Oral History Interview with David Sizemore

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1986OHO3.10---Sizemore

Transcriber’s Notes: Words or phrases in found brackets represent unclear or unintelligible portions of the recording. Brackets are also used to provide the reader with helpful background information about the recording. Underlined text within the transcription represents more than one person speaking at the same time.

[Recording begins with background talking, mostly unintelligible, and tuning of instruments]

:59---2:35 song is played with a few starts and stops, with Sizemore calling out chords to others in the room, possibly the Interviewer who is playing fiddle].

Sizemore: “Peacock Rag.” [unintelligible background talking] Can’t never play it. He get on to it enough to [unintelligible].

Interviewer: Well, show me another one then.

Sizemore: Alfred there, the last time he was up here we used to play them, and I was showing him a tune he had never heard before. I went over it four or five times, and he was playing it. And a little bit after he went home he went and made me a tape, and he was playing on the tape “Peacock Rag.” [Laughs]. [unintelligible]

[3:18----4:49 Plays fiddle]

Interviewer: That little part I am having trouble with. Am I supposed to stay in G?

Sizemore: Huh, what?

Interviewer: On that fine part? [plays example of the part, Sizemore calls out the chords]. Let’s do that again.

[5:13--- 6:13 Plays song again]

Sizemore: That’s it.

Interviewer: Need to go to that A, and I don’t want to go [unintelligible].

Sizemore: Well, you paused a little bit up on your G. You sound like you should be down in A, but you stay up there just a little bit longer then when you hit you’re A you don’t stay there much till you come back down to D. See? [Plays example] That’s a fine square dance tune. Callers say that that’s the best square dance tune there ever played.

Interviewer: Oh, is that right? [unintelligible]

Sizemore: And it’s easy to play, you know. Some of the square dancers [unintelligible] close to fifteen minutes.

Interviewer: It’s tiring. That turns into work.

Sizemore: It don’t bother me. I can play twenty, thirty, it don’t bother me a bit.

Interviewer: Play something you play for square dances.

Sizemore: That “Old Joe Clark” is a good square dance tune. You want a capo?

Interviewer: No, I’m better off like this.

Sizemore: Oh are you?�Interviewer: What would I play that was capoed?

Sizemore: A, see A you want that---

Interviewer: G and,

Sizemore: Yeah.

Interviewer: What’s the other chord?

Sizemore: Just be B,G, C, and D.

Interviewer: D, C. Sure.

Sizemore: It’s easier.

Interviewer: If I need a capo, well try it with a capo.

Sizemore: It’s easier to play like that. Is that right?

[8:40---9:33 song begins and ends mid song]

Interviewer: Let’s try it without the capo. Let’s see how that, I feel like [unintelligible] out of kilter a little bit there.

Sizemore: Have you ever heared “Kitchen Girl?”

Interviewer: Play it.

Sizemore: “Kitchen Girl,” you say?

Interviewer: Is that [unintelligible]?

Sizemore: Huh?

Interviewer: [Hums tune].

Sizemore: Yeah, something like that.

[ 1:00 --- 2:00Plays “Kitchen Girl.”]

Interviewer: You play anymore like that, that sound like that? Have that minor sound?

[Sizemore plays through a few practice notes.]

Sizemore: What would that be? You know that?

Interviewer: hmm-umm. Play it.

Sizemore: It’s just, Louis Lane, you know Louis?

Interviewer: I’ve seen him play, [but he had a band with him]. He didn’t play old fiddle stuff. He was playing [his ballads].

Sizemore: Does he? I play square dances with him.

Interviewer: Oh, he’s a fine player.

Sizemore: That’s him right here.

Interviewer: Yeah. He’s a fine player.

Sizemore: He does, ah, he can do anything. He can [unintelligible] or anything else. He’s just a, I got a lot of tapes where we’ve played.

[ 3:00 --- 4:00Plays unnamed song.]

Sizemore: You know tune, you know the name of that?

Interviewer: hmm-umm.

Sizemore: I don’t either.

Interviewer: I don’t quite get that. Do you know any more you don’t know the name to?

Sizemore: Oh [laughs].

Interviewer: That was pretty. That was, it was a summer style tune.

