A Production of Jubilee Community Arts Produced by Brent Cantrell Booklet notes by Bob Fulcher, Brent Cantrell, and Toby Koosman Recording by Brent Cantrell, Bob Fulcher, and Louis Gross Photos by Bob Fulcher, Robert Cogswell and the Hicks Family Graphic design by David Lynch, Lynch Graphics, Inc. Audio mastering by Michael St. Leon and Switchyard Studios Special thanks to Virgie Hicks, the Hicks Family and Tennessee State Parks. Some performances presented on this recording previously appeared on Johnny Ray Hicks, Cumberland Mountain Ballad Singer, a cassette recording produced by Bob Fulcher and self published by Johnny Ray Hicks in 1986. That recording includes one song, “The Big Courtroom,” not included here due to space constraints. Funded by the JCA-1004JCA-1004 Tennesseee Arts Commission Funded by the Tennessee Arts Commission P & C 2007 with additional funding from Jubilee Community Arts the East Tennessee Foundation and the Knoxville, Tennessee National Endowment for the Arts ISBN 0-9710664-4-2 When I first met small group, catching each with his eyes in JOHNNY RAY HICKS turn as he talked and sang. Johnny Ray Hicks, This recording features songs and stories CROSSVILLE CRIMINAL from field tapes and formal concerts between and other songs and stories of the Cumberland Plateau I saw a fierce man. He had agreed December 1985 and August 2000. I am con- to come sing at a festival in the Copper vinced we have only a sampling of his reper- Basin in Southeast Tennessee. Johnny Ray got toire. Bob Fulcher’s long work with Johnny in about an hour before his time, walked up to Ray likely got at most of his oldest ballads, and me with his jaw set, stared at me probably brought out the majority of his Victo- in his fierce way and said, rian era songs, but I think we only have a por- “You didn’t tell me I had to tion of his sacred repertoire and very few of come all the way to North his mid-20th century songs. Carolina.” I stared back at The last field recording was made at his him, I suppose with my mouth home eighteen days before his death. It fea- open, not sure what to say. Then I saw a tures songs he had never before recorded and a crack in his poker face, a twinkling in the fine performance of the rarely heard English eyes. I said, “North Carolina’s another quarter ballad “Peggy Band.” At that last session much mile.” He let go with that great laugh of his. of Johnny Ray’s fierceness had slipped away, That was in the summer of 1995. For the and the singing had a different quality, more next five years I asked him to perform every contemplative. We knew he had little time left. chance I found. He sang the old ballads the At one point during that last day he turned to way they should be sung. He drew, from a me and said, “They ain’t none after me.” seemingly bottomless pool, his songs, stories, – Brent Cantrell, and tales. His audience was seldom large— Knoxville, May 2007 interest in these elder arts has waned—but that made it better. He was at his best before a 3 JOHNNY RAY HICKS to oblivion. The churches had it down for while, smack you in the face if you weren’t prepared The Hicks family of Fentress County, Ten- Cumberland Plateau Ballads, but it came back. for their brute strength. While he didn’t have nessee gained recognition in the 1970s and Songs and Stories In the final years of his life, Johnny Ray the infinite repertoire of “a mighty singer” by 1980s, as the remarkable story of Dee and You’ve got hold of a strong character here, Hicks may have been the last robust singer of Hicks family standards, he sustained the lives Delta Hicks became known through field Johnny Ray Hicks. He was fit and lean his the old style in Appalachia who had also lived of many fine songs. He was the last exponent recordings of their unmatched word-of-mouth whole life, trimmed to sally through a world of “the old way.” To the end of the 1990s, his of a manly ballad style, full of frontier bluster repertoire of British Isles and early American crosscut saws and copperheads. He spoke songs could carry you on broad shoulders, or as well as credibility. If a song was meant to ballads and songs. The Hicks family had come resolutely and looked at you squarely. His bold, be comic, he ended it with a great laugh, or, at to the Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee, to In Crossville deep voice was on some super male wave- at a Tennessee least, that enormous and compelling smile. If it Jamestown around 1817, when the village was length, an evolutionary byproduct of sexual Bicentennnial