Blog #4. October 2021. By Barry R. Willis.
Bill Keith and Earl Scruggs and their collaboration to create Earl Scruggs and the 5-String Banjo (Peer International Corporation, New York. 1968).
This book, a collaboration between Earl Scruggs, Bill Keith and Burt Brent, is the first serious and certainly significant contribution to banjo players interested in learning how to play banjo the way Earl Scruggs did.
William Bradford “Bill” Keith is one of only a handful of banjoists who expanded the horizons of bluegrass music when he exposed the world to entire tunes of melodic banjo playing. This he did when he joined Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. The entire story is here, verified by Mr. Keith before it went to print in America’s Music: Bluegrass – A History of Bluegrass Music in the Words of Its Pioneers (written by Barry R. Willis and published in 1997. All rights reserved). This publication is now available digitally on this website.
When I presented the final copy of what you’re about to read to Mr. Keith, he read it through carefully and shook his head, muttering that what he says here may offend some people but it’s the truth. So we published it.
The following comes directly from America’s Music: Bluegrass and comes complete with all the footnotes associated with these quotations. Here is his story:
The contributions to bluegrass music by William Bradford Keith are legendary; they changed bluegrass music. His melodic banjo playing is often called “Keith style” picking. Tony Trischka wrote, “Earl Scruggs gave us drive, syncopation, and the smooth, three-finger right hand roll. What he didn’t provide for us, though, was a way to play scales or the long, flowing melody lines that grow out of them. With this new style, it became possible for a banjo player to pick fiddle tunes note-for-note as the fiddler would. In addition, an entirely new repertoire of exciting licks and runs grew up; and suddenly, there was something to play besides Scruggs style.”
As for using Scruggs/Keith tuners, he didn’t actually invent the method of re-tuning strings which Earl Scruggs used in songs such as “Flint Hill Special,” but he did help invent the D-tuners which make the songs easier to play and have a much cleaner look on the banjo.
Bill Keith was born in Brockton, Massachusetts, in 1939. Around 1952, he played the plectrum banjo in the Boston/Cambridge-based Dixieland bands. He studied the tenor “Dixieland” style of banjo chord construction and music theory at Exeter Academy and Amherst College.
In 1957, he bought and began playing a $15 longneck five-string banjo. He used Pete Seeger’s instruction book and strove to learn Earl Scruggs’ style. He was influenced by Pete Seeger, the Weavers, Don Stover, Don Reno and the Lilly Brothers. He was already somewhat accomplished on the ukulele, piano, tenor banjo and plectrum banjo. His five-string style was patterned after Pete Seeger’s style for the next couple years, then he began concentrating on Scruggs style—still with a longneck banjo. Keith and Jim Rooney began playing local gigs around the Amherst, Massachusetts, area. He made his first television appearance with this banjo on a local television station near college in 1957. He also played in a local bluegrass band and soon stepped up to a Gibson bluegrass-style banjo
A significant influence on Keith was Billy Faier who played “Sailor’s Hornpipe” using the banjo in a hammering-on style. Nevertheless, “My inspiration was a fiddler,” said Bill Keith, “When I heard a fiddler playing ‘Devil’s Dream,’ I said I could get those notes to come out in that order on the banjo. I know where those notes are—I just have to play the notes, not rolls. That was the winter of ‘59 to ‘60. This was when I first played ‘Devil’s Dream.’ It wasn’t recorded until ‘61.”
Probably the actual occasion for developing this melodic style of banjo playing was due to weekly visits to Nova Scotia fiddler (living in Massachusetts) June Hall. She would play many fiddle tunes, including “Devil’s Dream” for him. That is where he decided that he wanted to play the melodic style banjo. Keith also began developing “Sailor’s Hornpipe” into a medley with “Devil’s Dream.”
In reference to some authors who had written that Bobby Thompson was playing this melodic/chromatic music while he was with Jim and Jesse several years before Keith played it with Monroe, Keith replied, “I spoke to Jim and Jesse themselves and they don’t really remember Bobby playing fiddle tunes ‘cause when I got down to Nashville (1963) there were a lot of people saying that they had never heard that before. And Jim and Jesse were among them.”
