The Banjo Pilot

Foreword for The Banjo Pilot by David Davis of the Warrior River Boys

Hello Friends,

I’m David Davis, a fellow that got introduced to the music of Bill Monroe at an early age. My Dad, Leddell “Dell” Davis, like this story’s lead character, Duke Steel, grew up in the 1930s listening and learning to love and perform the old-time hillbilly music that was so prevalent and popular in the southern  mountain regions. And like Duke Steel’s daughter Lisa , I soaked up my father’s love for music and started exploring artists like Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family and, most importantly, Bill Monroe.

Before I tell you my own story, I’d like to tell you how much I like The Banjo Pilot.  This is a remarkable work because of its factual and fictional stories, its humorous and sensitive presentation of the protagonist (and his family) who has a strong but flawed personality, its presentation of classic bluegrass to the world, and the world of a professional pilot.  Duke’s macho confidence sometimes gets in the way of the sensitivity many people expect these days.  Then I remind myself that this takes place in a generation before me when things were different.

I first met and got to know Barry Willis, the author of The Banjo Pilot, through his 1997 book America’s Music: Bluegrass,  a History of Bluegrass Music in the Words of Its Pioneers. A wonderful read to discover or rediscover many of the early pillars of bluegrass music and learn their personal thoughts about the music and their careers. The book was very entertaining and educational not only to a younger generation of artists, but also and music fans and devotees, like myself.  And the interviews found within it are fascinating and informative for historians. Undoubtedly, Barry’s love of bluegrass music and its history was foundational to this comprehensive labor of love.

After reading Barry’s The Banjo Pilot, I quickly realized that his love of traditional bluegrass music and its continuation is still very important to him and is being brought to life in this novel by the main character in the story, Duke Steel. Duke, like many of the early bluegrass artists came from the 1920s and 30s rural South growing up in the country where the farm work was hard and Saturday nights were spent at the neighbor’s house who was lucky enough to own a battery radio. If the kids made too much of a ruckus, they’d be shooed outside to play while the older folks listened intently to the Grand Ole Opry coming through those airways from Nashville, Tennessee’s “mother church of country music,” the Ryman Auditorium. Beloved country icons like Uncle Dave Macon, Roy Acuff, Bill Monroe and so many more visited these peoples’ homes every Saturday night through those radio speakers.  These artists became beloved and greatly admired. I imagine many of the listeners around that radio dreamed of being on that stage with their favorite stars. Duke Steel would have been one of those quiet youngers who sat intently with the older folks and soaked up that music, especially the sound of his favorite, Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys. I’m sure he, like many others, dreamed and made plans to be there with Monroe when they got older. Fate was kind to Duke, as he later got the opportunity to become a Blue Grass Boy in 1949 and travel the country with Monroe and even perform at the Grand Ole Opry.

In any life, there are many facets. Music was certainly an important part of Duke’s early adulthood and came full circle in his later life. The opportunity to learn to play bluegrass from “the master” gave Duke the needed knowledge and confidence to organize his own group and travel and perform with them throughout the southeast.

We learn of another passion in Duke’s life, the love of airplanes and flying. By now, we know that Duke is married with a young family. Through the music and later flying as a livelihood, we experience Duke’s life, its great times and heartbreaking tragedies. 

A great many things we can enjoy and learn from this great novel: understanding family roots, the power and beauty of real bluegrass music, the excitement and danger of flying, mentor-ship, personal relationships, love of God and country. Really an engrossing story! You’re in for treat, folks! Enjoy The Banjo Pilot, I certainly  did!

The world of a professional pilot is not something I’m familiar with, but I found this novel filled with suspense and intrigue in  a world Barry knows well. Barry was an Alaskan bush pilot, a commuter airline pilot, and an airline pilot with a major carrier.  He is able to keep me on the edge of my seat with stories of Duke Steel’s flying.  It is, indeed, a book meant for the aviation buff as well as us bluegrass musicians.  And it is evident that he is a devout Christian, worthy of its inclusion in the Christian world as well.  As with most Christians, he doesn’t try to convert anyone, just expose them to his inner feelings about his faith.

