Oral History Interview with Alfred Bailey Part I

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.

Interviewer: And I’m in Flemingsburg in Fleming County of Kentucky at four thirty five Foundation Ave., and I am talking to Alfred Bailey. Alfred you were going to tell me who your great grandparents were that you could name.

Bailey:Well my great grandfather Bailey, he was from Bath County. His name was James Bailey. And my great grandfather on my, another great grandfather was Alfred Eden. He was on my grandmother’s side. That was my great great grandparents. And my mother’s side my great grandfather was George Turner. And I can’t remember my grandmother’s name, and uh. On the Eden’s side my great grandmother was a Lloyd. And my great grandmother on my mother’s side was a Wallingford.

Interviewer:Wallingford

Bailey:Uh-huh.

Interviewer:Can you spell it?

Bailey:W-a –double l-I-n-g. And that’s as many as I can name.

Interviewer:Are all these people, did they live in Kentucky as far as you know?

Bailey:Yeah, Kentucky some was from Bath County and some of them from Mason County, and they were from different parts. But they were all Kentuckians really, Kentuckians. Most of the people on my great grandmother’s side was from Bath County, and my father was raised in Bath County. And they, uh, that’s [Sherman Bradfield] where my daughter [where he cross over from a fire]. Burnt down now; the old landmark was there. But he was raised in Bath County.

Interviewer: Okay, which of the people in your, your family, your fathers’ or your uncles’ players?

Bailey:My grandfather Bailey him and all his brothers were banjo players. And he was a fine banjo player, grandpa, my father Bailey was, so they said. I never heard him play. He had quit and didn’t take it up again. But he told me about playing for balls at the election and everywhere when he was a boy. And they called them “balls” in them day and they last for three days. Come, said rich people with fine horses and buggies and everything else. And on my grandmother Turner’s side they was two good fiddle players, brothers to my great grandfather. And they was, and most all of my mother’s brothers and my sisters could all crack a tune on something. They wouldn’t real good on them, but they could play some.

Interviewer:um-hmm. Where did they get the banjos that they played? Did any of them---

Bailey:I wouldn’t know, but they, I couldn’t tell you. I just heard, that’s hearsay. But they was all banjo players. Wouldn’t many fiddle players.

Interviewer:Well, I sure, sure appreciate hearing about your family and how they were musicians. I’d like to see any of the banjos they have then. Do you have any of them still here?

Bailey:No, not a one of them. I saw, when I was up in Bath County, I saw one of the Bailey playing a banjo, and I don’t know where he was any relation of our’n or not, but it look like one he’d had a long time.

Interviewer:Might be one of your families.

Bailey:[laughs]

Interviewer:We are going to kind of move up to the present now. How much time do you devote to playing your fiddle?

Bailey:Well, not as much as I ought to. I’d say half an hour a day now probably on average. And sometimes maybe an hour.

Interviewer:Depends on what kind of mood and what else you have to do that day?

Bailey:Yeah, yeah, that’s right.

Interviewer:What kind of things get you in the mood play? Do you play at a certain time during the day, like after supper or before breakfast?

Bailey:No, it’s just really when I take a notion to pick it up and play it. Might be any time of the day. It may be early of a morning when [she’ll be out of the house]. [Laughs]. I have to go to the bedroom sometimes to shut the door. [Laughs].

Interviewer:What prompts you to learn a new tune? A few minutes ago you were pointing out that you had just learned a new tune. What prompts you?

Bailey:Well, I hear one and I like it, it’s a challenge to me and I won’t stop till I learn it.

Interviewer:What is your favorite tune right now?

Bailey:Well, always has been “Bill in the Low Ground.”

Interviewer:That’s a winner, isn’t it? [Laughs]. It’s always a winner.

Bailey:[sounds far from the mic] Really always has been.

Interviewer:Umm, about how many tunes would you estimate that you know? I am not asking which tunes you would be wiling to play today, but how many tunes have you learned [clock chimes loudly in background] are you aware that you know?

Bailey:Oh, I think we counted up one time; it’s between a hundred fifty and two hundred.

