1979 Pee Wee Lambert Bluegrass Mandolin Blue Ridge Mt Boys - 9-Page Article

Description

1979 Pee Wee Lambert Bluegrass Mandolin Blue Ridge Mt Boys - 9-Page Article
Original, vintage magazine article
Page Size: Approx 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm)
Condition: Good
We were sitting in the nearly deserted
back section of Chet’s bar in
Columbus, Ohio, on a mild June night in
1965, having come early to get one of the
few “good” seats in the place. The
musicians had not yet begun to arrive and
there were only a few of the most
dedicated drinkers hunched over their
glasses in the front of the place, safely
away from the bandstand and anything
that might divert their attention. The
beer was, as usual, less than cold and that
was the central theme of the conversation
when the guitar player, a transplanted
West Virginian named Landon Rowe,
came in the back door. He waved as he
opened the converted closet that served
as a combination dressing and storage
room for empty beer bottles and, having
shed his coat and stowed his instrument,
came to our booth and sat down.
“I guess you heard about Pee Wee,” he
began.
We hadn’t, but judging from the tone of
his voice the news could only be bad.
“He’s dead.”
We pressed for details but the only
information Landon had was that Pee Wee
Lambert had suffered a heart attack while
on his way to work a week or so earlier.
Until about three months before he had
been a regular member of the band he’d
helped form with Landon, banjo player
John Hickman and bassist Ray Willis; but
•
now he was dead and it left a sadness in
’ the local bluegrass community that was a
*
long time in healing.
; Slowly the other band members drifted
j in and soon it was time for the music to
= start. For those in the place who hadn’t
■ heard, an announcement about Pee Wee
? was made after which the band sang
“Gathering Flowers for the Master’s
( Bouquet.” It was perhaps not equal to the
!, version recorded when Pee Wee was with
; Carter and Ralph Stanley but it was
i certainly no less heartfelt or sincere.
>
Pee Wee Lambert was a small man, no
>
more than five-two or five-three, with a
L gleam in his deep blue eyes and the
memory of him sitting in the back booth
between sets drinking black coffee and
talking about his days with the Stanley
Brothers is something I will never forget.
At the time it didn’t seem important or
necessary to “interview” Pee Wee about
his career-we were all just there, in a
dingy tavern, some making music and
some enjoying. Consequently the stories
he could have told and the facts he could
have provided are missing, but with
information gathered from people who
knew, loved and played with him,
combined with my own incomplete
memory, a picture of the man and his
importance in the history of bluegrass
music begins to emerge.
In certain parts of the Appalachian
Mountains there are dozens, even
hundreds, of towns like Thacker, West
Virginia, where in the early half of the
twentieth century there wasn’t much to
disturb the peace and quiet except the
clamor of coal trains in and out of the
mining areas. Darrell Lambert was born
and grew up in Thacker but his life was to
be shaped by events taking place far from
the hills of Mingo County. Like many
youngsters who entered their teens in the
late 1930’s “Pee Wee” came heavily under
the spell of the music of Bill Monroe. The
Monroe Brothers were established artists
during this period with recordings
available all over the Southeastern United
States. Undoubtedly Pee Wee had heard
them as well as other mandolin-guitar
duets and mountain string bands that
included a mandolin player, but the
greatest impact on his musical direction
was made in 1939. Bill Monroe and his
Blue Grass Boys hit the air over WSM
with the beginnings of a new, dynamic,
driving music and Pee Wee Lambert, like
hundreds of thousands since, was
incurably and irrevocably hooked on a
sound.
In 1939 and 1940 the people of the
United States were becoming more and
more aware that is was only a matter of
time before they would be drawn into the
war already being fought in Europe and
Asia, but for a teen-aged mandolin player
it is always one thing at a time and right
then he was intent on music.
Ray “Pickets” Lambert, Pee Wee Lambert, Roy Sykes, Carter Stanley, Gains
Blevins, Jack Belcher circa 1946.
Pee Wee, Leslie Keith. Kneeling
Carter & Ralph Stanley in 1947.
With a friend, Estil Dotson, from
Thacker, Pee Wee started playing music
locally until a chance encounter with
fiddler Roy Sykes resulted in the
formation of a band.
