Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 7, 1992 TAG: 9201070211
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
MUSIC MAKERS RESOURCEFUL MOUNTAIN MUSICIANS' CRAFT GOES ON DISPLAY
THE urge to make music can't be denied, if the instruments in an upcoming exhibit at Ferrum College's Blue Ridge Institute are any indication.Resourceful mountain musicians without access to store-bought instruments crafted fiddles out of gourds, banjos out of pie pans and dulcimers out of the native trees growing around them.
"It's a craft that people haven't really looked at and studied in Southwest Virginia," says Roddy Moore, the institute's director.
"They always dwelled on the importance of the musician and not the instrument maker."
The staff of the Blue Ridge Institute intends to remedy that with the exhibit. It will consist of 40 to 60 handmade instruments dating from the mid-19th century to the present. A $11,600 grant from the Virginia Commission for the Humanities and Public Policy made the exhibit possible. Instruments found in the counties of Bedford, Botetourt, Roanoke, Franklin, Floyd, Carroll, Patrick and Grayson will be featured. One of the rarest, Moore says, is a gourd fiddle found at a yard sale in Hillsville.
The instruments either belong to the institute's collection or will be on loan from private collectors and makers.
They will be the first exhibit in the institute's new headquarters at Ferrum.The exhibit opens March 16 and will be at Ferrum for nine months to a year. Thenit will travel to Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center in Williamsburg. Moore says 10 other museums are interested, including one in Massachusetts. A catalog is planned, though the institute hasn't found funding for it yet.
Fiddles, banjos and dulcimers predominate. Guitar makers are rarer, but a guitar crafted by Wayne Henderson from Mouth of Wilson will be included.
The instruments sometimes testify to the resourcefulness of their makers. A fiddle and mandolin are made of solid copper. The pot - or body - of a contemporary banjo made by Price Pugh of Rocky Mount is formed from the brake drum of a Buick. Brackets on another banjo are made from bicycle spokes.
Instruments associated with mountain string music originated in the far corners of the globe. The banjo is a traditional African instrument, and how it came to the mountains is subject to theory.
Vaughan Webb of the institute says the banjo was probably introduced into the Southern mountains by minstrel shows coming through in the mid-19th century or earlier.
"It would be interesting to know what kind of music they were making before they adapted European tunes," Webb says about the original players.
The fiddle came over from the British Isles. And the dulcimer is of German origin. It was brought down through the Shenandoah Valley by migrating Pennsylvania Germans.
Researcher Beth Worley is still tracking down leads and is looking for more instruments and instrument makers.
Some instrument makers play. Others don't. Some make only a couple of instruments and quit.
Others - like the Melton family of Woodlawn, the Hash family of Mouth of Wilson and the Creed family of Botetourt County, Salem and Floyd - become dynasties.
On Mondays, I.Q. Creed of Botetourt County and his son Gary Sr. get together at Gary's Salem workshop and plan their banjo projects. Gary Jr. lives in Floyd and also works on the instruments.
The Creeds represent three generations of instrument makers.
It all started with I.Q's brother Kyle, an accomplished old-time banjo player and maker from Galax who died in 1982.
Today I.Q., who is retired from a food service company, runs an instrument repair shop at Happy's flea market. But he, his son and grandson custom build banjos.
The Creeds are musicians as well as builders. I.Q.'s father played stringed instruments, and his wife, Lillian, plays piano and organ.
"Lillian can take anything with keyboards and make it talk," I.Q. says. I.Q. and Gary Sr. have played in bands and Gary Jr. currently plays with bands in Floyd County.
"I used to make more money playing on Saturday night than working all day," says I.Q., 71. That was back in Burlington, N.C.
When I.Q. entered the military, he put aside his musical career. "I went into the service in 1939 and didn't make any music until 1963.
"Then I found an old banjo in barn of the farm we bought in Fincastle. My son Gary got kind of interested, and I fixed it. I got sick and retired in 1975, and that's when I got back into music full time."
Kyle, an experienced instrument maker, taught his brother, who in turn taught Gary Sr.
They mold the body, shape the neck with a rasp and inlay it by hand. Sometimes Gary burns intricate designs from nature into the backs of the banjos, and all three use abalone shell and old mother-of-pearl buttons found at the flea market to inlay designs on the neck.
The Creeds don't make the expensive metal hardware that's necessary for a professional sounding banjo but the rest of the instrument is handmade.
A top-quality, Creed bluegrass banjo will sell for $1,000, I.Q. says.
Though just about all bluegrass banjos come with five strings, the Creeds are at work on a six-string variation for a customer.
"I'm kind of the black sheep," Gary says. "I build off-the-wall, crazy instruments."
Gary, who is head produce clerk at a supermarket, says the instrument making is just a hobby.
"If you broke it down to what you get per hour, you'd probably make $1 an hour," he says. He looks around his shop full of power tools and instrument parts, a tape player emitting a constant background of hot bluegrass licks.
"This is where I come to relax."