our bluegrass thing, and then I got into promoting shows. First show I were promoted was up at the National Guard Armory in Hazard, Kentucky. I've got a magazine down there in my building uh from the program that year, and our headliner was Ernie Thacker in Route 23. Wow. I know you uh you've done you know, you besides playing and singing, you know, that's one thing about you, you've done quite a bit of promotional work. Well, we weren't that good at that time, so we I had to promote herself to get us to play. So that's what that's what we actually did. And uh that's not, I mean, it's just truth to truth. Well, I mean, we were okay. So this was Wolf Creek Grass era, right? This was Wolf Creek Grass era. Okay. So I I put the show apart at the Armory, had five or six groups. Shouldn't ever do that in a one-night show. You ain't got time for everybody to play. But we made it work. Ernie came in and something was going on. He said, Will you do me a favor? He said, I'll repay you. I said, What? He said, You let us play first. I said, Are you kidding me? You're gonna open up for us tonight? He said, Yeah, that's what we want to do. I said, You don't owe me no favor. That's a big thing, you know. He already had the crowd going. Right. The town was terrible up there. I mean, you couldn't hear a word in there, but everybody loved it. But we had him up there, we had uh Burning Couch, I think, we had uh Bits and Pieces was over there. Fred and Alice. Fred and Alice and Darkus and Malty, and uh we had a great show. I mean, it turned out good and made money off of that show. And then I started promoting the Hazard Bluegrass Festival. We did that for nine years. So yeah, so tell us, because I know this was probably the longest running thing that you did do. Yeah. So tell me about how it got started, like where the idea come from, who did somebody give you the idea? Did you just kind of just sync it up one day? Well, like I said, we weren't the best band, we weren't the worst band, but we weren't the best band. And it weren't easy when you weren't the really good band because Bluegrass was getting pretty popular then, so we weren't getting in a whole lot of festivals that we wanted to be in. So my big bright ideal is I put one together myself. That way we get to play a festival. Right. And it worked, and I met a lot of great friends from doing that. Bruce Weeks from down in Georgia and his family, we were still really good friends. Met them uh when I was doing the radio station, and they called and asked, can we come up and do the festival for you? We don't even don't even want no money. And uh I said, sure. So, so like where'd the idea of the festival come from? Like where where did it birth at? Uh I was just sitting around. I don't know, I maybe I think I actually went to the Brock Brothers Festival one year and it was a smaller thing. And uh, of course I later helped promote that festival also. Where was that one at? That was up at the pine patch up on Stenet. Uh just past Stennet High or grade school up there. Okay. So the Brock Brothers, which was Carlos and Lonnie, Carlos was one of the regional bluegrass boys. Not the regional, but he was a bluegrass boy for a long time. He's one of the guys that actually sold that sung at Bill's funeral, and Bill had a lot of singers, so for them to pick him to sing at his funeral, he had to be pretty special to him. Right, right. So Carlos was a great singer, and I got to meet him, and we've become real good friends. And uh, but I was there and I saw the little pest play. I mean, it weren't nothing like the Osman Brothers. It was a smaller on a smaller scale. I said, I think I can do this in hazard, ain't nobody doing that. So I I decided to put one together one day. I went and got some sponsors and put it together because they wouldn't let me charge where I was at. And we did that for, like I say, for nine years. Cold business was pretty good when I first started. The time we quit, it was kind of going down, so we had to let it go. But uh, we had a lot of bands come along through that time we were there. I actually had Alan Bibe, and uh I don't remember which band it was he had when I had him over there. But uh that was one of our bigger bands we had. Of course, I met Alex Hibbits, you know him. Oh yeah, the slow dog himself. Oh yeah, Alex came over with his band and played for us there at Hazard one time. And uh we had a lot of great people that came and played, and we we uh Highway One or Bluegrass 101, they were a good band that we brought in. Of course, I met I made good friends with Dean Osborne. He played some of my festivals, and I played some of his festivals, and I learned a lot of promotion promotional stuff from him, and we'll talk about that later. But anyway, that that festival was there at Hasra run for about nine years, and we had a great time, and it finally just had to kind of come to an end. I remember I played it when I was uh a member of a little band called Mount Melody. Absolutely. I had them there almost every year. I mean, there was there was a few years I didn't have, but most of the time we did. Them and Rambling Grass, which was Burning Couch and his band, they were the two staples that I always had there every year. If I could make it work, I made them work. Right. And hit uh we always traded shows out. Just had a great, great time. So what what would you say was the best year? Uh I don't know, but you know, when we had Alan Bibee and I I forget the names band, uh he'll he'll Crash Town or Blue Ridge. It's Blue Ridge. Blue Ridge Years, okay. Yeah, Blue Ridge. Yeah, yeah. Yes. We had them there. That was one of the better shows we had. Was Junior Sis uh Sang and Lead with him? He was, yes, he was. Okay. All right. Yeah, he was still playing Sang and Lead with them. And uh I I see the Bigger Staff, I think. Eddie Bigger Staff on bass. Yeah. Uh Bang your player had been Joey Cox. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Uh that was a great time. And uh so but we had a lot of a lot of local bands we played because we always did the festival for free. And uh I that's why I had to get sponsors, and that's why it finally came to the end because sponsors got harder to get. But we did that for, like I say, for nine years, and uh and about the end of that nine year I was kinda going from bluegrass to country. So we last year we kind of mixed up bluegrass and country because I wanted to go out on a bang. We had a good year of that year too. You all played there. And then uh from then, I think I went over to Kingdom Come. No, actually before that, I started the Leslie County Opry. That was in 2004. Tell tell us about that. I started that, that was before the college was uh actually in the building over at Hyden right now, where they're at now, with the Bluegrass School of Music, where Dean Osborne's at. We started the Leslie County Little Opry there. I had some great people there. That's when I brought Melvin Goans in over there. And then we brought in uh, let's see, I'm trying to think. We brought Ernie Thacker back over there. There were several bands we had in there that did a great job. We had a good time over there. And then that kind of came to an end, and I moved over to Lecture County and started working at Kingdom Come Elementary, the old school building over there. And uh we started doing shows over there, so we changed it from Lesser County Opry to the Sugar Grove Opera, yeah, because that was the name of the boating precinct at that time over there. Sugar Grove Opry, yeah, it sure was. Now, this I think this is about the time that me and you crossed past. It was. That's when I really got to know you good. Yeah, because I know I'd known you before, uh, because you know, like I said, when I was growing up, you know, I always watched front porch picking. Yeah, I was on the big deal. And you was on Airwolf Creek grass, so I knew who you was, and every once in a while you all you guys would come to Hempel. You know, and I I was always going Friday Night Bluegrass, and sometimes you would just come up there uh by yourself. I know I used to. This is so funny thinking back now, because I do remember, because you always come and you was pretty well dressed. I always thought you was like a car salesman. I was at one time. You was? Okay, so I was I was right. At least I was right. I know Betty Betty's laughing at us, but I did. I thought you was a car salesman, I really did. I was