Sizemore: Have you ever played that “Black Hawk Waltz?”

Interviewer: Hmm-umm.

Sizemore: That’s a, boy I like that.

Interviewer: How’s it go?

Sizemore: It’s played out of G.

Interviewer: All right.

Sizemore: The G’s on the first part, but now B, and C, and all like that.

Interviewer: You’ll have to prompt me. Is it this B?

Sizemore: Yeah, and then C.

Interviewer: And then C.

Sizemore: And then,

Interviewer: And then what? “Black Hawk Waltz.”

Sizemore: “Black Hawk Waltz.” First all [unintelligible], but the second part is what you have to go, and then you tune it to go in B, and then C, and like that.

[ 5:00 --- 6:00Plays “Black Hawk Waltz” as Sizemore calls our chords to interviewer]

Interviewer: Two part waltz or did we have a three part?

Sizemore: Two part.

Interviewer: Two part.

Sizemore: It’s a two part.

Interviewer: I didn’t quite get that.

Sizemore: Yeah, you didn’t. Just like A, you go to your B a little bit too quick. See?

Interviewer: And then your G?

[Both play through notes again to practice song.]

Interviewer: Oh there! Okay, stay in G. Let’s do that again.

[ 7:00 --- 8:00Plays “Black Hawk Waltz.”

Sizemore: I like to play, play guitar with tunes that’s got all that extra stuff in it. You won’t find a guitar player out of a dozen that will follow you on that little tune. I like “Coo-Coo Nest.” Do you play “Coo-Coo Nest?”

Interviewer: Play it.

Sizemore: That’s a fine little tune. Now it’s got a lot of that pretty stuff I like in it too. The second part has, it has [plays example]. Now the second part [plays example] A, C, that’s the second. Called “Coo-Coo’s Nest.” And the first part’s all right , but the second part, I like the second part of it.

[ 9:00--- Plays through part of “Coo-Coo’s Nest.”]

Interviewer: Show me. Show me again.

Sizemore: The second part there would be [hums song with guitar].

Interviewer: Let’s try it again. That’s, that’s an old tune.

Sizemore: Yeah, I like it. Called “Coo-Coo’s Nest.”

Interviewer: Have a little “Coo-Coo’s Nest” here. [Sings through notes].

[ 10:00 --- 11:00Plays through part of “Coo-Coo’s Nest.”]

Interviewer: I don’t have that fine part. Okay this is what you [plays practice notes and song picks back up and goes through 12:00] Where did you get this?

Sizemore: It’s just you’re A and [plays example, and song picks back up and goes through 13:00]. I like to play guitar.

Interviewer: That’s pretty [laughs].

Sizemore: I like to play guitar, somebody’s playing a guitar my favorite.

Interviewer: Umm-hmm, well I’ll try to learn it. [unintelligible talking].

Sizemore: Do you know not a , [unintelligible] blues? Curley Lambert, do you know Curley Lambert used to play with Ralph Stanley? He done mandolin, played mandolin for all those old time singers. He lived right down there for four years.

Interviewer: Oh, is that right?

Sizemore: Yeah, he’s up here every [unintelligible].

Interviewer: Curley Lambert.

Sizemore: Curley Lambert.

Interviewer: Lambert.

Sizemore: He’s dead now. Died of cancer. I’ve got a lot of his stuff. All those old singles of Ralph Stanley, he’s done [played mandolin]. You know Art used to be Ralph Stanley’s fiddler when he was fifteen years old.

Interviewer: Is that right?�Sizemore: Fifteen years old.

[ 14:00 --- 15:00Plays through song as Sizemore gives instructions to Interviewer on what guitar chords to play.]

Interviewer: If I get out of sync, get out of sync, can’t get back on. Play it by yourself so I can hear it.

[ 16:00 --- 17:00Sizemore plays song without accompaniment.]

Sizemore: See, there’s the F. It’s C, F, and G.

Interviewer: Oh, I know, but if you get out of sync and you [begins laughing, words unintelligible].

Sizemore: Well, it’s a, you can’t, you pause [both laugh].

Interviewer: You play any other bluesy ones like that? That bluesy sound?