But “I never met Bobby [Thompson] until after I had worked with Bill Monroe. He had already worked with Jim and Jesse and we know that he recorded quite a few things with them including ‘Dixie Hoedown,’ one of my favorites which has a little bit of what later became his style, I think. Other things like ‘Banjolina’ were pretty much ‘Scruggsy’ rolls and not all that melodic. In fact, there are only parts of the ‘Dixie Hoedown’ that are. The fact is, when I began working with Bill Monroe in the spring of ‘63, Bobby Thompson was with the Army National Guard in South Carolina and he told me he used to listen to Bill Monroe on the Opry on Saturday nights when I was playing. I was featured on the fiddle tunes with that band on six instrumentals which had a lot of melodic stuff in them. So I feel that I could have had an influence on Bobby. But I don’t feel that I influenced him in the direction he took in the bluesy thing and the stuff on ‘Area Code 615.’”
During the early 1960s, Bill Keith started transcribing many of Earl Scruggs’ songs onto paper. He did this by using tablature. When asked if he invented this technique of teaching and writing, he replied emphatically, “Absolutely not! I learned from Pete Seeger who points out that the lute players of the 18th century used it. He adapted an earlier form of it to the banjo and the first time I saw tablature was in Pete Seeger’s book in 1957.”
Keith also learned a lot about bluegrass music from Don Stover when the Lilly Brothers and Don Stover had a band. The 1961 “lessons” were merely visits to Stover’s house—Don wouldn’t demonstrate, said Keith. “In ‘61 and ‘62, I saw heavy amounts of Don (Stover) at the Hillbilly Ranch where he and the Lilly Brothers alternated half-hours with another band. And I spent many an evening there nursing a few beers,” he told Pete Wernick in a January 1984 interview.
In September of 1961, just before Keith went into the USAF, he (banjo), Jim Rooney (guitar), Joe Val (mandolin), Herb Hooven (fiddle) and Fritz Richmond (bass) recorded “Livin’ on the Mountain.” It was released in the spring of 1962. (Between the time of the recording session and its release, Eric Weissberg’s “New Dimensions in Banjo and Bluegrass” was released, said Keith. They played as the Berkshire Mountain Boys at Club 47, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and featured Keith’s melodic-style of banjo playing. One tune on the LP was “Devil’s Dream.” That same month, he won the banjo contest at the First Annual Philadelphia Folk Festival with “Sailor’s Hornpipe” and “Devil’s Dream.”
In the summer of 1962, Bill Keith started traveling. In the fall, he joined the Kentuckians with Red Allen (guitar), Frank Wakefield (mandolin) and Tom Morgan (bass) in the Washington area and at WWVA in Wheeling, West Virginia; he took Pete Kuykendall’s place with the group. His association with Morgan was an apprenticeship in banjo-making there in D.C..
During this period with Red Allen, Bill Keith and college friend Dan Bump decided to go into business together building a banjo. They eventually settled on reengineering banjo tuners. They built this business up in the winter of 1963, when most of the work was done by Bump because of Keith’s touring schedule with various groups. Bump sent the first D-tuner prototypes to Keith while he was in Nashville working for Monroe. Keith showed the pegs to Scruggs who approved of them. Production of the finished product began on a more serious basis in 1964. Scruggs wanted to lend his name to the product but was under contract to the Vega Company and was not allowed to do both unless he was involved as a shareholder with the new company. They all put up money and they were on their way. In 1968, this Cambridge company began making pewter objects. Eventually Bump lost interest in business and sold the Beacon Banjo Company back to Keith about 1989. Keith expanded it to sell many musical items by mail order.
That December, while still working with Red and Frank and Morgan in D.C., he saw Earl Scruggs in concert. The concert was at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, with Merle Travis opening the show. After the show, Manny Greenhill introduced Keith to Scruggs. Keith showed Scruggs his book of tablature. Peer International had recently published a book of Earl’s tunes in music notation. Keith, able to read music, found many errors and explained them to Scruggs who could not read music. Scruggs was impressed so he asked Keith to go to Nashville to work on another book which Scruggs was asked to write for Peer. This was like a call from heaven for Bill Keith: Earl Scruggs asking for his help. Keith had literally spent countless hours transcribing Earl’s solos note-for-note and had totally absorbed all of his work. Keith joined Scruggs in Nashville in early 1963, and began working on Earl Scruggs and the 5-String Banjo.