Interviewer:Do you keep a list of tunes?

Bailey:No, we have some old lists around here, but we had them down over a hundred one time. I don’t know what happened to it. But I am sure I could come up with over a hundred if I set my mind to it. Might take a day or two to do it, but keep a thinking of them.

Interviewer:I’d like for you to name some of the early tunes that, that you played. Not necessarily that they’re old tunes as far as the list of tunes go, but what were the tunes that you learned early, early on?

Bailey:The early ones was, well, be “The Old Coon Dog,” and [unintelligible],

“Soldier’s Joy,” and “Flop Eared Mule” and “Whistlin’ Rufus,” be tunes like that, “Turkey in the Straw.” I can’t think of them all right now. I didn’t know too many at first. I was limited, maybe ten or fifteen pieces for quite a while.

Interviewer:[laughs]

Bailey:And I played the [“Grand Horn Pipe”] I think. I remember back playing that. And I didn’t have too many at that time. I’ve added to them as I go along.

Interviewer:How do you remember the tunes that you know? How do you store them?

Bailey:Just, uh, I just remember them. When they come back to me, I, I guess I’ve got them recorded. [Laughs]

Interviewer:[Laughs]

Bailey:Takes me a time or two to run over them or maybe sometimes, but I can play them when I think of them, back and play them. I don’t have time to practice on all them because you done play them to death when you do it thata way. Somebody asks you to play one.

Interviewer:What kind of occasions do you play music right now? You were mentioning some other, other things that you were going to go do. I would like for you to run down that list for me.

Bailey:I, I play at the nursing homes and I go play at the Library up here the Seventh of June for Old Time Day. I’m going to play at a picnic for senior citizens out the Industrial Park the thirty first of May. And of course I’ll be playing up at Morehead, and there’ll be several places I will be playing this summer. But I don’t really look for places to play. I just play if somebody asks me now because I don’t make it a practice to try to find places.

Interviewer:What would cause you to quit playing?

Bailey:I wouldn’t be able. [Laughs].

Interviewer:[Laughs].

Bailey: Just so I couldn’t play, I’d stop.

Interviewer:When you go out and play now are you a solo fiddler?

Bailey:I didn’t hear that…?

Interviewer:Are you playing alone or do you have people playing with you in a band?

Bailey:I play alone quite a bit at the nursing homes there [clears throat], and things like that because most of the people that you can get to play with you work during the week, and I am better off to play alone then to play with somebody I am not used to. And if I can’t get somebody I’m used to I just play alone. Yeah.

Interviewer:Umm, what kind of thing, do you think---now this is kind of an odd question---what kind of things influence the tunes that you play from day to day?

Bailey:Well, uh, it’s just the ones that’s a challenge to me more or less. Some of the newer tunes I’m trying to learn, I like to beat it; I like to challenge it. The ones I know so well, I don’t care much about playing them. I neglect them for the newer ones.

Interviewer:[laughs] Okay, how did you start fiddling?

Bailey: Well, I started when I was fifteen years old. I didn’t have a fiddle till I was fifteen years old to be truthful with you. And my uncle bought me a fiddle, and that’s when I stared. And my wife’s uncle [Harry Glasscock] showed, taught me how to tune it and showed me the keys on it. He had had a few lessons on the fiddle, and so he was the one that got me started, helped me out to get stared and I broke, course, a sack full of strings learning how to tune it, but I figured out how.

Interviewer:So that’s how you got the fiddle that was yours. What was the very first tune you tried to learn?

Bailey:Well, “Aunt Rhody” was the--- [laughs]. My granddaughter thinks that’s the prettiest piece on there. [Laughs].

Interviewer:I am sure she does.

Bailey:[Laughs].