Sizemore: “Crazy Blues,” you hear that “Crazy Blues?” There’s some pretty words to that. I don’t know. [Begins singing:]

Starting out to rambling, trouble on my mind

That’s the general---

[ 18:00--- Plays “Crazy Blues.” Recording cuts out midway through song.]

Sizemore: That’s mine.

Interviewer: Is that yours? Go ahead.

Sizemore: [Begins singing] “I bought me a boat that was ready to go, not leaving you, [begins laughing, words unintelligible].

[ 19:00 --- 20:00Plays rest of “Crazy Blues” on fiddle.]

Jimmy Wakely, Martha Smith was doing that, Jimmy Wakely that old cowboy Jimmy Wakley?

Interviewer: Umm-hmm.

Sizemore: He’s a fine, Arthur Smith done that particular tune on Jimmy Wakley’s Western Picture.

Interviewer: Yeah. Arthur Smith played a bunch of stuff. Where did he get all his stuff?

Sizemore: I’ve got, uh, I know I’ve got two or three hours of his last film on tape. [unintelligible] I watched him fiddle. That bow was just doing nothing, but them fingers would fly. I’ve been right up to watch him. He would come to town and stay two weeks at a time. And old boy I used to play with all the time they come up there, and he teach one feller up there so you couldn’t tell them which one was Arthur playing.

Interviewer: Oh, is that right?

Sizemore: He was a [unintelligible] he went by the name of the radio as Curley Cain. He was playing on Ozark Jubilee when he took cancer and died.

Interviewer: Oh. That’s why I haven’t heard of him.

Sizemore: He was born and raised up here at [Al].

Interviewer: Is that right?

Sizemore: Oh gosh. You could sit them out there listening and you couldn’t tell which one was Arthur Smith fiddling. There used to be an old boy down, Carl Johnson, down in Johnson County was the same way. You couldn’t tell, he copied everything that Arthur done. Drink his self to death, and just pitched out of a chair and died. Drink his self to death. Carl Johnson, boy he was a good one.

Interviewer: Did you know by any chance Ham Reisner? Is that name?

Sizemore: No.

Interviewer: Someone up at Ashland mentioned a Ham Reisner. Or a Lundy Reisner? I think they are dead.

Sizemore: I don’t know. There’s a lot of old, I’ve got a whole list of people in the Library of Congress in Washington that’s, oh, whole lot of people. Most of them is dead and gone. When I used, now me and Roy Acuff the only two fellers I ever knowed this particular tune called “Turkey Buzzard.” Do you know it?

Interviewer: Let’s hear it.

Sizemore: [Laughs] He called it “Turkey Buzzard” and I thought, but on that list a feller in North Carolina, a fiddling in the Library of Congress up there now, that’s called “Turkey Buzzard.”

Interviewer: Well, let’s hear it.

Sizemore: It’s just an old tune. There ain’t much to it.

[ 21:00 --- 22:00Plays “Turkey Buzzard.”]

Sizemore: Called “Turkey Buzzard.” I mean me and Roy, I heard Roy play it and I was thinking we were the only ones that ever knowed it.

Interviewer: You and Roy had the tune covered, huh? [laughs]. You play any other like that?

Sizemore: Nah, he plays another old tune that, he calls it “Crows Nest.” Boy, I like to play it with a whole band. Banjo comes in there, it’s real, that was first thing---he called a “Crow’s Nest,” but I don’t know what Arthur Smith called it. When Arthur Smith come to the Grand Old Opry that was the first tune he played. And when he left the Opry that was the last thing he played.

Interviewer: Why did he leave the Opry?

Sizemore: He drink his self to death.

Interviewer: Oh. Seems like that [laughs].

Sizemore: [Unintelligible.] His boy Ernest lives down at Louisville. Ernest does. That’s where I get all of my tapes from.

Interviewer: Oh, well that’s nice of him to share that with you.

[Sound of tape cutting out followed by background white noise until 23:00when someone in the background begins talking to Interviewer. It appears this was not intended to be recorded and is not part of an interview. Most of the conversation is unintelligible. This background noise continues until the end of the recording.]

[1: 24:00Recording ends].

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