that one time I actually worked in a funeral home at one time. Yeah. Sold perfume at one time. Well now I know you you all told me one time when I was I come here one evening and we was hanging out and we grilled out. You all told me you used to sell cook wire. We sold chord done blue cook wire, made more money at that than anything I did in my life. Wow. And uh, like I said, I've did it all. I've been electrician, carpenter, uh, exterminator, uh retail sales, uh just a plain old labor for whatever. So I I I've I've had a good good life of learning to do a lot of things. Well, I know like when I met you when, you know, that we you started the sugar grow operator over there at the Kingdom Come School, it turned turned it to a community center. I think you was a security guard, wasn't you? At one time I was, yeah. I think you was. I left a one job for two years from Hazard Par and Safety and went over there and I actually started doing security work for Nat in Hamilton for a while. Yeah. And uh yeah, when I went over there, we started with bluegrass over there. When I went over there, we started with bluegrass and uh still had Will Creek Grass as a band. And uh we brought in Dave Evans over there, one of my heroes. Oh man, let me tell you right now. Dave Evans is the God of my that man's voice. I mean the soul. It just oozes out like it comes out and droves like the soul and the feeling the heart. I mean, you just can't you can't that man's music if you uh uh listen to it and it does not touch you and move you. I feel sorry for you. Absolutely. Because I mean he just he hits him high notes and I mean he he eases up into them and it just you feel it. You feel that that emotion in that song. Yeah. I admit Dave a few years before that, and of course Dave had his reputation, and we're not gonna say anything, but he was a great man. But there's a few times he he would be there and we'd be opening up, and he he was having too much fun to sing too much, so a few times we sung most of the show for him. Uncle Dave ain't no different than the rest of them. They've all done it. Absolutely, and and I love him dearly like a brother, and I I hated it so bad when he passed away. Yeah, we lost Dave here a few years ago. Yeah, sure. And he opened up a little place down at Watch Far House there for a while. I played it. Yeah, I did too. He booked us down there and we played, and then I booked him back for over there at Kingdom Come. And uh put on a heck of a show at night. I mean, he done a really good show. Brought Jeff Clare over there with him, and I don't remember who I but he had a good band over there with him. And the funny thing I always remember back when we got done, it's time to pay him. I said, Dave, let me get you some money. Let's go here in the bathroom, let's make it our office tonight. I said, okay. And I went in there and I said, We'd made a deal, it's gonna be on a percentage basis of what we took in the money, and I said, Dave, we're not we're not gonna be able to give you what we've told you. I said, I think it's 80, 20 or something like that. I said, but we're gonna do better, we're gonna give you 100% because we want to. No, nope, that weren't the deal. I told you I'd take 80% and you keep the rest of it. I said, No, you did a great show, we want to do this for you. Um he it just made him happy. But uh we we remained friends right up to the time he died, so yeah, I I got to spend a pretty good lot of time with Dave too, and I I always enjoyed it. I I know down at Watts Far Department, I remember when I played it, he actually was in the kitchen. Yeah. And he made me the best sub sandwich I ever ate in my entire life, still to this day, and I mean that's been ten years ago at least. I can still remember that sub sandwich, how good it was. Oh yeah, it was so cool. That was the good old days for sure. He uh probably one of the most coolest things I ever got to do with Dave. Um he uh he was up Poppy Mountain one year and and Marty, the guy that you know owns the the ground up there, uh always let Dave stay out in this little cabin when you go out towards where the campers are. It's right around the curve there. I know I can see right where. But he was up there one night and um everybody you know was up there visiting with him there was some picking going on and he had his old banjo there that old Gibson that he called old Biss. And Dave couldn't play at the time. He got to where he couldn't pick none. And um he wanted somebody to play that banjo, and there was another well-known banjo player there. And for some reason that guy did not want to play Dave's banjo for him, and I I just thought that was yeah. I was like, man, you don't play a tune for that man, you know. He's he's been around longer than me and you put together. Absolutely. But this particular banjo player, and I'm not gonna mention his name, but he he wouldn't play the banjo, wouldn't play Dave's banjo, and he just kind of walked off. And I was standing there, and I mean I didn't volunteer myself, and somebody said, Hey, it's Car here who plays banjo. And Dave saw me and said, I know him, you know, and Dave motioned for me to come over and he got old best out of the case and he handed handed to me and I put my pics on, and Nikki Joe and Cindy were there too. Sandy had her mail, and Nikki Joe had his guitar. We sat down there and we jammed for two or three hours with him, and it was just so good. Oh yeah. He'd sit there and he'd he'd tell me little things to do and teach me little nuances about playing backup and stuff. It was it was so cool. I'll never forget that. As long as I live, that was just such a cool moment to spend with Dave Evans. Absolutely. Dave was awesome. So that was one of my highlights from there at Kingdom Come. One of them, I mean we got several of them. We'll talk about one or two more. Yeah, and we started promoting festivals there after that, and uh so I brought Dean Osborne over there. I learned a lot about promoting festivals from Dean Osborne. I owe a man a lot of credit for a lot of stuff. I've learned a lot off of him, but uh we we started promoting festivals there. Finally brought in uh not for the festival, for a show one night, the Moron Brothers. Oh yeah, uh Boys right there. Oh yeah. I I thank the world of them fellas. Yeah, me too. They were they were awesome. They got up and picked with us on the last song, and uh Lardo played harmonica. Mm-hmm. Good heart player. Oh, yeah. Good heart player. Yeah, and we were just actually dabbling, we're just starting with the country thing then. Of course, it's just me and you there that night, I think. And uh Yeah, I I remember I was sitting there, I was sitting there watching, and you all was trying to use doing country music, and I you had like a you had a telecaster guitar up here, I'd noticed leaned against the wall, and I told Nikki to I said, hmm, wonder if you let me play with him. I said, just I might pick, try that, see if I can do it. He said, Well, go up there. I said, I don't see why he wouldn't. So I just walked up there and I said, I motioned, can I play the guitar? And guy shook his head, yeah. And I picked it up and that's where it started. That was how it started. It was. We were actually doing a country show at night, and Buddy Young had brought a steel guitar with her in '92 before that. Mm-hmm. And uh he played steel. I know he could play piano, I didn't know he could play still like that. And I always all my life wanted to play country music, but I never did want to play in bars because the reputation, and I grew up in church, and I was just scared of them to be honest with you. Right. Uh eventually I did go and play a few a few of them. But uh at that time I was didn't want to do anything like that. And I wanted to do country, and when Buddy came over there with that steel guitar, I said, I can do this. Yeah, oh yeah. And my voice fits this better than it does bluegrass, because my voice is not high enough for bluegrass. Even though I still loved it, I knew I couldn't sing it. I just played and hit. I didn't sing most of the time and hit. I'm trying to think. I know Buddy was playing still. I had I was playing your little telecaster, you was strumming a guitar and singing. Who was Bones playing bass? Earl Bone. I can't remember who was playing bass that night. Uh Ricky Day was playing drums, I believe. Yeah, yeah, Ric Day was playing drums. Yeah, and I can I can't remember. Seemed