Ronni, Barbara Mandrell and Crew

[1985] I made a lot of trips to Nashville for The Barbara Walters Specials to do interviews with Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn and others. Their museums never fail to amuse me with their kitschy exhibits like the re-creation of the room in which Barbara Mandrell spent her wedding night.

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COMMENTS FROM PREVIOUS WEBSITE
pellegrini @ 2003-10-13 said:
A picture full of life!

hamlet @ 2003-10-13 said:
Hmmm...I guess one can sell tickets to anything.

zinetv @ 2003-10-13 said:
Nashville is a hoooot! Hee Haw! The problem has to do with the music. If you are not listening to country you are not a part of Nashville. To the plus side, Nashville has Vanderbilt University.

Comments

[Cop Car]

How varied was your exposure to the arts and popular culture, Ronni! You've done it all. Hunky Husband is the country music fan in our family (which never ceases to amaze me since he came to it in his 30s and 40s); but, I heard so much Kitty Wells, Ernie Tubb, Hank Williams, Hank Snow, and The Play Boys when I was living with my parents that I much prefer classical and cool jazz. But, even I would not have passed up the opportunities that you enjoyed!

[Rana]

My housemate and I are not only years apart (I'm 42, she's 75) but worlds apart. She was once in Winchester, VA and when informed it was the home of Patsy Cline asked, "Who is Patsy Cline?" It's a wonder she wasn't run out of town on a rail.

Of course in the midst of all that Nashville kitsch is some real history. R. and I recently watched a PBS special on the Carter Family that led me to do some web surfing.

I discovered that Mother Maybelle Carter used one Gibson guitar for 50 years, the one on which she taught herself to play, coming up with a little method called the Carter Scratch that allows for simulataneous rhythmn and lead on one instrument.

The guitar, which cost a princely $20 or so orginally, was bought for a half a million dollars and donated to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Without the Carter Family much of the hybrid Celtic music of the Appalachians would have been lost forever.

For that kind of history, I can forgive Nashville its rhinestones. ;-)

[Cop Car]

Rana--I wonder if the "Carter Scratch" might be the "natural" way for people who are self-taught guitar players. My dad was self-taught and played that way until a small stroke (at age 62) made it difficult for him to use one of his thumbs well. I think that Dad's guitar (not a Gibson) cost about $4--probably from Sears & Roebuck or Montgomery Ward.

[Rana]

Cop Car, Since I'm plinking around at learning guitar myself (although my natural talent is for piano but can't have one right now, long story) I'm very interested in this sort of thing. It seems Maybelle had help developing the Carter Scratch from a black man who travelled with A.P. Carter on his trips collecting music.

When I first picked up the guitar my inclination was to find the melody within a chord as well. It isn't easy but it seems instinctive and I suspect for those with a real gift for the instrument natural.

Did your Dad use standard or opening tuning for his instrument?

My own grandfather was a fiddle player and his stroke robbed him of his instrument for life. Mother always said she thought he missed his fiddle more than his voice.

[Shawn]

Rana,

I have seen this before about "the black man" who taught Maybelle the Carter scratch. From everything I have read, this is patently false.

The man you are referring to was Lesley Riddle. If you have read the Carter family book called "Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone" (I believe). You will find this man was very instrumental in the Carter Family. He would go with A.P. out in the Clinch Mountains and elsewhere to find new songs. A.P. would get the lyrics down and Riddle would get the melodies and chords.

Maybelle only joined the group a year or two before Bristol. Let's remember that she was only about 18 when they made the infamous recordings in Bristol. By the time that A.P. and Sarah met her she was already a virtuoso on guitar and had her distinctive "Carter Scratch" down.

I have heard a number of interviews from her talking about the Carter scratch and she stated in the interviews that she thought it all up by herself. I think the fact that no one before her was ever recorded with that distinctive style sort of backs that up.

To be sure American blacks have made a far greater contribution to Country Music than they are given credit for. Teetot the street musician who taught Hank Williams how to play for one. However, some people have (in my opinion) tried to stretch the truth in order to make this point. They are doing it to the discredit of Mother Maybelle.

[Shawn]

Rana,

I have seen this before about "the black man" who taught Maybelle the Carter scratch. From everything I have read, this is patently false.

The man you are referring to was Lesley Riddle. If you have read the Carter family book called "Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone" (I believe). You will find this man was very instrumental in the Carter Family. He would go with A.P. out in the Clinch Mountains and elsewhere to find new songs. A.P. would get the lyrics down and Riddle would get the melodies and chords.

Maybelle only joined the group a year or two before Bristol. Let's remember that she was only about 18 when they made the infamous recordings in Bristol. By the time that A.P. and Sarah met her she was already a virtuoso on guitar and had her distinctive "Carter Scratch" down.

I have heard a number of interviews from her talking about the Carter scratch and she stated in the interviews that she thought it all up by herself. I think the fact that no one before her was ever recorded with that distinctive style sort of backs that up.

To be sure American blacks have made a far greater contribution to Country Music than they are given credit for. Teetot the street musician who taught Hank Williams how to play for one. However, some people have (in my opinion) tried to stretch the truth in order to make this point. They are doing it to the discredit of Mother Maybelle.

[Jewels]

I am not sure what Barbara Mandrell museum you are referring to. If you are talking about the one that was in Nashville called Barbara Mandrell Country (and ths is the only one she had thatI know of), there was not a re creation of the bedroom in which she spent her wedding night. I have no idea where you got that information! Part of her bedroom was on display in her museum but this was the bedroom that existed in her current home in 1984, which is the year the museum opened. This home was in Gallatin, TN. Barbara lived in California back in 1967 when she got married.