We bluegrass musicians have long needed an explanation how it’s played and why it is unique among all other music styles, even those within the country music umbrella. Barry reflects my own upbringing into the world of Bill Monroe’s bluegrass.  It is clear that Barry has a love for the bluegrass of our pioneers—the foundation of which essentially began when Bill “Big Mon” Monroe began playing this music to the good folks of the South via the Grand Ole Opry on the radio every Saturday night back in 1939.

Some have said that when Mister Monroe died in 1996 that his music would also die because of the loss of its leader.  When he was gone, he was no longer available to lead his Blue Grass Boys.  This novel presents our music the way Monroe created and performed it over a career of over half a century, in a competent and entertaining manner.  Barry Willis nails it in so many ways.  It is worth the read not simply for the entertainment value of a novel, but also for its historical value for bluegrass music.  It is… well…classic.

As a young child, I knew the name  Bill Monroe was  important to my parents, especially to my dad. His older brother, Cleo Davis, a nineteen-year-old guitar player and singer, became the first musician hired by Monroe (twenty-seven years old) when he formed the original Blue Grass Boys band in 1938. I can remember my dad telling me how his  family and neighbors would  sit around the radio on a Saturday night listening to the Grand Ole Opry and just waiting to hear Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys come through those speakers and how proud they were to hear Uncle Cleo singing and playing with Bill. I know that must have been a strong influence on my dad. All the brothers had always sung, learning the rudiments from attending  traveling singing schools, which were very popular at the time.

Years ago, one of my uncles told me that Dell would practice diligently every morning before he went to work, and when Cleo came home in late 1940. He was better than Cleo on guitar.  I imagine that Dad and Cleo communicated from time to time and Cleo told him that he was learning to play mandolin from Monroe and for Dad to get good on that guitar. In September 1940, Cleo left the band and settled in Lakeland, Florida and called my dad to come there and they would start practicing together. I know Cleo had plans for them  to go back to Nashville and try to make it in the music business. Life interrupted, in the form of World War Two, and they all were drafted into Uncle Sam’s Service. Thankfully,  they all came home alive, but a mortar shell explosion too close to my dad ended up taking his right hand. He told me later that when he realized what had happened and looked at himself, the first thing that he thought was he’d never play that guitar again. By saying that, I realized just how important that music was to my Father. Years later, when Cleo would visit us, he and dad would sing the old songs, talk of Bill Monroe and earlier times. All this was wonderful and exciting to this youngster hanging on every word and song! 

When I eight or ten years old , I found an old guitar in the back of a closet in our house. I dug it out and went straight to my dad, holding it up to him and said, “I want you to teach me to play.” It never occurred to me that it took two hands to play a guitar and I imagine my dad was thinking, How am I going to do this? But you know, he (as well as Duke Steel) was, as Tom Brocaw’s wonderful book recalls, a part of the “Greatest Generation.” Even though my dad lost his right hand, I had never seen anything he couldn’t do. He found a big three-cornered pick and taped it to the end of his right wrist and started showing me chords. Thinking back,  I know that he got so much enjoyment from playing again, and believe me, he re-learned to play very well this way. We would sing and play together in my growing-up years. Through him, I would learn about earlier music styles that he had played as a young man and I learned to appreciate artists like The Blue Sky Boys, The Delmore Brothers, The Monroe Brothers, Ernest Tubb and so many more. But always at the forefront was the music of Bill Monroe. 

