Transcription of an Interview with Kim Johnson (and Wilson Douglas) by Susan A. Eacker and Geoff Eacker September 20, 1997 (Part Two) Susan A. Eacker and Geoff Eacker Collection Accession 666 Special Collections Marshall University Libraries Huntington, West Virginia
Released Form signed by Kim Johnson September 20, 1997 Transcriber not identified PDF prepared by Lisle G Brown Marshall University 2009 All Rights Reserved
TRANSCRIPTION OF AN INTERVIEW WITH KIM JOHNSON (AND WILSON DOUGLAS) (PART TWO) Interview Date: September 20, 1997 Interview Place: FOOTMAD (Friends of Old Time Music and Dance)Fall Fling Festival Grandeville, West Virginia Interviewers: Susan Eacker and Geoff Eacker [The tape begins with Kim Johnson, Wilson Douglas and Leslie Green playing the last part of Molly Hare, and there then follows some general mixed conversation.] SE: It s Saturday, September 20th, 1997 and we re here at the FOOTMAD Fall Fling Festival in Gandeville, West Virginia talking to Kim Johnson and Wilson Douglas. Wilson, you have a real quick story you said you wanted to tell. WD: Back in 1936 it was a terrible winter. I would go over to my grandmother s you know, and stay with them. Ruby Red made amends on that day[?]. He was four years older than I was. Well he had an old guitar that he d beat on when I didn t fiddle very much. He and my grandmother long in the evening when it was cold you know, she d play a few old tunes and I d say, Grandma let me play the fiddle. She said, When I m through I ll let you play some but right now I m concentrating and I don t want to be bothered. [laughter] So after a while she d give it to me you know, I was tryin to play her version of Rickett s Horn Pipe. I d sit there and saw a little bit and she d reach over and take it from me. She said, You can t learn nothin.you got a head on you like a gourd. Well the bottom line is she thought I oughta do it like she did. Well they ain t no way. You got to learn [your own style]. She thought I had to play that fiddle like she did. SE: Was she a good fiddle player? WD: Oh, God yes. KJ: Rosie Morris. SE: Oh, she was a Morris too. WD: She was a Morris. KJ: She s related to David and John a little bit distant. SE: Do you know who taught her to play? WD: She had five brothers. All of em were fiddlers. They went to Nebraska in 1900 and they got rich in the oil business. She never saw em again. 3
SE: Really, they didn t come back, huh. WD: No that s the story. SE: OK. Kim we ve got an interview with you on the other side of the tape but it was pouring down rain and I m sure most of it is ruined, but some of these questions are just going to be just for the record questions. I just wanted to get your full name, and where you were born and a little bit about you family. KJ: Well, now what? SE: A little bit about you and your family any brothers or sisters, did anybody in your family play music? KJ: Nobody but me. SE: Where were you born? KJ: Clendenon, Kanahwa County. It s like about not even a half hour from here. It s right next to Clay County. That s how I fell in with that. SE: Did you say something about you went to college somewhere... KJ: Yeah in Glenville. SE: And were there people in college playing old time music. KJ: No they have a folk festival. It s been goin and since I don t know the 1950 s. SE: Do you remember who you saw? KJ: Just some old man and I just talked to him. I just went around there and saw some fiddle players and I thought, Well I like him, and it was you. [Wilson Douglas] Frank George helped too. SE: So when did you first meet up with Wilson? At Glenville? KJ: Yeah off and on. I finally decided to play around 1980 SE: 1980, so you haven t been playing as long as you have Geoff. 4
WD: She liked to drove me crazy. SE: Why, was she persistent? WD: She d come and try to play and my God she d miss notes. KJ: I got these tapes and you d sit there and you d try to play and Wilson s playin his little stuff and it was awful. He d say, Now that s real good. SE: So he wasn t like his grandmother, huh. KJ: No, he was more patient. WD: Oh, God it was terrible. [laughter] KJ: I ve had a banjo since about 73 or 74. I just kind of thumped around on it and didn t really get it under control until... SE: Well you said on the other side when the rain was coming down, that you didn t learn to play the banjo from a banjo player you just hung around with the fiddlers including Wilson. Did Wilson ever say you should listen to this banjo player or that banjo player? KJ: No [laughs] SE: Did he give you tips on the banjo? WD: I did. KJ: Yeah his daddy played you see. [He d say] well that kind of don t sound right. WD: My dad was the greatest banjo player of all time. SE: Why did you choose the fiddle instead of the banjo? WD: Well I don t want to take up a lot of your time. [laughter] SE: Why did you want to show your grandmother? WD: No. There was an old man out of Ashland[?] and he was bow footed and he would come to the farm and stay for a month and when he played that fiddle it completely hypnotized me. I just 5