was tragic, there was no cooing or closed-eye only a couple of houses. The Hicks family es- selection. He’d face you with flat, thin lips and Concert, 1986. Photo by business. Clear eyes and cutting tones. tablished an impressive reputation lasting into a glare, which reconciled to a huge smile, so Roby Cogswell. Cultural evolution, devolution, or metamor- the 1970s as backwoods hunters and charac- big and deep that you couldn’t possibly resist phosis aside, the bell tolled for a long era of ters, among the most “old-fashioned” people in its charm. Appalachian ballad singing when Johnny Ray this remote region. Confidence and charm—those qualities were Hicks died in August 2000. Dee Hicks 1906-1983 learned hundreds of unmistakable in his presence. They made him songs from his( father Daniel) Hicks 1868- one wonderful vessel for transporting the last Hicks Family 1948 , a lifelong hunter and stockman( on the of the old songs to the end of the 20th century. He usually called himself “Johnny Hicks.” open) range of the Cumberland Plateau. Born into one of the great ballad-bearing fam- Just about all of his family called him “Ray Daniel’s oldest brother was Johnny Hicks ilies in North America, and raised more like an Hicks.” Quite a few associates called him 1843-1935 , a veteran of Tinker Dave Beaty’s earlier Appalachian generation than his own, “Spade Hicks,” either for his love of gambling company( of) Independent Scouts, who fought Johnny Ray drank from a boiling spring of or because of his swarthy complexion. I often as guerrillas for the Union during the Civil traditional knowledge. Among a dozen-odd called him by his given name, “Johnny Ray War. They received no pay or uniforms, only brothers and sisters, though, only Johnny Ray Hicks.” After all, the name “Johnny Hicks” still ammunition, from the Union Army, but most internalized large pieces of the old musical cul- belonged to his grandfather in the memory of members, including John Hicks, received a ture. Born in 1925, nothing ever pushed the old so many neighbors and kin, and another wild Federal pension following the war. Johnny style out of him altogether. Jimmie Rodgers hillbilly storyteller from western North Car- Hicks married after the war, and raised nine couldn’t displace it, though he almost did. The olina had already claimed the title “Ray Hicks” children, including Johnny Ray’s father, Army and WWII and Roy Acuff didn’t send it among the aficionados of Appalachian culture. Mount Hicks. 4 5 Daniel and Sarah Hicks Mount and Evie Hicks Dee Hicks. Photo by Bob Fulcher. “Uncle” Johnny Hicks JOHNNY RAY Hicks “chalk-eye:” “If you knowed a man good, why arrangements, harvesting a few crops and location allowed the eldest son, Gene, to enroll In 1918, Mount Hicks 1881-1958 married he’d take you in, let you help load coal, get you timber from land “held in possession” for the in the Civilian Conservation Corps camp in the Evie Huling 1896-1975 ,( a 23-year-old) mother, used to the mines, show you what they done, Gernts. Though they had the opportunity to State Forest, and to be close by the family. fourteen years( his junior.) With two children of and pay you a little.” Two years later he helped acquire land for themselves, they refused it to Thompson Camp was established by Herb his own, Mount rented a house for his new fam- his father at a sawmill, “rollin’ down logs and pursue a less settled lifestyle, reducing their and Id Thompson in the early 1920s to cut tim- ily in Gernt, a lumber camp on White Oak Creek rollin’ dust out from under the edger and the obligations and expenses to a minimum. ber on Stearns Coal Company lands. The camp in Fentress County, and began hauling timber main saw.” Johnny Ray Hicks described life on Darrow included a boarding house, where loggers were to the sawmills. Johnny Ray Hicks was born While on Darrow Ridge, Mount Hicks lived Ridge with great enthusiasm for the freedoms fed, a small store, a few houses and barns. By October 21, 1925 in nearby Cumberland Valley. on property owned by Hugo Gernt, the son of a and wonders of the Wilderness. They eventu- the mid 1930s it had been deserted and reoccu- The family eventually took out to Darrow German immigrant who had moved south from ally left the area to try town life, near Uncle pied by opportunists who moved into the old Ridge, which they called “The Wilderness,” Michigan to establish the town of Allardt in Johnny Hicks and his new wife. When that buildings. During the next three years, Mount eighteen miles from the closest community.