A wonderful crossroads came my way when I was twelve years old. I heard on the radio that Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys were going to perform at a venue very close to our Cullman, Alabama home. I had already listened to Monroe on the records  that my parents had, had some pictures, and heard many stories. But now I would be able to see this legendary man and hear him perform in person. I got ready early that day and we got there early for a good seat. I carried one of my records and got an autograph. I remember Bill mentioned that his first Blue Grass Boy came from this area and this is one of the first areas that they could come and draw crowds and make money. The crowd loved the opportunity to see this legend and showed their approval for every song. When we left that night, I knew that I wanted to play and sing this music and try to make people feel like I felt during and after experiencing the performance.

By the time I was eighteen,  in the late 1970s, I had been working hard learning how to play and sing.  I had the opportunity to be around some good musicians, and eagerly soaked up everything I could from them, always looking for some like-minded young musicians who also wanted try to make a go of it. After meeting Mitch Scott at a local music event, we talked about starting our own group, which we did and we started learning together. I had always played guitar before meeting Mitch but started cramming to learn mandolin at this time. I didn’t know but a few chords on mandolin but I knew exactly what my textbook would be. It would be those Monroe records and the goal would be to play and sing in that style.

School began in earnest at this point,  listening as close as I could to those records and trying to figure out how he made the mandolin sound like that. When my parents would be out of the house at work, I would be in the house with my stereo wide open singing along with Bill on his records, trying to push my voice  higher, figuring out how to break my voice and use falsetto, just trying to sing and play like Bill. We found and added two more friends and started practicing as a band at my parents’ house. My dad would sing and play with us often  at our practice sessions, always encouraging, sometimes helping us with our singing parts. We called ourselves the Brindlee Mountain Boys and we were starting to get some gigs locally and having a blast. At one of these shows, we were playing at a shopping center in Cullman with some other bands. The main band there was Garry Thurmond and the Warrior River Boys. They were very impressive—their music, dress and professional demeanor very striking. Garry spoke to me about the band and I told him if he ever needed a mandolin player/tenor singer, I’d like a chance to audition. A few months later I got a call from Garry. They were replacing some of the members and he offered to give me an opportunity to join the band. Even today, I can remember how exciting the opportunity to join the band was to me. The hard part was telling Mitch that I was going to have to leave our group just as we were starting to make forward strides. I told him that I could learn quicker and it would hopefully be of more help to us in the future. 

After rehearsing  and being around those guys, it didn’t take me long to realize that I had a lot of work to do in a short amount of time. All the people were very proficient players. Three of them were Blue Grass Boys alumni. The shows were more intense and nerve racking for this apprentice mandolin player who had started just a year earlier on the instrument. Looking back, I realize that Garry had offered me the job primarily for my singing, it being more advanced than my playing at that early stage. While at home, I was practicing all the time, trying to advance as quick as possible on the mandolin, and I was still worked on my singing. The Warrior River Boys was strictly a Monroe-styled band—which was exactly where I wanted to be. The musicians were very helpful to show me things on the mandolin, especially the great fiddler Al Lester who had worked with Monroe in the 1960s. With this kind of help, I was able to learn a lot in a short amount of time.

It was obvious their music felt different than what I had been used to playing and I would hear them talk about playing on top of the beat. The players that had been with Monroe told me of an analogy  that Monroe used to describe the timing of his music. When playing a song, you can hit the beat rhythmically in three different places, you can play on the back of the beat, squarely in the middle of the beat or on the front/top of the beat. Monroe played his rhythm on top or front of the beat, giving his music a more urgent sound or a feeling that the beat was being pushed. Monroe would explain it as “being at the top of the mountain”—one more inch and you’d fall off the side which, musically speaking, you would be speeding the time, which you didn’t  want to do. It’s a very fine line between the very front of the beat and speeding the beat. All members in Monroe’s band would be expected to play on the top/front of the beat, giving the rhythm a locomotive, a more dynamic feel. This was something that I’d  never realized or heard before, but I knew it was important and foundational to the mystique of Monroe’s music sound.