The book came out in 1968 from Peer International Corporation. Keith did all the tablature and exercises and did the recording of the album as well. “It was my tape recorder and my roll of tape and my microphone which was set up in his back room and we wrote out the text that he had to say on record. And since he had to play the exercises as they appeared in the book, I had to play them for him because he couldn’t read the tablature. This was something he had played, but he couldn’t tell what it was [by] lookin’ at it. Then I would turn the machine on and he would play it for the instructional record.”
Keith explained, “When we were workin’ on it he told me I would be gettin’ my share and he gave me the shake of his hand and I guess I was a little too green not to insist on having it all down there in writing. After all [he was] my hero and so forth. It was later I saw mention in Time magazine that the book had sold a million dollars retail. And I hadn’t gotten my first penny—not to mention anything for the record which was retailing for ten bucks apiece. And I knew that you can have those records pressed up for less than a dollar. Here he had zero production expense doin’ it in the back room on my machine. I just thought, ‘Hey! There’s hundreds of thousands of dollars here. Why doesn’t he deem that it’s time that I should see some of it?’ So I asked. I had always been welcome at his house. I seemed to be then until I brought that up. His wife kind of snickered and said, ‘You should have had a contract.’ I was real bitter about that and it wasn’t until several years later that I finally decided I’m not goin’ to live with this and resolve it. I went to a friend who was a music lawyer and we went through and…Earl spent a lot more money on his lawyers than what he ended up offering my lawyer…but it was a pittance on what he had implied [that I would get]. And, in the process, I’m permanently on his ‘out’ list.”
Everywhere Keith went at this point—whenever he played this medley of “Devil’s Dream” and “Sailor’s Hornpipe”—jaws would drop. And in March of 1963, backstage at the Opry at the old Ryman Auditorium, Bill Monroe and Kenny Baker were back there at the dressing room. Baker came back to where Keith was and said, “If you want a job with Bill Monroe, you’ve got it.” Rual Yarbrough was Monroe’s banjoist in the Nashville area but Monroe needed a regular banjoist for touring. Del McCoury, who had played one performance on banjo with Monroe was offered a job at the same time as Keith and both men auditioned for the banjo job the same day. Monroe asked McCoury if he could play guitar, an answer which was in the affirmative, and hired him on guitar and as lead singer. Keith was then hired on banjo. Bill Keith was the first Yankee to join the Blue Grass Boys. Because Monroe didn’t want two “Bill’s” in the band, he always called him “Brad” after his middle name, “Bradford.”
Keith learned a lot about bluegrass music while with Monroe. Those days with Monroe added to his understanding of how to make music that works—to make it do what you sense it should do—rather than simply following established rules.
Monroe capitalized on the musicianship of this band which included Keith, Del McCoury (banjo and guitar), and fiddlers Vassar Clements or Kenny Baker. This helped Monroe keep his band together and helped keep bluegrass alive in spite of the decidedly folk and Beatles era. Keith stayed ten months, until December. Keith left Monroe’s band because the place the band appeared, Hootenanny, had blacklisted his youthful banjo idol, Pete Seeger. Keith quit because of a principle.
Late in 1964, Keith joined the Jim Kweskin Jug Band in Boston. He used his Gibson five-string banjo (in G tuning) with a flat-pick. He bought a steel guitar while with this group. Members included Maria Muldaur and later Richard Greene (fiddle). Keith stayed four years with Kweskin…and away from bluegrass music. The group disbanded in 1968.
In 1969, Keith joined Ian and Sylvia and the Great Speckled Bird, playing country rock for a year. He commuted between Canada and Boston for this job. He played some banjo, but mostly steel guitar. When this ended about 1970, he moved to Woodstock area where he partnered with Jonathan Edwards, made a few records, and toured. Edwards then decided to retire since he had achieved significant success with his music. Keith then joined the Blue Velvet Band with his old pal Jim Rooney (guitar), Richard Greene (fiddle) and Eric Weissberg (guitar, banjo).