like it might have been Bones playing bass that night. I think it was. I'm about sure. I think so. Bones Earl Bone. That's we call him Bones, and uh Yeah, he's a he's uh such a he's a treasure. I ain't seen him in a in quite a few years. I I I'm bad for that. I I got so many friends it's hard to keep up with. Oh, me too. And I've been driving FedEx is probably the last time I seen him and talked to him. I talked to him on the phone since then, but it's been an been a year or two since I talked to him on the phone, I guess. But but yeah, we did that and you came in. I actually I think I was actually trying to play lead, and it sounded terrible, and I knew it did. And the guitar weren't much better. It was a stagged telecaster I had. Yeah. First telecaster I bought new. Bought it off of uh Philip Hobert, Tobby Music, and uh I had no idea how to set it up or anything, but I thought I could. Mabasamic. Yeah. That's what his dad would always say. I love Gordon Tombies, that little fella. He'd always say, Mabasamic. Yeah. Mabek makes it right there. Jack was an awesome guy, he really was. I learned a lot of stuff from him. But anyway, we was doing that. You came in, I handed you the guitar, and it made it sound like country music. And we actually went from there, and that's where it's gone till today. I mean, we've had a lot of stuff in between that, but uh uh kept on doing those festivals, and then not long before we quit over there, one of my heroes when I was in high school, he would get up and I'd hear it on radio in Hazard and WSGS, he'd say, Oh yes, I admit I got a thinking problem. Oh, David Ball. David Ball. Yeah, you had David Ball over. We got to pick with him. We brought him over, got to pick with him, he got up and sung a song with me. I still got a video of that, and I mean, a high school hero had a song like that and you get to sing with him. That's that's something else I'll never forget. I think the I remember when I was a kid, I heard the song Private Malone. Yeah, that was I think that was that was That's his biggest hit, probably was that one. Yeah. And he did it over there at night. He did, he did. He did. We had a good time with that show. And uh we had a lot of people over there. I mean, we've just done a whole lot. And we also, when we were, we had a another Eastern Kentucky legend who started coming around. Uh God rest his soul. He's willing to be with the Lord now, Mr. Marlowe Tackett. Absolutely. Marlowe, he actually taught me how to be on stage and what little stage presence I've got. I learned that in the country park from Marlowe. I give him all the credit for that. He he actually done, we got to be the back end band for him for a few shows. Oh, yeah. We did. We played Whitesburg uh Riverside Festival with him. I think we played uh we played another one somewhere. I can't remember. Oh, we played several. Larry Robart played with us a few times with us. Yeah. Larry passed away, but one night I said, Larry, tonight we get to be Southern Comfort, don't we? Uh we just loved it. I mean, I would actually take the sound system, all the instruments, haul them myself, and and not charge a dime just to get to play with Marlowe. Yeah. It was that much fun. It was. It was always fun because when he'd get up there, he'd just take off on anything. Yeah. We just had to pick it up and follow. And I I have never to this day seen a man could handle a crowd like he could. Oh, he keeps he had them in the palm of his hand. Yeah, he'd get up and saying, probably went to court and they'd loved him. I mean, he could do it. And I didn't I didn't really get to experience Marlowe's club days, although I got to play with some musicians later on that was members of Southern Comfort. Um but I can only imagine, you know, back then how much of an entertainer he was just going by the the few little the few times we got to play with him, you know, and play the shows back in the band. Absolutely. And he brought all kinds of people to Piper when he had that place down there. Yes, absolutely. He had George Jones down there, you had Del Reeves, he I think he had Merle one time. He had about everybody who was in country music come down there. Well, I mean, back then, you know, and that's what I've always said, like, really and truly, like I I I'll say this to the day I go on the ground. I was born in the wrong generation. I I wish I was the musician out I am now in the early 90s. Yeah. Because if I could I because that, you know, the club thing, people went to clubs on weeknights. That was the thing. Eight-hour shifts, you got off three o'clock, you went home, you and your wife, or girlfriend, or you and your wife and her and girlfriend both went to the local club, you know, Happy Hour on a Wednesday night to watch Marlo Tag at Southern Comfort, or um maybe he had he caught somebody like George Jones passing through and brought him in on a Wednesday night. I mean, that that was a big thing back then because if people wanted to hear live music in those days, you had to actually go watch it. Absolutely. YouTube, Facebook wasn't around. So that made that business of having a club with a a steady man five nights a week very lucrative. It did, it sure did. And Mardo knew how to do it, he knew how to handle the crowd. And he was always as humble as he could be, no matter where he was at on stage, and he treated everybody the same. And of course, you know, he had he had his Christmas giveaway every year. He did, and we played that for. We did, we got to play that too. He sure did. We got to play that with him several times, and uh and he it was just amazing. And the thing about as big a star as Marlowe was he had a he had a long running re-recording contract with RCA. I don't know, I think it was eight or nine singles that they released for him. And he and some of them topped up pretty high in the charts, but he never forgot who he was. He he said, I I always wanted to come home to my little place and pipeline into the night. So instead of wanting to go and make it big, he decided to come back home and do what he did down there. But everybody came up here to his Christmas program, no matter if they could sing or didn't have a bit of talent, he still treated them the same. Get up and sing, have fun. And that was just a great thing. And I I learned a lot from Marlowe and I'll never forget him. Absolutely. Never will forget him. And he was actually he was uh r going to re release a song that I actually released. It's called uh Paybacks or Hell that his guitar player, one of his guitar players had written never to get it copyrighted. So I changed a few words and the guy's passed away. I forgot his name, his his his last his anyway. I gave him the rights on the copyright. I changed and put my name on our first because he'd already passed away, but he's also got the copyright for that song. And I I owe that to Marlowe for that, because Marlowe never did get to record it. It was two guys who had the copy of the original song. One of them's dead, and he sent it to me. It was Jimmy Tolson. Tolson. He had the copy of that, and I I've still got it on my computer on an email. I've said Jimmy was a good friend too. Yeah. And uh I've got the original version of their rough cut of that song. Well, I I I'm glad that you gave Marlowe credit for that. Absolutely. Uh that's that's a good thing. Yeah, Marlowe did that, but now it wasn't him that wrote the song, it was one of his band members. And he had passed away. Uh-huh. And he'd already passed away, but I still put his name on there. Well, good. I had to put mine on it with it because to get it copyrighted. But at least you gave him credit. That's all that matters. That that's that's the right thing to do. His name was Wild Bill. I can't remember his last name. I've got it. If you look up the song on YouTube, you'll see he was one of the writers on it. Right. But yeah, we did that and uh good life lessons most of the time. That's right. That's what it is. That's what country music's all about. I think of Hank Williams, I always think of House of Gold. Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's amazing to that man how many songs he wrote, died at twenty-nine year old. And you could probably come up with forty or fifty songs that's popular that that guy wrote. Mm-hmm. That's true. That's that's amazing. Yeah, that's very true. He wrote quite a few. He did, he wrote a bunch of them and uh good songs too. Not only songs, but good songs. Mm-hmm. And that's what made country music so good, and it's why I think I still like the traditional stuff so well. It had it had a melody more than just a hundred words repeated or ten words repeated a hundred times. It actually had a story about it. That's why I think I like traditional music the way I do. Right. But uh to each their own and the people are doing the new country music, God be with them and help them, because they're doing what they like. We do what we like to do, and we enjoy it, and they need to enjoy what they're doing. Everybody's cup of tea ain't the same if it was, it'd only be one company. That's true. No, my tea is a is a mixture of oof, Lord, all kinds of stuff. Yeah, that's me. I like a little everything. Like I say, I I like it all. I like I like I even like some jazz, I like some classical music. People say, you don't like that classical music? Hey, I was raised on cartoons. That's the kind of music's in cartoons. Yeah, that's true. You don't realize that classical music had that kind of impact on you until you start thinking about that. Uh Bugs Bunny and Road Runner and all that stuff. I like it like I like me a soup bean dinner. Oh yeah. Oh, we had some good good dinners over there at Kingdom Come, good time soup beans and uh Oh yeah, yeah, that's true. Good jams. A lot of people that when we was over there doing those shows, I'd say probably 85% of them are passed on now, and it's sad. Yeah. Yeah. I I I sat there one night not too long ago here and I I I was telling my wife, because I was talking about, you know, some of the places we used to play and things, and I said it's sit and think about it. I mean how a lot of them people are gone. Since the time we started doing the country stuff, or even back before then, if we could bring back all the fans that followed us faithfully at some of them shows, we'd fill up about every building we go to right now if if it was all back alive. Probably. Because we had a lot of them at at that would come and see us, a lot of your family. Uh your Uncle Willie was another one that had a big impact on me. He had a lot of impact on me. Uncle Willie was just uh Willie taught me my first chords on the guitar. I I I owe a lot of my there's two people when I when I was, you know, a little kid that really well, I guess three. Um I'm in backing up three people. Well, no, four. I yeah. Let me get this right. When I was a little kid, there's four people I really can say that in the ear my early days of carrying my little guitar around when I was like six or uh five years old. You know, Uncle Willie was one of 'em. My uh Papa Henry, we called him Sug, my great-grandfather. Um my grandma nanny, Sue, you know, she encouraged me and uh my cousin uh Chris Williams, who was passed on as well. You know, he was a very talented musician, uh great guitar player, he's a r a rock guitar player, and blues too. But uh yeah, those those folks had a pretty profound impact early on. But Willie, I I remember Willie because you know, he he was a church piano player, you know, and he loved the Lord, but Willie liked country music too, and I didn't think there was a thing wrong with that. And he always sung these songs, and later on when me and you started doing the country troubadours thing, and he started coming around, I didn't realize how good of a early country education I'd got when I was a little kid from what Willie would sing. Because he was singing like Gary Stewart songs, old um Charlie Pride songs, old uh uh Porter Wagner songs. So, I mean, yeah, he it's I remember those times Willie would come to the jam with us and stuff. Oh, he would, and he'd sing a song and he'd tell you what it what it was about. I remember I I would I always loved Seven Spanish Angels. I always loved it. But I loved the melody, I never did he really even pay any attention to the words of it. And he sung it over there one night and he said, Man, that's something there. She prayed for a gun to go up and didn't have any bullets in it. And I had never listened to the story of that song, but that's what it was about. She knew the gun was empty. And she said her final prayer and it went off once again. And I mean he was just like a he would sing him songs and he'd tell you what it meant. And Willie had a big impact on me, and he's he's really missed. One time when I was a kid, I I'll never forget this. Uh, because I didn't, honestly, I didn't know. Willie did, I didn't know. But when I was a kid, you know, and I got to where I could play chords on the guitar, I would go play at church with Willie. I'd sit over there, he played pen, I had my little guitar, and I'd sit there, and I'd strum, and that's really how I learned to have a good ear for music because them little church ladies would get up and they would just pick a song out of a songbook, and I mean, heck, you didn't have time to learn it. You just had to take off with it. So I learned how to change chords on the fly, you know, and things like that. Well, I used to watch this little guy on TV. Uh, you remember Bob Smallwood? Oh, yeah. You know, and Bob Smallwood was the gospel guy on TV. Him, he'd have that little coffee on that, drinking that coffee, you know. And he'd play Wildwood Flower on uh uh on his show. So I always thought it, you know, it was just uh kind of a gospel song. So once I did church, I wanted to pick Wildwood Flyer and Willie shook his head no, and I was like, okay. And uh I said, okay. So I I didn't think much more about it, and we church was over with us. Walking to the parking lot, I said, I said, Willie? I said, Why can't I play Wildwood Flyer? And he started laughing. He said, That's a Corden song. I didn't know, I had no idea. I hadn't heard the Carter family version. I just scored Bob Smallwood. Yeah, he was something else. Uh that's songs my dad, he called jigs. He'd say, Now, son, you shouldn't be playing them jigs on that guitar. If it weren't gospel, he called it a jig. Play them jigs. Yeah, don't be playing them jigs. But uh, yeah, Willie was a great guy. We had a lot of fun over there at Kingdom Come, done a lot of stuff, and that time kind of finally came to an end. It did. And uh then we moved out to to King's Creek and done a bunch of shows over there at the fire department, did a festival or two over there. I remember those. And uh then after that we kind of got busy doing the shows with the country troubadours and have been around them for the last 12 years, and that's probably time was over there too. But uh then last year, or actually a year before last, we brought me back full circle and started the Leslie County little opery back up. Mm-hmm. And uh it's doing really well. Still do hit once a month over in Hyding at another location, and uh it's working out really well, so we've we've been doing that. So music has been a big part of my life, and you took music away from me, I wouldn't be very much for I could talk about. I know it's with me, it's I mean, I've got I've got a lot of interest, you know. I mean, I love to cut grass, food around with old lawnmowers. I got uh uh the vacuum cleaner collection thing I do and you know and all that, but music's been pretty much been the biggest part of my life since I've been a kid. Well, that's me, you know. There's actually uh several people that I I need to acknowledge that has been a big part of my music part. Probably for the country part, Buddy Young is probably the most important one because I had no idea that I could do country music and had no idea that I could do a show without going to a bar. And and Buddy played with us for a long time. He did. And and he's an awesome musician. He is. He used to he worked real hard because he played piano, he'd have a piano and a st he'd sit there and he had his pen and steal guitar, and he'd go back and forth between them, you know. Yeah, and he'd sing tenor and great backup singer, good lead singer too. He used to do some good songs with us there, so I I owe a lot to Buddy. Of course, Marl, like we said, I owe a big lot to him. Dean Osbourne, I learned a whole lot from promoting from that guy. And then the only guitar lessons I ever took in my life was only about three years ago, and Dean gave me them. Well, and uh I owe a whole lot to Dean for that, and I still can't play much, but I play better than I did before that. And uh then there's another guy that taught me a whole lot about music, and his name is Virgil