As the years went on, I took every opportunity I could to speak with musicians who had come through Bill’s school. I would be sure to direct the conversation to the timing of Monroe’s rhythm. Rual Yarbrough worked as a Blue Grass Boy on banjo in the 1960s and 70s, and helped record a number of Bill’s great songs from that period. He told me that he felt he could do it better now than he did originally. He said it always felt like the music was running away, but he realizes now that the rhythm was being hit consistently at the front/top of the beat. Actually, by everyone hitting at the front of the beat, you can play a song slower and it will feel and sound like it is moving faster to the listener’s ear. To achieve this, all band members must learn to hear and strike the beat at the same place: at the top or front of the beat.

All revolutions in music have come through the rhythm section. Bill Monroe’s musical style (or sound) was a new revolution to our roots music, and the foundation of his “folk music with overdrive” (as Alan Lomax called it) was the timing of the rhythm. 

The two years that I was a part of Garry’s Warrior River Boys was a continual and constant learning experience on all things Monroe, not only learning to play the music correctly, but through the teachings of journeymen Monroe alumni I learned the band sound—and my part in that team. It all came together. They knew and could demonstrate to me how Bill played this or that break, they could answer the many questions that a youngster would ask. For me, this all amounted to a wonderful mentor/student relationship and a fast track to where I wanted to be. Perhaps you can imagine the thrill and confidence-building that sitting down in a motel room with Red Taylor (fiddler on the 1950s Monroe classic “Uncle Pen”)—who taught me how Bill approached “Roanoke” on mandolin—how invaluable this advice and encouragement and acceptance from this fiddle icon would be to this young apprentice?

After a few months of being in the band, Garry told me they were planning on recording a tribute album to Monroe. The recording would be in Nashville and he wanted to do some of Bill’s classic songs. Most of the material would come from Bill’s 1950s “High Lonesome Sound” album. Garry planned on having harmony fiddles on a number of the songs and he invited Gordon Terry and Red Taylor to be there along with the band’s regular fiddlers, Al Lester and Wayne Jerrolds, along with the rest of the band. This was going to be my first opportunity to record in a studio and this would certainly be an exciting experience. I knew that I would be playing mandolin and singing tenor on the recording. I felt I was prepared to do my singing parts but  knew that I had only been playing mandolin about a year and a half. The lack of experience on the instrument compared to the other musicians was scary, but I prepared hard to do the best I could.

Finally the day came to be at the studio. We were preparing to start and in walks Wilma Lee Cooper and Charlie Louvin. And a short time later Bill Monroe comes through the door and sits in a chair on the cutting room floor. Garry decides we will start with the instrumental “Roanoke.” The red light goes on and we make a first pass at the song. Everybody seemed satisfied with their efforts then Bill gets up and walks over to me and says, “Can I show you a few notes that you’re not putting in there?” Truth be told, there was more than a few notes I wasn’t getting in there. I hand him my mandolin and he ripped through the break just like he did in the 50s. He handed the mandolin back to me and said in a nice way, “Do you think you can do that?” I said, “I’ll try.” He stood there and waited for me to try it again, probably knowing that it wouldn’t be much different than it was three minutes prior. After I tried again, he said, “That’s  fine” and went back to his chair and sat down. At that time in the studio,  I wondered if Bill was trying to break me down.  But actually it could have been his way to make a young  apprentice more determined. You’ve heard the saying that going through the heat will either break you or make you stronger. That was my first hard example of trail by fire.

I knew the stature of everyone in that studio; all were heroes to me. And your desire would be to be impressive to the people you admired. I knew that I hadn’t  had the time to be as proficient on the mandolin as I wanted to be, and the fact that, in my mind, I had failed to impress my hero was a hard pill to swallow.

At the first break, I headed to the hall to get away from the others and try to compose myself and stay focused on my work at hand. I had never met Red Taylor until that day, but he came out where I was and sat down with me and said,  “I think you’re doing good and Bill thinks you’re doing good.”  Then he gets up and goes back in the studio. He knew exactly what I was feeling and knew what I needed to hear and was thoughtful  enough to consider this youngster he’d never met before. I never will forget his words and kindness. I was around him a few more times in the next few months and he never failed to try to bolster my confidence.

