Sarah Milligan 00:01
All right. Oh, look, see, that's a lot better. This is Sarah Milligan
interviewing Bob Gates about the history of the Kentucky Folklife program. Today's date is February the 10th. February 10th.Bob Gates 00:17
I think so.
Sarah Milligan 00:18
2012.
Bob Gates 00:20
Is this making--causing too much noise?
Sarah Milligan 00:22
I think--I mean, it'll pick up but it'll probably be okay. We are--
Bob Gates 00:28
It's the tenth. Oh, it is the tenth. We're having our fourth conversation, if we
count the one with Kim Lady Smith, a few weeks ago. All right. So, if I remember right, I mean, you can--you can pick up however you want. But if I remember right, the--the conversation we had without Kim ended in '97, really, with the start of the festival. So we can do this a few different ways. Since we talked really a lot about the Folklife Festival, um, development and all that with Kim, if there's anything else you want to add by yourself, you can do that. But I thought we might just kind of talk about general programming and like some of the other programs you did during that time period. I know they're not exclusive of the festival, but more detailed about those. --Did we cover some of the---all the projects we did before that?Sarah Milligan 01:25
Yeah--I feel like we did. I mean, we talked about--.
Bob Gates 01:30
Folklorists in the Park, did we talk about that?
Sarah Milligan 01:32
We did, we talked about well, we could--maybe we didn't talk as much about
Folklorist in the Park. We talked about some of the cultural survey projects that you did, and your relationship with the [Kentucky] Arts Council, we talked about Folklorists in Schools, we talked about your Tour of Kentucky Folk Music. We talked about---.Bob Gates 01:51
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 01:51
--Some about the apprenticeship program, we didn't really talk, we talked
specifically about some of the surveyors, some of the folklorists did the surveys and how you trained people to do that. We talked more specifically about some of the musicians. We didn't talk as much about maybe like folk artists or apprenticeship grants, or your folk arts project grants. Other to say--the folk arts project grants really served a way for you to do a lot of this [these] cultural surveys, to help get research.Bob Gates 02:19
Okay, I just can't remember what I talked about, and what I didn't talk about, I guess.
Sarah Milligan 02:25
Well, I think it's okay, if there's some duplication, of course, but, um, but
I'll try and keep you going from what I remember.Bob Gates 02:32
Okay.
Sarah Milligan 02:33
I know it was a long time ago, I'm sorry.
Bob Gates 02:35
I just remember it was----.
Sarah Milligan 02:39
Let me turn this off. Just turning it down.
Bob Gates 02:45
We did--I mean--I know some of the things I may not have mentioned was being
involved with Chattanooga and the National Folk Festival.Sarah Milligan 02:54
You did talk about that.
Bob Gates 02:55
I did?
Sarah Milligan 02:55
Yeah. You did.
Bob Gates 02:57
Okay, taken---and then what about when we did the--kind of the--precursor to the
Folk Festival down at the state Fair? for a couple years?Sarah Milligan 03:09
No, you didn't talk about that.
Bob Gates 03:11
Okay.
Sarah Milligan 03:11
You didn't talk about that.
Bob Gates 03:13
Because we--David Morgan, at the [Kentucky] Heritage Council---.
Sarah Milligan 03:19
Yeah.
Bob Gates 03:19
Kind of got involved with the planning for the state fair, and the idea that
they would have kind of a cultural area. The woman who still does--does that, I can't think of her name right now--works with the State Fair, she's--every year she tries to do something different. But in the early stages, she had his big wing over there, and I think it's the B--area inside at the state fair, that she had to deal with and wanted to put things in there, and David Morgan suggested that we kind of work together to do some things. He put in, in one big space, a kind of a shotgun house. It was--an actual shotgun, hou--built it, so you could walk through areas of it.Sarah Milligan 03:58
Why--why a shotgun house? What was the point of that?
Bob Gates 04:15
Because I think they-- they were working with an African American community at
that time--in Louisville and they were researching it. I'm not sure if it was, but I don't remember exactly what--maybe it wasn't a shotgun house, but there was a building there that you could kind of see how that was--how you could kind of approach herita--preserving in your own community, and what the Heritage Council did. Next to that was a thing that was kind of an overlapping thing, and that was--building a rock fence, and that was kind of my idea and David's--.Sarah Milligan 04:49
Like a dry stone fence?
Bob Gates 04:50
Yeah, we had to actually, we had to rent rock and bring it in there. And this
guy from Scotland who they still work with, was setting up the stone fence and had about, it looked like 30 feet of it he was working on, during that time. And he had a crew there because, what they were funding at that time was before the--I think it was a precursor to the--dry walls conservancy.Sarah Milligan 05:22
Dry Stone Conservancy.
Bob Gates 05:22
Dry Stone Conservancy, yeah. And they were training people in the state to do
dry stone--dry stone wall--pry walls [sighs]. To do the--to fix them, because there was a lot of work, especially on Paris Pike at that time, they were trying to save Paris Pike. And so, they brought this guy in from Scotland, and he was teaching them how to do it the way they did it originally.Sarah Milligan 05:48
Cool.
Bob Gates 05:50
I remember getting a in little argument with him--not an argument, but just as a
folklorist, I felt like---Sarah Milligan 05:56
With David Morgan, or the Scottish guy? So, did you--did you see that there was
an African American tradition that had been passed down about dry stone?Bob Gates 05:58
The Scottish guy, because you know, [laughter] we had time--we're there--he's
working on it all--for two weeks, and I'm there doing things. And the argument was just that, "okay, it's good that you're teaching these guys how to do it exactly how it was done 200 years ago, and--but it has evolved and,"--and methods for doing it from, what I had understood from interviewing some African American ones, and there weren't very many African American ones taking the class, with him. The Heritage Council was trying to get stonemasons in this area to take lessons with him, and they would---they would kind of fund him for it. But I just felt that the attitude was a little bit, oh, okay, we're gonna come in and correct what you guys don't know, and they weren't including African Americans as much. Yeah--yeah, and other people I talked to who knew more about drystone said, "yeah," it was, you know, people called it slaves--but that's not true. It was brought over by Scott Irish, and slave--plantation owners had those guys employed. And the slaves did learn how to do it from what--what they--what I was told. But over the years, people had to repair those, and it was often free, free, Blacks, who were doing a lot of the work. And sometimes they adapted what they could do, according to what they knew. So, it--I was just trying to explain to him that traditions do change. And I--you know, so it was funny. Because later on, I--we got mixed up with him and we worked with him again, when we had the Folk Festival, because we all--we had the stone masons down there, doing it then. And I always tried to encourage them a little bit more to do approach to the African Americans a little bit more. Because I think they didn't do a camp, they just kind of sent out things, saying, "you can do this." And they kind of turned some people off by by coming and saying, "well, we know what to do, and you need to come and learn how to do this now." Instead of kind of respecting a little bit about what people already knew, and just be a little nicer, nicer about it.Sarah Milligan 07:22
So maybe the assumption was that nobody knew how to do it---
Bob Gates 08:07
Yeah. Yeah, that's basically how he was kind of approaching it you know--it was
kind of--. But anyway, that--there was a stone fence there, and down from that was a marble yard. So, we had built a marble yard based on Monroe County. And we had gotten--the the Bowen brothers to come up there. Is that their name, Bowen? I think it is. Let the records be straight that. Bowman.Sarah Milligan 08:08
Here. Bowman, yeah.
Bob Gates 08:41
Bowman.
Sarah Milligan 08:41
Yeah, I'm like, it's close.
Bob Gates 08:42
Yeah, there's like four brothers that and Larry Bowman was the one who really
knew how to make the courses. The other ones knew how to play really well. He played good, but his specialty was building the course.Sarah Milligan 08:52
Who made the marbles? Did you know those people yet?
Bob Gates 08:55
Yeah, well, Larry's brother Richard was--and he got an apprenticeship from us
later on to teach some people in the community how to make marbles. He wasn't the only one, but he was one of the better ones, and I think he actually, he may have been demonstrating that here---there too. So, it was kind of--we were doing a setup to what we would do at the festival.Sarah Milligan 09:15
Do you know when this was, can you think?
Bob Gates 09:16
I think it was--.
Sarah Milligan 09:18
'95-96?
Bob Gates 09:19
I would say '95-96, yeah. And we should have some records of that showing--at
least--if we don't have it, we should we be able to get it from the state fair. Kind of their brochures from that year--.Sarah Milligan 09:33
I bet you've got some in of your records, too but--.
Bob Gates 09:35
I should.
Sarah Milligan 09:35
That's good--.
Bob Gates 09:36
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 09:36
--To point out--.
Bob Gates 09:37
But it was really neat because we had that whole marble yard. So, we had to rent
rocks and we had to rent dirt [laughs] The dirt had to be brought in and--and you know we were trying to get the right kind of dirt. It wasn't just the dirt that they would use in--that they would normally use for the horse stalls--.Sarah Milligan 09:53
Yeah.
Bob Gates 09:53
--When they did their shows. This was supposed to be sandy river bottom dirt, so
we had to find the right place to get that and bring that in.Sarah Milligan 10:00
So, was there a problem bringing in and or cleaning it up?
Bob Gates 10:04
They didn't bother me about that. They just, I mean, we had the money somehow,
and we paid--.Sarah Milligan 10:09
Yeah.
Bob Gates 10:09
--Or the State Fair had the money and did it. But I remember bringing them the
wood--the law---.Sarah Milligan 10:16
The rails.
Bob Gates 10:16
--The rails, what do they call--two by two, four by four rails down there.
And--to make it and helping them do that. And we had a couple of other things over there. I remember having some gospel groups singing, they had a little stage, we managed the stage and [Kentucky] Historical Society was involved, because I remember--somebody was doing the anniversary of women's suffrage. Down there because I remember them coming down and talking to us. The Historical society had kind of an area where they were doing some artifacts and things, but we had marble players down there and--.Sarah Milligan 10:52
Cool.
Bob Gates 10:53
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 10:53
And that--you were part of the Historical Society by that point?
Bob Gates 10:55
Oh, yeah.
Sarah Milligan 10:56
So, yeah.
Bob Gates 10:56
It was all part--it was all part of our--what we could do down there. I don't
think Arts Council was so involved, and I don't think we had the history mobile at that time.Sarah Milligan 11:06
Yeah, you--.
Bob Gates 11:06
I guess it wasn't down there.
Sarah Milligan 11:07
I was about to say, there was a period of time the history mobile like started
in the 70s, or something. And then it was like non-existent for--. --Ten or fifteen years, and then it came back, right?Bob Gates 11:13
Yeah. The thing I remember about that was how, when you're presenting to an
audience like that, it's different than other presenting.Sarah Milligan 11:23
How's that?
Bob Gates 11:25
You--you know, when you normally start a program, you have an introduction, and
then you get into the depth of it, and then you, you get people talking about what they're doing. And you can kind of go on for 20 minutes or something like that. In the state fair, it was a weird audience. Because everybody was just coming through, walking as fast, they could, stop in for a few minutes and then go into another thing. So, it was like, you had to capture them. And so, the introduction was, as you do the introduction, every two minutes, basically, every five minutes. "Hello, is there--I want you to meet some of the marble players." You had people who stayed, but you had a lot of people just kind of stop--stopping for a few minutes. And then you didn't know if you were gonna keep them. So--they didn't--nobody stayed really long. But it was--it was---it was that kind of programming that I learned how to do that a little bit better.Sarah Milligan 12:12
Did that come in handy in other programs that you ended up doing?
Bob Gates 12:16
Yeah, I think---I think it was handy in the folk festival, when we got to
individual areas where we wanted presenters to help present the artists as--you had to--you had to be prepared for people not staying there long. But getting them into that guy's life as quickly as I can. Like, you know, my example always gave us--oh and he was there. Raymond Hicks was there, too, he was building a boat.Sarah Milligan 12:40
At the state fair?
Bob Gates 12:41
At the state fair.
Sarah Milligan 12:41
Cool.
Bob Gates 12:41
I remember his little kid who--Pea Pod, he called him. I went down there the
other day, and they told me how he's in jail now or something. [laughter]Sarah Milligan 12:49
I was about to say, Pea Pod is not so small anymore.
Bob Gates 12:52
Yeah--but---he was--he was like, five years old. And he was crawling up in the
boat and they were painting, and he was painting over him. And but yeah, Raymond Hicks was down there building a boat in that--in that same one. So, Raymond was getting a lot of exposure there and--at the National Folk Festival and I think--.Sarah Milligan 13:11
Raymond went to the national as well. He was one of the national people.
Bob Gates 13:16
Yeah, I didn't tell you about that?
Sarah Milligan 13:17
We talked about when you--when the national, oh, maybe it wasn't--yeah. When the
National Folk Festival is down there before you were a state folklorist, wasn't that?Bob Gates 13:26
Oh, that's Mammoth Cave. No.
Sarah Milligan 13:29
No, in Tennessee.
Bob Gates 13:30
Oh, in Tennessee. That was--when I was in the folk--when I was working in
Tennessee--for the Tennessee '86 program.Sarah Milligan 13:37
Right.
Bob Gates 13:38
That---in '86, Tennessee was featured at the [National] Mall.
Sarah Milligan 13:41
Oh, The Smithsonian.
Bob Gates 13:42
The Smithsonian.
Sarah Milligan 13:43
That's what it was.
Bob Gates 13:43
And I went up for---I wasn't a presenter there, I was a researcher. I did a lot
of the research and sent things up there, representing---.Sarah Milligan 13:50
Right, okay.
Bob Gates 13:51
--Reelfoot Lake and that kind of thing.
Sarah Milligan 13:53
So, we didn't talk about the National--.
Bob Gates 13:55
The National Folk Festival.
Sarah Milligan 13:56
--Folk Festival came to Tennessee? To where, to Chattanooga, is that what you're saying.
Bob Gates 13:58
Chattanooga Yeah. Yeah. It was in Chattanooga for three years.
Sarah Milligan 14:02
When was that?
Bob Gates 14:02
Oh, God, I don't Remember.
Sarah Milligan 14:06
That's funny since they're at Nashville right now.
Bob Gates 14:08
Yeah, Doug Day was actually---a city folklorist for Chattanooga.
Sarah Milligan 14:14
Interesting.
Bob Gates 14:14
Yeah, for at least two of those years. I wrote a piece and Roby Cogswell, who
was the state folklorist there at that time, still is, wrote up, he had me do some research on luthiers--in Kentucky.Sarah Milligan 14:35
Oh, so--but it was while you were here, at the Historical Society?
Bob Gates 14:39
Yeah--Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 14:39
It after that. It was in the 90s then.
Bob Gates 14:41
Yeah, it was in the 90s. It was--probably '94, it was '95, something like that.
Sarah Milligan 14:46
Oh, okay. Yeah--.
Bob Gates 14:47
Well, I mean, I think these all kind of contribute to how we did the folk festival.
Sarah Milligan 14:51
Yeah, no, I totally agree.
Bob Gates 14:53
But I can't remember the dates, I'm sorry we--.
Sarah Milligan 14:55
No, it's okay.
Bob Gates 14:56
--Can probably--.
Sarah Milligan 14:56
You can look that up.
Bob Gates 14:58
But I wanted to tell you about--well, before we got into it, I just--at the
state fair. It was actually the first time this has happened where I realized that, well, I knew it. But folk artists aren't--aren't always sympathetic to other folk artists. Because I remember one of the--one of the marble players, who was related to Lynwood Montell. He was a--he was a Montell, he was from the same area.Sarah Milligan 15:24
Yeah, right.
Bob Gates 15:24
I'm making fun of the Blacks on the stage. You know, saying derogatory, and I
had to, I couldn't pull myself back from that--and I had to correct as, and something to him. And it just made me realize that, you know, we're here--we're these--- liberal people think all these folk artists get--get along together, but they really, you know, they still had their own prejudices, and they're in their own cultures. And you have to be aware of that when you get them together.Sarah Milligan 15:51
So, let me ask you this, because I wonder this a lot, too. How do you negotiate
that though? How do you negotiate the fact that you're a folklorist, you're really just supposed to be documenting, but then again, you're interacting. And by you interacting and participating with folk artists, it changed sometimes the way that they do that folk art or the way that the fact that it's presented to people sometimes changes that. And then you're--once again, you're putting these people together, you---while you're supposed to be somewhat of a neutral party, you still have to manage a whole bunch of people from different backgrounds and different--different places to be able to get along. Like, like, what are your thoughts on the fact that, just by being a public folklorist, sometimes you change?Bob Gates 16:34
Yeah, I remember--always remember, stuff I learned from physics--when I was a
physics major back in--.Sarah Milligan 16:41
Which I think is entertaining but go ahead.
Bob Gates 16:43
--Funny that I wanted to be physicist [laughter], but the Heisenberg Principle,
you know what that is?Sarah Milligan 16:47
No, please tell me.
Bob Gates 16:48
It's just that no matter--however you measure something--whatever the instrument
you measure with changes what you're measuring, because you can't. So, it's like a microscope, you're putting a microscope in there, that's changing what you're looking at some way. So, you have to know what that--that--that is, and I always remember--always thought of that when I was doing folklife is that you're always affecting in some way. Like, when I was down in, in doing my first folk festival, on Mud Island--in Memphis, and I had gone out and interviewed this fisherwoman, and they call her 'The Fisher lady--of St. Francis Lake.' And, you know, I got her--I interviewed her, and she was really up for being--doing this festival coming up. I talked her into it, you know--and then she died right before the festival. And I kind of thought that I had done, that maybe I put too much pressure on her or something. Her husband came, and he cried through the narrative stage, halfway through, he starts, "oh, I miss her so much." And oh, my God, what is---what is this a good field to be in here? You know, and what am I doing? And so, we--we discussed that a lot, and even when I was-- after that when I was in Tennessee, doing the--working for the Smithsonian, I actually--I did a paper at AFS [American Folklore Society]. It wasn't a very good paper, but the idea of the paper I thought, was pretty good. And that was that we affect these folk artists a lot when we--when we go into their communities. Like, if this was a bookmaker, you know, know who I'm talking about--.Sarah Milligan 18:28
The western Kentucky or the eastern Kentucky?