Bolin. He was always also over there at the school in Haydn, and he taught me a lot about music and theory of music and a lot of that stuff, and uh I probably learned more in six weeks or maybe two months from him than I'd probably learn the rest of the 40 years, and I I I always tell him I owe a whole lot to him. And then of course when we got the country troubadours going after Buddy kinda had to move away and started doing gospel pretty much full time. I went to uh down to t Tennessee at Powell Valley one night and uh this was promoting a show when we had Leona Williams and Hazard. Uh huh. And we had her and run over there, and which and uh went down there and I met this guy that played piano. And he was just a cracker jack. And I I I'm sure I'd him somewhere else before but I don't know where but uh his name is Ronnie Dale and we became good friends that night and have been ever since and he's now our piano player in the band meeting you're in and Ronnie is just uh he's uh the walking history of country music. Yeah we're we're going to um uh Ronnie's gonna be on the podcast here soon we're gonna have him episode probably gonna have to get you to co-host that with me because we'll it'll take two of us to tame that one. It will have to do two episodes to get it all in there. Yeah but he uh of course he played with uh Del Reese for a long time played with Martha Carsons for a long time which is from up in Fleming Neoung that's where she is from and played with Marty Haggard yeah played with Marty and he played with a bunch of them people down there and that there's a bunch more he's told me about and and the thing about it unless you ask him he don't tell you that stuff he don't just go out and tell you unless he's I mean now when we were talking he tells us that stuff but if you just meet Ronnie he'll never mention I played in the Grando Open Retard he won't he won't tell you that I know I know when you when I first met Ronnie Dale you had told me you found this place in Harlan to go to listen to music. Yeah he after he left that place down there they closed it down and he opened up the place in Harlan I went over there and I told you about it. And I went with you one night and that's when I got introduced to Ronnie Dale and actually that night for me changed my playing in in our country band because um I met a gentleman over there uh Ronnie's guitar player Mr. Jerry Evans who uh passed away here recently too and I a lot of what I can do I owe to Jerry because it was going over there that night and that was probably the first really tight country band that I could actually watch live. And it's different when you watch somebody in front of you that you actually go up and touch them like talk to them. Absolutely and that little fall under me and it really helped my guitar playing just meeting Jerry and watching him and the way I play I I'm a weirdo. I play electric guitar with a thumb pick and my fingers I don't use a flat pick I just use a thumb pick and I've got fingernails and I try to keep them keep them all uh uh shaped good to play guitar with but uh that's where I learned to do that from was Jury. Right that's that's who to show me that and I I think really when we started going over to Harlan we started getting around them guys we got better. Oh absolutely we did absolutely and uh of course Jury later he played with us too a lot of times a lot of times he'd play when you was there and sometimes when you was having to do a bluegrass show or was working he would fill in and he's like you he play still and guitar both and Jury was a great guy. I actually met him down there at Pal Valley at Sun I met Ronnie and uh Ronnie said call me sometime and he said he said here's my wife's phone number said mine don't work. I don't know why he'd done that but he did but anyway uh long after that and Hor and on the nights he weren't over there he'd go and play with us until then on Friday nights and then uh after he moved down to Middlesbrough for about a year and done a lot of stuff down there and when that place of COVID came along and they finally shut down he's been with us ever since and I think he's missed two shows since he left Middlesbrough. So he's been a good blessing to us I owe a lot to him and to you too because the the lead picking I was doing that night was it was worse than chicken picking. It might have been hen picking I don't know buddy I ain't nothing to write home about I'm just glad to be with y'all I I tell you we've probably one of the greatest things my life is probably meeting you and and Betty and uh becoming y'all like family to me. Well that's what our band's always been I've always met both of my bands the bluegrass and this one I I tried to make it family. Had some great people in I say when John died got killed in a car wreck it about broke broke me up. I mean I just had a rough time I lost several of the band members from Wool Creek Grass. Then in or one of our regional bass players in the country I was scared you say we gotta we gotta talk about a very special individual. We do and I always joked with him his name was Bill Stacy and uh I remember when I asked him to come pick with us and he was tickle to death to do it he was playing with another band too he saw heavy one I can and he did a lot but I can never remember when I first met Bill. I always knew him for some reason. I can't remember when I first met the guy well I feel like I've known I knew Bill before he started playing with us that I had seen him somewhere in my in the past you know I I don't know it had to be with a some kind of electric band like country rock or something because I don't think Bill played much bluegrass. He well he didn't but you know uh Cindy Taylor our friend well Cindy Johnson now he was her first man teacher did you know that yeah before she got with Alan yeah yeah uh Bill used to own a music store down there in Jackson. He did and uh believe it or not he also was in a band with Larry Cordle at one time. Yeah and his uh uh the drummer was it smoked the pipe Johnny Lusk Johnny Yeah him and Larry Cordle and Bill they used to have a rock band back in the day they did they sure did so and Bill's one of the finest people you would ever met. Yeah you can't you can't beat Bill now Bill was he'll always be a special part of me I know well me too I'll never forget him he would do stuff for me that he said nope never tell nobody what I'd done but I mean he done a lot of stuff for me that that nobody never never ever knew about but but him and uh I'll never never forget that and he was with us a long time and of course he was playing with his other buddies at in at the bar on a few nights and we had to get somewhere to fill in. But every show Bill could be there he was there and he was the same guy every time you seen him. Yeah and he's always encouraged and he would encourage you no matter what no matter how bad you was down he had a joke or something that'd make you laugh I actually uh Bill too I actually he he kind of he really helped me hone in my chops too because you know Bill had a steady gig at the Hazard VFW on Saturday nights with Jimmy Tolson Randy Pelley and uh Larry Williams and Bill actually talked Jimmy into let me come set in with steel guitar guitar. Yeah so I got a good education playing in there because they played everything. Oh yeah it was a mixture. Yeah and it was uh you know and I got to you know I went there with my stick with my little Carter steel guitar and my telecaster you know and we played country but we also played rock. Yeah yeah you know so I was learning how to play stuff off the cuff like park the car and cherry bomb and all that you know and I was sitting there like okay so I mean and it was like four or five hours of playing. Yeah but it was it was a it was a good learning experience. It was Bill asked me to come down and I come down there several times and they'd always get me up to sing with them. And uh and I was nervous as I could be of course it bar crowds usually easy to get along with anyway because they were happy they were pretty nice people down there. They were they were really nice we never I never had no I the funniest thing I ever saw one night was this little granny uh absolutely whipped the snot out of this old uh teller it was giving her a hard time I mean she had to be about five foot four and this guy was like six foot two and he was he must have said something to her she didn't