Bill Keith helped form Muleskinner in 1972, which wasn’t much more than a put-together band for a Bill Monroe television gig in Hollywood, California. Members were himself, David Grisman (mandolin), Peter Rowan (guitar), Clarence White (lead guitar), Richard Greene (fiddle) and Stuart Schulman (bass). Muleskinner musicians had been practicing the previous week at their gig at The Ash Grove. As it turned out, Monroe had trouble getting there from his Sacramento gig. He eventually called and told them to go on without him. The concert video was released in 1992.
About 1975, Keith worked with Judy Collins. In 1977, he toured in Europe with Tony Rice and David Grisman. This was followed by a tour of Japan with the David Grisman Quintet with Richard Greene and himself as guests. They toured as two separate groups: one with Greene, Grisman and Todd Phillips, the other with Grisman and Joe Carroll. Shortly after this tour Keith, having spent much of his time between America and Europe, moved back to the U.S.. Bill Keith became an original columnist with Frets in 1979. In 1989, he was settled in Woodstock, New York, where he teamed up with Eric Weissberg, Kenny Kosek and Jim Rooney as the New Blue Velvet Band. With this band he made his fifth trip to Japan and occasionally toured Europe. They weren’t interested in pursuing the festival circuit fulltime and were content to enjoy a home life as well as playing their music.
His 1993 CD was “Beating Around the Bush.” In 1995, he was in Richard Greene’s the Grass Is Greener instrumental band with Greene (fiddle), David Grier (guitar), Tim Emmons (bass, whose place was taken by Gene Libbea that fall), and Kenny Blackwell (mandolin until the summer of 1995 when Butch Baldassari took his place). Tony Trischka took Bill Keith’s place in late 1995.
So there it is, Friends: the truth of the controversy which Mr. Keith wanted you to know. He told me this story so I could publicize it. I don’t think Mr. Keith was vengeful, but I do think he wants us all to know the truth according to William Bradford Keith.
Next month’s blog will probably be the answer some of the questions I get about my novel The Banjo Pilot. I’ll ask the readers if they think the protagonist Duke Steel is a good pilot. We’ll delve into this question. Many also ask me, the author, if I am Duke Steel. And they ask if all those adventures are true. Well, we’ll talk about it and then we may introduce the sequel Icy Strait. The Alaskan Adventures of the Banjo Pilot.
A Note from Larry Perkins, the man who plays the style of Earl Scruggs better than any man on earth. And a banjo collector aqnd salesman
Howdy Barry! Thanks so much for sharing this with me… great work, as usual. Unfortunate that William Bradford and Earl couldn’t/wouldn’t pull it together somehow..
Bill Keith and I got to be friends, and he mentioned this stuff to me a few times – he knew I was good friends with Louise and Earl. As is usually the case there’s Bill’s take on the story, the Scruggs’ take on the story, and somewhere betwixt those two stories is what really happened and why. I didn’t know Bill or have the experience with him that I’d had with the Scruggs’, but my sense of it is both were honest, ethical people, essentially…
I do have some questions about the Bobby Thompson part of Bill’s story. I understand he (Bill) would like to be seen and credited as the author and progenitor of the chromatic/melodic banjo. I’m from the Carolinas and knew a bunch of the old timers – Carol Best, who was playing fiddle tunes much the same way Keith/Thompson did… some of the older players called that the ‘Bostonian lick’… some called it the ‘hydraulic stuff’. Anyway, the point is most of those folks knew Bobby Thompson had been playing that ‘note-ee’ stuff for years, long before they ever heard of Bill Keith… some said that Bill made a point to visit Bobby’s trailer in Spartanburg SC in the late ’50s/early ’60s (he did, in fact) and were of the opinion that that’s where/when Bill started learning – then went on to take credit for coming up with it himself, which didn’t set well with some folks at all.i never got into all that stuff with Bill. Bobby just Loved to play – I don’t think he cared a thing about getting credit for anything. If being credited for being the first and best was important to Bill Bobby would join the chorus singing Bill’s praises, I think. Bobby was a fine, fine fellow who felt extremely lucky to get to make a living doing what he Loved. Thanks so much for thinking of me and sharing this with me! I’ve thought of you…
I still have people coming around or contacting me about writing the ‘book of Earl’. Amazing the interest there is in him. I began keeping notes on my interactions with Earl and just about every word he said from when we first got acquainted in ’77, and all the visits with he and Louise – and often brother Horace, and during the 12-13 years they were my neighbors and landlords, and finally the three years