Interviewer:Who showed you the most tunes during that, that time? Was it, you know, which uncle or -----

Bailey:Her uncle it was showed me, he showed me more than anybody else, but then after that I took it up on my own. Everybody I could watch, well I’d get around a good player, fiddle player, and I’d stand there and watch him and see what he done, and I’d try to learn it. I didn’t care who he was, I was out to learn. And they had a lot of fiddle players on the radio then that were real good, I mean the very best [Mcmichon and unintelligible, and the Indian] and I can’t name them all—Curley Fox. And you could tune in any radio station in the morning, and you could get some good fiddle players. And Charlie Lindell and Carl Cockner and Charley Nevill’s a fine fiddle player come from up here at Paris, and I learned a lot from him. On my “Gray Eagle” I play ---that’s how I got a lick in there that I never heard anybody else use, only him, that I use in the” Gray Eagle.”

Interviewer:And it was Charlie Lindell?

Bailey:Charlie Lindell.

Interviewer:You heard him on the radio and he’s from Paris, Kentucky?

Bailey:Yeah, I’d seen him play; he played over at WLW with [Paul Mar McCormick]. [Clears throat]. And I went to see him in Maysville at the Russell Theatre. He was a fine fiddle player. He wasn’t rated the highest of some of them maybe, but he was, I thought, an awful good one.

Interviewer:You met Clayton McMichon one time. Would you tell me about that?

Bailey:I met him in Maysville when they had they, they had a big contest and Court Day every year down at there for about twelve, fifteen years. And they, they had a big crowd of people over here. About fifteen, twenty thousand people would come from three or four states, and they brought in Clayton McMichen. And I met Clayton McMichen one year and played against him in the Maysville Fiddling contest. And he was real nice and treated me real nice, and he won first place, and I won second. [Laughs].

Interviewer:I’d be real proud of that if I were you.

Bailey:Oh, I was. [Laughs] I told him so. A great honor to play against him is what told him. And he invited to come to see him, but I never did get there. He passed away before I ever got to go see him. But I did, I played something like Clint McMichim. I did copy, copy after him some. I was a copycat. He knew that the way I played.

Interviewer:Where is the first place that you played in a, in a more public setting? I assumed you probably played at home for, for several years. You got your fiddle when you were fifteen. How long was it before you found yourself out in a performance situation?

Bailey:Okay, I was, [clears throat] it was three years I played and I would come over here to town and I, they had a show shop up here some at once in a while, but I never played out anywhere to speak of. But this Norman [Yayzell] in Clemingsburg here had a coon hunter’s band, he called it, and he run off a fiddle player and somebody told him, said they’s a, well he told me, he said there’s a kid out there on Forest Creek that lived out at Popular Grove that plays the fiddle. And said you go out there and get him. And so he drove up and wanted to know if I would come and help him fiddle. I said, “I’m not good enough for that; I can’t do that.” Ioooo, he said, “Yes you can.” I said, I was scared to death, and I tried to get out of it everyway I could, but he told me to come. And when I, the place I was supposed to play, it’s out there. I can point it out to you now. It’s right over the hill here at a [card] church down here they was having a fish fry. And I played with his band down there that night. It was the first night I’d played out from home.

Interviewer:Were you scared?

Bailey:Scared to death! [Clears throat] And then I played from then on at dances, and we put on appearances, and everything else. And even I got to play with, Lazy Jim Dave played with us in one show. Did you ever hear of Lazy Jim Dave at WLW? He was up here, and we put on a thing to help at the high school for the farmers and after he heard me, they wanted to hire me at WLW to play down there, but I couldn’t go. I was about ready to go to the army at that time, nineteen forty two. And then I played there at Lexington. Jimmy Hazelwood wanted to give me a job to play in Lexington on WALP at that time. He was playing up there. That’s where Charlie Lindell did play up at Lexington.

Interviewer:Charlie Linville [or Charlie Lidell, pronunciation unclear] is not a name that I know. Could you tell me who he was?

Bailey:He’s uh, he’s in Florida now they say somewhere [unintelligible]. But he was very popular at that time, as far as fiddle players. Course now the fiddler players are not too popular. They don’t have the reputation of good singers or something like that. But I don’t know where you’d find him. But now, like me, he’d be old or older.

Interviewer:You mentioned some names of tunes that I thought were, was interesting a while ago. You played a tune for me that you called “Rachel.” Could you tell me who you learned it from or bought when you learned it or something about the tune?