like she uh wretched up her with that little fist and cold cocked him right side of the head and I mean he went down. That little woman she had some power behind her. Of course we were playing we just dying laughing because we thought it was funny you know oh yeah that was a good good fun a lot of experience and uh I say Bill was a great guy. Another guy that also helped me a lot when I first started and it was actually you played a few shows with us was Dave Maggard. He wrote the song left his own guitar. Yeah I remember Dave. And he played lap steel with me when when Buddy couldn't play and I mean he could do good on that lap steel and uh I learned a lot from Dave. He actually when I had the bluegrass band he'd come in and filled in several times on bass for me. And uh so I've had a lot of good people that's helped me along with where I'm at. Still not made it to the Grand Opera but we've not given up on it yet. We ain't made to the Grand One Opera yet but we've uh We made it to the Leicester County Opera. We made it to the Lindsay County Opera we made to Marty and Susie's come on now. Yeah and then last summer we were blessed to get to open up and play with uh Confederate Railroad oh yeah that was a good show that was a good show it sure was we thank her buddies of her and Whitesburg for getting us up there and uh we've had a lot of opportunity and uh got to play with Leona Williams of course we talked about her a little earlier I think we played Makes twice we play we backed her up yes yeah Bobby G. Rice I think it's twice for that it is yeah and uh both of them are legends in their own right Bobby had several hitting songs and Leona wrote a bunch of number one songs for Merle had a few that topped up there herself and then her son Ron is one of the most phenomenal vocalists in country music in pure country. Oh yeah Ron's a great singer he is run is a an absolutely good singer and uh so we've been blessed with a lot of these people we got to meet them. We have we sure haven't I and Ronnie took me down to Nashville a few years ago and uh got to meet a lot of the legends down there. Got to meet Lulu Roman from Heehaw. Did you? Yeah I don't think you told me that yeah I got to meet her and I see Margie Singleton she was with the Louisiana Hayride and the Grando Opry Tony Booth was there. I didn't realize this but at one time back in back I guess like when you know the radio shows were the thing the Louisiana Hayride rivaled the Opry oh it did it was actually bigger than the Opry at one time until WSM came along and that's what took the Opry to the next level. It made it big there they made it big there was a lot of that stuff there there was the wheel and jamboree over in Wheeling West Virginia was big the uh the Osborne brothers was a part of the Wheel and Jamboree before they were at the Opry and they got invited to the Opry and of course that that put them way up there because the Opry was big at that time. Yeah so but we have been blessed with a meeting a lot of people and uh country music, bluegrass music, gospel music, rock music I like it all. Me too I'm thankful I've got to do it for 40 years and 40 plus probably 44, 45 year I guess so hopefully I get to do it for another five or ten anyway. Wow yeah so it's been fun yeah we got a we got a pretty good band right now I I I think the the group we got now is you know we all we all just we got some wonderful people we we jail I call it we jail we do we all get along there's no friction there's no jealousy everybody wants to to help each other out and uh got good musicians all the way around you had Randy on the show here a week or so ago. Yeah well today actually yeah Randy's our bass player he was on the show uh he's the last episode of episode three right go back and listen to it if you haven't because Randy uh he's like Gary he's been around for a long time Randy's done a lot of things held a lot of different titles um Randy worked in radio as well and got to be around a lot of legends and country and bluegrass before they was legends. He did and he's probably the one person that fit in when when we lost Bill yes I I said that I told you that the first night I met Randy the first show play with him I come home and I texted you and I told you I said I never thought that we would get somebody that could fill and you know Bill's shoes can't be filled but Randy does a daggone good job but he's it's the closest thing to Bill Stacy. He he's the the best thing for a replacement could have been found. I mean he's that grandfatherly type figure that's you know he's he's he's your best friend he's so nice and generous he he's he loves to play with us we love playing with him and he just he's just a good fella. I mean Randy you can't beat him. If Randy was able and you had a show seven nights a week he'd be there playing right there. Yeah dressed dressed up in his uh one of his mini suits that uh the tailor the fine tailors of team move make for him but today is his birthday so Randy we're gonna give you a shout out and wish you happy birthday buddy yeah and he'll be the day after when this is played or so yeah the the episode play tomorrow but yeah yeah we'll say happy birthday to Randy he's a great guy of course Richard also Richard Crabitree is a drummer uh and uh he's one of the finest guys you'll ever meet he's a U.S. Marshal so we always have fun talking about that on the show and a sheriff's deputy yeah and he's a sheriff's deputy so we tell everybody we got protection no matter where we go he's always behind us and he's also he served our country he did he's a veteran desert storm veteran absolutely he sure is Ronnie Dale is too yes Ronnie's a veteran served our country well I think as a medic yes he was he sure was so we're blessed then our steel player which don't get to do with all of our shows but he does play quite a bit of them with us is a great guy from down in Kingsport Tennessee one of the best known session steel players around anywhere and a fine person too you won't find anybody any humbler than Tony Dingus no sir no sir he never says I can do this and this is the wrong way to do it he fits in and he does it and if he if you do it wrong he'll he won't say that's wrong he'll he'll make it work I thought he would say I said Tony I said you're the magic dingus he he is a great person and we are tickle to death you can't beat Tony every time we get on stage with him it's just a blessing I wish he lived closer so we could do more of the shows with him but the ones that we can he's with us and we sure do appreciate him a whole lot. I'm hoping to have him on the show too I would love to have an episode about him because he's he that guy right there believe it or not does a lot of session work. That's his bread and butter is he's he's in that studio every night in the week you know I see him all the time posting pictures of him you know doing sessions and he he kind of he he's he's a good live player but I think Tony really thrives in the studio environment. He does he does he's really good at that and he does a lot of natural stuff. He does he does a whole lot for AOK productions down there sometimes he goes to Nashville and records sometimes he just gets to do it at home but Tony is a wonderful guy. Yeah he can't you can't beat old Tony he does he does a wonderful job playing and like you said he's just a a good human being. He is one thing I can say ever since I've started doing the bluegrass and learn how to do it I've been blessed with some good musicians all around through the years and uh that's what I say if I don't make a dime if I can pay them to make me sound good I'm happy because I know I can't do it on my own. And uh Well the to I told everybody, you know, you could be a really good musician. You could be one of the best players in the country and you could have a group of good musicians but if you can't learn how to be a band that's where it's at you've got to learn how to be a band. You got to jail you got to learn how to be a part of a team there is no lie in team. Nope there's there you gotta learn how to back each other. You got to make everybody sound the best they can and we've been really blessed and uh we I'm really thankful for that have had a lot of good musicians all through the years. I mean not just the ones I got now but we've had some good people played with Chip Miller's good friends come around helped us around several times he helped me in the