Tis Sweet to be Remembered

You're listening to a one-of-a-kind recording made in the late 1940s in the studios of Radio Station WPAQ in Mount Erie, North Carolina. Nestled in the Blue Ridge mountains WPAQ contains a treasure trove of recordings from Radio's Golden Age by many of America's most important bluegrass, gospel, and old-time music pioneers. When the station signed on the air in 1948, many manager Ralph Epperson pledged to nurture and promote the local music scene, and over the years he has kept that promise. Even today, WPAQ features a steady stream of live performances

by homegrown musicians, as well as archival gems such as this one by the gospel quartet The Friendly Four. Many of these early recordings were engineered by station manager Ralph Epperson, a soft-spoken country gentleman, now in his late 60s, whose modesty masks his passion for old-time music and radio. When we first started, we had only a disc recorder, and that meant the cost of it. If we didn't do it in good, we just ruined a disc, and some of them, you'll note, they say, a flow near the end, or don't use, don't use on air, or fade quickly. The antique presto disc cutter still stands like a monument to the past, and WPAQs do use.

In its heyday, it produced hundreds of 16-inch platters. Some of these recordings have been picked up and released commercially by record labels such as County Folkways and Rounder. Some have been transferred to cassette for broadcast over WPAQ, and others sit silently gathering dust in Ralph Epperson's basement. Most of these historically important recordings have never been heard outside of WPAQ's broadcast radius. Jack Bernhardt writes about country music for Bluegrass Unlimited magazine, and the news and observer of Rolly North Carolina. He believes WPAQ's archives are of great historical importance. They're obviously one of a kind, recordings, and the recordings that were made in an era in the late 1940s and early 1950s, in which Bluegrass, as a musical genre, was just developing. It was really going into its peak. There was a tremendous excitement, tremendous expression

of culture history that is embedded in this music. Today, WPAQ is still at the center of its region's culture, regularly broadcasting such musical events as the annual Mount Erie Autumn Leaves Festival, and the legendary old Fiddler's Convention in nearby Galax, Virginia. Every Saturday, WPAQ's studios resound with live mountain music, energetically performed by area musicians. Our time now is 25 away from 12 noon, the next portion of the Mary Carone, being brought to you by the fine folks at B&B Proteers located on Highway 52 North, in Cana, Virginia. Here once again, Clyde Johnson. Okay, thank you, Lou, and we'd like to send a song out for a B.J. and Wilma Clement, who are a visitor area from down in Asheville, up in Asheville, rather than a thanks for listening. Thanks for calling. Here's Arville Scott, T. about the next tune, Arville. All right. I'd like to express my appreciation for all those who sponsor the Mary Go Ram. It gives musicians in the area a place to come and be heard and appreciate it, and it's

a wonderful thing that we have a place like WPAQ, and the sponsors here in this area, to help us out with that. The musicians appreciate it, and I know the listeners do, and please go by and support these fine sponsors. All on my knees is a good old tune. Just pull off your shoes, go to dancing, because we're not going to be looking at you, we're just playing for you. This show, called the Saturday Morning Mary Go Ram, has been a popular tradition at WPAQ since 1948. It was created by Uncle Joe Johnson, the first of many professional musicians signed by the station. Johnson, who also emceed the show, worked tirelessly to recruit and book local talent, as well as touring acts from across the southeast. By 1951, there were so many musicians lining up to perform, and so many friends and family

members who came along to watch and applaud them, that WPAQ studios could no longer contain the overflowing crowds. Johnson decided to move the Mary Go Ram to the Pick Theatre in downtown Mount Erie, where it became a major weekly community event. It was a madhouse on Saturday, till I started that Mirgo Ram, because it was a stir with a stick. We just couldn't take care of the traffic out there. It was like a holiday, ever Saturday. One band right after the other, and of course, their wives and kids would come with them. They wanted to see what their own manager is doing. They wanted to end on it too, so there were just so many people in the studio, in the observation room, out on the lawns, out in the parking lot. I knew it was driving around crazy, so I suggested the show downtown. The show downtown resembled a huge community barn dance, with local musicians performing alongside national acts. Many musicians who are renowned today for their contributions