Bailey:Well I learned it down to Rough River, and I didn’t know the name of it. So uh, but I heard this lady sing about Rachel down to Nashville, Cooper. She sang about Andrew Jackson’s wife and named Rachel. And then I was looking at the Nashville program and they played this fiddle tune they called “Rachel.” I’m sure that comes from the same name probably. And that’s how I learned it. I learned it at Rough River, but I didn’t know what it was until found out the name of it when they played it over at Nashville.

Interviewer:Now that’s an old tune that’s new to you, isn’t it?

Bailey:Yeah, yes it’s an old southern tune I am sure.

Interviewer:Umm, you mentioned “Thompson’s Reel” a few minutes ago, but you said other people sometimes call it another name would you----

Bailey:Call it “Moore’s Reel,” some people do.

Interviewer:Well, do they play it in G or in A?

Bailey:Well, I think I play it in A, I’m pretty sure. I can’t remember for sure. I think I play it in A. Yeah, I am sure I do. Yeah, I know I do, yes.

Interviewer:When you were forty what place did fiddling have in your day-to-day life?

Bailey:Uh, none. [Laughs]

Interviewer:Why?

Bailey:I quit; I was a working. After the World War II, I come out in nineteen forty six or forty five, and didn’t fiddle much in the war. Didn’t have a chance. That was over three years. And then I come out in forty six, and I had the fiddle, and I set it in the car and I’d play it one maybe every six months, and it would sound awful to me because I was working hard, trying to get us a home, we were. And it went on that way until nineteen sixty three, I believe it was. I had a problem with my heart, got backing up on me. And they limit me on my work that year, and I said, “Well, there’s nothing else for me to do. I’ve got to get the fiddle down and see what I can do with it. Play, see if I can play the [“Irish Horse.”]” And that’s how come me to start back, and I’ve kept on ever since. I had to, I couldn’t work but about half what I used to, and so I had to have something else to do, and I never stopped.

Interviewer:I thought it was interesting what you were saying about the time and the energy that you are putting in on a, on a working situation. I, it may not be the same for you, but I have noticed that when I am doing a lot of projects around that I am using my hands, like for painting and those kind of things, it, it almost keeps my hands so sore that I don’t have the agility to, to enjoy playing. Does that have any, do you think that that has anything to do, the actual soreness of your hands?

Bailey:It would yes if you worked hard and had them sore and all, bruised up it would. Course I don’t know. Then I was a fireman. My hands was rough and clumsy and sore as you say. And that’s the reason when I’d pick it up every six months it sounded awful to me. I lost, and I lost all my timing. It took me so long to get back to where think fast enough. And I thought I never would get that—you have to think fast, and you have to think ahead of what you are playing. You know that.

Interviewer:[Laughs] Yeah.

Bailey:And I’d lost all that. And it took a long time. And a lot of people said I’d never come back when I started. Said, “He’s gone as far as he’ll go.” But then they all changed their minds.

Interviewer:[Laughs] [unintelligible] Did fiddling turn out to be a moneymaker for you?

Bailey:No mam. [Laughs]. Just a lot, we got to eat a lot of places, but, with the governor and anybody you can think of.

Interviewer:[laughing] You’d say it improved your social life; it broadened your social life.

Bailey:Yeah, it broadened my social life, and we got a little traveling money, but as far as being profitable, it wasn’t too profitable. I got some money for playing for dances, but I never made a lot out of fiddling playing. I got paid to go to Washington. Went, went up there, but it wasn’t very profitable. Just paid my expenses and give me some money.

Interviewer:Now tell me about when you were playing and where it was that you were whenever you met Ralph Rinzler and what happened after that. That’s an interesting, interesting story.