Bob Gates 18:31
--Yeah---from Tennne--what's.
Sarah Milligan 18:32
Was it Dale?
Bob Gates 18:33
Dale Calhoun.
Sarah Milligan 18:34
Dale Calhoun.
Bob Gates 18:35
That--the paper was basically about, okay, I, we got him to feel really
important about himself--he, but we didn't explain to the whole community why he's important. That he's just a representative of the community. We made him into a star and my paper was called "A Star is Born." You know, and so we got him all hyped up, and he goes the Smithsonian, everybody treats him like a king. He feel---you know, they, they show him, they're interpreting him all the time, presenting him. He's, he just feels so special. And he feels like this, you know, he's the greatest person in the world kind of, you know, and he comes back home. And Dale came back home and rebuilt his shop with windows in the front, so people could come and watch him build his boat. Because he's got so you know, so used to that. But he also got depressed because people weren't looking at his boats. And he also got a lot of crap from people in the community that was saying, "well, I can do it--I can do stuff just as good as he can. Why did he go?" Of course, I mean, there's other people like fishermen that I sent up there, you know, a lot of fishermen, "why did I send these fishermen up there," kind of thing. So, it was like, cultural intervention--and, and I was--so I was aware of that for a while that as folklorists, we kind of do that and what is our responsibility. I felt--in the paper, I felt like, when we do Smithsonian work, we should go on their cable TV and and do interview--and have people interview us and talk about why this--why we're inviting people up there. That it's really celebrating the culture of Tiptonville and Reelfoot Lake, and it's not about these individual people. But--.Sarah Milligan 20:08
You mean, like on local access--?
Bob Gates 20:09
Yeah--.
Sarah Milligan 20:10
--Or something--
Bob Gates 20:10
--They had a local channel, too. Actually my, my mother-in--law was like the
woman on the--channel for a while.Sarah Milligan 20:17
She was a TV personality--
Bob Gates 20:18
She was, yeah.
Sarah Milligan 20:19
--Of Tiptonville? Nice.
Bob Gates 20:20
Yeah, it was funny. But I mean, not at that point so much, but later on, she
was, but that was something we could have done to, to make the community feel a little bit more like they were a part of this festival. And not--but the Smithsonian really doesn't do that. And I don't think they did it after I gave my paper either. But but that's what I think might have helped Dale because he was actually depressed, when he came back. He--people were down on him. He was--he wasn't getting the attention that he got up there. You know, he realized how important this tradition was, but nobody else there did--.Sarah Milligan 20:55
Yeah.
Bob Gates 20:55
--Kind of thing.
Sarah Milligan 20:56
They just--.
Bob Gates 20:56
--So it's like. You know, I'm saying?
Sarah Milligan 20:58
Yeah, did his business improve? I mean, is that or died he come back, and it was
like, meh.Bob Gates 21:03
Oh, I think so. I mean, I think he had a better sense of his business and how to
charge better. And he got, he still got these orders from like, Louisiana and California and places like that, who want a Reelfoot boat that didn't even fit into where they were. Because it's really a boat made for that water. Because I remember being in Louisiana--years--a couple--four or five years later being in St. Charles. It was one of those places--a beach area on---one of the few beach areas in---in on the Louisiana coastline, and [saw] seen a Reelfoot Lake boats there, and saying, "how in the Hell did that get here?" But it was somebody who had gone to a festival and saw his--and he had ordered it from him and you know, got it.Sarah Milligan 21:51
Cool, oh.
Bob Gates 21:52
But I mean, what--I didn't answer what you said about the--this particular one,
is that what you want me to?Sarah Milligan 21:57
Well--no, I--I think I just meant in the context of that. I mean, I think your
responsibility as a---as a cultural interpreter to a certain extent. You know, it's--it's a delicate thing.Bob Gates 22:10
I mean, you present these people because you want to---I mean, I present these
people, because I want to see [them] break down walls of prejudice. I want people to kind of walk in somebody else's culture and say, "wow, they're like me. I--- they're--they're not so weird. I understand why Blacks sing like this in a church now, because I saw it on the narrative stage, I understand." I mean this--that's what I want people to do when they do this. And then when you hear [laughs] one of your folks doing the opposite, it really, it really kind of messed me up.Sarah Milligan 22:42
So, what did you do?
Bob Gates 22:43
You know, I said, oh, you know, I think his name is Bart. "Bart, you know,
that's really not appropriate. You know, that's a--that's a real good form of music, and these guys are great." "Oh, yeah. But you know--." And so, I tried to argue with them a little bit, but I didn't try to make him look bad in front of his friends. I just tried--I just tried to do it by example, and to me, it was like, "okay, I'm not going to confront him about it, but I'm going to show that this is really important to me. If he respects me bringing him down here, maybe he'll respect these guys." Because I brought them there, too.Sarah Milligan 23:17
That makes sense.
Bob Gates 23:18
That's kind of what I was feeling. And you know, just--I remember Beth Buttle
was down there at that time, so she was like, one of my first assistants or--.Sarah Milligan 23:29
Oh, okay.
Bob Gates 23:30
So, if we want to time where it was, Beth was first, and then Lois Joy came,
took her place. And Lois Joy and I did the festival. So, it must have been before the festival.Sarah Milligan 23:38
'95-96.
Bob Gates 23:38
Well, it was before the festival. I know it was.
Sarah Milligan 23:40
Yeah---and that was the state fair.
Bob Gates 23:42
That was state fair.
Sarah Milligan 23:43
Well, okay, so this is jumping around a little bit, but--just while we're on the
subject of it. You know, like you talked about the fact that you met Dale. I mean, you started working with Dale Calhoun when you were practically still a student. I mean, you just gotten out of Western [Kentucky University], right? That was your first gig--was in the 80s.Bob Gates 24:01
Well, I was in--I was in New York state for a while, then I went down to
Tennessee. Yeah.Sarah Milligan 24:06
Right.
Bob Gates 24:06
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 24:06
So--it was like shortly.
Bob Gates 24:07
Yeah----.
Sarah Milligan 24:08
Okay.
Bob Gates 24:08
A couple years later.
Sarah Milligan 24:09
So, what that makes me think is like, I know, you were still working with Dale
Calhoun up until--he just died like, what a year ago, a year and a half ago, two years ago.Bob Gates 24:16
About three years ago, yeah.
Sarah Milligan 24:17
Was it that long?
Bob Gates 24:18
I think so, yeah.
Sarah Milligan 24:20
But you---and you went to Dale's funeral.
Bob Gates 24:22
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 24:24
And so--and that seemed to [have] been an important thing, too. Not just for you
to go but---but that you were there. As not only a friend of his, but a long time.Bob Gates 24:33
Yeah, Roby couldn't make it who was state folklorist and--and I don't go to all
the funerals of the people here.Sarah Milligan 24:40
Right.
Bob Gates 24:40
That I know.
Sarah Milligan 24:41
No, I understand.
Bob Gates 24:42
But yeah, it was important to them because I knew--I knew his wife and I knew
that--I knew what the setting would be in that community and if I as state folklorist of Kentucky came in. There just--there'd be enough awe that would say, "oh, wow, the state really thought he was important." So yeah, that's why I did it.Sarah Milligan 24:59
Well, and----but--but you're also friends, I think about that and your role as
not only a mediator from the public to those people, but your relationship with each individual folk artist. I mean, I think that's something that we shouldn't gloss over. The fact that people work with this office because the people in it, build relationships with them. And that there's a level of trust and respect and and they, to a certain extent, that expect recipro---whatever.Bob Gates 25:32
Recipr--yeah.
Sarah Milligan 25:35
That word.
Bob Gates 25:36
Reciprocity.
Sarah Milligan 25:37
Reciprocity, yeah, thank you. I mean, they, they, you know, they--they show up
to the programs that you want them to do. I mean, you pay them as folk artists because they, they deserve to be. They're artists in their own right, but that's not always why they're doing things, for you. It's not the money, it's much about they trust that you're going to be--that you're going--.Bob Gates 26:00
Be good to them.
Sarah Milligan 26:01
Yeah.
Bob Gates 26:01
Yeah, And have a-- Treat them--
Sarah Milligan 26:02
--A truthful representation. So, I just wonder if you think about your
relationship with with--with those artists?Bob Gates 26:08
Yeah, a lot. I mean, I have over the years I--you know, in a sense, the Arts
Council is built a little differently, in how they give their grants. And we've always taken a lot of heat, some heat from the Arts Council, because we're hands on with these artists. And we, we have built relationships with them. And--and it takes that sometimes to get the grants to come in. To get them to be able to do this, you have to build a relationship and have them trust you that---because it's a learning situation with folk arts. You have to relearn what you thought folklore was--folk arts is [are] and---and so, you have to get through a definition phase with them. You have to show them how it's important to their life, and then it means important things to other people. And then they get this feedback that says, "yeah, I'll do this, I will do--." Like, a lot of our people went to the folk festival first year, it was all--you had to talk them into it. And talk to them and say, "it's gonna be okay, you're gonna like it, they're gonna enjoy it, you don't have to be a performer. You don't have to do this." Especially on the narrative stage, you know, yeah. And then, the year after, they all want to come back because they loved it so much. They thought it was great. They saw the look in people's eyes when they were on stage that this is important. They felt good about what they did. And we had a good setup here that they could stay in the hotel, and everybody took them where they needed to go. They never been treated like that before. So, I think--I think that relationship part is what's important to folk--folklorists, what they bring. And we--we pointed that out when we had to. We were challenged four years ago, or three years ago as to why the Folklife program is part of the Historical Society, and one of the main things he wrote in there is that we establish relationships with groups that the Historical Society hasn't been able to or should be establishing relationships with. And it's, it's ongoing, and it's based on trust by doing research, but then following up with public programming, that it reinforces the research. So, they, and I learned that and Cincinnati when I was working with the Black history project, because I was a white guy doing this. And I knew nobody trusted me at all, what I was doing, and you had to show right away that what you were doing was not being distorted by a white society and something they didn't like. So, we had to do, we had to turn around copies of photographs we did into quick exhibits, that people really liked. And then we could build on that. So, after two years, we started doing things like the Cotton Club, but it took two years to get that trust. I kind of felt that early on, but I mean, I think that's what they teach us at Western is has to do--to feel that empathy with a group. And, you know, early on, I wasn't doing as much as--we've been doing more now of, of getting groups to be involved in their interpretation of themselves. I mean, individually, I would always ask like Eddie Payne or somebody, "how do you want to be presented? What--what do you want people learn about you up there? How do you want this to--to have it." But when we started working with groups, in the early festivals, it was kind of like, "okay, we can document you and we'll present you and don't worry about what you--" but I think our big breakthrough was when we did the Hispanic culture. And we got together an advisory group of Cubans and Guatemalans and Mexicans from three different communities.Sarah Milligan 29:50
Is that leading into the 2001 festival?
Bob Gates 29:52
Oh, I think I was earlier than that. I don't remember. But, I mean, it was--it
was part of the trend that, you know, I've been out of school for a while. So, I don't, I don't--but I go to all--most of the meetings and, and I was seeing more of what anthropologists were saying and folklorist is that you need to involve the community. People were handing out cameras to people to go out and document themselves and stuff like that. Well, our--our reaction to that was, "okay, if we're going to include you in a festival--if we're going to have--work with you at a festival, we need to make sure that you feel good about what we're presenting." So, we would--like with this Hispanics--that--that---we called it the Latino Advisory Committee for that year. We sat down for---I remember up in the Old State Capitol, where we had our offices up there. And we had a meeting room there. Oral history, and the--we all shared that meeting room, it was kind of nice a thing. So, we invited José and these---and the Cubans, and I can't remember their names right now. But the---Claudia, who we had done some things with. Claudia Núñez. Claudia Núñez, yeah. José DÃaz , right? Jose, not DÃaz well--.Sarah Milligan 31:10
Well, anyway, I was just trying to think.
Bob Gates 31:11
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 31:12
And it was.
Bob Gates 31:14
And I, you know, I knew---.
Sarah Milligan 31:15
Carlos and---.
Bob Gates 31:16
--When I did that alfombra--when I found that alfombra that time. Well, I'd like
talk to talk about that later, if we could.Sarah Milligan 31:21
We will.
Bob Gates 31:21
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 31:21
Now we definitely will. Let's, um, I got you off that, it was like a timeless
question, not time sensitive, but I was just--.Bob Gates 31:27
Should we talk about the National Folk Festival?
Sarah Milligan 31:30
Yeah, that's what I was gonna say.
Bob Gates 31:30
Okay.
Sarah Milligan 31:31
Let's go back to Chattanooga, since we passed that--since I misled you to
believe that we had talked about it.Bob Gates 31:35
Oh, okay. Well, now the National Folk Festival, and it was pretty much under the
control of--what's his name? The guy that's been there for years.Sarah Milligan 31:45
Oh, oh, he's not there anymore. But it's not Berry (??), it's not the other. He
moved on and went did the crooked road and he retired.Bob Gates 31:54
Joe.
Sarah Milligan 31:55
Yeah. Yeah, anyway, it's easy to look up.
Bob Gates 32:00
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 32:00
He was there forever.
Bob Gates 32:01
So, Roby had been meeting with Joe and his crew about doing the national there,
in Chattanooga You know, and from Roby's perspective, it's always, "they're making me do this, and I have to, you know," [laughs] but, and so he's not really involved in this year, down in--.?Sarah Milligan 32:18
Oh, was he not?
Bob Gates 32:19
No--they just came in and did it behind his back, and he didn't want to be
involved. But that time, he was involved, and he kind of said, "Joe, we need to---we really need to play up the crafts in--in Tennessee, and not just have music from all over the world here. We need to--we need to look at what's actually in this area." So, Roby somehow had worked out a plan to do--to have craftsmen and so we, were looking at craftsmen that---in adjacent states, and so I had a few. I had one that I thought would work and they were river-oriented and Chattanooga's on the river. And we thought, "well, this--would work with that theme." So, I think Raymond Hicks was one, I might have had a couple other people that we brought down there.Sarah Milligan 33:09
And you said you did luthier fieldwork for that?
Bob Gates 33:12
Yeah, but and Roby also worked out with the museum, the Fine Arts Museum in
Chattanooga, to have an exhibit and they're right on the river. Right where the big--they had just opened up the new aquarium that year. So that's how we could figure out the date, too. This was--they're opening their great big aquarium. It--was amazing because they gave all the folklorists and artists a tour of it. One--one of the nights, we got to go and---.Sarah Milligan 33:39
Cool.
Bob Gates 33:40
--You started on the top floor and the water from there kind of came--I always
thought of it leaking down, but it came down different floors and the water. You know, it's part of it was--was really interesting was they had a whole area about the fish and fauna of the river where they were, I think it's the Tennessee River--I'm not sure, but Roby had worked out that we would have an exhibit on luthiers there, and he wanted to have regional ones. So, I interviewed Homer Ledford, the first time I got to actually--.Sarah Milligan 34:15
Did you not know Homer before that?
Bob Gates 34:16
--No, I knew him. I had kind of approached him and looked at him as kind of
a--I'd seen him other places. Like, in Berea, he was at Fort Hill, he was more of a salesman then. I didn't see him as an instrument maker that he was---I just saw him as--as doing demonstrations and playing and I liked him. But this was a chance for me to actually interview him. So, I went to his place interviewed him and took a picture, and that picture is in a booklet. Had some nice--neat little book about--and I did Frank Neat, too. I think those are the two I contributed and they--their instruments were at the exhibit, and their bios were there and everything, so--.Sarah Milligan 34:55
How did you find Frank Neat?
Bob Gates 34:57
--Roby told me about him. Because Roby you knew that he, you know, Roby’s in
Nashville. He's into the music scene, he knows all these, these high---these, these banjo players, and he knew where they were getting their banjos and they all talked about Frank Neat and Kentucky. A lot--a lot of the people, you know, I got from Roby. I don't--Roby also did some work here before I got here, and that's in our collection. It was done for the library.Sarah Milligan 35:26
Kentucky Department of Library and Archives [KDLA]
Bob Gates 35:27
Kentucky Department of--and they had special project[s] out of libraries in the
Lincoln area, Lincoln, Lincoln---.Sarah Milligan 35:35
In central Kentucky, you mean.
Bob Gates 35:36
Yeah, central Kent--and Brandenburg, on that side of Louisville. Some of these
small libraries he worked with did survey work and--. Different than I would have done survey work, but it was good. You know, and he did a lot of programs with those and that stuff's still up there. I made some copies of it, and we used it for a while, too. It wasn't like big interviews with everybody, it was kind of short interviews, but a lot of---a lot of public programs with them.Sarah Milligan 36:02
So, there's folklife materials at KDLA? Is that what it is?
Bob Gates 36:04
Yeah, it's still there. I---I borrowed it, I remember getting in trouble with
them, because I had it too long, and they said, "we want that back. We got to have that back." I mean, I didn't know what to do with it, they just went---.Sarah Milligan 36:14
Well, it's their collection, they were--. --They're charged with---.
Bob Gates 36:15
Yeah. I know.
Sarah Milligan 36:18
--Preservation.
Bob Gates 36:18
I made--I did a quick copy as much as I could. But you know, I couldn't copy all
the slides. I think I made black and white Xeroxes of a lot of the slides. So, it's kind of like the early foundations. Stuff that--of people we followed up on later. Some of them, some of them were so old, they were gone when I got here.Sarah Milligan 36:40
Yeah.
Bob Gates 36:41
That he had worked with. But anyway, Roby got me involved into this--in that
festival, and I think I went two years.Sarah Milligan 36:49
Two out of the three?
