ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 10, 1997 TAG: 9701100129
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: MONETA
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG STAFF WRITER
I got a pig at home in a pen
Corn to feed him on
All I need is a pretty little girl
To feed him when I'm gone.
- "Pig in the Pen," a fiddle tune
So you want to know how No Grass, a group of fun-loving (and snack-loving) Bedford County musicians, got together.
Well, that's a story - a long story. But Howard Arthur will tell it, and you only have to ask him once.
"We started out with four members some years ago," said Arthur, 75 and the band's mandolin player. "My mother was a shut-in and she liked country music. Well, one boy who played the guitar got asthma, so we got Randel. And we went out to his house one night, and he invited Bob."
Nine years ago, the group stacked up like this: Arthur on mandolin, J.P. "Junior" Updike on Dobro, J.R. "Bob" Miller on fiddle, and Randel Crouch on guitar. (``I thought it was 'grouch,''' said Updike, never one to pass up an opportunity for some ribbing. Crouch's reply: "Well, sometimes it is.'')
The lineup remained the same until last year, when Arthur heard Edith Witt and her alto lungs at a family reunion; now she's in No Grass, too.
Together, the five musicians play the old-time country music that predates bluegrass - the kind of music that smells of honeysuckle, and feels like the hard, painted wood of a porch swing.
"It's all 'No Grass' music," said Miller, 85, who still works in his home as a barber, in the space where his wife's sewing room was supposed to go.
Witt, at 60, is the youngest member of No Grass, though it is Miller the others call "the baby of the group."
A few times a month, they play at nursing homes, Ruritan clubs, churches and senior citizen centers across Southwest and Central Virginia.
Twice a year, they play at the Hardee's on Plantation Road in Roanoke, dressed in starched, white shirts and dark pants. The men add bolo ties for style.
"So many bands now look like they go to the rag bag to find the clothes they wear," said Arthur, a bolo-wearer from way back. "So I said, 'I know we all have dark pants and a white shirt.'''
They once played Friday nights, too, but found that cut into their weekends, when they like to go camping or two-stepping. Now they perform mostly on weeknights, strumming or picking out songs like "Whistling Rufus," "Green Mountain Polka," and "Casey Jones."
They also do a version of "Wreck of the Old 97,'' a hit for Henry Whitter in 1924. Louise Miller claims Crouch, 69, sings it better than just about anybody.
"Randel was probably standing over on that hillside when that train wrecked," Updike said, eyes twinkling.
Nursing homes, they say, are their mission and their ministry.
"We're really the only people some of them see," Crouch said. "Some aren't in their right minds, but the old songs get them singing."
Always, there are requests.
"One fellow at the county home in Bedford always requests 'Silver-Haired Daddy' - that's Gene Autry - and 'Railway to Heaven,''' Crouch said. "He'll sit there and cry while we're playing them. He likes to hear them every time we go."
Too often, Arthur said, a nursing home "can be like a holding tank of people, sitting there, waiting to die." No Grass tries to brighten things up, get residents reaching back for younger days, or looking forward to future days when the band will visit again.
Always, the members shake hands with the audience; always, they watch for reaction.
"One day an old man came out and sat right in front of me, I couldn't help but look at him," Arthur said. "There was a frown on his face when we started. Then, he started to keep time, with his hand like that" - Arthur patted a knee - "and eventually, he started rocking back and forth. When I shook his hand, he said, 'I sure did enjoy that.'''
The band members never take money as payment, though they're too polite to refuse snacks.
"To see these older people enjoy themselves, that's pay enough for me," Arthur said.
Updike, 72, first started playing when he was in Korea, on a Dobro owned by a friend from Kentucky. When the friend went home, Updike bought the Dobro.
Miller grew up playing fiddle and singing in the church choir. He plays harmonica, too, and puffs out a version of "Wildwood Flower" to demonstrate.
He bought his first harmonica during the Depression. "They cost a quarter then," he said.
Crouch played guitar as a teen-ager, then picked it up again later in life. "All of us were musicians," he said.
Witt got her voice training in the church choir, too. She used to wake up every Sunday morning to hear her father play the same old-time songs No Grass is playing now. Her husband, James, provides "moral support" for the band, is always quick with song requests ("Play 'Pig in the Pen!''') or to do a little shuffle on the nearest dance floor.
And Arthur's been playing mandolin since he was "big enough to hold one." He and his late wife, Marie, used to sing at funerals in Bedford with two other friends - first just for people they knew, then for people they didn't.
No Grass came later: part ministry, part social outlet, part fun.
On New Year's Eve, for instance, they played at Crouch's house from 7 p.m. until midnight.
Playing keeps him young, Arthur said, and it's good therapy for his fingers, which, being older than bluegrass, have developed arthritis.
Bluegrass came along in the late 30s. "I never did get on with it," Arthur said.
Updike did. "Fast rhythm, high lonesome sound," he said. But he's content to play old-time music and reminisce about jitterbugs and boogies between bites of Arthur's almost-famous pound cake and ham biscuits.
The 1920s - Miller's teen-age years - focused on the Charleston. Miller listened to the music, but never did catch on to the dance.
He said he jitterbugged "in my young days when I had plenty of vitality.''
In those days, Arthur said, "playing music was our entertainment. You couldn't get anything on the radio if you had one. Just a bunch of static."
"That was before FM came out," Updike added. "With FM, there's no static."
There's no static with No Grass, either. The members rely on little, if any, sound equipment.
"Old people don't like loud music," Arthur explained.
Regardless, with no charge, it would be hard for people to complain, Crouch said.
"We don't need a Brink's wagon to transport all our money," Miller added.
No Grass will play in public next at Bedford County Nursing Home at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
LENGTH: Long : 125 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DON PETERSEN STAFF. The members of No Grass are (front)by CNBHoward Arthur, 75, and (back, from left) J.R. "Bob" Miller, 85,
Edith Witt, 60, Randel Crouch, 69, and J.P. "Junior" Updike, 72.
color.