Bailey:Well, uh, I saw a piece in the paper said a showdown fiddling contest in Lawrenceburg, which I had played in Lawrenceburg before, and it’s about, about a hundred miles from here. I’d had an operation, and I wasn’t well. I was still weak, and I told Ralph I was going to Lawrenceburg for a fiddling contest. Said you can’t go. You’re not able. And I said, “Well I’m going to get somebody.” And I said, “My son-in-law don’t drive, I’ll get somebody else.” Well, we talked him into going. So we went, and I signed up to play the fiddle. But when we got there, there was the biggest crowd I had ever saw at Lawrenceburg. I mean, the cars was parked every way. Liked to never found a place to park. And I didn’t know what was a going on, and we got in there and they had the every, I guess everybody else knew about this contest. But there, but anyhow, they started, and they had maybe, I think about forty acts of singers and then bands playing and during, when they first started they brought these two gentlemen in, and they give them a choice each and set them down there. And so after a while I asked somebody, I said, “Who is that?” And they said, “They are from the Smithsonian Institute. They’re here looking for talent for to represent Kentucky, Kentucky Folk Festival.” And I thought, well big deal. [Unintelligible] no more about it. And they sat there like there was no show going on. I mean they, the whole time I noticed them. And the fiddle players come up that night eleven o’clock. And I think they was ten or twelve. They was some good fiddle players there from Cincinnati and Indiana. And I drawded number three, and come up to play, and I went back to the stage and come on out to play started playing the “Good Night Waltz,” and my son-in-law said they got up and started walking down stage, which I didn’t know it there or I’d of fell off of it I guess [laughs]. And I played that then I played “Martha Campbell,” and when I come off, well, I met them. This side on the stage there’s a room between there and the stairs, and I met them and they said, “Do you want to go to Washington?” I said, “What do you mean go to Washington?” They said, “Go to Washington to represent Kentucky.” And I said, “Well, I guess so, as far as I know.” They said, “Well, we should record ten or twelve pieces before so you’d probably get to go.” And I said, “Okay.” So that’s how it happened. But he did want to know where I learnt “Martha Campbell.”

Interviewer:Where did you learn “Martha Campbell?”

Bailey:I learned it from one best fiddle players in Kentucky.

Interviewer:Well, whose that?

Bailey:George Lee Hawkins.

Interviewer:And who is George Lee Hawkins? I have heard that name, and I do not know who this person is or where they live.

Bailey:He’s in Louisville now in the Masonic Hall. And he was a very fine fiddle player, and that’s who I learned it from. But I added the backlash in it. He figured that one out. He didn’t have that one in it. But he could really play “Martha Campbell,” Hawkins could. He could really play a lot of pieces at that time.

Interviewer:Did you learn any more pieces from George Lee Hawkins?

Bailey:Oh yes, I got lots of pieces from him, from George Lee Hawkins.

Interviewer:Name, name a few of them if you---

Bailey:“New Money” is one of them.

Interviewer:Oh, is “New Money” one of his pieces? See I have heard other people play “New Money,” but I never heard---I’ve never heard it played out of Kentucky.

Bailey:Yes, that’s who. And he played a lot of horn pipes I never did learn, which I wished I could. I play at them, but I don’t play them real good. He played the “High Level Horn Pipe.” And a lot of them old hornpipe I don’t think anybody could ever equal him when he was at hisself, really. But he got so he had a stroke on one hand, and he wouldn’t, couldn’t work his fingers. And “Leather Britches,” I mean I learnt that from George Lee Hawkins. And “Brickyard Joe,” one of his pieces. There’s a lot of pieces I learnt from George Lee, and he showed me a lot on how to play them. I never thought when I was a boy I could ever fiddle like George Lee Hawkins, but I did beat him in a lot of contests, so.

Interviewer:[laughs]

Bailey:So, I’m not bragging about it, but he was still one of the best fiddle players I ever heard.

Interviewer:Where did George Lee Hawkins live when he was around here?

Bailey:Bath County, in Bath County.

Interviewer:Over where your great grandparents lived and them! A lot of other---

Bailey:[Speaking in background, unintelligible]

Interviewer:Do you know any other musicians from Bath County that----

Bailey:Mr.Carolton Robbins I was telling you about, he has passed away, been about fifteen years ago. He was a fine fiddle player too. He taught me a lot on how to play.

Interviewer:Which tunes did he, did you get from him if you happen to remember?