Bob Gates 36:50
Two out of the three, I think I remember doing a narrative stage down there. I
talked him into doing a narrative stage, a couple, and I think that went pretty well. I remember--I remember seeing--Junior Brown there. He was just, Junior Brown, and he's a guitar player who plays--he plays--it's a guitar---two guitars together.Sarah Milligan 37:13
Oh, really?
Bob Gates 37:14
So, he can go back and forth between them, but he's really good. I mean, they
always talked about--Jimi Hendrix was one of his guys, that he played [with]. He played rockabilly with Jimi Hendrix leads kind of stuff--.Sarah Milligan 37:26
I see.
Bob Gates 37:26
--Thrown in. You ever heard of Junior Brown?
Sarah Milligan 37:28
No, but you know me and music.
Bob Gates 37:29
But you know, he's one of those things--one of those guys at the National Folk
Festival discovers [them] and puts them on the stage and they either make it or they don't kind of thing. And he was pretty--pretty strong yet. But I remember [laughs] Raymond. See, I met--I had Raman invol--was involved with Raymond when I was at Berea because--.Sarah Milligan 37:53
Yeah, cause your predecessor had been, correct?
Bob Gates 37:57
Well, you know, we did the Kentucky River Project, that's when I got to meet
Raymond. And Raymond had been involved with--when you said pred--do you mean, Dick Vankleek?Sarah Milligan 38:08
Yeah.
Bob Gates 38:08
Yeah, I don't even think of him as being--well, I guess in a sense, he was a
state folklorist. Yeah--but yeah.Sarah Milligan 38:14
He was what existed before you came into the state.
Bob Gates 38:16
Right. Right, yeah.
Sarah Milligan 38:17
That's what I mean by that.
Bob Gates 38:18
Yeah, he just kind of gave up on it, that's all. But that's how I knew Raymond,
and the, I had Raymond come one day to build a boat at the Appalachian Museum in Berea, when I was there. And so, we had an exhibit, they had an exhibit going on and, and part of it was to have Raymond build the boat outside and bring it inside. You know--and he was--so, he was supposed to show up one day, and he never showed up. It was like on a Friday, he was gonna be there Friday and Saturday and demonstrate outside, never showed up. I couldn't find him. I had to call down to the guy that he worked for, and he tried to trace them back. Because he---Raymond didn't have a phone. And--and they finally, like three days later said, "yeah, Raymond broke--he was on his way there, but he broke down like two counties over and he couldn't come," and they came the next week, and we actually did it the next week. It was okay, but it was kind of embarrassing to do that. [chuckles]Sarah Milligan 39:18
Well, that's another really good point, though. Because when you're working
with--with folk artists, a lot of the times, you never know like, who you're actually going to end up with. You're---you're valuing them for their traditional knowledge doesn't mean that they're necessarily reliable. With Raymond, I know you have some crazy stories about all the different things you've had to do, just to keep him involved. not because he didn't want to but, maybe you know, he wasn't as literate his some [people]Bob Gates 39:43
Well, he was poor too. And you didn't have the--.
Sarah Milligan 39:45
There was a poverty level there.
Bob Gates 39:46
Yeah, he would borrow trucks to get him here, but the trucks always--didn't
always work, they often break down. So, I often found that it was easier for me to go down and to his house, get the boat that he's working on and put it on a trailer and bring it there. So, yeah, I learned that with him, and I remember, like the Northern Kentucky Brotherhood, during the Tour of Kentucky Folk Music, I was down in Stanton. And they were one of the places that had gotten the tour, and they were going to have them on stage. And, you know, it's like two o'clock, and they're supposed to be on at 2:00, and they're not here yet. And I'm--standing out in the parking lot waiting and pacing, waiting for them to get there and then try to get them up on stage. They were like, 30 minutes late. So, you--had to redo the schedule and tell--it wasn't even my festival, I just had the schedule and so, "oh, can you move this guy here? Would you do this--and." So---.Sarah Milligan 40:38
Well, that's another thought with--with like, Raymond. You know, for him, I
think there always have been challenges--what what is that--what is--what's the difference between the fact that Raymond, you've--basically worked with for 20 plus years, right? And you've basically said, "you have this valuable, traditional skill that hardly anyone else has, and no one has it like you. We've documented it, we've told the whole state how valuable it is, but yet you still." --I mean, he still lives in poverty, he still has continuous issues with working, that's never going to make him a star. So, how do you balance someone--how do you balance that between bringing him out of that world to say, "what you do is so valuable," and then he goes back home--and that value isn't necessarily going to ever translate to money like, has that ever?Bob Gates 41:39
Well, we tried things with him that we thought would help with that, like trying
to get him on the Cross Market program, and market his boats and market his small ones. I remember taking Nancy down there, Nancy Atcher, who was part of the Crafts Market and--and trying to show her where he makes the boats and why they're important, and how can we market this, and it didn't work out. He just didn't have the streets---the selling sense. I mean, he would give anybody anything. He would--if somebody wanted the boat, he would find the materials and make it and it hardly cost him anything. He just wanted to make them happy, and so I mean, I tried to get him to think about a system for--for--I just realized that wasn't going to change him, and that he was happy the way he was, and that's the way it was. I mean, the apprenticeships helped him. It gave--gave him some money, to teach somebody, actually in his own family, which is okay. Because when he did it, I went out there one time. He was only supposed to be teaching his daughter, and he had fifteen kids there. We got a videotape of four of them one time, when I went out, but other times, there was fifteen. But--they were neighborhood kids, he was teaching them all at one time, and I don't know how many he stuck with, but it stuck with his daughter. So, he was trying to spread it around. So, he was a good--it was---it was a good match for him. But it was also, you know, you had to back away and say, "this is," you know, I remember him giving me all these documents that he--he had tried to file for his first lung cancer. Because he had been on a boat on the river, and asbestos had been a problem with that, and he had a lawyer and everything. I couldn't make the hide or hair of it. I couldn't tell if he had already, you know, submitted it. Yeah, and other folklorists might have gone and talked to the lawyer. I didn't know--I don't know, I didn't know what to do with it. But I think--.Sarah Milligan 43:34
Yeah. Probably not, I mean, that's but--.
Bob Gates 43:43
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 43:43
--But---I think that's just another example of how you---where's that fine line between--.
Bob Gates 43:49
Babying somebody and--.
Sarah Milligan 43:50
Yeah, working life, too. I mean--.
Bob Gates 43:52
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 43:53
But I think Raymond, your key, I guess is what I was thinking too is, is that he
was--he was happy with where he was at. It wasn't that he resented the fact that like, like getting back to what you're talking about like, with Dale Calhoun. Going back to the community and having some--some transitional issues with the community feeling like, "oh, why did you get to do all this?" And him but--but then you have people like Raymond, who maybe didn't have that is--you know, didn't have that same--.Bob Gates 44:20
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 44:21
Feeling.
Bob Gates 44:22
I remember in Louisiana, there was a Joe Wilson, who we were talking about---.
Sarah Milligan 44:29
Good job. Yes, it’s a (??).
Bob Gates 44:30
--Was giving a workshop to--in New Orleans and I got invited to go too and say a
few words about the folklife program in Baton Rouge, and Joe was giving a talk to National Park Service people. Because New Orleans is a national park--not New Orleans, but the--what do you call the old downtown area.Sarah Milligan 44:58
The French Quarter.
Bob Gates 45:00
Bourbon Street and all that there is--there are certain things there that they
give tours, and that's considered a heritage area. And they also--they made a map of where Arcadia was and they were, they were presenting that, which is not a park, that's a whole good area. And they had different areas like Eunice where they actually had park rangers. So, they were really--the National Park Service is really into how do you preserve--how do you present cultural areas without having a cultural park with [it] and how do you do this? And, and Joe was there giving a talk, and I remember, I was still hot on this issue of how do we cushion what we do with the folk artists, so we don't change our life too much. And, and I brought that up and Joe looked at me like I was a patsy, and like I was sissy or something, he said, "you don't have to worry about that, the folk take care of themselves." You know, and I wasn't convinced. And I felt kind of that he was being kind of insensitive. He wasn't the one I was criticizing, when I did my paper about the Smithsonian. But I could kind of get a feeling that he was--he didn't care that much. But and in part, they do take care of themselves, but I think we need to worry about it, too. We need to think about it when we do things. Raymond was a funny guy; I think he's still alive. I was just down there like, a month ago, and he was supposed to be on his deathbed, and he looked bad. But this is the fourth bout of cancer he's had. He's, I never saw somebody whose body could---could keep going, no matter what. He showed me a lot of neat things. Like, I remember, we had to move a boat once, and we go up there now to the warehouse, I need four guys to help move that boat, he could move by himself. By putting the front of it on something, and, and moving it around, you know. Always figuring out the angles, how to do it, and we moved things together all the time that way. He was amazing, he could do anything, and you know--we'd somebody'd want a boat builder at a festival, and I'd help him get there and he'd adapt. I found out that things about him like, he was a good fiddle player. I didn't know that. He never talked about it. At one time he was at--I think was Flemington--Fleming. Flemingsburg, there was a little festival there, and they wanted a boat builder. And he was there with the boat. And next thing I see, he's there playing the fiddle with some guy showing him--showing him what he--what he knew, and with some other field players. But then I just want to say this about the National Folk Festival--is I was worried. How am I gonna get in there, I can't get a truck big enough for the boat that he's got. So--what our policy was often was to take a boat that he's working on, and maybe start a new one as a demonstration, but have the other one there to show. And how can we get that there? And he says, "I--my, my cousin's got a truck we can use. It's a big truck, it'll be fine." I said, "okay, well, if you can load it up and come to my house, I'll drive--I'll drive it the rest of the way and help you with it." You know, and I think that's what we worked out. He comes over and it's this--it's like a big, big truck that you might deliver bread in.Sarah Milligan 47:19
Flemingsburg. Oh.
Bob Gates 48:19
It just seemed like it was--.
Sarah Milligan 48:20
Like a delivery looking truck thing.
Bob Gates 48:22
Yeah, like a delivery looking truck, and, and the gears weren't working right.
[laughs] And I remember driving down the hill into Chattanooga, thinking that---"this this thing's gonna wreck." Because I had to, I couldn't get it into fourth gear or third gear, the highest gear the whole way over. So, it's always making the whiney noise all the way through, and he said, "oh, that's okay--it'll be, we can make it." Yeah, I mean, he was--he was a guy that had been a mechanic on a boat, so he thought he could fix it if anything went wrong. But, at the end of the trip, I'm so worn out by driving in this low speed and then going down this big hill--Chattanooga a big, you know, as you come down, it's like you're going down a mountain into this town. And I thought "this is---this is all over. We've had it." But we got there and he built his boat. And it was amazing because it was--I remember it was a sunny day and--and it was very warm, I think--do they usually do it in August or?Sarah Milligan 49:20
It's usually in the summer, sometime.
Bob Gates 49:22
Summertime.
Sarah Milligan 49:22
Yeah.
Bob Gates 49:23
I know it was warm. And usually, his boats need to be in the water for a couple
days before they swell and--and close up and hold water and let--don't let water in. And all of a sudden, it rained, and it was one of those summer outpours, where it rains real hard and then it gets real hot again. And that---was--the boat holding water. He had a boat there with big holes that you know, just like in our--you can almost see a quarter inch between our--yeah.Sarah Milligan 49:56
Yeah.
Bob Gates 49:57
And I was amazed and--so he was building that boat, and he said, "Bob, I'm going
to build his boat for you." And I said, "I'll pay you two or--what do you want?" He said, "about $300, or something like that." I'm like, then, "okay," I was looking forward to taking it home and having it and everything. And he was--he was building it out of pines.Sarah Milligan 50:13
A mast or something?
Bob Gates 50:13
So, it wasn't really the best. That's all he could get. Why--I remember one of
the National Folk Festival, guys who were kind of coordinating, he built this really nice thing, so we could put the boat on sideways so people could look inside it. And he said, "do you need anything else?" Well, I said, "for this boat, in the front here, we need a five-by-five piece of wood to be the front of it." To go get--a chunk of wood. Not the mast the---.Sarah Milligan 50:25
--Or the--
Bob Gates 50:27
--You know, where the two pieces of the board come together, the bow of the boat.
Sarah Milligan 50:47
The bow, yeah.
Bob Gates 50:47
And he formed that with a nice piece of wood. And Raymond said, "I need a four
by--five by five piece of wood, about four inches long," or something like that--or ten inches long, I think it was ten inches long. So, I told this guy this--I wrote it down. He comes back with a ten foot long, five by five piece of wood. I kept it and I used it in my basement, actually, because he didn't want it--you know, but all we needed was a piece like that.Sarah Milligan 51:17
Yeah, a little chunk out of it.
Bob Gates 51:18
It was funny how these guys--don't they have volunteers sometimes or they have
guys come in from upstate New York or, or Boston and this group of guys riding around. And sometimes they don't understand your accent, and they---you know, they just jump in and they want to help [laughs], but they don't. I thought it was so funny--.Sarah Milligan 51:18
That is funny.
Bob Gates 51:19
--That he did that. And the other thing is that Joe Wilson wanted the boat.
Sarah Milligan 51:41
That he was making for you?
Bob Gates 51:42
Well, he thought Raymond should give it to him, and I had to tell Joe that
I--that it was from--you know, Raymond was the one that (??).Sarah Milligan 51:49
Did Joe Wilson think he should buy it from--.
Bob Gates 51:51
I wasn't sure, I thought he thought he was gonna get it free. Maybe he thought
he was gonna buy it, but I said, "Joe he was--he had made this--he was gonna give--it sell it to me." And--.Sarah Milligan 52:02
Well, why didn't you let Joe take it, because you could have bought one from him
at any time?Bob Gates 52:06
I don't know. Because I just thought it was my opportunity to finally get one
because it was so hard for--[to]--get Raymond to build one and everything. And I just wasn't very starstruck by Joe, and I guess it maybe it was because Raymond--he had--I don't know.Sarah Milligan 52:21
Because he had offered it to you in the first place.
Bob Gates 52:23
Yeah, it's one of those things where your kind of--kind of regret that you
didn't give it to him. You know--.Sarah Milligan 52:29
Do you?
Bob Gates 52:30
I did it a couple of days later I thought, "well." Another funny thing happened
there is a--but Raymond was building a boat from scratch. And in two days, he had this boat pretty well done. Not the boat that---not the boat that I got, But the other boat that was already mine, supposedly. I think that's how it went, or maybe this is--was the second--this might have been the first year and the second year--it might--I might be putting two years together, actually. But I remember this woman, her husband worked for the newspaper, and she was going to--she wanted to surprise him by buying a boat for him. And Dale Calhoun was building a boat there and Raymond Hicks was building a boat there. And she got it confused. And I think she wanted Dale Calhoun's boat to give, but she---she bought Raymond's. Completely different style, and you know, Dale Calhoun's boats are--are constructed really tight and they're fiberglass and they're--you know, Raymond's are really, just the way you would build a boat in your backyard, if you lived on the river. And it's just kind of, throw it together. It's---there's some aesthetics to it. There---is definitely aesthetics to it, but it's not like--and actually I remember Raymond tying to finish this thing up so she could pick it up and--and Dale--Calhoun kind of laughing at Raymond kind of thing. Oh, Ray--you know, Dale was aware that his boats were---are higher quality. So, he was kind of--he enjoyed Raymond, but he was actually kind of making fun of him. And then this woman--on top of all, that this woman comes down and gets the boat, but they were--well, he wasn't the one that her husband wanted--or boyfriend wanted. So, it was---.Sarah Milligan 54:17
And she took it anyway though?
Bob Gates 54:18
Yeah, and--I guess felt like I kinda had to shield Raymond from that, a little bit.
Sarah Milligan 54:23
Yeah.
Bob Gates 54:23
Because it was---it's kind of weird. But we all got to kind of kick out, too
cause [laughs], this guy that she buys a vote for him and it's not anything to the quality that he wanted to it. Well, it wasn't painted or anything either, but I think he probably loved it afterwards. He probably---.Sarah Milligan 54:42
Well, and the difference too is Raymond's are completely flat-bottomed and
Dale's are like more canoe-shaped, whenever you think of that tradition--.Bob Gates 54:50
Yeah, I mean, that just--.
Sarah Milligan 54:51
Yeah.
Bob Gates 54:51
--Goes right through the water and--.
Sarah Milligan 54:52
That's funny.
Bob Gates 54:54
Yeah, it's--I mean, Dale's are like $4,000 Raymond's $500, $600.
Sarah Milligan 54:59
Yeah.
Bob Gates 55:00
Yeah, you know, [laughs]. That girl, well, that's what she could afford. She
wasn't--probably wasn't gonna be able to [for] pay that other one anyway.Sarah Milligan 55:07
Yeah.
Bob Gates 55:08
I got that---you know, I that boat, I brought it back and I bought her from him,
and I had it down on the river. I took the kids upriver one time--.Sarah Milligan 55:16
Really, on the Kentucky River over here?
Bob Gates 55:18
Yeah, it was--what is it the end of [the] year? What's--the holiday I'm thinking of?
Sarah Milligan 55:26
Memorial Day?
Bob Gates 55:27
Memorial Day, yeah. And that's the last chance for everybody to get [into] the
river. So, that's the day I decide I'm going to take the kids out. Because we must have got back and then it was Memorial Day, and so I headed out in the river and--.Sarah Milligan 55:38
Or Labor Day, by the summer. Yeah.
Bob Gates 55:40
--Yeah, it wasn't the beginning of the summer, this was at the end. So--.
Sarah Milligan 55:41
Well, then Labor Day.