to country and bluegrass music stood behind WPAQ's microphones in those days. Some of those include Bill Monroe, Charlie Monroe, Flatton Scruggs, Mother Mabel Carter, Roy Acuff, Mack Weisman, and the late Mount Erie Fiddler, Tommy Gerald. While the musicians weren't paid little with anything for their radio time, the broadcast over WPAQ gave them an important opportunity to be heard, to plug their show dates, and to sell records and songbooks. Helping musicians was very important to Uncle Joe Johnson, especially those musicians who relied on their music for a living. I don't mean a man that worked in the factory all through the week and just come out to radio station and fiddle a little bit on Saturday. Of course, we appreciated that. We appreciated him coming, but as far as making money, I was for the guy who was looking to his talent

for a living. You know, I want to have him survive. Most of them were family men and needed all the help they could get. This type of partnership between radio stations and musicians was a pattern across the United States. Before television and rock and roll, live radio broadcasts were essential to early country musicians who traveled from station to station to earn their livelihood. Country music writer and critic, Jack Bernhardt. Musicians would get themselves hired into a radio station and play at that radio station. They would be a person, a featured personalities at that radio station for a period of time that varied, maybe six months, maybe a year, maybe two years, depending on to a large extent how far that radio station's signal reached. That in turn influenced the number of places, the number of opportunities for musicians to play. They would play in that radius. And

once they had made a round of all the possible school houses and theaters and so forth, maybe once, maybe two times, then they would play out an area. They couldn't draw anymore because people had already seen them, so they would be forced then to move on and go to another one and they'd find other places. One of the musicians who passed through Mount Erie and spent some time at WPQ in the early 1950s was the renowned country singer Mack Weisman, who's made numerous recordings and now lives and performs in Nashville, Tennessee. When Weisman first came to WPQ, he had just released a record, but it hadn't caught on yet. He came to WPQ to look for work in the

interim and today remembers his stay there as one of the most pleasant associations of his career. He vividly recalls his first meeting with station manager Ralph Epperson. I desperately needed a job, as I say, because I could tell the record was going to make it, but I needed something to sustain me at least in the meantime. So I left Raleigh on my own and just drove by the best I recall was on a Sunday morning. Well, I know it was because when I got into Mount Erie, I went by the station and of course I'd been surprised to find Ralph there, which he wasn't. But somebody gave me directions out to his house and this will give you some idea of how presumptuous or maybe desperate would be a better term to land a job and I went out and out on the door and Ralph came to the door. He had shaving cream on his face. He was in the process of shaving to go to church and I had to use myself and told him what I was up to and would like a job on his station and he said, well,

he was nice to see could be. And like I say, it was a most inopportune time. Looking back, I can't imagine I did it. But he said, I just really don't need anybody right now and I said, yeah, yeah, you do. You need me. And I could tell that he saw that I was going to be quite persistent about it. So he said, well, come by the station in the morning. We'll see what we can work out. And we worked out something and I can't think of in all of my travels a more enjoyable relationship with the station and the management than I did there. It was just family and they took me in and made me feel welcome and gave an opportunity to make us both a few necklace. Ralph's mom and dad were around at that time and his sister, Lucy, was still there.

Lucy was still around and her husband just passed away. She was working in traffic there. And everybody just welcomed me in. Another member of the musical family at WPAQ was Smiley and Jim Means, who's song about the Korean War missing an action has become a country music standard. Ian's made the first recording of the song in WPAQ's studios. I liked the sound because I had been there working earlier and the acoustics was terrific because most of the stuff that was recorded then was mono, you know, was no stereo back there then. And I liked the sound in the studio. I just had a beautiful acoustical sound

there. And I liked the sound in the studio, I liked the sound in the studio, I liked the sound in the studio, I liked the sound in the studio, I liked the sound in the studio, I liked the sound in the studio, I liked the sound in the studio, I liked the sound in the studio, I liked the sound in the studio, I liked the sound in the studio, I liked the sound in the

studio, I liked the sound in the studio, I liked the sound in the studio, I liked the shoes Her and the man, the cold she was wearing told me the sad tale. My darling was wearing a new bride of veil. Then I found a letter, and these words are in. Missing in action, she thought I was dead. So I kissed her picture, and whispered goodbye. My poor heart was breaking, but my words were dry.

