The year is 1931. The August sky is midnight blue; a full moon paints a glimmer of silver on every available reflective surface. Far-reaching fields cry out with the piping of crickets; dark silhouettes of trees respond with the sizzle of a million jar flies.
An 11-year-old boy stands clutching the neck of a guitar on the porch of a farm house in the night air of Bedford County, Virginia. He's got a pocketful of treasures: pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, even a 50-cent piece. Right now, he's the king of the world.
Spread out before him, like a torchlight ceremony held in his honor, is a glorious spectacle: A billion stars twinkle above him, a billion fireflies wink back at him, and, below him, a yard full of empty glass moonshine jars glisten up at him in the moonlight.
Suddenly, he hears the backfire and rattle of a Model T panel truck. A gruff voice shouts, "Come on, boy, time t' git home." Sighing, the boy holds his guitar aloft to the night sky, gives his coin-burdened pocket a shake, and steps off the porch into the darkness.
In 1994 my father, Troy Simpkins, reflected on how it was back then. "I reckon I learned how to play the guitar when I was about 10, in 1930," he said. "Didn't take me long. Daddy and Mother taught me some chords; my older brother Vernon taught me a bunch more while he was back home gettin' over a bad motorcycle wreck he'd had."
Both of Troy's parents were musically inclined; Hamilton played mostly fiddle and some guitar, Bertha played piano, guitar, and autoharp.
The whole thing got started while the Old Man was sellin' Rawleigh products," Troy explained. "Did I ever tell you that 'cause of the Rawleigh products that a lot of people called my daddy 'Doc?'" (Rawleigh products were like today's Amway: Elixirs, potions, medicines, soaps, etc. Hamilton Simpkins drove a Rawleigh truck route for a time.) "Anyway, he met up with Burford Key, who played clawhammer banjo, and Roy Hawkins, who played mandolin. They invited him (and he asked me) to come play with them over to the Otterville General Store. Ever'body'd come in on Saturday to buy groceries and things an' some of 'em would stay around an' play string music or just stay to listen. After a while, we all decided to start practicin' together. We was pretty good, too — the only thing we lacked was a bass fiddle player."
“String music.” Not country music, not bluegrass music — neither category existed, at least officially, in 1931. This was folk music, much like what the Carter Family from southwest Virginia had recorded down in Bristol for the Victor Talking Machine Company. Troy remembers listening to the Grand Ole Opry, and especially to Uncle Dave Macon later on, but there was no source of new material at the time he began learning to play.
“Oh, there was some of them Victrolas around, the wind-up kind," said Troy, making a frantic winding motion with his arm. “But we didn't have one.”
So where did the music come from? “It just seemed like I knew these songs already; we all did," Troy explained. “I just played what I was taught. I don't know where it came from."
Songs like “She'll Be Comin' 'Round The Mountain," “Can I Sleep In Your Barn Tonight, Mister?" "Wildwood Flower," "Weeping Willow Tree," "Soldier's Joy," "Don't Let Your Deal Go Down."
“And the Old Man always made us play 'Home Sweet Home' last every time," Troy remembered. "When ever'body heard that song, they knew that was it, the dancin' was done, it was time to go home."
At first, “Doc And His Boys,” as they came to be known, played square dances in private homes, mostly during the holidays. "They used to clear out a couple of rooms of furniture and put us in the middle," Troy said. "We'd have square dancin' goin' on both sides of us."
The guitar-playing 11-year-old got a lot of attention. "I'd get lots of tips, even after we'd pass the hat," Troy said. "The drunker they got, the more money I'd make."
The band eventually moved on to an "official" dance hall in Kelso, a community just outside of Bedford. "We played most every Saturday night from 8 to 12," said Troy. "Had to stop at midnight 'cause of the Blue Laws or whatever you called them back then; you wasn't supposed to do no dancin' on Sundays. They paid us $5 each. That was big money during the Depression! I used to feel bad, though — because of the tips I got, I'd make twice as much as the others. The old man made me turn most of it over to him, though, 'cause he needed to buy things for the farm."
Following a performance, Troy's fingers would always be tender, and often bleeding. "Sometimes, one dance used to go on for a half hour or more," he said, "just so's they could get all the twists and turns in." He shook his head. "Ain't like you do now — you know, how you reach down and just turn the [amplifier] knob up — we had to beat hell out of those instruments. If you got quiet, people started wondering what in the hell was the matter with you. I'd play sometimes 'til my whole arm would cramp up."
When he started playing in public, Troy played the "family guitar." "I don't know what kind it was," Troy said. "But one day the Old Man took it up to the barn, sanded it down, and painted the front of it blue. It was deader'n hell after that. I still don't know what he done that for."
Troy borrowed a guitar for a while, but fate put a new instrument within his grasp. "I'd hung up an old dead hen over some traps I'd set just to see what I could catch — and I come up with a mink," Troy explained. "I didn't know what it was. I took it home and showed it to the Old Man. He helped me skin it and stretch it and I sold it to the Sears & Roebuck Company for $30. Then I turned right around and ordered me a brand-new Silvertone flattop guitar for $25. When it finally come in the mail, I ran down to the end of that dirt-road driveway we had, tore open the box, tuned that thing, and was playin' a song by the time I got back to the house."
For about three more years, Doc And His Boys kept playing their semi-regular Saturday night gigs. They'd heard rumors of a new-fangled form of entertainment that might replace them, but they didn't know just when the axe would fall. Finally, it did. "When them damn' jukeboxes come in, there wasn't no need for us anymore," Troy explained. "See, the dance hall owners was makin' money off them jukeboxes and they sure as hell was happy not to have to pay us any more."