Bob Gates 55:43
Yeah, at Labor Day, so--I always get those two mixed up and Madeline's about
this big. She's four years old, or something--. --Five years old, maybe and she's got her vest on, and Robert's got his vest on and I loaded off because we're gonna go up, and I'm gonna row and we're going to camp out. And so, I rode from the dock at Bellepoint, underneath the bridge, up by Millville and past Millville out there and still couldn't find a place to camp, because it was all real high. The water--water's down here, and then you got this high bank, and you really can't sleep by the bank. And I guess we did camp out overnight, we found something. But it was kind of funny, because Madeline's up in the front of the boat just sleeping and half the time, you know, I'm rowing, and all these big boats are coming up and down the river, because it's their last chance of the year to--show off and they're bas--almost swamping us half the time and.Sarah Milligan 55:51
She's a baby. Was Janet with you?
Bob Gates 56:38
No, she wouldn't do something that stupid [laughter] I didn't have the room for
her anyway. [laughs] She's like, "oh, that's a good idea, Bob, go ahead." Look, she's got two days without the kids and me.Sarah Milligan 56:49
Oh, enjoy the weekend.
Bob Gates 56:50
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 56:50
Oh, that's funny. I can see that.
Bob Gates 56:53
I thought--I thought it's gonna be the great camping trip. [laughter] We had a
good--we did--finally found a sandy place, on the one side of the river that was nice. But it was a lot of rowing to get up there. Because you--I was rowing against the current the whole time.Sarah Milligan 57:08
[Yawns] Those big, flat boats. Big heavy flat boat.
Bob Gates 57:11
Yeah, I just came across some film the other day--video that I'm going to give.
It was on kind of--half Historial Society, half my stuff. So, I'm going to make a DVD of the one part, and it's about when I presented--we presented Raymond at the Governor's Derby Breakfast. Because we--did I talked about how we did that ever since 1992--'91 or '92?Sarah Milligan 57:34
We talked a little bit about how that was one of--.
Bob Gates 57:36
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 57:36
--The earliest ways you started presenting artists.
Bob Gates 57:38
Yeah---well, Raymond was up there building the boat and he finished it. And we
took it--we took it down and we had a race. After the Derby Day, we came down to the library and put it in the water with--my neighbor had a boat that he-- had he had bought, a wooden boat.Sarah Milligan 57:53
Oh, the Paul Sawyier Library?
Bob Gates 57:54
The Paul Sawyier Library. He put the boat in, and Robert and me and Scott
Gilbert, because Scott--Scott was there making baskets--.Sarah Milligan 58:03
Oh, yeah.
Bob Gates 58:03
--As part of the apprenticeship, so Scott and me were in one boat and my
neighbor was in the other, and we were rowing down the Kentucky River--on the Kentucky River down to Bellepoint. We lost. [laughter], we got a video of it anyway. If Heather wants to know what the hell that's about, that's what it was.Sarah Milligan 58:04
That's what that's about.
Bob Gates 58:22
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 58:22
For the archives. Oh, that's funny. That's really good, actually.
Bob Gates 58:25
Well, you know, we always tried to make Derby Day--. It was kind of neat,
because we would, we would get there early, like six o'clock in the morning and set up and it was like a mini festival and get things--. And sometimes it'd be cold as hell, and we'd get the artists there, we'd try to feed them and make sure they're okay and everything. But, by 12 o'clock, everybody's leaving, and I didn't want to quit. So, I always invited everybody over to my house for a Derby breakfast-- Derby Day party.Sarah Milligan 58:57
Yeah.
Bob Gates 58:57
So, it was kind of neat. For a while there, Eddie Pennington and those guys
would come over and they'd play music and--and Raymond--things like that. So, that was kind of the start of that tradition. Us having the Derby Day thing.Sarah Milligan 59:10
Yeah. Everybody come [came] over to your house afterwards.
Bob Gates 59:15
Yeah, I remember one time a cop came over who had met Eddie, and those other
guys and wanted to play with him. So, he came over with his police car and parked across the street, on my neighbor's--in front of her house. And that was a "no, no, you can't." And she called me and said, "why did you let that cop in my--."Sarah Milligan 59:34
And did she say "I'm gonna call the police on you?" Sorry.
Bob Gates 59:38
Yeah, I said, "well, he is the police."
Sarah Milligan 59:40
Sorry.
Bob Gates 59:41
Well, it ended up that they were--she was actually selling marijuana over there,
so that's part of the reason she didn't want him in front of our house. [laughs]Sarah Milligan 59:50
Oh, no.
Bob Gates 59:51
Because I went over there one day, to borrow something and I got halfway down
the stairs, and I know what marijuana smells like, and it was her--and I--I always would say, we would say, "why are you--had so many people come to your house all the time?" Because we knew something's going on, and she'd be like "oh, well, we--we have a computer, a new computer and we make business cards for people. And all these people want new business cards and they're always--." "Okay." [laughter]Sarah Milligan 1:00:19
Nice.
Bob Gates 1:00:20
That's the kind of neighborhood --I'm in.
Sarah Milligan 1:00:22
Oh, yes. It's diverse. So um, okay, so that was Chattanooga, in the mid-90s. So
that was another one of those[s] kind[s] of precursors, where you're starting to present people on a regular basis, you'd got all these kinds of things like the Governor's Derby Breakfast. You have the state fair that you pick up in the late 90s, leading up to the festival. Then you really start the festival, which we covered.Bob Gates 1:00:47
Yeah--and I think that Joe Wilson and Roby, and I really helped Joe Wilson see
that the local folk arts was [were] important for Nashville. Because they started doing it more.Sarah Milligan 1:00:57
They do that now.
Bob Gates 1:00:58
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:00:58
Yeah, the ones I've been to.
Bob Gates 1:00:59
I think they're regressing a little bit, because the one I saw in Nashville, it
was like--.Sarah Milligan 1:01:06
It was--.
Bob Gates 1:01:07
--Only the artists that could sell their stuff, really.
Sarah Milligan 1:01:09
It was more Nashville-centric at Nashville.
Bob Gates 1:01:11
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:01:11
I mean, it wasn't as Tennessee-centric, as it was just Nashville-centric there.
Bob Gates 1:01:14
Yeah, yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:01:15
And that is really more commercial, but the ones I've been to I mean, that's
totally digressing. But the ones I've been to with Nate, you know, like in Montana, for example, they had a whole section that was like Montana folk artists and stuff.Bob Gates 1:01:31
Well, I went to the Great Lakes Folk Festival, as a--NEA [National Endowment for
the Arts] asked me to go up as a--.Sarah Milligan 1:01:38
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:01:38
What do you call it? Evaluator, and I had been an evaluator, I think, or at
least had been to the Michigan festival before that. Because that was kind of a model for us, when we did our folk festival. So, I saw the transition they did from going from on campus, which was a nice, nice location, small, paid a lot of money for it. But then they moved into downtown and did the combined national folk. And what disturbed me about that was, the way they offer crafts there. It was like--it was like, just taking people from our Crafts Market--and who were kind of folksy and having them up there because they could sell and nobody else. You know, not really having demonstrations. So much, which--.Sarah Milligan 1:01:39
Evaluator. Yeah, I think--.
Bob Gates 1:02:21
But that's why--I guess they need to do it.
Sarah Milligan 1:02:23
--Ours--I don't know. I mean, I would say there's a combination of that, too.
Bob Gates 1:02:25
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:02:25
I mean, it is definitely---have some more national foc--it's a national folk
fest, it has more a national focus.Bob Gates 1:02:32
Yeah--yeah, that's true. Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:02:33
And that sort of thing. Okay so--.
Bob Gates 1:02:37
--I'm just I love the Smithsonian. I like the way they do it, you know.
Sarah Milligan 1:02:40
Yeah. No, I don't--.
Bob Gates 1:02:41
I like them as a model.
Sarah Milligan 1:02:42
---I'm.
Bob Gates 1:02:42
So that's, that's what we always looked toward.
Sarah Milligan 1:02:43
--I'm not defending or whatever.
Bob Gates 1:02:45
Yeah. Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:02:45
I'm just trying to think.
Bob Gates 1:02:47
I'm sorry, I interrupted your question. What was it?
Sarah Milligan 1:02:50
--I don't remember---I don't remember.
Bob Gates 1:02:51
You wanna play it back? [laughter]
Sarah Milligan 1:02:53
Yeah, right, no I'd definitely lose it then.
Bob Gates 1:02:55
You were talk--.
Sarah Milligan 1:02:56
--I think it was just basically saying, "we've covered these things." So,
let's--can we talk a little bit about some of the apprenticeships? Because you all are just doing this exhibit, so it's kind of in your mind, like.Bob Gates 1:03:04
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:03:05
Maybe a little bit of the history of the apprenticeship program. Like when did
you start giving them, how--was it easy to start? Was it easy to get people to apply? How's that evolved, some of the highlights.Bob Gates 1:03:17
I keep thinking of Marty Newell as being in the Arts Council director at the time.
Sarah Milligan 1:03:21
And this was the early 90s, this was before you even started with KHS, right?
Bob Gates 1:03:25
I think so. Yeah, I think we were doing it--. It was like the comm--you know,
we're using the National Endowment for the Arts as a model for the state and--and also kind of what we were doing--what I was doing in Louisiana. Is to have a folk arts panel and folk arts grants and apprenticeships, and sometimes the projects are a hard sell, but the apprenticeships are always--people can understand that and get their head around it and. So, but--the first couple ones were direct NEA money. It was NEA--money funded the apprenticeships.Sarah Milligan 1:03:38
Okay.
Bob Gates 1:03:42
And then the state saw that that was important, and started putting money toward
it saying, "we're, this is good--we'll do this every year."Sarah Milligan 1:04:10
Who were some of your first apprenticeships, do you remember? And how did you
find them?Bob Gates 1:04:15
I think the first one was Clyde Davenport, the fiddle player for Monticello, and
he was actually like our second National Heritage Award winner, too.Sarah Milligan 1:04:29
Okay, who was our first?
Bob Gates 1:04:33
I think Morgan Sexton was00Lee Sexton's uncle, yeah. And he died at--like a
couple years later.Sarah Milligan 1:04:46
Morgan Sexton did?
Bob Gates 1:04:47
Morgan did, he didn't last very long after he got the award. But--.
Sarah Milligan 1:04:50
So, Clyde Davenport, you think was one of your first apprenticeships?
Bob Gates 1:04:54
I think so, and it was kind of--pairing him with somebody who had been on our
Tour of Kentucky Folk Music, one of the Eversole Brothers, from Rockcastle. County, and they, which was not---a little bit of a stretch there. They're not--I mean, they're like three counties apart. So, you know, we wanted them to be from the same county, but that was okay. And that was a good one. They worked real[ly] hard, I think we only got one or two that year.Sarah Milligan 1:05:25
Did you have any material culture that first year, or was it all music?
Bob Gates 1:05:28
I think it was just music. I really should look at the list, and the years.
We--Mark, and I--you know, when we were putting this exhibit together, we actually had a hard time finding records of all of them.Sarah Milligan 1:05:45
What exhibit?
Bob Gates 1:05:47
The Makings of a Master exhibit, it's touring right now, and then we had at the
history center this summer. And it was all celebrating the apprenticeships over the years. So, we tried to put a master list together of all of them. And---it's I wish I had it infront of me. But it's--I remember we had this one guy who built--who’s from--on your way to Prestonsburg, on the Mountain Parkway, you go through a little town, little county can't think of it. And he made houses. Like kind of log houses, little bitty miniatures of the county.Sarah Milligan 1:06:30
Oh, okay.
Bob Gates 1:06:31
And that was the weirdest one, I think, because--.
Sarah Milligan 1:06:33
You don't have any of those, do you?
Bob Gates 1:06:34
No. You know, it's like some of them you get excited about, and some of them you
think-- [makes a groaning sound]. And that was one that kind of came from Appalshop. They they said "oh, this is--this is folk arts, get this guy to do it." --And they helped him write it. And it was like," I'm not too sure about this. This is almost memory art. And it's not really--." But it got funded. You know, another project I worked with--with Appalshop around that time was the Pictureman Mullins [William R. 'Pictureman' Mullins] project.Sarah Milligan 1:06:34
Oh, yeah. Yeah, they did---did a documentary. They ended up doing a documentary
about that.Bob Gates 1:07:14
Yeah, I just talked to Herbie Smit (??) a couple days ago, said they're bringing
it out again, some kind of anniversary of it.Sarah Milligan 1:07:19
Oh, interesting. Well, I know it's--well, they have, between them and the SKTCTS
[Southeast Community and Technical College] in Cumberland, kind of have split between the Pictureman Mullins archives. I think Appalshop has more.Bob Gates 1:07:33
Oh, there's two archives of it?
Sarah Milligan 1:07:35
Well, I--think I think that--I know that Appalshop has a huge part of that, but
I think that KCTCS there in Cumberland has some, too.Bob Gates 1:07:43
Well, you know, even when I first came here, [to] the state, and they asked me,
"what, what are you going to do?" And I-- "are you gonna do a folk festival?" I said, "no, I think we need to do--we need to document what's here and and look at places that it hasn't been documented." I always felt like Appalshop was kind of--had been doing their own stuff. I didn't really know them as well. I did go out there. I did visit a lot and got to meet Elizabeth and Herbie--.Sarah Milligan 1:08:12
Berrett (??)
Bob Gates 1:08:13
--Early on. It was with Barrett, and some of the other ones. They kind of had a
little party for me once. But it was like--we just did projects with each other over the years. They're, they're so independent. You know, it's and--their jobs are based on the money they get--they bring in to do these things. So that's their first--first thing, is trying to get a project that will pay for everybody. And, and, and I was these--the system they had for deciding what they're going to do was consensus, consensus. You know what I'm talking about? Do you what--they--I don't know if they still do this, but they didn't have--when I was---first one down there, they didn't have like a director who decides, we're gonna do this project--we're gonna do this pro--. And it's like, they all got together for a meeting and hammered it out for three or four hours. "Well, we'll do that, you want to do this. Well, I'll do yeah." Kinda it was--you know, kind of the hippie way of doing it [laughs].Sarah Milligan 1:09:12
Communal. It was a communal feel (??).
Bob Gates 1:09:13
Communal, I should say. And I'd worked with them on festivals and things, but it was--.
Sarah Milligan 1:09:20
What like, seed time at the Cumberland or?
Bob Gates 1:09:22
Yes, it was a couple of times, I worked and helped present some things. I did a
couple of narrative stages down there over the years. But my overall feeling is often I'll--most of my interaction with them is, is two days before any grants [are] due, write a letter of support, and, and not really be involved in the planning of it. But the Pictureman Mullins was a different thing.Sarah Milligan 1:09:46
I was gonna ask you.
Bob Gates 1:09:48
Because--because she--I think Kim Lady Smith had told them of the importance of
trying to get a folklorist involved in it and that maybe folklorists would ask them different questions when they do this. So oh, Elizabeth didn't really know how I'd fit in. So, she said, well, instead of me just consulting on it, she said, "why don't you come down and we'll do the interviews together." So, it kind of was like dual interviewers. [laughs] I thought, "okay."Sarah Milligan 1:10:14
Well, considering they never did it again, how did that go?
Bob Gates 1:10:17
Yeah. [laughs] I don't know if I ruined that or not. But I thought we did a
pretty good job together. And she'd often stand back and let me ask a lot of the questions if--we didn't step on each other's foot. I think--I don't know if they videotaped our interviews or, they did.Sarah Milligan 1:10:32
Oh, yeah, they don't I mean, they're, they're a document--documentary company,
everything they do is on video.Bob Gates 1:10:39
Okay.
Sarah Milligan 1:10:39
I mean, the[Kentucky] Oral History Commission funded--did help support through
grants, minimal, but--but they did help support to grant some of their projects, so.Bob Gates 1:10:46
I think we did both then, I think we did--.
Sarah Milligan 1:10:49
Do--do audio and--.
Bob Gates 1:10:50
--Audio and video, but I remember going to Jenkins and interviewing a couple of
African Americans, who were still there. We and we (??) some Hungarians stuff. What I was adding to it, it was looking at some of the cultural diversity in the mining camps.Sarah Milligan 1:11:08
Maybe you should explain who Pictureman Mullins is real[ly] quick--what you
remember of it.Bob Gates 1:11:16
Sorry.
Sarah Milligan 1:11:18
You can dig into your pockets.
Bob Gates 1:11:19
What?
Sarah Milligan 1:11:19
You're digging through your pockets.
Bob Gates 1:11:20
Yeah, I felt some pot--what is this?
Sarah Milligan 1:11:23
There's a pop tart in your pocket?
Bob Gates 1:11:24
No, no a Pop Tart--what are those wonderful nuts that you have to break apart?
Sarah Milligan 1:11:28
Pistachios.
Bob Gates 1:11:29
Pistachios, I had a couple pistachio shells, but not the real pistachio. Which
is really disappointing, isn't it? [laughter]Sarah Milligan 1:11:39
Yeah, okay, Pictureman Mullins.
