Since starting in the music library, I’ve spent a good deal of time learning the ropes of my new job and familiarizing myself with the audio, score, and reference collections we have here in Sloan Music Center. As a musician of what I like to think is discerning taste, being surrounded by such a substantial collection of different genres and flavors of great musical resources makes me as giddy as a kid in a candy shop. I’ve also made the short walk across campus several times to browse extensively through the music related books at E.H. Little Library, and I’ve had some good conversations with many of the excellent instructors on the music faculty. One unexpected but thoroughly enjoyable experience has been with Dr. Bill Lawing and his class, Traditional Music of the Southern Appalachians (the “lach” part of the word is pronounced “latch” by the region’s residents, not “laysh”). As one with a background in Appalachian Studies and a long time devotee of the music, I was thrilled to see such a class is offered at Davidson. After getting to know Dr. Lawing in my first few weeks here, he invited me to sit in on his class whenever I was able. So far, I’ve not only learned (and relearned) much from Dr. Lawing’s lectures, but also found musical inspiration from guest performers, and had the opportunity to pass on some of what I know about the history of the mandolin to the students.
In any type of folkloric studies, scholars place a great deal of importance on learning from the source. That is to say, those that learn directly from a person in the tradition versus those that learn from books, or any other type of indirect source, are viewed as an authentic and valuable connection to the past. North Carolina’s mountains are rich with many types of artistic heritage. The musical traditions there have long been studied and documented by folklorists. Davidson’s close proximity to the region enables Dr. Lawing to bring to our campus some distinguished performers with direct ties to the traditions studied in class, including NEA National Heritage Fellowship award winners Sheila Kay Adams and Wayne Henderson. Ms. Adams is from an area of Madison County known for its tradition of unaccompanied ballad singing and she learned “knee to knee” from members of her family and the surrounding community. Additionally, she is a masterful storyteller and an accomplished claw-hammer style banjo player. Many of the ballads she sings are traced directly to the British Isles and traveled with her ancestors to Madison County where they have been passed down since colonial times. As a seventh generation ballad singer, she is a bearer of, and direct living connection to, a folk tradition largely forgotten. You can hear recordings of a few of the people from whom Adams learned, including members of the Wallin and Chandler families, on CD 3524 (this also contains a bonus DVD of the 1973 documentary End Of An Old Song, which offers a fascinating glimpse into the everyday life of balladeer Dillard Chandler), CD 2440, and CD 2385 located in the music library. She visited Davidson on Thursday, January 21st and regaled Dr. Lawing’s class with humorous tales, elegant singing, and adept banjo playing before giving a concert at Duke Family Performance Hall that evening. Ms. Adams is a captivating performer and hearing her sing the old plaintive ballads elicited a strong emotional reaction in this listener.
On Thursday, February 19th, expert luthier and guitar picker Wayne Henderson from Rugby, Virginia, which is just over the state line in Grayson County, joined the class to discuss his career as a guitar builder and to demonstrate his guitar playing technique on instruments he constructed. As a teenager he built his first guitar almost exclusively with a pocket knife and is known to say he makes a guitar by gathering some wood, gluing it together, and whittling away whatever doesn’t look like a guitar. Despite this modest statement, he is known for impeccable workmanship and close attention to detail. Although Henderson has enjoyed a reputation for building high quality, highly sought instruments for the better part of fifty years, he garnered a new level of prestige when Eric Clapton requested Henderson build a guitar for him. New York Times best-selling author Allen St. John documented the process from start to finish in the absorbing book Clapton’s Guitar: Watching Wayne Henderson Build the Perfect Instrument. The list of famous musicians who own a Henderson guitar is long and reportedly the waiting list for one of his instruments is at least ten years. However, he says there are ways to make that wait a little shorter, including owning an instrument for which he might want to trade, or simply staying on his case. As he says, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.”
Watching Wayne Henderson play the perfect guitar. This one is the 400th he constructed and he is fast approaching number 700. Note the intricate inlay on the fingerboard and headstock.
Henderson plays guitar just as skillfully as he builds one and has won several competitions, including a record number of first place finishes in the guitar competition at the annual Old Fiddlers’ Convention in Galax, VA, perhaps the best-known gathering of traditional and bluegrass musicians in the country. An important musical mentor to Henderson was Estill C. Ball, who you can hear playing and singing on CD 2440 and CD 2525 found in the music library. Besides owning a Martin D-28 guitar that Henderson used as a model for his first attempt at guitar building, he also influenced Henderson’s unique style of fingerpicking. Fiddle tunes are an important genre in the Appalachian region, and over the years banjo, guitar, and mandolin players have adapted those tunes to their instruments. On the guitar, fiddle tunes are most commonly played with the use of a flat pick (see Doc Watson) but Henderson devised a way to play them using fingerpicks by playing down strokes with his thumb and upstrokes with his index finger. Through many years of playing bluegrass and old time music, I have never seen another guitar player pick like Wayne Henderson, and you cannot tell the difference from listening alone. You have to witness it and the students in Dr. Lawing’s class got to do just that.
After class jam session
Mr. Henderson is well known for being kind, friendly, and very generous with his time and knowledge. He regularly teaches guitar building workshops and enjoys working with young musicians. Every year he hosts a music festival and guitar competition where first prize is a Henderson guitar built specifically for the event. Needless to say the competition draws many of the best guitar players from around the country and all of the profits made from the festival go toward funding scholarships for musicians 18 and younger to attend music camps or pay for private instruction. After his presentation to Dr. Lawing’s class, he was gracious enough to stay afterward and participate in a jam session with several of the students that play an instrument. For aspiring pickers there is no substitute for playing with experienced, skilled musicians, which goes back to the idea of learning from the source. It is one thing to hear an excellent player, but sitting across from and having direct interaction with one sparks the imagination and inspires in a different way. For me, and I’m sure the others that sat in on that jam session, the experience of playing with Wayne Henderson is one we will remember for a long time. I also have a feeling we have all been practicing a lot more since then. That night, Mr. Henderson gave a stellar concert in Tyler-Tallman Hall and was joined by an 11 year old protégé named Presley Barker. Barker played with an astounding level of skill on his new, beautiful sounding, Henderson guitar, proving that the future is in good hands and it is possible to move up on that ten year waiting list.
Photos by Bill Gaduz
