Kentucky Traveler (18 page)

Mr. Monroe was big physically, and he had a presence about him. He didn't say much, and he didn't smile much, either. He commanded authority just by coming into a room. He was almost like Bigfoot. When he walked the festival grounds, sometimes you'd see the crowd scatter like scared deer.

There were stories you'd hear about Mr. Monroe, too. He didn't take guff from nobody. He was hard on his band, hard on himself, hard on everybody. When he was younger, he was a real brute, and he didn't mind proving it. He told me, “When me and Charlie would fight people, there weren't ten men that could take us.” They'd put their backs together and bare-knuckle all comers. Later on, when a musician made a pass at his daughter Melissa, he told him, “Boy, if you touch her, I'll break you in two like a dead stick.” And he wasn't fooling around.

A lot of people thought he was arrogant and kind of ornery, but the fact was Mr. Monroe was a very shy and insecure person. He had a lazy eye, and he got picked on by his brothers and everybody else. By the time he was a teenager, he'd lost both his parents, so he'd grown up mostly on his own. He didn't have no family, really, outside of his Uncle Pen, and he was always looking for the love and respect he couldn't find at home. He learned how to survive by steeling himself, and becoming tough physically and mentally. He built a hard shell around himself. Course, I didn't know all this personal history at the time. I just loved and respected him, and he responded to that. And I was extra lucky because our meeting back in Martha got us started on the right foot, and it set the tone for how we got along. I was always very respectful, and he was as nice as he could be. I'd always try to visit with Mr. Monroe at the festivals when I was with Ralph.

I often asked Mr. Monroe how to be a better musician. One time, I just sorta blurted out, “Mr. Bill, what does it take to be a good mandolin player?” At first, he just looked at me. I don't think he'd ever been asked that question point-blank before by anyone. So I said it again, a little different this time. “I mean, what I was wanting to know was, how do you really get good on mandolin?”

I really believed in my heart there was something he could tell me. Something beyond the usual advice of “practice, practice, practice.” I guess I was looking for that magic secret, and I figured if there was any person on earth who knew, it was Mr. Monroe. I asked the question with a sort of innocence that he must have appreciated, 'cause he didn't brush me off.

Instead, he got a faraway look in his eye. “Well, boy,” he said. “You just got to whip it like a mule.”

Now that may sound like strange advice, but I knew exactly what he meant. Play hard. Play like your life depended on it.

And I really took that advice to heart. Once in a while I'd borrow Jimmy Gaudreau's mandolin to play. He was with the Country Gentlemen then, and he was one of the best young mandolin players around. Jimmy also had a real nice mandolin, a lot better than my Red Bomb. Playing Jimmy's mandolin was like getting a chance to take a convertible out for a spin. I used it on stage a few times with Ralph, and when I'd hand it back over there'd be two or three strings broken.

Jimmy was from up north in Rhode Island. He'd say to me in his New England accent, “You play too hard, pal!” I wasn't trying to hurt his mandolin, just playing the way Mr. Monroe told me. Guess I was doin' a little too much mule-whippin'!

Homesick and lonesome and feeling kinda blue I'm on my long journey home
.

—“Long Journey Home,” by the Stanley Brothers, 1963

R
alph looked out for us as best he could. It was still the road, though, and he couldn't shield us from everything. I was young to be traveling with a bunch of older men who were drinking and doing all the other sorts of foolishness that come with the territory. Sometimes I look back and I'm amazed Mom and Dad even let me get on the bus. But they trusted Ralph, and truth be told, Ralph and the band were good to me and watched over me and Keith both.

Even so, my folks knew how exposed I was, and they knew there were all kinds of trouble waiting out there around the bend. Especially my mama. She was a seer. Sure, now I was a Clinch Mountain Boy, and I was proud to wear the gold suit. But I was still Dorothy Skaggs's boy. She knew I was a teenager and there would be temptations, and she was right. Going on the road with Ralph was when I drank for the first time. But I came to realize that wasn't what I wanted to do. And that was because of my mother. She had a hold on me that nobody could ever break.