The private dances dried up as well. "That was a hell of a thing," Troy said. "The Old Man was the Sunday School Superintendent at our church. Had been for quite a while. Word got out that he was playin' music at a dance hall, and after a while, a bunch of people got together, mostly old biddies, and got him fired — 'cause they didn't think what he was doin' was right, I reckon. He took that real hard."
That was the last straw for Doc And His Boys. "Me'n my daddy used to play at the house after that," Troy said, "but it all kinda faded away after them damn jukeboxes come in."
At 17, Troy decided to follow his brother Vernon to Radford to get work. "I left the guitar at the farm," Troy said, "for my little brother Curtis to play. I never did fool with it anymore after that, especially after I went into the army." (Curtis -- a.k.a. Curt Hanson -- later formed "Curt's Country Cousins" and was president of the Baltimore Country Music Association for a stretch in the late 60s and early 70s.)
Troy didn't stop playing altogether; I remember, when I was about seven, going with my dad to visit my Uncle Vernon's house in Radford. Dad would play guitar and Uncle Vernon played mandolin. They played all the old songs. That's when I decided to learn to play guitar. Sometimes Uncle Vernon's son Ranny (who kept his Elvis sideburns long after The Kang went in the army) would stagger out of his room and play some "goddamn rock an' roll" just to spite them. That really inspired me.
Dad bought me a brand-new Kay guitar for Christmas when I was eight. He showed me a few chords, just as his dad had done for him, and then turned me loose. I don't know what he thinks of what I play now. (I know he thinks I'm crazy for not making any money at it.)
Still, sometimes in the stillness of a post-gig night, when I, too, get to be the king of the world for yet one more fleeting moment, I get the feeling that he approves, or at least understands. And, somewhere out there in the night, amid the stars, the lightning bugs, and the beer bottles, I get the feeling that the Old Man, the grandfather I never knew, is laughing — because he already knows the thing I think my father is hoping for and perhaps counting on, that there aren't any jukeboxes in heaven.
EPILOGUE
Troy Rudolph Simpkins died in 1999 at the age of 79 of a stomach aneurysm. Because of his worsening emphysema, the aneurysm was inoperable. He lived the last three years of his life knowing that each day could be his last. And yet, through it all, he managed to keep a positive attitude. His weakening condition frustrated him, especially since he couldn't navigate the way he wanted to after having a leg removed some years earlier because of circulatory problems. Nevertheless, he was especially frisky whenever company dropped by and was always particularly attentive to the fairer sex.
Working, staying busy, accomplishing something every day was the only lifestyle he'd ever known. His father worked him like a dog on the farm back in Bedford — he never made it past third grade because of his farm-related duties — and he put in 35 years on the production line at the Radford Arsenal after he returned from WWII. After work, for nearly 25 years, he and I mowed lawns in the summer for extra money. On the nights we got back before dark, he'd get the mowers back into shape and then work the rest of the evening in his vegetable garden. He was a big Atlanta Braves baseball fan and continued to gripe at their shortcomings long after they became a successful winning team in the 90s.
He was the hardest working man I've ever known, and I miss him — more, it seems, with each passing year. Among many fond memories, I hold two incidents particularly dear.
When his emphysema was getting worse, and when his remaining knee had all but given out on him, he was almost completely restricted to the house, except for doctor's visits and the occasional excursion to get a haircut. (He couldn't STAND it when his hair got down over his ears.) I drove him to what may have been his last visit to the barber shop. I was worried that it was going to be too much for him. Instead, I was astonished to see him practically spring out of the car, using just his cane to balance on his one bad leg. I opened the door to the barber shop for him and watched him enter. His back straightened, his chin lifted to a jaunty angle, and he walked in like it was absolutely nothing to him. Every head in the place turned to see him and practically everyone started shouting out welcomes and hellos all at once. I'd heard the term "charisma" but I'd never seen it in action until then. In performance terms, my dad "owned" that room from the time he entered to the time he left. I'll never forget the ride home; I kept sneaking peeks at that exhausted old man next to me and trying to fathom where he found the strength. It still floors me just to think about it.
Lastly, along about the same time, I decided that maybe Dad would like to have a guitar to play, so I decided to get him one for Christmas. (Returning the favor, maybe?) Aside from watching television and religiously reading the newspaper every day, my dad never developed any truly sedentary habits in his lifetime. I hoped he could relieve some of the boredom of being housebound by picking up the guitar once again. On Christmas Day, he seemed thrilled with the gift. (It was a cheap beginners' guitar; I knew him well enough to know that he would have been all over me if I'd gotten him a more expensive one.) He remarked on the looks of the guitar, said that he'd heard somewhere that Epiphone was a good brand name, and then proceeded to tune it up and start to play.
For a brief few minutes, the years melted away as his fingers remembered the old bass runs and riffs that he'd played so long ago. I was amazed. As I watched him play, I was making mental notes to ask him how he played certain bits, how he made this or that transition. Then, as if his brain finally got through to his heart, he put the guitar down, winced, and shook his fingers. "Boy, that hurts!" he exclaimed. While he'd been playing, it had not occurred to him that his fingers were stiff and gnarled with arthritis; he had not been aware that his fingertips had become so tender and soft. For just a few minutes there, he was that eight-year-old boy again showing off his skills on guitar. And I'm so, SO thankful I got to see it.
He never did play that guitar regularly like I'd hoped he would; I think that maybe it was too depressing for him. Because, you see, playing guitar is something one does AFTER all the work is done, not just any old time and whenever one feels like it. Maybe playing the guitar made him too aware of all the other things that he could no longer do.
I guess my one wish now is that one of these days I will get the chance to see "Doc And His Boys" playing their regular gig in heaven. And, if I can get a little bit better as the years go by, maybe Dad'll let me spell him for a couple of tunes while he rests his fingers. I only hope the Old Man won't mind.
by Troy David Simpkins