When I came home, I told my dad about the experience—how stressful it was at times. He said, “I knew that it would be hard.” I know he was proud of me being able to be there. I wanted to include this last part because it is a great example of another element in Monroe’s music: strength, virility and confidence.

Monroe often used the word “powerful” to describe something in his music. It was an important word to Monroe. After the studio experience, I knew that I’d not been as impressive to Bill as I’d like to have been, but I promised myself that one day I was going to impress Bill Monroe. I might not ever hear him say it, but I’d know. Probably two years later, we were at a festival together and we did one of his songs, “The Old, Old House” on our first set. He and the Blue Grass Boys came on later in the day and during his set he asked for some requests  Someone hollered out the song that we had done earlier in the day. Bill replied to the person, “That song has already been done today, and done well.” I immediately thought back to that studio two years earlier and the promise that I had made myself, that compliment was worth the world to me. 

By mid-1984, health concerns forced Garry Thurmond to retire from music. He, like myself, was an only child and he had always treated me like the little brother he never had. He knew that I wanted to continue in music and offered the band name to me. He felt that the band being already known would save me the time starting another band from scratch. My first call was to Mitch Scott. Gary Waldrep had been working in the band for the last few months and would continue. Wayne Jerrolds would also stay on for a few months, then Al Lester and later the legendary Charlie Cline came in on fiddle, and Jarrod Rains moved to bass. That was our start as Warrior River Boys in the fall of 1984.

By 1987 we were working a ton, traveling and playing in thirty states a year. The core of the band stayed constant for the first ten years, which helped greatly  to establish us within the genre to the ticket buyers and the talent buyers.

In the late 1980s, the first generation masters of the music were still traveling and performing, but fewer and fewer of the younger groups coming onto the scene were striving to perform in the traditional style of the earlier traditionalists. Groups like the Johnson Mountain Boys from the northeast and Nashville Bluegrass Band were some of the few newer acts continuing in a traditional vein and being accepted greatly within the genre. After four years of honing our music and presentation, the opportunity to sign with Rounder in 1988 helped greatly to open doors for the Warrior River Boys and gave us much needed credibility within the genre.   

Fast forward twenty-five years.  We find myself and the Warrior River Boys are blessed to still be traveling and performing traditional music and our foundation is still Monroe based. Taking words from a Bill Monroe hymn, “Master Builder,” “Build your house on a firm foundation, then you won’t sink in shifting sand.” Very wise words in all aspects of life. 

Bill Monroe created a new style of music that eventually came to be called bluegrass music and he was the father of bluegrass music. His foundation was based in the rhythm and the face of the music was defined by the degree of ingredients that he pulled from other music types that preceded him. Add his own personal God-given abilities and life-learned experiences that made him the artist he was, and the music public was the beneficiary of a great artist’s work. Monroe crafted and defined bluegrass music within the borders that he felt appropriate and was very careful to protect the borders throughout his long career. I remember hearing a 1970s interview in which Monroe stated, “You have to know how far you want to go with it and where to stop.” That pretty territory that lies inside those musical borders has been a wonderful place for the public to visit ever since Bill Monroe hung out the welcome sign many years ago! We came, we came back and we’ll keep coming back again and again!

David Davis,  Cullman, Alabama.  December 2017

David Davis is an Alabama native and a member of The Alabama Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and National Old-time Country Music Hall of Fame. He was the 2017 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award in Music, given by the National Old-time Country Music Association.  David has traveled and performed as front-man for the Bluegrass group, David Davis and the Warrior River Boys since 1984. He is recognized as one of the foremost practitioners of the Monroe mandolin  technique. His interest in Old-time and Bluegrass music grew organically from a musical family: Both his father and grandfather were players and singers. His uncle, Cleo Davis, was Bill Monroe’s original Blue Grass Boy.