Earl Scruggs was born on this date in 1924 .....this would have been his 91st birthday! Earl used to visit Crewe often....to visit his friend, Jody Rainwater....like on this occasion when I accompanied Jody out to the Crewe Airport to welcome Earl who flew in from Nashville in his private plane. Jody would often book the Foggy Mountain Boys throughout his WSVS Radio listening area.....several nights of concerts...so the boys would stay at the Crewe Hotel. There wasnt much for them to do in the daytime so they would often end up hanging out and playing pool at Bootsie Traylors pool room next to my newspaper office ( other side of Rock Castle Florist). I spent a lot of time in there listening to them tell tales and argue over who won or lost and who owed Mr. Traylors a dime for the game they had just played. Whenever I could I would go with them and Jody to their concerts at night. Great times....thanks to my good friend, Jody. Lots of folks may not know this but back in 1953-1954 Earl, Lester, Curley, Paul and the boys lived in the Crewe area and used WSVS as their headquarters, playing live shows and recording their Martha White and WSM radio shows which were sent back to Nashville to be played on that Grand Ole Opry station. They were also playing on the Old Dominion Barn Dance on WRVA in Richmond at that time so my guess is they chose to live here for easy access to both stations and, of course, because of Jody Rainwater. I believe Curley and his wife had an apartment in Crewe, a couple had mobile homes in Clays Trailer Park in Blackstone and I dont know about the others. So they were doing four 15 minute live radio shows each day, taping their Martha White and WSM shows for Nashville, playing the Old Dominion Barn Dance on Saturday nights and then a school, theatre, etc. almost every night in the week.....busy, busy boys!
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 21:21:38 +0000
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