Been thinking about grandpa today... with a little detective work, I found his secret stash of recordings and I'm transferring them to digital. This week, I've gone from having three of his recordings to dozens. My dad and I have been going over all his maxims of music and life. He never did, or thought anything, that was half-assed. I thought I'd share a few:
"A guitar (or mandolin) has a neck. Learn to use all of it." "A capo is fine, as long as you don't care if you ever learn to play." "Never outshine the vocals, save your hot licks for the instrumentals where they belong." If you ain't got timing, you ain't got shit." "I carried a D Marine Band harmonica in my guitar case to tune the E string. when I played the chord, I could hear an A chord, so I started playing it in A. You know they still make those Marine Bands." "I don't care what instrument you want to play. Everybody needs to learn guitar." "That's not how it goes. Give me the g...mn mandolin.... this is how it goes."
Screw Dos Equis. My granfather was the most interesting man in the world.
Rules of fighting, which he was very good at and kept his skills in constant practice at least until his 50s, when he spent a couple days in the Kanawha County Jail. He was leaning against a post, and the biggest badass prisoner comes up and tells him he owns the jail and everybody has to have his permission to lean against HIS post. Grandpa said "is that a fact?" and punches the dude in the forehead and totally laid him out and the guy didn't come to until later in the infirmary. Later on, grandpa strolls into the cafeteria - he could have just kept walking on, but grandpa kept it real. He sits at the table right across from this dude and says "Just so I understand, you don't mind if I sit here, do you, boy?" He says "No sir. I don't own a thing in this jail" and finds another table.
He could have been a better writer than I. He had far more wit than I. He would relay that wit in any situation, such as this one: He was in his late 50s when some musclebound punk was taunting him at a garage he was working at, the dude - he was ripped - says "how come you carry your shoulders so low, old man?" Now the real reason was grandpa's sternum was broken at birth and it didn't heal right. What he did instead was punch him in the chest hard enough to knock the young man flat down to the ground. The dude is laying on the ground, gasping for breath, with grandpa's greasy fistprint in the middle of his chest. Grandpa stands over him and says "I carry my shoulders low, so I can punch hard."
A couple of his rules of fighting: "Hit him like you MEAN it." "Two best things to have in your hand during a fight is a roll of nickels or a Woodruff key...the Woodruff key is better, you can always keep it in your pocket." "If you can't win a fight in 10 seconds, don't bother, you'll get hurt."
on life: "Water seeks its own level and shit won't flow uphill." "The world is not level." "I wonder if it ever occurred to that son-of-a-bitch how stupid he is."
Of the recordings I found, this was the most badass. It's him on the mandolin. There's one photo in this vid of him from the side. It looks like he's wearing a ladies' watch. It's not. He had arms like a gorilla.
He thought the Andy Griffith Show was the greatest thing ever on television. Another thing I picked up from him. He was gruff, he pulled no punches, both figuratively and literally, but he was an incredibly talented human being and was always very kind to me.
---------- David
____________________ At the time of his birth, it was widely accepted that no one man could play that much music so well or raise that much hell. He proved them all wrong. R.I.P. H. Cecil Payne Elk River Institute for Advanced Harmonica Studies
damn! the man had skills! i can see why you do what you do.
it's funny how grandpas had life advice boiled down to a few simple axioms. i cant wait till i get old enough to be able to pull that off. all i got now is some lines ripped from john wayne!
Sounds like your Grandpa would of loved the UFC Dave...
Anderson Silva fights tonight...He seems a bit perturbed with his opponent. To qoute Anderson -
“He doesn’t deserve to be inside the octagon, and when the time comes and the time is right, I’m going to break his face and break every one of his teeth in his mouth,” said Silva (29-4).
“What I’m going to do inside the Octagon is something that’s going to change the image of the sport,” the champ said later.
“I’m going to make sure that every one of his teeth are broken, his arms are broken, his legs are broken. He’s going to not be able to walk out of the Octagon by himself. I can guarantee that … No more (expletive) talking. It’s on now.”
Fantastic David - all of it, the stories the music, - and that you got to have him as your grandpa.
Please do keep sharing whatever you'd care to about Cecil. The first hand passing of musical and cultural tradition was a great gift to you- and a great second hand gift to us. ----------
A Woodruff Key is a piece of metal that goes in a crankshaft. It's a half-moon shape. About the shape of the inside of a fist.
So... amongst the stuff I found were two things he recorded mandolin only. One was "Were You THere When THey Crucified My Lord," the other was "When You and I were Young, Maggie." Dad's got some recording equipment, so the Paynes are going to try to do something like the Williams family did with "Three Hanks" with Hank Sr. Hank Jr. and Hank III. David can play rhythm on a Chordet, so he's gonna do some chord chops and we'll have the Williams family beat by one generation.
A little CD would be a nice coping mechanism, I suppose, we gotta figure out how to do everything, what to name it, maybe "roll of nickels and a Woodruff Key" or something.
Anybody got any experience with doing this kind of recording? We have a lot of stuff and two tracks that are completely clean with him on the mandolin and nothing else, plus I think Dad can isolate his mandolin on some other stuff. Dad will be playing guitar. I'll be playing harps or maybe chopping some mandolin.
"Were You There" is the one I wanna try first. This is what we have to work with. Obviously, we gotta loop it or something. In a rare C.P. moment, one of the A strings is slightly out of tune.
Here's one of many examples of fine musicianship. I have heard him kick ass on this tune and play it just like you hear it here. Only it's not him playing it here. It's Dorse Sears, the singer. Grandpa takes the third mandolin break and it's very, very laid back - and in fact, it's an easy-listening version of a break for any of the Jimmie Rodger's Blue Yodels. Why? Because this is Dorse's song for the mandolin. This is an extreme case of his holding back for another musician. He played vocal numbers to compliment the singer... he pulled out the hot licks on the instrumentals. He was always thinking of how his sounds blended with the group as a whole, what his job was and what the final result would be. That's why he was great.
---------- David
____________________ At the time of his birth, it was widely accepted that no one man could play that much music so well or raise that much hell. He proved them all wrong. R.I.P. H. Cecil Payne Elk River Institute for Advanced Harmonica Studies
"I ain't gonna sing no 'Home on the Range.' No. sir. Not if it means I rot in here another month. I'm gonna sing what I'm a gonna be! A free man in the morning!" Andy Griffith (as Lonesome Rhodes, "A Face in the Crowd).
Last Edited by on Jul 07, 2012 11:22 PM
You want headphones to monitor Cecil's tracks - while overdubing the new ones onto the open tracks, - assuming your dad's recorder can handle that. Lot's of computer / digital solutions of course - if you want to set up a digital multitrack on your computer. Nothing at all wrong with analog though - if it's the kind of machine that can do overdubs. You can also 'bounce tracks down' to one of the open tracks to free up more tracks. A small mixer - Mackie or the equiv. would probably help but may not be essential. Apologies if you already know this stuff - wasn't sure exactly what type of advice you needed. ----------
I know as much about recording as I know about foot pedals, which is nothing.. ---------- David
____________________ At the time of his birth, it was widely accepted that no one man could play that much music so well or raise that much hell. He proved them all wrong. R.I.P. H. Cecil Payne Elk River Institute for Advanced Harmonica Studies
"I ain't gonna sing no 'Home on the Range.' No. sir. Not if it means I rot in here another month. I'm gonna sing what I'm a gonna be! A free man in the morning!" Andy Griffith (as Lonesome Rhodes, "A Face in the Crowd).