It was like she could read my mail. Not literally. I'm talking about my spiritual mail. I'd come back home from a weekend road trip, and she'd tell me she had seen me in a dream doing something I shouldn't have been doing. So I knew that whatever I did, no matter when or where, the Lord was going to reveal it to my mom. Let me tell you, even when I was goin' down a crooked road, knowing that helped keep me on the straight and narrow.

Early on, I went out for a week with the band, the longest I'd ever been away from home. Ralph was coming through Kentucky on the way to a show in Ohio, so he stopped to pick us up. The bus was idling in the driveway, and my mom stopped me as I was headed out the door. She put her hands on me and prayed over me. She spoke a kind of blessing, only it wasn't the usual type of blessing.

“If you ever get out and start drinking whiskey,” she said, “I pray that you'll get sick every time you drink that stuff!”

That might sound more like a curse than a blessing, but it wasn't. She spoke strong words because she knew our family history, and she'd seen what happened with Euless. She knew the power of the Devil's snares. She knew a lot more than I did. I wasn't worried about whiskey at all. All I knew was that her prayers had always kept me safe.

Dad wasn't one for big speeches. After my mom got through with me, he may have given his advice, but all I really remember him saying was this: “Son, you know how to act.” He was a man of few words. In that way, he was a lot like Ralph.

Ralph was a quiet boss man off the stage and a quiet bandleader on the stage. He wasn't one to lecture or scold you. He wasn't one to compliment you, either. He didn't say much one way or the other. He figured criticizing would just tear a man down, and flattering would puff him up. He mostly taught by example.

I learned so much during my time with Ralph. He was easy to work for, and he was good about giving me direction when I needed it. Especially about music and what it means to be a musician. He taught me many lessons I still put into use today, leading a band of my own: Keep the music pure and simple and down-to-earth. Stay true to the song. It's more than a bunch of notes; it's a story you're telling to the audience. Always play the melody before you try to get fancy. Don't be a big shot or something you're not: Play your instrument to put the song across, not to show off your picking. Make your instrument play what the singer is singing.

When you're a young musician, you're constantly trying to get better at your instrument, to grow and stretch your boundaries as you learn new things. That's fine, but you need limits, too, and Ralph was good at setting limits. On the festival circuit, I started hanging out with other mandolin players and trying to learn their licks. At a show one night, I played some of those new licks during our regular set. Ralph gave me some funny looks, like,
Don't believe that goes in there, Rick
. After we were done, he pulled me aside backstage and said, “You know, Rick, some styles work together and some don't. When you're taking a break, I want the audience to know what the song is without me singing it.” He wasn't angry, just serious. He was real gentle making his point, but he wanted me to know how important it was.

What Ralph said made a lot of sense, and I've carried that with me ever since. I've passed it on to the guys in my band. It's something that good musicians have in common, and not just in bluegrass. Take Bob Wills, the King of Western Swing. He had his big swing band, the Texas Playboys, and they'd always establish the melody, then somebody would swing a solo—whether it was fiddle or steel guitar or piano—and then the band would all play the melody again. It's fine to stretch out on a solo, but you always have to come back to the melody.

I learned a lot from Ralph just by watching him do business. The way he handled the nitty-gritty stuff. He always had his trusty ol' money rock at the record table to hold down all the loose bills so he could make change and keep close tabs on the sales. Later on, I found out the rock Ralph had was the same kind the old-timers used when they bought illegal whiskey. They'd leave the money under a rock and come back later, and there'd be a quart waiting. That was the old mountain way of doin' business.

I also admired the way he treated the promoters at the clubs and festivals. He was a straight shooter, and he was polite and kind to them; he was thankful for the job and always made sure they
knew
he was thankful for the job. He shook their hands and looked 'em in the eye.