went wild over that fiddle. SE: So you say you did tell her to listen to some banjo players. Who did you tell her to listen to? WD: Don t you remember that tape I had of dad playin? KJ: I just remember we d be playin along and if it wasn t quite right he d say, Well you were real good but try it over here. SE: So, he wouldn t play and show you he would just say that doesn t sound right try it over here. KJ: Yeah that s right. WD: I tried to keep her playin so she could get somethin out of it. All these rattlin banjo players, I wouldn t give a nickel for em. KJ: He calls it ratlin if you play fast [with] a lot of notes th at kind of stuff. GE: Oh yeah, like Earl Scruggs. KJ: Yeah, if you play claw hammer real fast and fancy he calls that rattlin. SE: Is that not the way they used to back in the old days. KJ: No, they sort of laid back. SE: Did your dad play like Kim, sort of? WD: Exactly, only he was a little bit better. [laughter] By God he played for fifty years longer than she s been alive. SE: What happened to his banjo? WD: Ma m I don t know. KJ: I believe he got his thumb cut off timberin and quit playin didn t he? SE: Kim, I just wanted to ask you a few questions about your background, where you grew up, who your inspiration was [if there] were any other women --- oh I forgot you listened to Sylvia... 6
KJ: I ve been to Sylvie s SE: And Pheobe. Did they teach you any songs? KJ: I learned a couple off of Sylvie. I never learned any of Pheobe s. SE: Just again could you tell me the names of the tunes you learned from Sylvia? KJ: Well she played one called Cherry River Line and I can do that halfway not real good because it was years ago and Minner on the Hook I think I can probably play that. She plays like Wildwood Flower and some of those. She don t play a whole lot like seven or eight ones and she s really old so... SE: Why don t you just pick one of your favorite tunes and play solo and then pick one of your favorites and play with Wilson. SE: Kim s banjo is Gibson, I m not sure what model. Do you know? KJ: It s a tenor is all I know it was from 1920. SE: 1920 and you bought it from a man where? KJ: I got it from a man in Parkersburg. It s a Gibson. They make bluegrass banjos mostly and mandolins and guitars. GE: It does have a nice tone. KJ: It s got one of them ball-bearing tone rails. GE: Oh, really KJ: I think you could play bluegrass on it. It has a resonator but I took it off because it wouldn t fit in the case and it was really ugly like this. SE: What do they call that pearl... KJ: Toilet seat. GE: Mother of toilet seat. KJ: Yeah it looked like that and it bolted right in the middle and it was really ugly and it made it 7
sound funny and it wouldn t fit in the case so... SE: Now, what are you going to play for us? KJ: This is a little song I learned from Frank George. SE: OK and what s the name of it? KJ: Well, there s all kinds of these Liza Jane things and it s one of those. [Kim Johnson playing Liza Jane] SE: Now this is called what? KJ: The Pretty Little Cat SE: The Pretty Little Cat from Clay County. [Kim Johnson plays Pretty Little Cat with Wilson] SE: What s next? KJ: Elzid s Farewell. It s really old, like before the Civil War. [Kim Johnson plays Elzic s Farewell ] SE: Do you know the origins or lyrics? KJ: No lyrics I m sure. SE: Do you say it pre-dates the Civil War? KJ: I don t know but it s around there. This one called Little Rose they say is a Civil War song but I don t know. [Undistinguishable group talking all at once] SE: Can I get you before you get too carried away we re not you know when you re with a university you re not engaged in a for profit activity so this is strictly for educational purposes and the tapes will be deposited with the Oral History of Appalachia Program at Marshall. 8
KJ: Do you want me to put my address right here? SE: Yeah, if you would. Did I give you our card? Let me give you a card and I ll put the date on it and you can get in touch us. If we do leave before... Leslie I have to tell you that I ve met Helena before and we have some friends here from Marshall that teach in the music department. She took a class with her at Augusta and said she had the most beautiful voice in the world and wanted her to come to Marshall just for one of her vocal classes. So when I told Linda Dobbs that you were coming she told me that she could kick in a little extra money so you could come to one of her music classes. Thursday November 13. [More undistinguishable group talking] [Kim Johnson calls Little Rose and the group starts to play] KJ: That s a lovely ending wasn t it? [laughs] GE: What s the tuning on your banjo? KJ: [Kim strums the strings and laughs] It s a kind of... [Wilson Douglas starts playing an unidentified tune] END OF INTERVIEW 9