bluegrass band he helped me in the country band a couple times. Yeah Chip's a good bass player good bass player he helped us serve for a spell and I appreciate him. Of course we talked about Rick Day earlier he was a good drummer used to be a great rock singer he of course he passed away a few years ago we lost him there are just so many of my friends from over in Harlan Mike and Tree Kelly had them with us in the bluegrass band and I know I'm forgetting some people but I don't want to we had a great fiddle player old Herb Stamper I mean he was he was a comedian in his own right but uh we we thought the world of him he was Art Stamper's first cousin I think yeah I remember Herb. Yeah Herb played with me on about three different occasions in the bluegrass band. Flash Collett played with us quite a bit Flash was a really good fiddle player and a fine person and just about probably a month or two before he died he came up to the DAV and played with me and Ronnie we was up here by ourselves at night and just done a show with a keyboard and a guitar and he said can I come see him of you all I said yeah he said I don't do none of that rock and roll I don't know how to play that of course Ronnie did some of those Fitches rock songs and Lash never missed a beat and never realized his rock songs. I mean he he was just that good back in Lish's day when he was really feeling good they probably weren't a better musician around Lash used Lash was a really good banjo player. He was he was a good musician all the way around he was he really was and he helped us out a lot so I've I've had I've been blessed with a lot of good people. Leslie Kane's full of good musicians. Of course uh uh we mentioned earlier Mr. Vernon Couch he passed away here uh last year wasn't it yes yes he did and uh yeah so I I actually one more thing we'll say and we'll try to wind this up pretty quickly but uh I actually last year I started the Southeast Kentucky Hall of Music Hall of Fame Southeast Kentucky Music Hall of Fame and we're gonna put uh people in that and induct them that's from probably five or six counties around Leslie and Purry and Hard and Lecher and Breath it and maybe Knight County and uh we got a lot of people that have made it big and we want to recognize them for sure but we got a lot of people that never got the notoriety they should have and we definitely want to recognize them too. And we had our first induction last year we put Dean Osburn in and surprised him at it at the festival over there and he's done so much for Leslie County that's why I wanted to put him in there. He's brought probably more artists to Leslie County than anybody at the 30 some years of uh the Bluegrass festival and I mean he's brought in a lot of people over there but uh we got so many people of course we got the Osbourne brothers from Leslie County we talked about Carlos Brock earlier Bertie Jean Robinson was a big uh Southern gospel singer was born here in Haydn uh Nora Crace a great banjo player from over in Leslie County Boys from Indiana yeah played with the boys from Indiana absolutely of course you had Red Allen from over in Prairie County and uh what was the Fields guy's name Wayne Fields Wayne Fields Wayne Fields was one of the best banjo players one of my personal heroes um Southern Blend Ricky Watson Wayne Fields Rick Johnson yeah good band yeah so we we we had all those people around and Bernie Faulkner who I used to work for sold cars for he was a regional member of the Exile that's when they were called the Xiles the Exiles yeah had Jimmy Stokely singing lead yeah yeah I so I got to work for Bernie and learned a lot from Bernie we forgot about old uh Buddy uh Buddy Spurlock Buddy Spurlock yeah banjo player bluegrass alliance yeah absolutely buddy was great taught me a whole lot very talented banjo player that knew knew the Nick on the banjo better than anybody I know absolutely yeah he probably introduced the chromatic stuff to eastern Kentucky I I would say you're right because a lot of them a lot of them pickers you know uh like uh which no Courtney Johnson took over after Buddy left I think but I'd say Courtney Bayla Tony Trishka Scott Vestel all them guys I'd say they know who Buddy Spurlock is oh definitely I'd imagine yeah so he was another one from over there then like I say we had Gary Stewart from Whitesburg from Jenkins I mean he's king of honky tongue I mean there just ain't nothing no better. And then uh Kenny Baker great fiddle player played with Bill for years and years. He's from up Jenkins Art Stamper Art Stamper from over Knight County yeah uh guy just died from Southern gospel music JB Spencer he was from up at Millstone from the Spencer family he died last year so we've got so many people Jerry Chestnut was one of the biggest songwriters in Nashville he's from Harlan County so I mean we've got so many people that so your organization your aim your organization kind of it has the same aim as I do with my podcast. Like my whole my whole thing with my podcast I've always said is you know I want to give these people some light and some credit that these great wonderful musicians and singers and songwriters that we've got around here that just don't get the credit they deserve. Yeah that's what I want to do and I say it the bigger ones I definitely want to honor them like the Osdon brothers. I mean Bobby and Tony's done more for Leslie County than probably anybody as far as bringing this up on the map besides maybe Tim Kows with the football. That's true. And uh of course Gary Stewart. I don't know what he's done for Detroit County. Now we gotta give a we gotta tip her hat so to the to the Creekers. Oh yeah, they're coming along. Because they're doing very well for themselves. I mean, this little band from Leslie County, um, I think Tanner told me it all started with a TikTok. Yeah. They posted, and they are they are very successful right now in country music. Absolutely, and and eventually they will be included too, you know. Yeah. So there we got so many people that I want to honor and do that, and we're uh right now we're displaying the stuff in City Hall and hiding. We'll eventually have our own building, hopefully. But uh sometime later this year we'll have another induction, and we're there's just so many people that's been forgot about, or didn't people didn't even realize they were from around here. Yeah. Most people were Southern Gospel fans and had no idea JB Spencer was from Millstone. I didn't till you told me that. Yeah. And well, you didn't realize the other day when we talked about he wasn't from here, but Bobby Bear went to the seventh grade up in Blackie. I didn't know. See, yeah, I didn't I didn't know that at all. Like that caught me off guard. Yeah, he looked at me like, are you sure you're telling the truth now? I was we get we was doing a short Blackie Days, another fest we play every year with um all our friends down there, Allison, Fred Campbell, Little William Cottle, Big Will Cottle, Long Shot, all them folks. We love each love them people. Absolutely. Uh we get ready to go and to Marie Laveau. I always get requests for that other show we play. And this scary says, Former Liz former Literary County boy Bobby Barrett. I'm like, huh. What? What'd you say? Yeah, so he he he came and stayed with his grandma for about a year, I think, or a little less, and went to school at Blackie. So his grandma was from down here, and she he came down here and stayed with her for about a year. Yeah, so it was great. I didn't know that. So that I mean that's a big thing. And that's that's stuff that people don't know from around here. A lot of people didn't know what John Anderson's family was from over in Leslie County. No, I didn't know that until you told me that. That's where his mom's family's from. So uh we got so many people that I want to recognize, and we are trying our best to do that, and and we'll be uh announcing our next induction here sometime this fall, I'm sure. That'd be great. That'd be great. So uh before we go, yeah, let's let's promote a few things. Yeah. So uh one thing I know you're working very hard and you've put in a lot of time trying to uh uh keep building it and creating it until what it's it's already a very good thing. I know all us guys in the band enjoy it. But tell us about the Leslie County Opera, tell us where it's at, where people could come to to find it, what day. Just tell us about it. I know this weekend