I knew she'd be happy if she'd ever learn. I knew she was never, no I had returned. A vagabond dreamer, forever I'd run, because there was no one to welcome me home. The face of my darling, no more I shall see. Missing in action, forever I'll be. The master was recorded here. Station manager Ralph Epperson. It's now been re-issued on Rounder, and then there are a few others. Baby blue eyes, I think he composed that.

And incidentally, a lot of big-name musicians picked a lot of Jim's compositions. For example, over the station near the morning I heard Ernest Tubbs' rendition of Missing in Action, which Jim composed. One of the most popular performers on the Saturday Mary Go Around at the Pick Theatre was the armless guitar player Ray Myers. Musician and WPAQ Radio Personality Joe Johnson He remembers him with great admiration. I never went on the stage with Ray that the house wasn't full. He packed everything he ever played three or four times. Some of the sides playing his guitar and singing. He'd show him a different way he could use his feet. You know, he'd open up a drink, a coke and drink it. He'd get out of his hammer, his nails, and the two or three pieces of lumber.

And he'd show him how he could drive a nail. And he could do anything with his feet most that you could do with your hands. The first he was very strange to us, but he got to be just one of us. We never thought anything about it after he had been here a few weeks. And he was a very likable person and had dates. And somebody said, Ray, what do you do when you want to hug your girl? He said, I hug her. And he used his right leg to demonstrate. Another of WPAQ's most popular performers was Fiddler Esker Hutchins, Ralph Epperson. Esker was a very modest person, a very kind person.

But an extremely great Fiddler. And today, on programs in which we feature vintage music of the station, is one of our most requested performers. He's a good Piddler man. Yeah, I saw this as a dollar. He could play back up, but mostly it's just smooth, old time breakdowns for square dancing. Or put that, I'd say. Gospel quartets who specialized in close harmony were very popular in the south from the 1920s through the 50s, and they frequently grace the airwaves at WPAQ.

This group, the granite city quartet, is named for Mount Aries famous quarries. From Fry's much older and much younger than them. Along the tracks, just 10, 10, and eight, Every single day is around the arm's spine. One of these quartets carried tuning for, at least the ones that we recorded, carried tuning for them with them, and sing about half a cappella, but you know, get them started off, they'll hit that tuning for it and get the note. And the cook quartet was here one time live, a guest on a minister's program, as guests on a minister's program, so they all gathered around the mic, the one that looks like a bullet, you know, pulling a skyward, the RCA 77D, and one of them pulled out his tuning for it,

and looked everywhere for something to bang you know, and then he didn't see anything else, so he just banged it right on the mic, bam, as one time we might have laid it a hundred percent. Gospel, bluegrass, and old time mountain music continued to beam from WPAQ's tower in the foothills of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. The solid brick building that was built by Ralph Epperson and his father in the 1940s still looks much the way it did in the past. When you walk into WPAQ or even drive up to the front entrance, you get the feeling that you're in a time warp. Paul Brown is a producer at Public Radio Station WFDD in nearby Winston-Salem. He got his start in radio by working at WPAQ for several years.

The station seems to look very much as it did in photographs, dating from the 1940s. Very little has changed in the lobby, the main visiting areas, or in the studios themselves. The actual on-air board and the little news booth and the studio from which the live music airs all appeared just as they did practically in 1948 when the place went on the air. Ralph Epperson tells me the story of how the walls were made, you know, there was no paneling available after the war and so he and his father carved the grooves in all the walls themselves and it looks like grooved paneling but they did all those grooves by hand and all that stuff is still there. I've been to the attic of that building and I've been down in the basement and we used to have to do various things downstairs, putting records away and there were some supplies that we kept down there and occasionally we'd have to go up in the attic and I have never

seen a building that is so solid as that one. You're talking just enormous sections of lumber. The building we used to have a joke, you know, that you couldn't blow up an atomic bomb and have that building come down. It won't shake for anything. The musical traditions at WPAQ are also seemingly unshakable, writer Jack Bernhardt. Today WPAQ really stands alone among radio stations. I don't know of another radio station in the country that has its kind of programming or its kind of commitment to country, pure country, traditional country music. Bernhardt says that supporting local musicians and getting them to perform live over the air has a snowball effect. It generates interest and excitement among musicians throughout the region who go on from their radio performances to play at music festivals and fares all around the area. Bernhardt believes that WPAQ has played and continues to play an extremely vital role in keeping traditional music alive and strong.