“I met him hitchhiking one Saturday
morning,” says Sykes of their first
meeting. “He had a mandolin so I stopped
and picked him up. Pee Wee and Estil
Dotson, a guitar player from Thacker, had
been playing together some...(We) went
to Bristol to play...on WOPI. (It) was the
only station down there then; that was
before WCYB.”
And what kind of music was Pee Wee
playing then? According to Sykes, “He
was a duplicate to (Bill) Monroe. There’s
some that can play the mandolin...and
some that have the high voice...but Pee
Wee could do both.”
This association lasted approximately
three years until Sykes and Dotson moved
to Baltimore in anticipation of being called
into the Army in 1942. Pee Wee stayed
behind in West Virginia, entering the
Army Air Corps some time later,
probably in late 1942 or early 1943, and
serving two and a half years in the
China-Burma-India Theatre. While with
the Air Corps he played in several part-
time bands before being discharged in
December of 1945.
In early 1946 Roy Sykes was also
discharged from the service along with
another young Virginian by the name of
Carter Stanley whom he’d met while
mustering out at Ft. Meade, Maryland.
Sykes, on returning home, was eager to
put his band back in operation and since
Carter lived fairly near it was a natural
move for them to get together. Shortly a
country band was performing over
WNVA in Norton, Virginia, featuring
music played in a variety of styles. In
addition to Sykes on fiddle and Carter
Stanley on guitar, Pee Wee Lambert was
recruited to resume his pre-war role as
mandolin player in the band. The rest of
the Blue Ridge Mountain Boys were Ray
“Pickles” Lambert (no relation) on bass,
Gaines Blevins on steel guitar, J.D.
Richards on guitar and Jack Belcher on
electric Spanish guitar. It was Sykes’
intention to put on a complete show with
fiddling, ballads, comedy, new country
songs and old-time singing using Norton
as a home base with performances in the
surrounding counties. Because of thier
particular interests and abilities it fell
upon Carter and Pee Wee to do the
old-time-brother-singing portion of the
program thereby establishing a duet (Pee
Wee singing tenor to Carter’s lead) that
would continue even after the formation of
the Clinch Mountain Boys.
In the fall of 1946 Ralph Stanley
returned to Virginia from military service
and was taken into the band by Sykes.
“I played with Roy about three weeks,”
Ralph remembers after which the
Brothers and Pee Wee decided that the
course of their music should take a
direction different from that of the Blue
Ridge Mountain Boys and they set about
to organize their own band. With fiddler
Bobby Sumner they began performing as
the Clinch Mountain Boys around the first
of December, 1946.
“We started first on the same station
where they were playing with Roy Sykes,
on WNVA in Norton. I believe we worked
there a little less than thirty days.”
In early 1947 the Stanley Brothers and
the Clinch Mountain Boys auditioned for
and won a spot on a new radio station, the
now legendary WCYB.
According to Ralph, “We moved to
Bristol, Virginia/Tennessee, and started a
program there known as ‘Farm and Fun
Time’. And we worked that program
about an hour, from 12:05 till 1:00 o’clock.
We worked that hour by ourselves (at
first). Later on some more groups joined
in and they extended it to two hours.”
(WCYB in the late 40’s and early 50’s
was the home station for many of the early
greats in bluegrass. In addition to the
Stanley Brothers, Flatt and Scruggs, Mac
Wiseman, and the Sauceman Brothers,
among others, were based there.)
By this time the Stanley Brothers had
acquired the services of veteran fiddler,
the late Leslie Keith, who recalled that
during this period Pee Wee sang the tenor
while Ralph contributed the baritone and
he (Keith) sang bass on the gospel songs.
(See “Leslie Keith: Black Mountain
Odyssey” by Bob Sayers, BU, December,
1976.)
Natural reticence on Ralph’s part is
probably the reason he did not assume
more tenor duties at this point. As he tells
it, “Carter and Pee Wee were singing all
the duets when I came back (from the
service) and they continued to sing part of
them (although) I would sing some with
Carter. I was pretty backward at that
time. I liked to stand back and let
somebody else do a lot (of the singing).”
It is significant that the Carter/Pee
Wee duets were continued during this...