I stayed with and took care of him 2-3 years before he died (or whatever happened that ended it for him)… during this time, especially around the breakfast table, he began talking about things, things I had never heard about or had a clue about though we had been close friends for about 30 years…
I’d make a mad dash for my bedroom and start tapping away on the computer, trying to remember everything he had just said, and finally told him what I’d been doing and asked if he had any objections to my bringing the computer to the table to keep some notes. To my pleasant surprise he said, “no, not at all…in fact I wish would. I’d like for people to know this stuff if they’re interested. I just don’t want to be here when they find out.. completely understandable. I’ve been feeling that way about it too. I’d like for people to know Earl’s story as told by Earl – I’d just as soon them not hear it from me. So I haven’t felt inclined to get involved with anyone about it yet. The publishers, university presses, and professional writers who have come down to talk with me about it haven’t really tripped my trigger… some just see the need for the book and want to do it but don’t really know enough about the subject to bring up the questions that would Inspire me to remember things I didn’t keep notes on that would make for a much better book. A couple have come across as if they would want to edit Earl’s natural way of expressing himself with his Carolina brogue out of it to make it ‘proper’… the last one, a writer from National Geographic of all things as much as said there’s really not that much interest in such a book but he would be interested in doing it because he’s a ‘shade tree banjo player’ when the subject of possible financial arrangements was raised, like I would just be fortunate to have the book written and published because it would be good publicity for me. I said, ‘so National Geographic is in the business of sending writers and editors out to investigate potential books on subjects there’s little to no interest in, is that what you’re telling me?’ Mercy… so I haven’t done anything with anyone about it yet. If you have any ideas or admonitions regarding this I would sure appreciate your sharing it. Great hearing from you! Lp
Barry’s Response
Great to hear from you, Larry. I’m really pleased you remember me through all these years, since our first meeting at your home when Jimmy Martin and John Hartford were there. I was loving the music and the simplicity of your life.. Certainly was different than mine…and probably still is since I’m a retired guy living alone in a big house on the Big Island of Hawaii. And I recall your performance at the Bell Cove with Mr. Bill back in the ’90s.
Anyhow, I did interview Bobby Thompson by phone a couple times after he’d been seriously affected by his disease (MS if I recall). His wife (Judy?) had to interpret a bit of what he was saying to me because of the way he was slurring his words. I often play Bobby’s part on “Misty” by comedian Ray Stevens. This is soooooo powerful. I believe he was playing an RB-1 at the time.
May I suggest you contact Fred Bartenstein to help you with Earl’s book. I’d bet he’d jump on this, just as he did when I presented Uncle Josh’s bio to him, and the idea that he could do a great job on it. As you undoubtedly suspect, he did a much better job than I could have done because he has an intimate knowledge of such matters and an unending list of close friends who could contribute to help make “Bluegrass Bluesman” a great success.
The same goes for you and your contacts. if you could follow a similar format as what Fred did, you’d have a winner. The main thing we did is not to change a single word of what Josh told me. His phraseology is still there. That being said, if Fred isn’t interested in this book, let me know and we’ll do it together. What do you think about that?
I didn’t know Earl wanted his story told. It surprises me, actually, because he wouldn’t meet with me, probably because I’m not a friend like you were. I didn’t want to push myself on him but as I was creating his biography for my “America’s Music: Bluegrass” book, he wanted some parts of it changed. He contacted Pete Wernick, a mutual friend, to reach out to me. I changed his biography to suit his needs. I just complied with his simple request that I leave out an article by the “Tennesseeans” about the Earl/Lester split. I thought it was good history, but since he asked, I left it out.
Larry, I’ll be placing your note to me onto my blog as a part of the discussion aspect of bluegrass history, which it’s supposed to be. I hope that’s okay with you because it has some great insights about Earl and Bill and Bobby in there. The whole idea of my blog is to have people discuss its history. And I thank you for your input.
Barry
Relevant Blog Comments
From Richard Greene:
Hi Barry, this is fantastic. Please email me.