Paul Brown of WFDD agrees. The station does encourage people to continue playing. I know of several old time musicians who probably would not be playing right now except for the fact that they come to WPAQ a few times a year to play on the merry-go-round. That tends to give them the motivation to continue in practice. Without that, yeah, probably several of these people would just not be involved at all. One of the ways that the station encourages this involvement is through its strong presence at local festivals, recording them for broadcast and often supplying sound equipment and MCs. OK, this will be old-time fellow number 43 judges, Mr. Benton Flippin, number 43 event. Yeah, thank you. Greg it all hard. At the annual Mount Erie Fiddler's Convention, old-time musicians readily testified the importance

of the radio station in their community's musical life and the significant role that Ralph Epperson has played, Mount Erie Fiddler, Robert Sykes. He talks to him every time we get to town and he's always like my Fiddler. Mr. Epperson just wants to get this old-time musical life right down on that radio station. You get more exposure from the VAQ in any radio station than I know of. Jim and Artie Marshall of Hillsville, Virginia are a husband-wife musical duo performing at the festival. Marshall is also a truck driver and he listens to WPAQ on the road whenever possible. Even through the mountains, a few months ago I picked him up in Bristol, crossed through the mountains and that's tough going that way, you know, with a signal. The Mount Erie Fiddler's Convention has evolved over the years from a colorful local festival to a musical magnet drawing bluegrass and old-time musicians and fans from across the United

States. Traditional musicians of the Blue Ridge are being rediscovered by a new generation of folk revivalists who are learning from them and incorporating their influences as they forge new traditions of their own. The old and young, mingle at campsites across the fairgrounds often jamming together well into the night. A cacophonous crowd of musicians warms up as they wait in line for their turn to compete on stage. Among them is Mike Seeger, who is well known for his work in documenting, recording and promoting traditional music in North Carolina in Virginia. Seeger says the musical heritage in Mount Erie remains strong and is even growing as young urbanites mingle with older country musicians and spread their influence to other parts of the nation. Seeger believes WPAQ has played a significant role both in preserving the music of the region and encouraging its growth. He's turned to WPAQ's archives on several occasions.

When I was doing my first record for folkways, which was a documentary of bandje pickers in the Scrugg style, I came to WPAQ practically first to look for Larry Richardson, who was a bandje picker here because this is a focus of old time and early bluegrass music. Seeger believes radio is at its best when it reflects the life of its community. It's great when the media validates what's going on in the home and so that makes that gives more value to what's in the home and so that creates more music and keeps the tradition going. To me that's what radio should be doing. While the commitment and dedication of Ralph Epperson is the driving force behind the vital community radio produced by WPAQ, Epperson himself is modest about his contributions. I think the music itself is certainly worth preserving. I think it's something that can make life more enjoyable for a lot of people and I feel honored at having an opportunity to have some small part of in-bomb with it.

I think doing this kind of thing is certainly serving an interest that's not otherwise being served and I think that really is what radio stations should do is not just be a carbon copy or a duplication of something that's already being done. I might say why I have the same thing coming out 18 places on the dial. There's a radio station brother that is always on the air. You can get it when storms are raging just as good as when it's fair. It's a message and from heaven. Nothing else will have compare and it's not any trouble to get it. It's wonderful to know it's fair.

All is soon to the broadcast on the sound waves from the sky. It's a well-known hometown station where the souls shall never die. If you said it's not receiving, you better get it fixed, you know. Just kneel on your knees, my brother, and listen to the radio, the radio.