Bob Gates 1:11:41
--Pictureman Mullins was a photographer. He was an independent photographer, if
I remember right, in the mining camps, in the area around Letcher County, Seiko--Seco and some of the other mining camps. And he would take pictures for the mining camps in Jenkins and that, you know, he would take pictures of their buildings. Because Jenkins was a model mining camp. It had been built with a and a Lake Golf Course, you had to go through this hole in the--hole in the mountain to get to the golf course. And it had this beautiful lake and---the country, the company store was special, and it was pretty neat. And--but they also had sections of the town that were different ethnic groups and things like that. But, Pictureman Mullins made his living, I think as an independent, if I remember, right, was independent. And he went out and took pictures of all kinds of events. Weddings, funerals, he had some pictures of people in their coffins, you know. He had pictures of Christmas at some people's houses. Lots of neat pictures, and the idea that Elizabeth and people the at Appalshop came [up] with is, let's go out and interview some of the people who are in the pictures. And she had--before that, taken some of the pictures that she had printed up and kind of--I think it was an exhibit, but it might have been a slideshow too. And she had taken them to places and people helped her identify who was in the picture and who we should interview. So, when I went out there, I would spent [spend] a couple of days and we would do three or four interviews and go--go to visit the people who were actually--had been in those pictures. And one of them was a guy who sold--a Black man who had sold peanuts at the--at baseball games and things. He was a Black man and--and that was one of his ways of--and it might have been their dad who did it but--. What we were finding--what we found out, one of the things is, a lot of people had moved out, you know, after mining's gone. And then they came back, and this was one of those families that--the Black family had moved out and came back again. And I think--well, I don't remember. Maybe they had been there, but everybody else had left. But so, we interviewed them and--.Sarah Milligan 1:14:04
How did you find people? I mean, how did you know who was in the photographs,
and how did you find them?Bob Gates 1:14:09
Well, she did a lot of that. Elizabeth did at those--they were kind of like town
meetings--they'd come and-- You know, and Jenkins is not very big, so you have an event at the bank, I think, and you show all these things to people. I mean you have--you talk about how important Pictureman Mullins [was], then you--then they had these, if I remember right, they were like binders and people could sit at tables and say, "oh, yeah, that's so and so. Yeah, yeah, she's still here. Her family lives over there." And that's how she did it. She up the meetings and we had the interviews. I remember one of the--that's the first time I ever heard about mining companies having baseball teams that played against each other and that they actually recruited Black baseball players from Alabama to come up and work for their company. So, they could be--they could have a good team. And one of the guys we talked to had been hired like that. And he--his job was to sleep floors. He didn't have to go into the mines, he was just an employee, so he was basically an employee so he could play the--baseball for them. Yeah, and then later on, we did some narrative stages, and in Beham [and] Lynch, in a whole different project with--with the Coal Mining Museum there. And the same story came up with Black people from Lynch, they were talking about how they, their dads were recruited, because they had specialties and playing baseball or doing this and that, you know. So, it was--the other thing, but what I found out in Lynch was that one of the--one of the guys we had all the time at our folk festival.Sarah Milligan 1:15:52
Benny.
Bob Gates 1:15:52
Benny Massey had always talked about on stage how he had been in really low coal
all his life, which is like 12 inches high. That's--that's how thick the---seem was. So, when you went in, you were always bent over working, and I can't even imagine that. I mean, I would be so claustrophobic and crazy. But he said he worked like that for 18 years. And then he would always make a joke and say, "but when I got out of there and worked in the high coal, my back hurt." I said, "oh, that's funny." Yeah--but when I actually got together one time and interviewed five Black guys at a church up, in Benham Lynch, away from audiences. Then they talked about why, why they thought they were in low coal. That it was really--.Sarah Milligan 1:16:06
Wow. It was segregation.
Bob Gates 1:16:28
Segregation. It was--it was a way to, you know, "give those guys a hard job,
we'll give you guys the high coal, kind of thing." But he would never say that when we were out in mixed audiences. It was funny when we all got together, they all came up with these different things about how they were segregated against, yeah. Anyway, Benham Lynch was kind of eye opener for him--and Benham Lynch--.Sarah Milligan 1:17:02
The Pictureman Mullins?
Bob Gates 1:17:05
Pictureman Mullins was--that was--you know, I didn't know that much about
mining, coal mining. I had--I have to say, I haven't read as much, oh, what's his name from eastern Kentucky from-- [sighs]. He used to run the oral history program at UK.Sarah Milligan 1:17:25
Terry [Birdwhistell]?
Bob Gates 1:17:26
Not Terry the other, before him. Ron Eller--Heller. [Ron Eller]
Sarah Milligan 1:17:35
Oh, yeah.
Bob Gates 1:17:36
Ron, yeah--.
Sarah Milligan 1:17:37
Yeah. He was the Appalachian studies guy.
Bob Gates 1:17:39
Appalachian studies guy, but didn't--didn't he run the Appalachian?
Sarah Milligan 1:17:42
The oral history, no?
Bob Gates 1:17:43
Maybe it wasn't oral history.
Sarah Milligan 1:17:44
Terry--.
Bob Gates 1:17:44
It was the Appalachian Center.
Sarah Milligan 1:17:45
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:17:46
Yeah, he ran the Appalachian Center [at UK]. Well anyway, I mean, there's lots
of books about that, and I haven't really read as many. That--that's my--it's hard to be out in the field, doing programs and doing your own research, and then you're supposed to be a historian too. And I don't know how you do with that, but I wish I had done more reading because I've gotten myself in situations where I wish I knew this stuff before I got in there. But that--that was the eye opener for me to be actually hearing these stories and, and realizing that, "boy, there's a lot of Italians up here who do-- are stone cutters." And we found a couple one--who were in Pictureman Mullins and did (??) with them.Sarah Milligan 1:18:27
Oh, that is interesting. Let me--let me explore something with that real quick.
Bob Gates 1:18:32
Okay.
Sarah Milligan 1:18:38
To me, the challenge--one of the big challenges of being a public folklorist,
especially in your position, your level is that you have to know an inch deep about everything.Bob Gates 1:18:49
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:18:51
So, to a certain extent, you can never be an expert of all. So, the fact that
you don't know every single academic piece that comes out on something. I mean, you're right, there's no way you could be an absolute expert on every single thing but are there--is there anything that you--.Bob Gates 1:19:08
You could if you went home every night and just read, Kentucky history?
Sarah Milligan 1:19:12
That's true, you could.
Bob Gates 1:19:12
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:19:13
But---but I mean--.
Bob Gates 1:19:14
--But I wouldn't be fun to work with if I did that.
Sarah Milligan 1:19:16
But look at the--look at the range of people that you--that you actually work
with, though and the topics that you cover. I mean, it's--it's everything in material cultural, cultural studies in general, music, occupations, religion.Bob Gates 1:19:36
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:19:37
--I think, to me, I remember Erica Brady saying this, whenever we got out
of--whenever I was leaving Western, you know, joining the public folklore world. "You have to be ready for any phone call from any journalists to be able to answer any question, because they're always going to ask you the weird stuff. You may not know the answer, but you always just have to know where to look."Bob Gates 1:20:00
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:20:00
And I would suspect that especially you, you may not know what books to
reference, but you know who to tell them to call. Like the actual person that lived--that--that lived through whatever they're asking.Bob Gates 1:20:14
Yeah. Yeah. I would.
Sarah Milligan 1:20:16
So, to me, there's absolute value in that.
Bob Gates 1:20:21
Yeah. Well, and you know, and I got spoiled in Louisiana where there was a
folklorist in every part of the state who I could say, "well, you know wanna more Cajun, call Barry Astley (??). You wanna know more about Indians, call Gregory what-ever-his-name-was," I can't think of it anymore.Sarah Milligan 1:20:34
They actually were specialists.
Bob Gates 1:20:36
Oh, yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:20:36
We have that a little bit with Western--.
Bob Gates 1:20:37
Well--
Sarah Milligan 1:20:38
--WKU and academics, but. In the 80s? The one you got.
Bob Gates 1:20:39
--Well, that was my first thing when I got here, is who are the experts? John
Herot (??), expert in fiddle music. He got, he got slammed by Burt Feintuch, early on, and didn't want--he actually applied for the folklife director's job, and didn't get it. The one that I got. Yeah. He applied--so he had an attitude, when I first met him, and wasn't gonna like me, you know. [laughs]Sarah Milligan 1:21:05
So how'd you win that, because you all are friends now.
Bob Gates 1:21:08
Well, it's, I had the same attitude when I went in Louisiana because there was
[were] people who didn't like you know, Nick Spitzer. People adored--a lot of people adored him, and some people just couldn't stand him. I don't know, I feel like you got to get--by getting them involved in doing projects that they like and having them be able to show what they--their expertise, and I respected John's stuff right away. I mean, I think Bert, from what I heard, Bert kind of criticized him for not being a folklorist, and acting like he was a folklorist.Sarah Milligan 1:21:44
And Bert--explain who--Burt was at Western.
Bob Gates 1:21:45
Bert was--and he was a good friend of mine, a Western. He was actually my
instructor; he was only like three years older than me when I was going. And he--he was a young, young, we actually rode bikes when--together--in graduate school. You know, and it was kind of hard for me to pull myself--when I actually took a class from him, it's like, "oh, wait a minute, now he's not my friend anymore, he's my instructor." But you know, he's, he's very particular and very, very intelligent. And I think he saw John and other people, and I found this when I got here, especially with the Arts Council, who had Folklorist in the School and people who were calling themselves folklorists. They had artists in school, and they had people call themselves folklorists. It's hard to get past that. I mean, hard to figure out what to do, because they, they're treated that way for years, but they don't understand that they're not. There's --there's one guy, he called me the other day, he still thinks he is.Sarah Milligan 1:21:51
Oh, gosh. Not the UFO-ologist in western Kentucky, is it?
Bob Gates 1:22:48
No--it's a guy that nobody wants to work with either. Well, I can't--.
Sarah Milligan 1:22:53
Now, let's not go into that. But--but I think that's a very good point
that--especially at that time period, a battle is to show that folklore is a professional discipline.Bob Gates 1:23:03
Yeah. Well, when I was in Louisiana, there was a guy in Nakadish, who had his
own kind of folklife center there in Nakadish. And he did a pretty good job, but he hadn't been very respected by Spitzer, and I could see why. And so, I felt like I needed to get him to understand what we did. So--I--made at a point--and had invited him to be on panels, folklife panels. Getting him involved in that kind of thing. So, I kind of did the same thing with John. Made sure I used him a lot. I remember the first thing I asked John was--when we did the, the Kentucky Tour Folk Music, John was a big contributor to it. I found some papers the other day, where it was a whole folder of people, he had nominated to be on that, and I used most of them. I thought--cause we had like four or five on this committee. And most of them weren't folklorists, except Eric Brady, I think. One was an ethno-musicologist John Harrod, and some guy who was pretty good with blues at that time. And we--they just got together, and they submitted research that they had done, and said, "these guys are really good representatives of culture." And, but that's, that's what I did with John and, and--I don't--forget why we got talking about that.Sarah Milligan 1:24:23
[Sighs] Why did we get talking about that? A little bit, I wonder about that,
too, as it leads into your decision to start the Community Scholar program.Bob Gates 1:24:39
Oh, okay.
Sarah Milligan 1:24:39
I mean, that wasn't what we were talking about, but in my mind that kind of
makes me think of that. The fact that you came in and--and um, well, you--.Bob Gates 1:24:48
Oh--.
Sarah Milligan 1:24:49
I know why we were talking about it because you were trying to figure out
you--you were talking about the fact that you--you don't have to be an expert--.Bob Gates 1:24:55
Right, yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:24:55
You have to know the people who are.
Bob Gates 1:24:57
--And that's--that's what--I you know, I came into the field feeling--and I feel
the same way about folklore. You can be a specialist in like one or two areas, but you can't know everything. And my specialty I felt like, was occupational folk culture, especially along the river. That's what I really liked when I was down in Memphis, working on that festival. That's what I really liked other places, and I really don't like --- mean, I like quilts okay, but--I don't go crazy over a quilt, you know. Things like and--.Sarah Milligan 1:25:26
Music too. I mean, you know.
Bob Gates 1:25:28
Yeah, music. I mean, I remember Marty Newell, I had this old white pickup truck.
And I--for some reason he and I were gonna go out--I was meeting him at [sighs] what's the mansion up at the top of the hill?Sarah Milligan 1:25:42
Berry Hill.
Bob Gates 1:25:43
Berry Hill, that's where the Arts Council was at the time. And I was still not a
member there. But I had come into town, and he was going to, we were going to go eat someplace. And I got him in my white truck, and he sat down, and he saw my Led Zeppelin tape. You know, and he says, "Led Zeppelin. I thought you folklorists only listened to you know--."Sarah Milligan 1:26:05
Like old time Music.
Bob Gates 1:26:05
"--Old timey music. What the hell is this in here for?" And he was just kidding
me, he knew, you know. And I remember he took me to a UK basketball game, my first one. They were playing Arkansas so [laughter] and they--you know--are going [makes a cheering noise]. Suey--Suey. They're all saying--.Sarah Milligan 1:26:23
The Razorbacks.
Bob Gates 1:26:24
The Razorbacks and I was at my first UK basketball game, and he was trying to
help me get involved in--in Kentucky. But at the same time, it acknowledges that I couldn't stand Bluegrass when I came here. I didn't know why people listen to Bluegrass. You know, I and it took me--I would say [to], "folklorists, I didn't really like Bluegrass." [laughs] I remember going to a workshop in Owensboro, and I think it was when the BB--what is it called the Bluegrass--American-- International Bluegrass Association was still in.Sarah Milligan 1:27:03
IBA [International Bluegrass Music Association].
Bob Gates 1:27:04
--And they had a conference there--and one of the guys got up and said, "oh, you
know, Bluegrass is, is just folk music in overdrive." That's what that's what [Alan] Lomax's--called it when he wrote about it. And he said, "but you know, it's really jazz. It's really just like jazz in a way. People take themes, and they go off on it." And once I got that, I said, "Wow, that's what--I can enjoy this now." Because I can watch these guys play different things, and I can, I gotta wait to get into it. So that also became something I felt like, whenever we present music, if we can give them these little things that they can hang on to that's close to what they already know, it's going to make them enjoy it. But getting back to your original thing, it was--I have felt guilty about not knowing everything. And I have gotten calls here, at Christmas time asking me about, you know, from a newspaper asking me, "what are the--what's old Christmas?" And, and I said, "oh, yeah, I had a woman back in--we did a narrative stage in Berea at Christmas time. And this woman talked about old Christmas. And she--let me see, what did you say?" And I--then I'd to find her phone number and try to give her phone number so they could talk to them. You know, but I couldn't--I guess my feeling, I felt like I should have wrote [written] that down and had my own special Christmas. Get ready for Christmas, these are the things we are gonna ask me. I just--that wasn't what I was good at, and I didn't do that, you know.Sarah Milligan 1:28:40
Well, but the other side of what I think that's gonna--what this--not only is
interview will contribute, but also all the work that they're doing trying to pull the--the records from the folklife program together into an archive. I think that that wasn't always a strength either, to have all that stuff in, and you never really had---.Bob Gates 1:28:57
At your fingertips?
Sarah Milligan 1:28:58
Yeah and--but you never had anyone to consolidate that. And that was a--
Bob Gates 1:29:03
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:29:03
That's a full-time job to be able to do that. I mean, some people--.
Bob Gates 1:29:05
--I guess it is. You know, I worked with John--.
Sarah Milligan 1:29:13
Okay, which K?
Bob Gates 1:29:16
It's not John at all it's--.
Sarah Milligan 1:29:18
Tom.
Bob Gates 1:29:18
--Tom Adler. Early on, you know, I was always concerned with how we are going
to--how are we going to document--.Sarah Milligan 1:29:24
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:29:24
--This stuff in a way that people can get back into it and, and, and learn from it.
Sarah Milligan 1:29:29
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:29:30
My earliest--our earliest surveys--the Kentucky River one was the most
extensive, in terms of having indexed. I mean, I use WordPerfect, and they had an index system, that actually helped me in index. I mean if you go up and look at the readouts of the thing--.Sarah Milligan 1:29:46
I totally understand, I'm just laughing at the difference in time period between
now and then.Bob Gates 1:29:51
And how we don't do that anymore.
Sarah Milligan 1:29:53
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:29:53
But--.
Sarah Milligan 1:29:54
I understand it was really innovative at the time.
Bob Gates 1:29:56
Well--and also Doug DeNatale was folklorist at South Carolina. I saw him at a
lot of conferences, whenever we talked at a conference, it was always about how to--how computers worked with folklorists, and how--how we can come up with a retrieving system that's going to be able to retrieve all this stuff whenever you want it. And I said, "oh this is great, I'll ask him." And so, he came up with this numbering system that was based on the DAS system, you know.Sarah Milligan 1:30:29
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:30:29
Eight letters with a period and D and TA P--for tape. And--.
Sarah Milligan 1:30:34
Yeah, I know.
Bob Gates 1:30:35
You know, and, and this seemed like weird, chose--choices now, because it
doesn't really fit into what we're doing. But then it was like, to me, it was like, how can we make this stuff be able to--everything we learned--how can we make it all interrelate and be able to find it quickly? And not depend on me or Mark or somebody to remember what we did?Sarah Milligan 1:30:56
Well, I also think that the difference in relationship. I mean, obviously,
librarians and archivists, that's what they've been studying and creating systems for, for, you know, hundreds of years, but--but there was always a disconnect, I think, between field workers like ethnographers like you, and--and that system. Because that system was very rigid, and your system, your workflow is very fluid. And so, I don't think it was even until the last five or five or so years, maybe ten years that the two actually met and said that you could find a common ground. So that's not your fault, that you were trying to be innovative, that's a good thing.Bob Gates 1:31:35
Well, I think it was also part of--.
Sarah Milligan 1:31:37
But it's trying to learn somebody else's discipline, you know, and--.
Bob Gates 1:31:40
Yeah, well, you know, it got put on the back burner a lot of times here, with
Mary Winters and them--and--it wasn't that they didn't, but they were the--kind of the czars of how the computer system and how the programs were going to go. And they didn't have time to do--work with folklife.Sarah Milligan 1:31:54
They had that--hundreds of thousands of things they were working on.
