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(Continued)
It was early Sunday
afternoon that Mr. Feldman came back. I'd been watching for him
all morning though if you asked me, I couldn't tell you why. He
had a fancy tape recorder with two microphones and he set it up on
the table that sits out in the yard, underneath one of our apple
trees. I wouldn't let him switch it on at first, but he tells me
it's just to save him having to write everything down and I
laughed at this because I didn't think I was going to have so much
to tell him.
He pushed the buttons on his
machine and we sat there talking in the shade of the tree on a
fine spring Sunday afternoon. Or I should say, I sat talking. I
forgot all about that tape and all I could think of was Harry
Chandler.
"My daddy was born on a
farm about a hundred and fifty miles south of Louisville, Kentucky
on the 16th of June
1901. His father was born there and his father before him. Daddy's
mother was new to the country - she came from England or maybe
Ireland, I think. She'd met her husband at some to-do in the town
and they were married soon after. My Daddy was born when she was
just seventeen years old. He used to tell me about this. He was
proud of his family, though I never did see them. I guess they was
dead before I was born.
"I know that he didn't
have much schooling - though he could read and write - and he
didn't stay around in one place long enough to be studying in
books.
"Don't ask me how he
learned to play that fiddle. Seemed to me like he was born playing
it. There wasn't nothing he couldn't do with that thing. Sometimes
he would play and I would laugh and I'd dance and sometimes I
would just sit down and cry.
"I can't recall much
how he looked - just remember a big, tall man with a hat on - but
I guess he was handsome, all right. My Ma sure thought so. They
was both pretty young when I was born..."
It seemed like hours I was
talking and after I'd finished, Mr. Feldman took some pictures and
asked me some questions, but I couldn't help him. I'd never heard
the names he said, though they was supposed to have played with my
Daddy on the records. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. I didn't
know nothing about them. I'd told him everything I knew about
Harry Chandler.
He sat writing some more in
his notebook and I went off and fixed us up some supper. He was
glad to stay and eat it, and he was as polite at the table as
anybody could be, but he didn't hang around after we'd finished. I
guess he was thinking about that blonde girl down at the motel in
Charlesville. He stood in the doorway before he went and he
thanked me for taking time to answer his questions and then he
said:
"Mrs. Barton, I hope I
can help make sure that your father gets the recognition he
deserves from history in this country. You can be proud of him.
Those old records he made are a national treasure. There are quite
a lot of us now who think your father was a genius."
I never saw George Feldman
again and I haven't heard nothing from him, either. He said he'd
send me a copy of the article he was writing. I won't be able to
read it if he does, as I said, but I'd like to see it, anyhow. He
said there'd be a photograph in it of my Daddy, from out of an old
record catalogue. I'd sure like to see that too.
I said I'd told him
everything I knew about Harry Chandler. That ain't strictly true -
there's one thing I never told him. He said I could be proud of my
daddy. He called him a genius and maybe that's right, at that. But
one thing I know for sure. My Daddy was a bum. There was nothing
really outright bad in him - he was just a bum. My Ma loved him,
and if he'd treated her right she might even have been alive to
day. Maybe, like they say, a person can't die of a broken heart,
but it sure didn't help to keep her healthy. When he used to go
off and leave us, he didn't care whether we lived or died and most
of the time when he did come back, he was blind drunk and he took
the little bit of money Ma had for more booze.
Like I said, he used to give
us his records. But he never stopped to think for one minute that
we didn't have nothing to play them on.
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RAY TEMPLETON is a Scottish writer and
musician living in St. Albans, England. His work - including music criticism, poetry etc. - has appeared in a wide range of both print and online journals. He is a member of the editorial board of Blues & Rhythm magazine.
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