That's a lovely story. Thanks for posting. There will be a folk mass
memorial for Alan at the Kerrville Wine and Music Fest at Quiet Vally
Ranch. It's scheduled for Sunday morning of Labor Day weekend. There is
also supposed to be something at Poor David's Pub up in Dallas but I don't
know if that has already happened.
Kira
"Ed Alexander"
<edalex@realtime. To: "CaveTex"
<[email protected]>
net> cc:
Sent by: Subject: CaveTex: Anyone else
remember Arthur Simpson?
owner-cavetex@cav
etex.net
08/22/2005 12:48
PM
Please respond to
edalex
This showed up on a thread being passed around since Allen Damron died last
week - its from Arthur (and for those who know, it is definitely cave
related).
-----Original Message-----
From: Jamie Spence [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, August 22, 2005 12:30 AM
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
Subject: AWD memories
How I learnt ta play da Banjer
(Or: 24 hours that changed my life forever)
I think it was fall, '57. I wandered into a little coffee house about
four doors north of 24th St. on Guadeloupe, the main drag there in Austin.
This was when Espresso Coffee Houses were all the rage, and the Beat
Generation was in fashion. This place was called The Clich�, and was the
first of many such in the college town.
There on the dais was this guy singing with a five-string, sitting on a
high, wooden, kitchen stool, all alone, and just making more music than I
could ever have imagined with so little effort. He was playing all the
Weavers' stuff and the Kingston Trio's stuff and some other stuff, I didn't
recognize. And it obviously took hardly any effort; his hands were barely
moving, he looked quite relaxed sitting there, and yet all this complicated
sound was coming out of him! I was just overcome!
At his break, I climbed over everybody else to get up there and meet him;
his name was Allen. I wanted to know how he did so much so easily; he
tried to show me everything he knew all at once. He stuck the banjo in my
hands and showed me the two most usual ways of tuning it, and the two sets
of three chords that went with them. And then he tried to show me the
basic Pete Seeger strum; all in his ten-minute break. I wasn't exactly
getting it all. I had played a ukulele for years, and had tried a
mandolin and a four-string banjo, but I had never seen a five-string until
that night; and, like I say, it was just too much too fast.
So he wrote down his address, and invited me to come over to his apartment
the next morning for a more comprehensive lesson. I remember asking,
"Where does the name, Damron come from?" He answered "From the Rio Grande
Valley". I stayed and listened till they closed; I talked to him some
more, and gave him every opportunity to back off from his hasty invitation
that I come so early next morning, but he insisted; so I did!
I showed up at his door next AM early; it was a Saturday. He was still in
his shorts and just barely out of bed, but he made me welcome, and got the
lesson started before he even got his pants on. "Forget the chords and
the tunings; leave it in G; just first learn the basic strum." Down with
all the fingers (or especially with the ring finger) across all the
strings, then Down on the thumb string, then Up with the index finger on
the first string: Down, Down, Up; Down, Down, Up; over and over; Down,
Down, Up; with a Bum Biddy-Bum Biddy-Bum Biddy-Bum rhythm; Bum Biddy-Bum
Biddy-Bum; the Bum is the up stroke; the Biddy is the two downs; over and
over till it becomes as easy as walking. Yeah, right, it took me years to
learn to walk.
So he left me there Down, Down, Upping while he took a shower and shaved
and got dressed and had breakfast (bread and Smuckers jam) and made a bunch
of phone calls (He showed me how to stuff a pair of sox in the back to cut
down on the volume.) He kept coming over and correcting my technique in
between all these other activities.
Then suddenly he just left for the day! He said for me to make myself at
home, he would be back maybe around five, "Get some lunch," he said,
there's bread and Smuckers, and some beer if I wanted. And suddenly I was
all alone with my Down, Down, Upping!
This guy had not known me twelve hours yet, but he goes off and leaves me
in his home with his only banjo and an invite into his whole larder! Now
admittedly, the whole larder consisted of bread and Smuckers Jam and a
six-pack, and this banjo had a Bakelite rim and five frames holding the
head on, and a standard (i.e., short) tulip-poplar neck; but it was the
only five-string in town at the time! And he was committed to be
performing with it at The Clich� again that night! (He didn't get his
long-neck Vega till the next year.)
Well, I sat there all day and kept at it! Down, Up, ... no, no, ... Down,
Down, ... what?? ... Down, Down, Up, yeah I think that was it ... Down,
Down, ... but why can't I ever do it twice in a row?? ... Up, Down ...
Rats! ... At some point, I did have some Smuckers and bread, and got
right back to it.
By maybe 3:00, I was starting to get good enough to try putting in the
hammer-ons and pull-offs that he had showed me the night before. They go
in the space between the Bum and the Biddy. So now it comes out
Bum-a-Biddy-Bum-a-Biddy-Bum-a-Biddy- ... (Got that?)
Sho' nuff 'round 5:00 he came home; coming up the walk, he heard me
Bum-a-Biddy'ing pretty good. "He's got it! He's got it!" he yelled, and
grabbed up a guitar and started going at it with me on "Hard, Ain't it
Hard", and "Little Maggie With a dram glass in her hand" ... and some
other easy ones. And when he started singing, it was just ... well ...
contagious! I hadn't sung a note in years, not in the shower nor even in
my car with the radio on loud, let alone in front of anybody; but here we
were just howling together like a couple o' coyotes!
Suddenly it was ten minutes of six! He had ten minutes to get to "work"
(at The Clich�). He grabbed some bread, smeared on some Smuckers, took
the banjo right out of my hands, and raced out the door yelling "See ya
tomorrow." (I don't remember that the thing even had a case.)
I looked around trying to recompose myself. I put the top back on the
Smuckers jar, and put it in the fridge, and closed the bread wrapper. I
washed the jelly knife, we had used the same one all day. I turned the
lights out, and went off to find supper. (Notice, I did not lock the
door; we non-of-us ever locked our houses in those days.)
But I knew right then that life would never be the same after that day!
A few months later Allen even loaned me the banjo to take home to Dallas
over the Christmas holidays; he was going hunting with his dad in the
valley, and wouldn't be needing it! I was to learn, of course, that this
isn't a unique story; the same thing happened to lots of people who asked
his help in learning the instrument. I'll bet that Bakelite banjo is on
loan to somebody even now.
I never played professionally; just for friends and for myself; but I never
pick the thing up that I don't think of the guy who got me started and
those first 24 hours I knew him. And I am, of course, quick to teach
anyone who shows an interest. We remained close friends until I left
Austin in early '65 and then I left Texas that fall; and I guess I have not
spoken with Allen since then. Funny, how you can be friends with someone
and not communicate with them for 40 years!
As I told someone yesterday, I simply cannot imagine this world without
Allen Damron in it!
"Sometimes happy, sometimes blue
Glad that I ran into you
After all ... "
And you know the rest.
Arthur Spelunk* Simpson
Foster City, CA
8-18-05
*PS: Allen found out I was a spelunker at UT, and always introduced me
that way because he liked the acronym. Funny, I never knew till now that
he was an Eagle Scout, nor did he ever know that I was too. Scouting just
never came up in all our years of conversation.
A.S.S.
PPS: I wouldn't sign that way for anyone but you, Allen.
A.
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