we have a show at the Little Leslie County Opera this Saturday night. We do, which is June the 6th, in case you're listening to this on a different date or whatever, and but this June the 6th, 2026. Uh-huh. Hopefully this podcast goes on for years and years and it might be found. But uh the show that we we usually do a show the first Saturday of every month normally, and we're at the Fish and Game Club, which is at 410 Windover Road. Just think of a shotgun and a small gauge, and you can remember that's the address, 410 Windover Road. And basically what you do is you find the Leslie County High School and turn across, you know, turn across the bridge bridge like you're going to the Leslie County High School. But just stay on that little road. And just turn just follow around that road to the right, and you'll pass the Nixon Center, you'll pass where they have the Osborne Brothers Festival, and right on out through there is a little bitty building, and it's the fishing game club, and also the home of the little Leslie County Opera. That's it. And what we do there, we have different people to come in and sing, and uh, we have the house band, and the country troubadours is the house band. Because I guess it's the best I can afford right now. But there, I mean, we've got a great band, and they can back anybody. David can play banjo if we need them to or whatever. But anyway, we let people get up out of the crowd and sing a few songs with us. We try to keep it going. It's kind of like karaoke with a live band. It is. You you basically, if you if you come over there and you're a singer, you're a songwriter, um, and you want to get up and sing one, you just let Gary know, and you tell us, hey, I'm going to sing Coal Miner's Daughter in the key of C and off we go. Yeah, and we've done that, and sometimes it ain't been in the key of C. It's been in the key of Z minor Y2 plus four. But that I mean that that's the whole fun about it. We don't care if you're a professional or not professional. Everybody's welcome. Everybody's welcome. We try to make it uh family plays, and uh there's a dance. It's family friendly. Good dance. Four people like to dance, and a lot of people love to do that. And uh most of the time, fishing game club sells food, but now this coming Saturday, we're doing a special show. Talk to all the bands, so we're not gonna charge anything. So it's free admission. Free admission, folks, this Saturday night. Yeah. June the 6th. Listen to this man. And don't want to miss it. Then we're gonna have a potluck dinner, and I'll be fixing some hot dogs and hamburgers, and we'll there'll be a lot of stuff added to it, I'm sure. And uh we got some surprises that I can't really say right now, but there's gonna be some surprises and some surprise people there Saturday. So uh it's gonna be fun, and I'm looking for probably our second biggest crowd we've ever had. The first biggest crowd we had was the night we did a honor to our buddy Vernon Couch. Yep. And uh I think we had about over 120 people, couldn't get them all in the building. We'll probably get about a hundred and if they was packed tight, but but I think we'll have a good crowd this Saturday, and we'd love for you to come and join us. And uh you can look up Gary Joseph and the Country Troubadours on Facebook or at thecountry troubadours.com on our website and get directions, get my phone number, and we'll be glad to tell you how to get there. And what about the country troubadours? We got any shows coming up soon? Uh let's see, yeah we do. We got uh we got that one. Then the following week, uh Country Cabin over in Norton, Virginia. And uh which is what, the thirteenth, I think it is. And uh then the the twentieth, I'm doing a solo show with a band down in Tennessee. Uh down in Knoxville, but we'll we'll leave that one out for right now because I'm actually gonna be at the uh country music junction or the country the music junction down in Seymour, Tennessee, which is a style of Knoxville. Uh some of my friends down there is gonna be backing me up down there on uh music for that night because it's just so far for our band to come. But I wanted to go help these guys out and uh we got some good musicians. Jim Fraple's gonna be playing piano and possibly fiddle with us. He was Leroy Van Dyke's piano player for a while. Cool. So Dunny Gister's gonna play guitar. Becky Webb's gonna be playing bass for me. I've never met her. I met uh Darl, her brother, but I've never met her. And uh then there I forgot who the steel player's name is. I I couldn't pronounce it. They told me his name, but I can't pronounce it. And a good drummer, so we're gonna have a good time down there. And then uh in August, I mean we got other shows before then, but one of our bigger shows we're gonna be heading lining Jenkins Day Festival. It's on Saturday night, and uh let me see if I remember what today is it's on. I don't remember, but it's on Saturday of the Jenkins Day Festival, and we'll be there at I think nine o'clock at night, so we're gonna have a big time that night. I promised him the full thing, so we're bringing in the fiddle player and aisle with us that night, so we're gonna have a good time that night. That sounds like a good plan to me. I'll have to wood shed and brush up on some hot legs. Yeah, and we got some other shows. I'll say we'll be back down at Marty's and Susie's in La Follette in uh July. I'll have to look up the date on that, and then uh I know some stuff I'm forgetting, I know. But uh Oh yeah, we're playing the Coon on the Log deal over in Hyden on July the 4th. It's our hour where the Leslie County Opera's at. So that night we won't have a show that night, but we're having it that day, and that'll be another free show. Okay. And uh for a while they wouldn't let 'em use a live coon, so we're trying to get permission from the Department of Wildlife to let us use a wild uh live coon. It won't be hurt. But the dogs get to chase the coon across the r the river. And we're gonna do uh probably a bear skin. We'll be sprayed with it and bar dogs, so it's gonna be good that year. It's gonna be really good. Cool. Turtle races, pig, uh, grease pig contest, uh, big fish fry, they're gonna be c having a big fish fry. And then this is this is their only fundraiser they do every year. So for all the outdoor enthusiasts, fishermen, hunters. Yeah, absolutely. If you like music, if you like a good fish fry or anything, it's good. And then Connie gets out and and uh several of the others, and they get all these prizes and they sell chances. I think it's like a dollar a chance. And they used to have like 120 prizes to give away. So I mean, you got a good chance you'll win, and if you spend a dollar or spend twenty, or what are you gonna do? But that's that's their main fundraiser every year. So we're gonna be doing that on the 4th of July. I think we're playing at 12, and I'm thinking she told me that maybe Kelly Cowwell's gonna be a playing at 10 that morning. So we're looking forward to seeing her. She's she's another great musician from Leslie County. So, but uh definitely come see us this weekend. Uh, if you want to see what it's all about, it won't cost you anything this time. Well, you normally charge an admission, but this weekend it's free. Free food, free music this weekend at the Leslie County Fish and Game Club. Come see the one and only Leslie County Little Opera. Showtime is at uh as my old buddy Ted Graves says, the downbeat is at seven o'clock. Gary buddy, it's been great having you on the show. Uh man, thank you so much for doing this. This is a great episode. People are going to enjoy this. Well, I hope they learn a little bit more about me, and uh we we appreciate you having us. And uh it's been fun. Yes, sir. All right, folks, that wraps up episode four of the Five String Holler Podcast this week. Thank you all so much again for your support. As always, like and subscribe to our Facebook page, the Five String Holler Podcast. Share it with your friends, family, go out and tell your neighbors about it. You can find our podcast on all the streaming platforms Spotify, Apple, iHeartRadio, Amazon, and many more. But until next time, this is Banjo Barnett telling you all God bless you. Hope you have a wonderful week. And in the famous words of our late friend, Mr. Bill Stacy, keep on keeping on. Thank you all, and we'll see you the next time on another episode of the Five String Holler Podcast.