Bob Gates 1:31:57
I know. I know. But--but we never--it was-the whole field was that way. How do
you how do you get--.Sarah Milligan 1:32:04
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:32:05
Who do you rely on to do it? So, I went to Tom Adler to come up with a system, a
database that would actually do everything I thought it would do, it would. But we didn't fill it, and--. We didn't have the staff to fill it. You didn't--you didn't have dedicated staff. Roby used it down in Tennessee, but he did it for mainly newspaper articles and things that he already had catalog, so it was easy to put into.Sarah Milligan 1:32:29
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:32:29
But, to take each artist that we worked with, their files are over there on the
floor. And the idea was to put you know, what their major art form was, where they lived, all this---what programs, they were a part of. What folk groups they were with. So, you could look at this folk group, and all of a sudden, you'd find this.Sarah Milligan 1:32:47
Well, think about it this way. Just in order to even inventory and do basic,
basic retrievable inventory of what you've created over the last 20 years, it's going to take one person a year full time to do that. I mean, that's overwhelming to think about, trying to discover yourself. Okay.Bob Gates 1:33:06
But if--if we had started early, wouldn't it have been easier? If we had a
system that we fed into every day?Sarah Milligan 1:33:11
--If you had somebody that constantly was in charge of that, yeah.
Bob Gates 1:33:14
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:33:14
You had somebody that was actually in charge, and I know that, that that's a
different story. We won't even get into to all the history behind that. But I yeah, I--I do think it would have been, but I just, I don't think that was ever--I know--that's not a criticism, I just--.Bob Gates 1:33:27
Well, I mean, I think--.
Sarah Milligan 1:33:28
--At all.
Bob Gates 1:33:28
--I think sometimes it's hard. You got problems like that, but it's hard
sometimes, to articulate it in a way that you can act on it.Sarah Milligan 1:33:37
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:33:38
And I think that's part of what our problem might have been here over the years
is, I couldn't articulate exactly what I wanted and--or how to get somebody to do it or--.Sarah Milligan 1:33:48
Within their own framework.
Bob Gates 1:33:49
Within their own framework, or me hiring somebody to do it myself, kind of
thing. I didn't know, you know. But, you know, we're working on now---and---and I, your original question was, how do you get people to. I think we do have a good network of people who know stuff, and I know who to go to--when I need things. It's getting kind of--some of those people are retiring now, so they're not always there and new people are coming in.Sarah Milligan 1:34:15
They're dying.
Bob Gates 1:34:16
Yeah, they're dying. [laughter]
Sarah Milligan 1:34:17
Sorry, Bob. You do deal with folk artists.
Bob Gates 1:34:20
Oh, I meant---.
Sarah Milligan 1:34:20
They do tend to be--.
Bob Gates 1:34:20
Well, I meant the people who are interpret them, like John Harrod and that,
they're still here. But--.Sarah Milligan 1:34:25
Yeah--.
Bob Gates 1:34:26
--But the folk artists are dying.
Sarah Milligan 1:34:27
Well---.
Bob Gates 1:34:27
Yeah, you're right.
Sarah Milligan 1:34:28
Well, I mean. Well, and that's what I think what--what I meant, to bring all
that up and ask you to talk about is I think, that's one of your major strengths, is to be able to have this massive intellectual network of people out in the state that you may not know all the answers to, but you definitely know where to send people for them. Which is important. So---.Bob Gates 1:34:54
And what's hard about that sometimes is getting to--keep them online, keeping
them happy, so they keep contributing to you. [laughs] Like Erica, and those people, you know, you don't see them all the time.Sarah Milligan 1:35:04
Oh, yeah.
Bob Gates 1:35:05
And you can't, you're not really paying them to do this stuff--I mean, you do
pay them to write articles of things, but--.Sarah Milligan 1:35:10
Well, but on the other hand, you're not--you're not asking for the credit for
it, you know.Bob Gates 1:35:14
Right?
Sarah Milligan 1:35:15
You're, you're, you're almost just kind of like a conduit, to get people where
they need to be. And that's--.Bob Gates 1:35:21
Facilitator, yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:35:23
Yeah, mediator or whatever.
Bob Gates 1:35:24
That--we were talking about that yesterday--that's--why I feel best about and
the guy who was--oh who I was with yesterday. He's, he's the governor's office--.Sarah Milligan 1:35:41
For Minority Empowerment.
Bob Gates 1:35:42
You know who I'm talking about--DeQuan (??).
Sarah Milligan 1:35:43
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:35:43
DeQuan. He had a meeting with me and then he had a meeting before that, and at
the meeting with us about the community scholars what so well, and he said, "this is exactly what I, what I love about my job is, I saw this over here. And I saw this, and we got him together, and it worked." And I said, "yeah, that's--that's what I liked about my job, too. Is that you can--you can kind of facilitate things happening and stand back and let it happen." after you started it. Is that what you want?Sarah Milligan 1:36:14
That is what I meant. That's exactly what I meant. And I--for me-you may have
already told this in the course of another interview, I can't remember, but for me--I like the story that you tell about one of those kind of Minerva moments--those aha moments for you in that is getting the--the Swing--Low--Swing Chariot--.Bob Gates 1:36:15
Okay. Oh, yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:36:34
--Stage--narrative stage. I don't know.
Bob Gates 1:36:37
Well, that's--that again, came from somebody else I brought in, Ben Sandmill
(??) I--you know who he is? Well, I was looking at the videos the other day, because John Harrod would--would like for me to give a copy of the Ohio River project--when we did the Ohio River festivals. The first one was in Maysville, and I had--I went up there and put the signage up and had a little folk festival up there and had people that--had them document it. And Steve Green, who was at Berea at the time, brought a video camera with him and he shot a lot of the stuff and he shot Bob Prater playing the fiddle. And that's that's what--Steve---that's what John Harrod wan[ted]. While I was watching at the other day---and---and I forgot what I was talking about.Sarah Milligan 1:37:25
You were talking about--we were talking about the "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot."
Bob Gates 1:37:28
Oh, I was watching the narrative stage, and Ben Sandmill was on there. I had
hired him--he was he was that.Sarah Milligan 1:37:35
I don't know who that is.
Bob Gates 1:37:36
You don't know who he is at all.
Sarah Milligan 1:37:37
No.
Bob Gates 1:37:38
He and and Louie Webb--.
Sarah Milligan 1:37:41
Okay--.
Bob Gates 1:37:42
--Who we--.
Sarah Milligan 1:37:42
---Who was the riverboat pilot.
Bob Gates 1:37:43
Riverboat pilot, when they were young, they both got on the Delta Queen.
Sarah Milligan 1:37:49
Okay.
Bob Gates 1:37:49
And that's a river boat that was stationed out of Cincinnati, went up and down
to New Orleans and back. And it was one of the last old-timey river boats, where the captains did things the old way. Well, those guys were deckhands on that boat. And they met and Lou went on to become a pilot. Ben, he's a--from Cincinnati area--he's just about my age, Jewish. In his death, thought he going to be a lawyer, I guess. And he ended up being--being a riverboat, deckhand and learned a lot of stuff about the river and life on the river and ended up in New Orleans and then became a writer. He writes for--he's been in The Atlantic magazine writes for the Picayune (??). He's really--then he actually started discovering groups and played drums with them. And--I like the "Hackberry Ramblers," he was their drummer. He was-- he was a drummer for Billy Bill Webb--no what's his name? Somebody Webb. A Black blues guy who died, a while ago. And I remember watching, you know [laughs] Ben, he was at the Jazz and Heritage Festival, dow in New Orleans, we went down to see him--see them. And he's sitting at a small stage playing drums and he was eating a sandwich same with at the same time, going like this. [makes a gesture]Sarah Milligan 1:39:13
Taking a bite and playing the drums, taking a bite and playing the drums.
Bob Gates 1:39:15
He was always funny and--.
Sarah Milligan 1:39:17
So, you knew him from Louisiana?
Bob Gates 1:39:18
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:39:18
I think you told me this, and that's how you met Lou Webb, when you came to Kentucky.
Bob Gates 1:39:21
Yeah, and then when I did these narratives--when I did these folk festivals, I
hired Ben to come up for two weeks or three weeks, and do river-related narrative stages along--and then he's the one that actually, when we were in Cincinnati doing a narrative stage, he did the one with the two gospel groups.Sarah Milligan 1:39:39
So, explain what that is.
Bob Gates 1:39:41
Well, we brought two gospel groups on, a white gospel group and a Black one. One
was a bluegrass gospel, that was the white--.Sarah Milligan 1:39:48
Was that "Rabbit Hash?" Streaming or was this--.
Bob Gates 1:39:51
It was actually "Northern Kentucky Brotherhood."
Sarah Milligan 1:39:53
That was the Black one, that wasn't the white one.
Bob Gates 1:39:55
That was--no, I'm sorry, that---yeah, "The Northern Kentucky Brotherhood." "The
Gospel Way Singers" was the white group.Sarah Milligan 1:39:59
Gospel ways, that's right.
Bob Gates 1:40:00
Yeah, they're from outside of northern Kentucky, right on the outskirts of
northern Kentucky. Ironically, members of both groups actually came from Appalachia at one time, and settled in Covington. So that they've got--they both had that connection. But they had been on the--on the other music stages playing, performing, singing. And then we got them on a talk stage together and brought two members from each group up on the talk stage. And it was--and Ben was talking to him about how, how they'd their music, where they sing their music, how it--and he, I guess, he got the brilliant brainstorm of saying--asking one to sing a song they both knew, and was "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." So, the white group, the Gospel--the Bluegrass group sang it. They brought the rest of the members on stage and they--they sang it just like they would in a performance, acapello [acpella], but it was--it had all the harmonies that they would normally-- goes along with Bluegrass and it's very structured and everything kind of fits in place, very beautiful. And then the Black group sang it--"Northern Kentucky Brotherhoords" and their--heritage is corner doowop singing, you know, and throwing this in, and throwing that. And each one, they'd sing it and, and two or three of them took turns doing the leads and going all over the place with it and improvising everything. So it was a perfect example of different aesthetics for the same song. And how two different groups can can be singing the same materials, trying to do the same thing. Praise their Lord and, and, and through song, but do it completely different. And so that was--that was kind of a[n] aha moment to see Ben do that on stage and know that we could do that over again and do it with all kinds of genres and traditions, to show the differences between them, but the similarities in them. So that was it--but I was watching that video the other day and was Ben on stage. So it was really neat to see him doing that, but he wasn't doing--he was doing the river boat one with John Lozier. Remember John Lozier?Sarah Milligan 1:40:39
I didn't know him. But I knew--.
Bob Gates 1:42:14
Well, John Lozier was a harmonica player who came from Greenup County, close to
Lewis County, and he played harmonica because he loved his--grand--listened to his grandfather play fiddle songs on the fiddle, but his grandfather wouldn't let him touch the fiddle. So he played fiddle songs on his harmonica, and he worked on the river and everything.Sarah Milligan 1:42:35
Oh, I didn't realize that before I--.
Bob Gates 1:42:38
--That was funny because John Lozier was--John Lozier and Ben were really
cl---funny in that they both had jokes on stage, when they're talking and Ben would say, "you're a card, you need to be dealt with." And Ben--I mean, Ben would say to the--Lozier, he said, "John, you're a card, you just need to be dealt with." And, and Lozier would say something bacl to him. --And it was one of the funniest narrative stages, they just-- [laughs].Sarah Milligan 1:43:06
Both characters.
Bob Gates 1:43:07
And I did a narrative stage with John Lozier, one time, trying to---as a
demonstration for these park rangers and John got up--after I finished talking with him, I went and talk edto his wife about her--and John got up and walked away, and walked around the stage because he was bored [laughs].Sarah Milligan 1:43:22
Not getting any attention.
Bob Gates 1:43:24
But, I remember what--we when were doing the northern--we were doing this tours
along the Ohio River. I had got these--and my job, you know, was to facilitate--I wasn't--I really didn't like getting up on stage and being the presenter. So, I realized early that, if I could get somebody who's good at that, like Ben Sandmill, to do that kind of stuff. That freed me up to be kind of the stage manager, make sure everybody got up there, and make sure the next group's ready in and--and prepare what people needed to say and get the signage and all that stuff. So, we were doing these many festivals, and John Lozier was on the stage in Covington, at the park right across the river from Cincinnati, it's a real little park. It's really nice, and it was really nice being back there because when I was a kid, they always said that was the home of the underground railroad that people had. There was a--we always thought there was a tunnel under the river, but it just meant there was a tunnel under the house to the river.Sarah Milligan 1:44:18
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:44:18
And they would come across. And John Lozier was on the stage and I'm walking
away and--and he was getting into one of his things. And he said, "well, there's Bob Gates over there--you know--Bob--we had Bob over at our house for a while and he was--he just stayed there and we were putting him up and he was eating our food and just staying there. And it's like two weeks and my wife's getting a little tired of this." And he said--"so I said, Bob, wouldn't you like to--it's getting to be Christmas now, wouldn't you like to be home with your family?" No, he said, "Christmas don't you kind of miss your family," and Bob said, "yeah, can I invite them up here too?" [laughter] And he would do that kind of stuff in the middle of a festival, and use me in it, [laughs]. And I was kind of like, "I'm proud to be a folklorist, I get to--be liked by these guys, then but--then--I'm hearing this. I'm being ridiculed, too."Sarah Milligan 1:45:15
Yeah, but your--but, I think that's a good connection you have I mean, you
can--can deal with that really well. Like you can roll with that, and have a good--sense of humor about it that--it fits.Bob Gates 1:45:30
Yeah, since I--.
Sarah Milligan 1:45:31
You don't mind being the butt of everyone jokes--everyone's joke as folk
artists, right? They're up on stage, and they're like, need somebody to like point to.Bob Gates 1:45:38
Oh, yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:45:38
You take it well?
Bob Gates 1:45:39
Yeah. [laughter] Northern Kentucky Brotherhood will always try to get me up
there and sing with them [laughter]. And Eddie Pennington will always say, "and there's another great guitarist out there," or he'd make fun of me and--. Yeah, it's kind of neat, you know, and sometimes, it's kind of bad because you're, you got all these sponsors who are sponsoring this concert. And all I did was get them there. And they're all saying, "well, we're glad to be here with Bob Gates." You know, and you think, "oh, shit." [laughs]Sarah Milligan 1:46:08
Maybe you can thank the sponsor--.
Bob Gates 1:46:10
--Can't--
Sarah Milligan 1:46:10
--Next time?
Bob Gates 1:46:10
--Can't you say something about [laughter] the Humanities Council or the Arts
Council, while you're at it?Sarah Milligan 1:46:16
Oh, that's why you have that---yeah, I mean the stage managers and the--yeah.
[laughs] Anyway.Bob Gates 1:46:24
It's good--I don't know if other folklorists run into that. I've seen it when
we've gone to other folklore meetings, like Folklorists in the South, which was a meeting we used to go to every year, at different places.Sarah Milligan 1:46:36
We have it virtually now.
Bob Gates 1:46:38
Yeah, but I think he wants to meet again this spring.
Sarah Milligan 1:46:41
Oh, wouldn't that be nice?
Bob Gates 1:46:42
Yeah, I think that's what I remember.
Sarah Milligan 1:46:44
I'd like to do that.
Bob Gates 1:46:47
But, I remember going to Alabama or Tennessee, and you could see this
relationship between the folklorists and00South Carolina and, and, and the artists. There'd just be this trust that they built up and they'd talk about each other and, and--. So, I felt good to see that happening in other places. It wasn't just me taking advantage of folk artists or anything like that, it was--it was just part of our relationship, you know.Sarah Milligan 1:47:14
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:47:16
And that was kind of neat, when we did that tour along the river, because I took
like four riverboat--two or three riverboat pilots with me ,at different locations, and they would find other riverboat pilots. And all of a sudden, we'd have six or seven pilots and deckhands at--at the day of the festival that I never--who I didn't even know--were and I'm saying, "how am I going to pay these guys, you know?" [laughs]Sarah Milligan 1:47:39
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:47:39
But, they just wanted to be there and be with their fellow guys. And--.
Sarah Milligan 1:47:42
That's interesting.
Bob Gates 1:47:43
Yeah, it was kind of neat.
Sarah Milligan 1:47:45
Huh.
Bob Gates 1:47:47
I told you about going out in that boat on the Green River, didn't I? Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:47:51
I don't remember. The Green River, like South Central Green River.
Bob Gates 1:47:56
Yeah, we were in Henderson and Louie Webb was with me.
Sarah Milligan 1:47:59
Oh, yeah.
Bob Gates 1:47:59
And he got me on a boat but--.
Sarah Milligan 1:48:01
Oh, yeah. We did talk about that--.
Bob Gates 1:48:02
And it was like surfing down the river.
Sarah Milligan 1:48:03
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:48:05
But you know, at the same time, it was always this thing of, I got, like you
said, there's so many, you're an inch deep. You have to know this, you have to know this. You have to get this, you have to--well, I think part of my main job is talking people into doing things.Sarah Milligan 1:48:21
You're good at that, Bob.
Bob Gates 1:48:22
Yeah, well, I mean, but you have to do that if you're doing a festival. You
can't, you can't say, "hey, you want to come? Would you like to come to this festival," and not play it up like it's something great that they want to come. Because they don't know. You know, people just don't know what it's really like, unless they experience it. But, you know, I would do this and feel kind of shallow. Because I didn't know-have the depth for these kinds of things. And that bothered--that used to bother me. That I wasn't writing enough of this stuff, and that's--I think that's a constant thing with public sector folklorists. Some are really good at writing, and getting papers out there every--every year to AFS and seeing it as a career move. And I felt like I--I put a lot more time into the public program, than the--the writing of the program.Sarah Milligan 1:49:15
You mean the documentation--.
Bob Gates 1:49:17
--Documentation--.
Sarah Milligan 1:49:17
--Documentation of the program itself.
Bob Gates 1:49:18
Yeah or--.
Sarah Milligan 1:49:18
Or the people you work with, maybe?
Bob Gates 1:49:20
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:49:23
Yeah, it's a hard balance.
Bob Gates 1:49:25
But I think you know, different people do it different ways.
Sarah Milligan 1:49:30
They do, and the reality is, if you've built up enough primary source material,
just through the documentation, then it's there someday when people can actually get through the archive. Then they can--they can mine once you've created--.Bob Gates 1:49:41
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:49:42
--To do documentation. So I mean, that's, that should be a goal too.