Richard
From Dennis Schut in Austria:
Thank you Barry! Interesting reading and of course I have the book! However, I don’t think it is completely correct that there was a time in Bluegrass history, that there was” nothing else to play, than the scruggs style”…. ( a bit repetitive and boring) as there was already a long time the Reno style. But for that you need to be a musical genius and only very few banjo players dare to try. Best wishes from the beautiful mountains of Austria,
Dennis Schut
From Ira Gitlin:
Great job, Barry.
Ira
Barry,
Thank you! It’s good to be connected with you and appreciate your ideas so much… yes sir, my life is probably even more simple now than ever. I like it that way. I just don’t need much, or want much. The less housecleaning and stuff to keep up with the better for me… I’ve seen times I could have had the big fancy home in Belle Meade like some of the artists and musicians have, but it’s just not for me…i can only imagine how nice it is there where you live. I’ve meant to get there for a visit but haven’t made it yet. Maybe some of these days…in fact I came close to taking Earl to Hawaii – he really wanted to go. For some reason he wanted me to see the ships that are submerged there around Pearl Harbor and see just how beautiful it is there…if I recall correctly he was in Hawaii the first time he saw ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ and got to hear his’Foggy Mt Breakdown’ in a theater over the Klipsch ‘Voice of the Theater’ speakers. We have several other friends who live there. You might know Kris Kristopherson? He lives there, or did… he used to bring some fantastic coffee grown there at his place when he came to the Cash Cabin for projects John Carter was working on…
Yes sir, it was a sad, hard thing to watch as Bobby Thompson’s health failed. You’re not the first to think that Bobby Thompson played the banjo on Ray’s version of ‘Misty’ – it sounds so much like something Bobby would play, but that’s actually Castevens, Mark Castevens if I remember correctly.
Thank you for the suggestion to discuss the possibilities of the Earl book with Fred. I need to find his book on Josh – I didn’t even know one had been written! I’m way out of the music biz loop these days. I’m so happy to know Josh hasn’t been edited out of it. I’ve wished a thousand times that I had kept a tape recorder going on the dozens of trips I made with Josh. I’d pick him up, he’d crack open a beer, light up a menthol, and start talking… he had the best memory, and was one of the very best storytellers I’ve known. Wish I’d kept more notes and recorded some of those trips…
I was surprised that Earl wanted his story told too. Louise had been working on definitive book on the subject, and that’s in part why she was so protective and controlling about the interviews Earl participated in – she saw no good sense in helping someone else compete with her for space on the bookstore shelves. She usually granted interviews focused on whatever the album, tour, Gibson banjo, or whatever their current project was, and had a fairly standard basic bio to be drawn from for the other questions. She didn’t mean to be mean about it – it was just business to her. It’s a real shame that she didn’t live to complete her book. With her knack for keeping records and notes it would have been a great book no doubt. She had been on Prednisone for years due to her asthma…in the fall of 2005 they went to New York for an appearance on the David Letterman Show… reaching for something in the closet in their hotel room her back broke. She flew back to Nashville not knowing her back was broke. Next morning she was unable to get out of bed and had to be taken by ambulance to the hospital, where it was discovered her back was broke. The constant use of Prednisone had depleted the marrow from her bones… so she was in the hospital when Earl played a date in Myrtle Beach, SC, and walked off the stage, about six feet above a solid concrete floor where there were no steps. With his banjo still strapped on. Just like that he wound up in the hospital with her. I spent quite a bit of time going back and forth from her room to Earl’s. After Earl’s surgery on the knee they were transferred to an assisted living facility where they could share a room. I visited them on Earl’s birthday, and later, after I left them, Louise called and asked if I would come get Earl, take him home, and stay with him until she got to go home, she reckoned that would be a week or so – but she died about a month later, and just like that Earl and I became roommates, and I came to know an Earl Scruggs I had no idea about… that’s when he started opening up around the breakfast table and finally said he wished I would keep some notes because he wanted people who are interested to know these things, he just didn’t want to be around when they find out. They were exceedingly private and protective of their privacy.. very few people ever really knew either of them. Yes sir, you’re welcome to share anything you think might be of interest. The thing about the Bill Keith/Scruggs thing is they were very different people from very different backgrounds. Earl especially was brought up in borderline poverty during the depression. He had to work really hard to lift himself out of those circumstances. By the time he and Bill Keith met the Scruggs had already had dealings with wealthy ‘northerners’ bent on using them to make lots of money…they learned early on the importance of ‘doing business in a business.