Now, Ralph also carried a pistol in his briefcase. But I think it was more out of habit, going back to the early days when he was on the road with Carter and they were playing the skull orchards, which is just an ol' mountain way of saying beer joint—one of those rough bars in the rough sections on the outskirts of town, like Marlow's in Pikeville, Kentucky. Ralph's pistol wasn't for show, it was for self-defense. Honestly, there were some bars that were so mean there was chicken wire around the stage. You'd just open the door, lock yourself in, start playing, and give 'em a little bit of music to gouge to!

Ralph was a solid businessman in his dealings with his band, too. He was as good as his word, at least he was with me and Keith. He was fair, he didn't fuss a lot, and he didn't play favorites, though he did think the world of Curly Ray.

And Ralph didn't ask anybody to do anything he wasn't willing to do himself. He did a lot of the driving, and he carried his own luggage and banjo case. He never put himself above any man in the band. I'll never forget when we had to get the grounds ready for the first festival Ralph had at the Stanley home place up on Smith Ridge in Dickenson County. The Carter Stanley Memorial Festival was what he called it then. Most festivals were at fairly accessible venues. Ralph's site was as remote as you could get. There was a two-lane gravel road that went up to where the mountain hits the sky.

Getting the site ready was a lot of real, hard labor. A hired man with a tractor mowed the hay, baled it, and hauled it off the property so people could have a place to park. That was about it for the paid help, though. Just about all the rest of the work was done by Ralph and the band and whoever he could get to come by. My dad and Keith's dad, Elmer, came with their tool bags and helped build the stage down in the holler. We stayed in a little camper, just me and Dad.

The wood framing for the stage didn't look too stable. Ralph had had some neighborhood friends build a makeshift stage with what they had, and it was not a solid structure. It was as crooked as a dog's leg. Dad was trying to figure out how in the world we could straighten the thing out. He and Elmer shored up the floor and the walls, and that was about all they could do. With everybody pitching in, we had it ready for the Memorial Day weekend.

The festival setting on Smith Ridge was very primitive, and it was pretty as a picture, too. The stage was nestled in the holler below the family graveyard, and it made for a nice little natural amphitheater. But boy, if it rained, look out! Instant Mud Bowl. The first few years it rained like crazy, and it was a terrible mess. People would slide from the top of the hill all the way to the bottom, and there was nothing to grab hold of as you went down. If there was a big ol' rock, you had better make sure you didn't have your legs spread when you hit!

The bad weather didn't scare anybody away, though. The annual event drew some of the biggest crowds in the history of Dickenson County, and Ralph needed as many volunteers as he could get to help out. I worked all day playing music and worked the gate at night, taking money from the fans as they pulled through the entrance.

Three years ago, I played at the festival for the first time since the late 1980s. The old stage was still standing and so was Ralph. He's well into his ninth decade now, his seventh decade playing music, and he's still on the road. He's a national treasure and an American icon, and it's so inspiring to see him out there working show dates. He has steel in his spine and iron in his constitution. I did a few duets with him, “Riding the Midnight Train,” and “White Dove,” just like old times. It was hard to believe it'd been forty years since me and Keith had come to Smith Ridge with our parents to map out our futures. Here I was, right back on the mountaintop where it all started!

I was up there on stage, my shaggy gray hair long as Elijah's, and Ralph looking frail behind the microphone but still singing solid as a rock of ages. It got me thinking about how many miles we'd ridden and how many rules of the road he'd taught me. Good rules to keep you going, so the road don't do you in. Maybe that's why we'd both made it through.

Ralph always said, “Eat before you get hungry, rest before you get sleepy, and take a shower before you get dirty.” This was his way of saying be prepared and always try to stay a step ahead of what's coming, because you never know when you're going to get a good meal. At first, Keith and I would whine, “We ain't hungry,” and he'd say, “Well, you'd better eat anyway, 'cause we don't know if we'll be able to get a meal till after show time.” At restaurants and diners, Ralph always made us order before we went to the bathroom. That was a big rule for him: Once we pull into the truck stop, go sit down at the table, open up your menus, and place your order right away. “You don't have to have clean hands to open a menu,” he said. “While they're cooking the food, everybody can go wash up.”