Bob Gates 1:49:46
Well, we were going with--with the Arts Council person the other day, who runs
the website over there.Sarah Milligan 1:49:53
Sandy?
Bob Gates 1:49:55
No, it's--Sandy does the mechanical stuff of it, but the one who actually kind
of conceives how it all fits together, Sally.Sarah Milligan 1:50:03
Oh, okay.
Bob Gates 1:50:03
She's kind of a new person. But--.
Sarah Milligan 1:50:05
Yeah.
Bob Gates 1:50:05
---She's--she's been really good at getting stuff on there--redoing their
website, making it more viable? Well, we actually came to a point where we said, "in the next month, what we would like to do is kind of put the history of the folklife program on their website." You know, it's, it's gonna go to Western--they'll have their own website and do things differently, probably, and that's fine. But at least what we could do now is kind of put a lot of the programs that we've done like we talked about on here. An overview of what we've done, why we---you know, this, this and this. Make it available, have Community Scholars on there. Have this and that, and have a structure that could last at the Arts Council after we're gone, and they could build on. Because I think the Community Scholar's are going to stay with the Arts Council, think.Sarah Milligan 1:50:52
Well, they've always been the main support of it.
Bob Gates 1:50:53
Yeah--so that--getting me closer to what I thought we should have had for years.
And that's taking, like, we got 15 articles that were written by folklorists, for the first three festivals. Really good articles, Erica wrote about occupation. Michael Ann wrote about folk art in everyday life, you know. All these articles that, you know, I wrote an introduction, but I didn't write any, any any--.Sarah Milligan 1:51:21
Aren't all those on the folk web now, I know, the folk web's, not as functional,
you know, whatever. It's expired in usefulness, but--.Bob Gates 1:51:28
Yeah--but what what I, what I'd like to do, and what we talked about doing is on
this web is actually having, kind of an artist directory of artists we documented.Sarah Milligan 1:51:38
Oh, yeah.
Bob Gates 1:51:39
And having a little bio, but also, besides artists, having the folk groups that
we've documented, and then having articles that relate to those. So, all these things are usable, instead of just sitting there.Sarah Milligan 1:51:52
That'd be cool.
Bob Gates 1:51:52
So, that's what we're working on now, and that's--that's what I felt like--could
make this--programs--could have made this program stronger, I guess is, is having a place where teachers could go and see and interpret it.Sarah Milligan 1:52:08
You mean actually having the access points to the work--.
Bob Gates 1:52:10
I mean access points to Muhlenberg County thumb pickers. You know, you can
actually hear a little bit about them, and get enough that you could teach a class on it. And so, that this is a regional tradition. Having a map that shows all these things in the state, and these are all things I think we're going to try to do with the Arts Council before we leave.Sarah Milligan 1:52:30
Cool, I like it.
Bob Gates 1:52:31
Yeah, I feel better about it. I just wish I had time--wish that Crafts Market
wasn't happening.Sarah Milligan 1:52:36
Oh, yeah, it's coming up.
Bob Gates 1:52:38
Crazy stuff like that.
Sarah Milligan 1:52:39
Well--let's--let's think about this, because we've talked about two hours today.
Do you feel like that we've covered most of like the 90s, at this point? Is there anything else you want to talk about? Because I think next time, maybe we can start with looking at your shift to Community Scholars, and really talking about some of the things that you did in the 21st--.Bob Gates 1:53:00
Well--.
Sarah Milligan 1:53:00
--Century? Well, there are some things I keep forgetting--you know, we just
threw in like, the National Folk Festival I forgot about. I mean, that's okay.Bob Gates 1:53:03
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:53:03
It doesn't mean we can't go back. I'm just--
Bob Gates 1:53:04
Yeah, I'm just--I'm just thinking--you're asking me this about the 90s. There
are some things that we might have lo--might have.Sarah Milligan 1:53:09
Well, if you think of them, come back.
Bob Gates 1:53:19
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:53:19
I just mean today. Is there anything--.
Bob Gates 1:53:21
Sure--.
Sarah Milligan 1:53:21
--Else that you wanna cover--.
Bob Gates 1:53:21
Oh, no. I mean, you want to--it's time to quit, I guess, right?
Sarah Milligan 1:53:26
We--I mean, it's, we still have some time, I was just thinking this might be a
logical stopping point. Because I know--Bob Gates 1:53:31
Sure.
Sarah Milligan 1:53:31
When we get into Community Scholars, that's a twelve year program. So that--.
Bob Gates 1:53:34
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:53:34
--Will take some time.
Bob Gates 1:53:35
Well, you asked me about apprenticeships and--.
Sarah Milligan 1:53:37
Yes, I did. Yeah. We can--.
Bob Gates 1:53:39
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 1:53:39
--Let us finish that discussion. [laughs]
Bob Gates 1:53:42
Well, you know, I'm--Barry Bergey at the--.
Sarah Milligan 1:53:49
National Endowment for the Arts?
Bob Gates 1:53:50
National Endowment for the Arts, kind of got into the National Endowment for the
Arts, from his work with apprenticeships in Missouri. I mean, he did a lot of them, and did some great ones. And I always kind of looked at that as a model, but we've only got like three or four a year. This year, I think we had fiv--last year we had like five. That was probably--one of our biggest years, and that's okay. I think--I think we have pretty good variety of apprenticeships that have done. I have a couple people that um, I don't want to hear them come in for a banjo--anymore. They've done it too many times. [laughs] But, I think we're very strong in music, but we have also done baskets, alfombras, some material culture. One I'd really like to see is the--it's funny, I've been pushing like the Indian community to do one on mendi (??).Sarah Milligan 1:53:52
Hindi.
Bob Gates 1:53:52
You know, and its relationship to marriages in the Indian community. Like the
Henna? Yeah. Yeah.Sarah Milligan 1:54:59
Um, oh yeah, you have that--. Well, I think that's a really good example too,
though. You talked about the fact that, you know, you don't necessarily want to see the same style banjo coming up. I mean, there are there--to, to me, that program is not something that is---that is low maintenance and--self-sustaining. I think that's something that you all have to actively cultivate and actively look for people.Bob Gates 1:55:24
If you want good ones, but I mean, you get some in--come out of the blue that we
never talk to. But the best ones are the ones that Mark works with, or--I work with, yeah. Yeah.Sarah Milligan 1:55:33
So, how does that work? I mean, do you just--I mean, how did-for example,
you--you say that you want something that-- from the east Indian community in Louisville to show their traditional art from a Hindi--around cultural significant--. --Time. So--Bob Gates 1:55:33
What would really work? I mean, it hasn't worked. That's--that's one that hasn't
worked. One with the Hung---.Sarah Milligan 1:55:55
Bosnian?
Bob Gates 1:55:55
In Bowling Green, the--.
Sarah Milligan 1:55:56
Bosnian.
Bob Gates 1:55:58
Bosnian, neither one of those have worked, because I haven't done as much hands
on--as or--. I mean, those are good examples of where you really need to get in there, and talk with her at length about what her feelings are about why she doesn't, why she can't do--or what she--what she needs out of an apprenticeship. I mean, I think part of it is--it's competition for her, and you're fighting that part. I've--when I was in Louisiana, I worked with a Native American, who was one of the only ones who, who did double walled baskets, beautiful. And she was one of the few who still did this. And she was getting exorbitant prices for them. Great, everybody really understood that. Why should she want to teach somebody else that? I mean, she, she should because she wants it to the tradition to go. But at the same time, this is her main money thing. And that's, that's the thing--that's--as a folklorist, you'd say, "oh, why would they want to do that?" But, why wouldn't they want the tradition to hand-off? I found out that yesterday when I was talking to Donna Lamb, and I thought, "this would be perfect for yo--why don't haven't you?" I even--when I was interviewing, I said, you know, "we had this program, why haven't you done this," and I, and I found out I really wasn't listening to her, I was just--before. I just thought it would be good for her. But now I realize, well, yeah, but it was really complicated because, she's got these--power tools there that could put somebody's eye out, just like that. And her hands--.Sarah Milligan 1:57:29
Donna Lamb is a luthier?
Bob Gates 1:57:30
She's a luthier, and it's not just carving and setting your--a lot of what she
does is inlay. And a lot of it has to do with using power tools. And it's like, not only that, but why would you want to, it's hard to find somebody nowadays, who will do that, and that you have enough commitment to, that you want them to succeed. You wants someone in your family succeed, because it carries on the tradition, but somebody outside your family, it's more of a competition thing. And so, you know, I'm finding that the ones that work are the ones that we had--we presented at the folk festival. We got to know them really well through research, and we could figure out how---with them that this would really be good for them. And but some of them I'm finding, it's also--you could spend a lot of time trying to get them to do it. And it still goes against what's best for them, probably. So, [laughs] I out to just drop it, you know? And that's what I figured out, which ones do I drop and which ones do I go after.Sarah Milligan 1:58:37
To Cultivate, yeah.
Bob Gates 1:58:38
And which ones do I push Mark to go after? And Mark and I work really well
together, but we don't approach things the same way. He's not a seller like I am, you know.Sarah Milligan 1:58:48
No, but he can--can help articulate things in a way sometimes that--.
Bob Gates 1:58:54
Yes, he does. And he does a real good job with a lot of them--.
Sarah Milligan 1:58:59
He's a smart guy.
Bob Gates 1:59:00
Yeah, and he was just on the radio yesterday, talking about it, wasn't he? Did
you hear it?Sarah Milligan 1:59:04
I know. No, I have to listen to the podcast. I was--yeah, I did that, you're
welcome. [laughs]Bob Gates 1:59:15
You did what?
Sarah Milligan 1:59:16
I got him on that radio program?
Bob Gates 1:59:18
Oh, did you?
Sarah Milligan 1:59:19
It was somebody who has oral history grants, and--.
Bob Gates 1:59:22
Oh, okay.
Sarah Milligan 1:59:23
Somehow, Mark and I just got to talking about it, and I was like, "hey, you want
to be on--[laughs]--you want to be on that?"Bob Gates 1:59:28
Oh, that's great.
Sarah Milligan 1:59:29
So I'm really glad--yeah, no, I'm totally glad that he--.
Bob Gates 1:59:33
Well, you know, there's different styles of people I've worked with over the
years and not everybody likes the way I do it and--.Sarah Milligan 1:59:41
Well, there's different people for everything.
Bob Gates 1:59:43
Yeah, well, I guess what I'm saying is that--it's been hard for me sometimes to
sit back and say, "well, they do it a different way, and that's just as good as what I'm doing."Sarah Milligan 1:59:50
Ah, I see.
Bob Gates 1:59:51
You know, sometimes I would think, "it has to be done my way--it has to be done
the way I do it." --And now I'm seeing that there's lots of different ways of doing it right.Sarah Milligan 2:00:06
Well, okay.
Bob Gates 2:00:08
So, we've had a lot of apprenticeships and st--but--.
Sarah Milligan 2:00:09
Yeah, but--what you also said in that was that most of them that have been
successful are because they worked with you or that you've cultivated that. I mean, does that mean that you write grant applications for people? I mean, expand that? The answer is no, that he doesn't write--.Bob Gates 2:00:26
No, I do not write grant [laughter] applications, but we have fought to keep the
applications as simple as possible. So-- it's---it's--over the years, the Arts Council has kind of gone to--all the grants kind of looked the same way. Because they--it seems to be fairer that way. But when--you when you're still working with apprenticeships, I think, and most states do this. The basic thing is, what does the audit--why is the master a master? Why does the apprentice want to learn this? How can they do this together? Are they--they and are they both of high quality--are they both good artists? Well, that--you do that by looking at their samples, and kind of having the panel do that. You don't ask somebody to explain how great they are, but you do want them to talk about what--how they learned this and why it's important to their culture, why they appreciate it, and the method. So those are three pretty easy questions, and you don't need to make it too complicated. And but--even that is sometimes hard for people to write or to envision. And, "why am I a good banjo player?" "Well, I don't know?"Sarah Milligan 2:01:36
Yeah.
Bob Gates 2:01:36
And why, like Lee Sexton, who taught Carla Gover, why is he---he knows why he's
a good banjo player, but he doesn't really have this connection to the, the his---the other banjo players in the area. His connection to his, his uncle who was great. This music, how it's part of the community, he doesn't articulate that really well all the time. And to do it in a grant that's--that has to be read by three people who don't really know him. And they have to understand and, and, and, and sell this. I mean, they have to understand this and say, "yes, this is a great artist from what--he is connected to the community." He does need a little help in articulating that. So---it's either me or Mark, or sometimes we get somebody from the community to help them look over the application and say, "how can you make this better?" And we offer--when they want do write it out, that we'll look at it again. Because the panel members change. We don't know who the panel members are going to be when we read these things, but we do know what they're--.Sarah Milligan 2:02:49
And you offer that service for anybody though.
Bob Gates 2:02:50
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 2:02:51
--Or any--.
Bob Gates 2:02:53
Yeah, but with apprenticeships, it's--it's not only that, but it's also trying
to get them to think, how can they--how can they teach somebody within a year to do what they do? And--and there could be, there could be misunderstandings. Very easily between apprentice and the master. When I was in Louisiana, we had--the Arts Council decided, well, we don't want to give a grant to the same master, two years in--twice. That--that will look like we're favoring them. I said, "well, you know, that master may be the only one that does it." But I lost the argument, and so we had this role that--but one way to get around it was well, give the apprenticeship the money. And we talked to directors and, "yeah, that'd be fine." And it sounded good, and we did it with a Mardi Gras Indian, and--in the Black community, and that--the Mardi Gras Indians are Native Americans who live in, in downtown New Orleans, basically. And it's--it's close to--some of these tribes are close to street gangs, in a way. They have their own culture and, and, and they are---don't have very much money. And we gave money to this apprentice and the apprentice thought, and this is what--after we did research out on it. But, he just basically took the money and ran. He never gave anything to the master, and never took any lessons. He just thought--his interpretation was, "wow, I'm so good. They gave me money, I'm gonna take it." [laughs] And that caused the big fight--I mean, big problem in the African American community. Because it was disrespectful to the master, and we were part of that disrespect, because we gave the money to him. And at the same time, the Arts Council wanted me to get that money back. Because--but we didn't want to raise a ruckus and bring this in the news that we had--you know So, we kept it kind of low and you know, apologized to everybody. Made sure, you know, tried to figure out--but I learned from that. Is that--there's these misunderstandings between--in cultures between --whose on top--whose the master, whose not. For anybody--.Sarah Milligan 2:03:03
For any of the grants, yeah.
Bob Gates 2:05:12
And how can we work out a schedule that--that fits both of them? How can--so
that's the kind of things that we try to figure out with with them. We try to go and do a site visit with them when they're writing the grant. So they can, they can figure out how to write it, in a way that makes sense to both of them. The recent one I did with Cory May (??) and--.Sarah Milligan 2:05:39
Bobby Osbourne
Bob Gates 2:05:40
--Bobby Osbourne was kind of like that. Is--they--they were student--he was a
student of his, and he was going to do this with him.Sarah Milligan 2:05:49
Cory May was a student of Bobby Osborne?
Bob Gates 2:05:50
Yeah, Cory May was-Bobby Osborne's this great---.
Sarah Milligan 2:05:54
Bluegrass musician.
Bob Gates 2:05:56
--Man--yeah, mandolin player, with the Osborne brothers. And I guess--it sounded
like a good project together, but they really couldn't figure out how to do what they---what can they do more than what they already did in classes to make him better? And that took sitting down with him for a couple hours and trying to figure it out. Where--what could he learn from this? And one of the ideas that we came up with well, he goes to Nashville all the time and plays.Sarah Milligan 2:06:27
Who does, Bobby?
Bob Gates 2:06:28
Bobby Osborne plays at the Grand Ole Opry. Well, wouldn't it be good for him to
come along with him.Sarah Milligan 2:06:35
That's a loud train.
Bob Gates 2:06:38
[Makes train noises]. So, that's part of the--part of their apprenticeship was
to allow that. That he could take him behind--in the stage, even if he didn't play on the stage, which he is playing with them, at the Grand Ole Opry, that's terrific.Sarah Milligan 2:06:54
Pretty cool.
Bob Gates 2:06:54
You know but, just to get him behind the stage and meet these other guys and see
what the business life of a Bluegrass musician, as well as how to play the mandolin was part of this. So, it was a whole different way of thinking of it, and it doesn't happen just in the guys sitting down together. It has to be Mark and I kind of point out, "well you could do this little, and this is--this might sell." At the same time, Bobby Osborne's nephew.Sarah Milligan 2:07:22
Dean.
Bob Gates 2:07:22
Dean wanted to get one, and Dean, because he--because he heard Bobby was doing
it. And there was this kind of clash between Bobby and Dean. You know, and that happens within families. And, and I really didn't think Dean, I didn't know what Dean could do, with this one. So we did one with Dean that was kind of more business-oriented.Sarah Milligan 2:07:46
Did Dean get that one?
Bob Gates 2:07:48
He didn't get it.
Sarah Milligan 2:07:48
I don't remember--.
Bob Gates 2:07:49
I kind of felt like he wouldn't get it. But I--you know, I---I can't say
anything. And that's--one of the things when you're doing panel--when you're doing programs like this.Sarah Milligan 2:07:58
Grant panels, yeah.
Bob Gates 2:07:59
Grant panels and other in states, it's is a little different. When I was a
panelist for the apprenticeship grants in West Virginia, one year, and--and I thought it was a pretty good panelists [panel]. I did it down in South Carolina, too. But what I noticed there was the--in West Virginia, the folklorists, who helped them write the grant could say something. They could they, "well, they're doing good, and I think this is a good grant, because this and this," and I said, "wow."Sarah Milligan 2:08:30
Explain why that's different here, like what's the actual procedure here?