Like way’. Not trying to make excuses for anybody or excuse anything. I wasn’t there back then and wasn’t privy to the conversations, arrangements, deals struck, contracts, or anything at all. The Louise and Earl I know were honest to a fault, literally. I wasn’t nearly as well acquainted with Bill Keith but I feel the same about him, that he was an honest, highly ethical man. The Scruggs’ wanted what was theirs and didn’t want it if it wasn’t theirs. My sense of it is that Bill was accustomed to Bill Monroe and other southerners approach to business, which was totally unlike the way the Scruggs’ did things. They felt that Earl’s style was their product – like Chevrolet is a GM product, and if anybody was going to profit from/by it they were due their share. If Bill didn’t have a contract or some understanding with them from the outset I’m guessing they took that to mean he was doing it just because it was something he wanted to do personally – not as a business venture. It wasn’t their fault he didn’t make his expectations known upfront and get that memorialized by way of a contract. Whatever the case it’s tragic that this thing wasn’t ironed out and fixed to everybody’s satisfaction – and it’s sad that to this day there are people who really know nothing about it at all, or only know what they heard about from one side, or somebody who heard it from somebody else who heard it from Bill or some such. It remains a smudge on the face of the bluegrass banjo world. It’s hard, probably impossible for people who weren’t directly involved and completely informed about the issues from both sides to have a credible understanding of the whole thing.
Yes sir, I think it could be great to work with you on the Earl book. Maybe we’ll think on it and discuss it some of these days Larry Perkins
From Dr. Elena Corey, musician, writer. October 2021.
Thank you, Barry, for offering this very informative glimpse into the life and style of Bill Keith. It says a lot about you that you are able to get beyond your ownself and give the world such worthy insights. I also will be eager to read “Icy Strait.”
I hope your health is good & that you’re getting time to pursue time-consuming projects you value.
Please do keep me informed of your various writing offerings; I’m happy for you that they are receiving good feedback.
Your friend, co-writer, co-musician and especially co-Christian,
Elena Corey
Note from Bill Palmer. October 20, 2019
Hello Barry:
This information tallies almost exactly with what Bill Keith told me at a number of different bluegrass conventions over the years. One person that I have some additional information on is Bobby Thompson. I had been playing the banjo for maybe a year and a half when the New Christy Minstrels came to Houston to play the Emerald Room at the Shamrock Hotel. At that time, Larry Ramos was their banjo player. I managed to wangle an invitation to meet him in his room at the Shamrock.
We discussed all sorts of aspects of being a member of the New Christy Minstrels. One thing I didn’t know was that Larry didn’t record the banjo tracks that had been heard on the albums up to that point. He said there was a guy named Bobby Thompson who did all of those tracks, then taught him the parts by rote. Larry had a Gibson RB-250 with a Seeger-style neck on it. If memory serves, that neck had been custom made for him by Bernardo of Arizona, who was one of the two “go to” custom luthiers that served the recording industry. The other was Mike Longworth. I knew Mike pretty well. He lived in Bell Buckle, Tennessee.
But that’s another story.
Bobby Thompson evidently spent more time in the studio than anywhere else. He was in big demand in the recording industry. I think where the confusion about what Bobby had actually done might be from the fact that he didn’t play fiddle tunes (as you mention) in this style, at least when he played with Jim and Jesse. There were several of us who “discovered” a key lick that enabled us to play scale runs without playing consecutive strokes on the same string, and this lick, as well as its derivatives, were the basis of what most people considered to be the Keith style. Bill’s discovery of that lick was totally independent of Bobby’s. On the other hand, Bill knew exactly when Marshall Brickman and Eric Weissberg saw him doing what he did, and pinched the basis of what he was doing.
Anyway, I’m glad you had a chance to get this info directly from Bill. He and I had many discussions about all sorts of musical things that most people don’t even consider important.
But we did!
Bill Palmer