Bailey:Uh, “Flowers of Edinburgh,” and they’s several. I can’t name too many of them, but anyway, we played about all the pieces he played at that time. He helped me on them. I mean what if he knew was different from what I knew, we put together.

Interviewer:What’s your favorite kind of playing situation right now? What kind of audience or room or what is the, what is the ideal performing situation that you feel like you do the best in?

Bailey:Well, ah, any---I like to play anywhere that I think the people are enjoying hearing me. If they enjoy hearing me, and if they don’t, well, I just don’t, I’d rather not play. It don’t matter how large or how small the audience is, if I think the people enjoy hearing me I like to play.

Interviewer:You mentioned a few minutes ago about the women’s club and the project that they had for the hospital here in Fleming, Flemingsburg. What were those dances like that you played for?

Bailey:Uh, that was a long time ago, and they uh, those dances, they danced in sets and had callers. And they’d be forty five people dancing at a time maybe. Three different sets on that gymnasium room floor, and we had a speaker at each end. We had a microphone and speaker. And they used the proceeds what they didn’t us, for the hospital fund, which there was no, nothing for people to go to the hospital on then, no government help. Nobody got to go much anyhow. And I did that, I’d say, for four or five years before I went to World War Two. We played every Saturday night up there. And I’d play every year for a Fox Hunter’s Dance there. It was at the high school every year when they’d have the Fox Hunter’s meeting there.

Interviewer:Were they really here to hunt foxes or---

Bailey:Yeah, they come from several states. And I played in Bath County to where I got so I wasn’t able they always wanted me to play for the Foxhunters.

Interviewers: Did they still come and hunt the foxes?

Bailey: [speaking in background, but too softly to hear]

Interviewer:When is that?

Bailey:That’s in the fall. That’s in, it will be this October, November. But I had to give it up so I haven’t played, but I played for a lot of them.

Interviewer:You’ve played for contests here and there. Would you like to name some of the places that you have played and maybe what it feels like to be in a judging situation.

Bailey:Well, a judging situation is very uncomfortable and lose you a lot of friends. [Laughs]. Which I never did do to much of, a judging. But I played in a lot of contests. I’d be afraid to say how many. I expect I’ve, I know I’ve played in probably fifty or more. And I have won a lot. I have won, I think, fifteen first places, and I have placed in maybe thirty others. And I have lost maybe [laughs], I don’t know how many others. But I wound up in fourth or fifth place a lot of times when I never got anything really. But you are very fortunate to win anything in a fiddling contest. It’s not easy to win.

Interviewer:Would you rather have the trophy or prize money?

Bailey:I always preferred the trophy even though I needed the money [laughs].

Interviewer:[Laughing in background]

Bailey:But sometimes they gave both and sometimes they just gave one. It was a win either way.

Interviewer:Is having an opportunity to meet Mark O’Connor, would you tell me where that was and did you play in the contest that he played in and how that was.

Bailey:Yeah, I played in there. No, I didn’t play against him. I played---yes I did. The first time I played against him of course I, I didn’t have a chance. But it was at Rough River, Rough River State Park. And I played in the contest against him. But nobody had a chance against Mark O’Connor. But there was some good fiddle players there. But he was a fine fiddle player, and I got to talk to his mother. She told me who taught him and all.

Interviewer:Who did teach him according to his mother?

Bailey:Uh, I can’t think of the, the lady’s last name. But she was up at the Washington when we were up there. Vivian, I can’t think of her last name, from Seattle Washington

Interviewer:There’s a lot of good fiddlers almost in every state.

Bailey:Fine fiddle player, yes she was. Her and her husband both played music, folk music.

Interviewer:Let’s see, what have I left out? What have I not asked you that you’d like to comment on?

Bailey:I don’t know, I [laughs] maybe I’ve commented too much already. [Laughs].

Interviewer:Well, I sure appreciate you sitting down here with me and talking through this and uh,

Bailey:Well, I appreciate you being here. Like to talk to you, like to talk to you about musi--- music and being with musicians. And if I can play music, well, I like [laughs].

Interviewer:[Laughs] Okay.

[ 1:00—End of recording].