Bob Gates 2:08:34
Once--once we get into a panel---once this--we the grants, And once they're
accepted by the Arts Council, we can review them and say, "well, you left out this, this is ineligible. You can change this."Sarah Milligan 2:08:49
The folklife staff?
Bob Gates 2:08:50
Yeah, and they can re--well, we can't say, "--you should change your narrative
because you messed it all up."Sarah Milligan 2:08:55
They can do that before the application is due--.
Bob Gates 2:08:57
Yeah, we help before that, but once it's all together, the grant is submitted,
stamped, and then it's put into a booklet and sent out to the panelists and--.Sarah Milligan 2:09:06
How many panelists do you have, four?
Bob Gates 2:09:08
Three or four, depends on the year. There's usually a couple folklorists from
in-state. Maybe an ex-apprentice---master who knows--who's pretty good--who's been in it. Some---maybe somebody from out of state, but they--they get these and they use--they usually review folk arts grants and the apprenticeships. But, but the idea of the grants is that the grant should sell itself. It's--it shouldn't be influenced by me saying anything. Which is--is okay, but it's hard for me to sit back and watch things get misinterpreted from what I think the artists meant. Or--or what it was supposed to mean, but cause there was one where I worked with the Bosnians and--.Sarah Milligan 2:09:58
The dance (??).
Bob Gates 2:10:00
The dance, were you on the panel?
Sarah Milligan 2:10:04
I don't remember, I was on panel last year.
Bob Gates 2:10:06
Okay, I don't think you were in that (??). But one of the panel members, he was
an artist, he wasn't a folklorist, and he was really kind of flippant at the panel. He said, "if she knows how to dance, and I'm--" you know, and they were just trying to demonstrate traditional dance, in a way. And it was--the video was not very well done. They didn't pick out the best dance to do. But it was a pretty good grant otherwise, but it was just the way the one panelists can say something disrespectful, I thought, and kind of turn the whole process around. So it was like, once he said that, everybody reacted to that, and nobody went back and said, "well, you know, this is [sighs], and it's hard to sit there and watch some of those things happen. And sometimes, I think it is useful for a folklorist who has done the research with both the people to be able to say something. But, I can also see how you can get in trouble [with] that--how the panel can get in trouble that way. I don't know what you guys do with your oral history grants, I've never ever been there, but don't---don't you get to say something at the meetings?Sarah Milligan 2:11:17
Yes. [laughter] Um, I have kind of changed a little bit. Because I like there to
be a little bit---because it's--because you know, it's weird. I mean, I'm the grants manager. So, when people submit their applications early, I give them feedback. I make suggestions. They alter it, I review it, and then I go in, and then all of a sudden, I'm also like, on the panel. That doesn't make any sense.Bob Gates 2:11:19
Okay. That's true, yeah.
Sarah Milligan 2:11:42
So, right. So anyway, so I've actually distanced the, the position--.
Bob Gates 2:11:49
---You went the other way.
Sarah Milligan 2:11:50
I did go--.
Bob Gates 2:11:51
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 2:11:51
--The other.
Bob Gates 2:11:51
That's good.
Sarah Milligan 2:11:52
I mean, I'm still--I can still answer questions, if the panel wants to know
something like, did they finish their grant last year, or you know, those sorts of things? So I make sure I'm there to answer those questions. But, but that position has always been actually on the panel, in the bylaws, and I've kind of changed that. Just because I thought that was--I thought that was way too much power in my position, to be on both ends of that.Bob Gates 2:12:16
Yeah, but--.
Sarah Milligan 2:12:19
But it is hard when you're like, "but, they do good work. [laughter] They finish
their projects, they turn things in."Bob Gates 2:12:19
Yes, but they didn't say it right and---.
Sarah Milligan 2:12:30
Yes.
Bob Gates 2:12:30
And they--.
Sarah Milligan 2:12:30
It is hard, or how can you argue that is pop culture? You know.
Bob Gates 2:12:35
And then--I mean, there was one, we worked with a main street person in
Henderson, who wrote--wrote a great grant one time, to add a folklife component onto the festival--on their Bluegrass festival. And we helped them out, Brent, and I went out there and actually did a training with the volunteers a day before the festival, and, and it worked out really well. We did an evaluation, and so we got really involved in it, and they did a real good job. And it was a great grant that was fun and everything. The following year, she writes--she just sends the same grant in without redoing it. And you say, "oh, why did you do that?" Was she lazy?Sarah Milligan 2:13:16
It worked one time.
Bob Gates 2:13:17
Yeah, it worked the one time. I don't blame her for thinking that way, because
I've thought of that with any NEA grants. "well, why don't I just put the same narrative in? We got different panel members."Sarah Milligan 2:13:25
Well, people do it for us, too. Oh, yeah.
Bob Gates 2:13:27
Yeah. And it was like, and she got---she got mad about it, and I don't blame
her, but I also [sighs], you know. I guess I should have been a bit more vigilant--vigilant with her and said, "this might happen if you do this," but they didn't see that coming.Sarah Milligan 2:13:43
We--I put something--I ended up having to put something in the bylaws or not the
bylaws, the grant guidelines that specifically says. If submitting an extension of a former grant, do not just submit the former [laughs] grant application. Think I actually finally just put a tagline--.Bob Gates 2:14:01
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 2:14:01
--Because I was having the same thing. People were doing like part two of a
project, and they would just submit the original application and just kind of add a paragraph at the end saying, "ditto," you know, [laughs] and it's like no!Bob Gates 2:14:13
Yeah, and it's also--well and she also kind of did this thing where she would
say things like, "well, we did so good last year," or she expected them to know her from the year before. And just to--but they were new panelists and everything. And with the--.Sarah Milligan 2:14:29
Yeah--.
Bob Gates 2:14:29
--The hard part was is--just last week I was--or two weeks ago, I was at the
Heritage Council and--at their Main Street managers meeting, and they were honoring--and she was like the God of Main Street managers. She had retired and everybody in the state knew her and she came on dressed like as--in the 60s and everybody you know, it was like--.Sarah Milligan 2:14:52
Big deal, huh?
Bob Gates 2:14:53
Big deal that she--and see, that's the thing is, some of our--that she had
gotten the grand again, she probably would have told her other Main Street managers, and we would have been---just every Main Street manager would have been writing grants that were folklife related. But because she didn't get the grant, she kind of went --it went the opposite way. And, so you could see these--these long-range things happening, but it all comes down to--she didn't write the grant right, and she didn't get it. You know, she didn't read the guidelines, and she didn't write it the right way.Sarah Milligan 2:15:22
Yeah.
Bob Gates 2:15:23
So you know, when you're in this long enough, you see, see these connections of
how things could work, if you could have the ability to make them work.Sarah Milligan 2:15:32
I do.
Bob Gates 2:15:32
And I think some folklorists do that, they figure it out.
Sarah Milligan 2:15:37
Well--.
Bob Gates 2:15:37
And some of these have worked for me. You know, where I knew and I said
this--"in the long run, this is going to be good, if we can keep these guys involved. Let's work as much as I can." Some of them, you think they're--you--they don't need your help, and they did need your help, some of them.Sarah Milligan 2:15:52
That's true too.
Bob Gates 2:15:52
Yeah, it's--I mean, I feel pretty good about the grants that we've done over the
years. The project grants have spawned a lot of neat things, like the mushroom festival and--.Sarah Milligan 2:16:04
The Mountain Mushroom Festival in Estill County?
Bob Gates 2:16:06
Yeah, and you could see, I really liked doing these things where we work with
them on one level. Get them to think about something else, see how this fits--this money would fit into that. And then they apply for it. And then you see this long line of--and you do that with oral history grants. You see that the project, you know, if they got this. I like doing that, I like problem solving in that and--and seeing it work out. But, it does kind of go against what the Arts Council sees is. fairness in grants. But, I think it boils down--to me is that you don't have many folk arts groups that apply for grants, and it's okay to build relationships with them. Because that--you want them to grow stronger. With the project grants, when they used to have--not folklife, but the regular project grants. They would have 150 applicants from all over--and everybody doing everything. And so, one time they're going to do it, then they'll do something else the next year. Well, I don't think it's the same thing.Sarah Milligan 2:17:12
For the folklife project grants, you'd have a lot of the same people just coming back?
Bob Gates 2:17:15
Yeah, I mean, we would get people at the Arts Council saying, "why have you got
the same people coming back all the time. Why is--is the Eddie Pennington Festival funded three years in a row?" "Well, because they need it. It's a good Festival, and it's growing." That was my argument, and there aren't that many, and it's a good model to other ones, and we'll get more out of that. Where they--it was in--if it had been in the regular project grants, they would have been cut because it wasn't original. They didn't do something different the next year. Well, how do you do a different thing than--if you're a folk festival, how do you do a different thing? You make it into a video the next year? [laughs] I don't know, I mean, I believe traditional things needed to say traditional sometimes, and stay in that same direction. Yeah, but on the other hand, you're trying to encourage independence and--and you know--. Well, yeah, I mean you want them them to--.Sarah Milligan 2:18:11
New components and things like that.
Bob Gates 2:18:12
And that's what's happened. Since we don't have money for the Eddie Pennington
Festival--it's still going on, and they're still getting money, and that's fine. I mean, I think the NEA used to do--and they did this with me, is three years on a project and then it's over, but the Arts Council wanted to do one year on a project and you come up with a whole innovative thing next year. It's all about innovation. Well, folk arts isn't all about innovation all the time--.Sarah Milligan 2:18:19
Yeah. Right.
Bob Gates 2:18:36
--It's about tradition.
Sarah Milligan 2:18:37
No, that's true.
Bob Gates 2:18:38
So that was the argument I tried to play.
Sarah Milligan 2:18:40
Oh, that innovative, yeah.
Bob Gates 2:18:44
If you have to spend your time being innovative all the time---I think there's
room for it. But I think it also gets down to this relationship thing is. Well, they build--over there, they build long term relationship[s] with organizations.Sarah Milligan 2:19:02
The Arts Council.
Bob Gates 2:19:03
Yeah, you know--.
Sarah Milligan 2:19:03
Yeah.
Bob Gates 2:19:03
--The big organizations--.
Sarah Milligan 2:19:05
Well, yeah.
Bob Gates 2:19:05
--Why shouldn't that be extended to small ones?
Sarah Milligan 2:19:08
I don't know, that's a good question That is a good question. Well, we'll make
sure--I mean, the apprenticeship list will actually probably be in the files for this archives. So that--I mean, you cannot--.Bob Gates 2:19:22
You want me to look at it between now and the next time?
Sarah Milligan 2:19:24
No, I'm saying if anybody listens to this and wants to know who those people
are, they can probably look up the list within the program files.Bob Gates 2:19:30
Oh, it's been some neat ones, yeah.
Sarah Milligan 2:19:34
I mean, if there's anybody you want to talk about specific, you can go over it,
and if you want to bring them up, you can.Bob Gates 2:19:39
Yeah--yeah.
Sarah Milligan 2:19:40
But other than that, I think we'll just start--we'll start at like 2000 and
think about--.Bob Gates 2:19:46
Well, I mean (??) you had this much they asked me, today.
Sarah Milligan 2:19:51
It was interesting.
Bob Gates 2:19:52
Thank you.
Sarah Milligan 2:19:52
Yeah, no. So, think about some of the things you've done in the last decade that
you want to--do you want to talk about, and I'll get something on the schedule.Bob Gates 2:20:00
Yeah, I mean, I had been going back on you know, we call the Y Drive?
Sarah Milligan 2:20:00
Yeah, your shared drive.
Bob Gates 2:20:02
Our shared drive, and we have, in the Y Drive, projects, and under projects,
there are about a hundred different things that we started on, or we were a part of, or we helped somebody out with.Sarah Milligan 2:20:19
I know.
Bob Gates 2:20:20
And then there--then they're also--if they didn't make it into the projects,
they're probably someplace else in the Y Drive. And I've been trying to go through that, for Heather.Sarah Milligan 2:20:29
Well, the ones that might stand out to you that--I mean, you don't have to talk
about every single one, but the ones that you feel, you know, were exceptional, or that stand out.Bob Gates 2:20:37
Yeah, I'll try to think about that.
Sarah Milligan 2:20:39
Those sorts of things I mean, cause, yeah.
Bob Gates 2:20:41
Cause I am getting Alzheimers.
Sarah Milligan 2:20:44
You are not.
Bob Gates 2:20:45
[chuckles] Well, it's funny, you don't think about something--you think you're
thinking about everything, and then all of a sudden, you're in another situation, and you think about this projects and say, "oh, I forgot completely about that. And that was really neat. That was really--that really made a difference in the state."Sarah Milligan 2:21:01
Well, you've done a lot of different things, too. That makes it hard. I mean,
you know, it's been--well, and you--you are so stinkin busy. You are just busy all the time, you're always doing something or twelve things all at once. So, it's gotta be hard to keep it all straight.Bob Gates 2:21:18
Yeah, that's what they say. I alw--I used to get down on Brent, because I didn't
think he was a multi--.Sarah Milligan 2:21:24
Multitasker.
Bob Gates 2:21:24
Multitasker, but now I've been reading lately, that multitasking isn't good for you.
Sarah Milligan 2:21:28
Yeah.
Bob Gates 2:21:29
Mentally.
Sarah Milligan 2:21:29
You're making schizophrenic breaks in people, way to go.
Bob Gates 2:21:33
Well, in me, I mean, [laughter]. They're--what they're saying is that you
don't--if you're multitasking, you're not spending enough time with one thing to remember everything that had--that's important to it.Sarah Milligan 2:21:44
I was about to say, Bob, I don't know that I would call you a multitasker. I
would just say you can't focus on stuff long enough to really, you know, bear down on it too long. Oh, really? Uh-huh.Bob Gates 2:21:51
Oh, really? Okay, I feel like I can--come in the office and do five different
things, during the day.Sarah Milligan 2:21:58
You--you do.
Bob Gates 2:22:01
But, that's not multitasking?
Sarah Milligan 2:22:03
No.
Bob Gates 2:22:03
Because they don't finish them?
Sarah Milligan 2:22:04
I think it's because you don't, yeah, yeah, I think it's because you get--your
mind just gets distracted, and you move on to the next thing.Bob Gates 2:22:14
Wow.
Sarah Milligan 2:22:14
I don't think you do them all at the same time, in tandem.
Bob Gates 2:22:18
Oh, well, maybe not.
Sarah Milligan 2:22:19
I think your your brain leaps from--yeah, that's what I'm trying to say. I think
your brain moves from one thing to the other. Because you have so many things going on, at all times that you can't really focus. You have to like look at this and look at that and look at that, and then this email comes up, and you have to deal with that. I think it's just the way that the workflow in this offices is. There's just so many things going on all the time, you have to be able to switch really quick.Bob Gates 2:22:39
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 2:22:39
But, it's hard to actually like, focus on something for an extended period of time.
Bob Gates 2:22:45
Oh, yeah.
Sarah Milligan 2:22:46
You will make that time, don't get me wrong. When you have to, you lock the
doors, you clean your office, and you get it done.Bob Gates 2:22:52
Well---and I enjoy the public sector--public program part of the job, most I
guess. It's presenting things and the festival move was always fun.Sarah Milligan 2:23:04
Oh, God.
Bob Gates 2:23:04
Even though a lot of people hate it, but I like to---.
Sarah Milligan 2:23:07
You do like it.
Bob Gates 2:23:08
--Going. I like problem solving too.
Sarah Milligan 2:23:11
Well, I also think that's why--and just from my experience, you have--you and
the people around you, have done a good job hiring people that work for and with you. That do things that pick up the other sides. You know, like Mark is a great writer, great exhibit, label person, great editor, and those are the things you don't necessarily love to do. You can do them, you just don't necessarily love them.Bob Gates 2:23:39
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 2:23:40
And so, you know, you have someone that can kind of fill that gap.
Bob Gates 2:23:45
Yeah, I push off those things.
Sarah Milligan 2:23:47
I don't know, I mean, that's not--that's not a weakness to say that you build a
team around you that is--actually compliments each other.Bob Gates 2:23:55
Yeah, I think it works. I just--when I have to write something, and I say,
"well, I'm out of practice, because I had Mark doing it all the time." I say, "I gotta--I just gotta do it myself." It's just what happens. Yeah. The test, I guess now is writing these little descriptions for the web page that I was telling you about, is just doing it and getting it done.Sarah Milligan 2:24:19
Yeah, I used to--I remember whenever I worked for you, and it would be time to
write the annual grant for my position. And then you'd have to like, come down and clean your entire office, put everything up. Mop, sweep, disinfect, clean the whiteboards, straighten the bookshelf. Before, walk around the block a few times. Where you could like settle down to actually do it, which is fine. I mean, a lot of people have to do mental cleaning. But uh--.Bob Gates 2:24:44
I used to blame it on, that when I was in college, I had to type things and I
couldn't do different--I couldn't do different versions of it, like I can't on [a] computer now. And I still--it makes--I would always had to put prepare for that--throwing everything out at one time, rather than, I can write here and write here and then put it together later on. Which I think is great for--I don't know.Sarah Milligan 2:25:11
The way now or you having to do a typewriter version or--.
Bob Gates 2:25:14
What?
Sarah Milligan 2:25:14
--Or you just have to get it right. Typewriter version where you just have
to--trying to get it right.Bob Gates 2:25:17
Yeah.
Sarah Milligan 2:25:20
Yeah, I don't know. It's just--it is what it is. Oh, well--.
Bob Gates 2:25:27
It be what it be.
Sarah Milligan 2:25:28
All right, I know, I had to write some paper the other day and I found myself
like cleaning my office and putting stuff up and I was just like, "oh my God, I've turned into Bob." Like totally decluttering everything, just to try not to have to sit down and do this for four hours.Bob Gates 2:25:43
Yeah, that's hard to.
Sarah Milligan 2:25:45
It is hard. All right, I'm gonna turn this sucker off.
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