tv Occupied Minds LINKTV June 2, 2022 6:00am-7:01am PDT
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- hey, i'm valerie june. ming up on reel south . [valerie] in a musical genre dominated by male performers, this woman was determined to have her voice heard. - when i think think about alice gerrard, i think about somebody who's lived her life following her love. - [valerie] and she made many sacrifices along the way. [somber violin] ♪ bear me away ♪ on the breeze of the morning - [valerie] hear "you gave me a song", up nt on el south.
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- [annouer] ma funding for reel south. was provided by etv endowment, the national endowment for the arts, center for asian american media, and by south arts. additional funding for "you gave me a song" was provided by: and others. a complete list is available from pbs. [laid-back blues music] ["man done wrong" by valerie june] [sizzle sound] - okay so, this is my [sighing deeply] my photo. i've got all the photos on this separate drive here. i've been digitizing. i digitized the first six and the next thing would be those. [relaxing guitar music] for years, i know i just taped everybody
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and took photographs and carried this stuff around with me. so here is newport folk festival. so that's elizabeth cotten. i thought of it as moments that need to be preserved. here's dock boggs. there he is getting coal from his little coal house. when you listen to real traditional music you have such a sense of this connectedness to a person's life. it's like it comes out of the earth. southern folk cultural revival project, that's where the soul of the music is, really. so was a dance in blackey, kentucky. but i love this picture, it's bill monroe at bean blossom back home in indiana. ♪ long time ♪ making up your mind
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[birds chirping] [relaxing bluegrass music] - [alice] i was born in seattle, washington, 1934. i was very rebellious, running around with the boys down the road, torturing my brother. [alice chuckling] - alice was just a little less than two years older than i was. and she was much more her own person, i suppose, even as a little kid. - my mother was one of eight children. the girls formed this singing quartet and they traveled around. and my father, he didn't play an instrument but he sang and they had a lot of friends who played and sang. now, i'd have supposedly gone to bed already, but i'd sit on the stairs and listen. and i think that's one of the things that attracted me to traditional music.
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you could have fun in your home playing music with friends. - hey, hello. - chris, how you doing bud? good to see you. - how are you? - good. - that was all right. - it's 107th birthday. - oh. [relaxing guitar music] okay, so there's no intro. ♪ the moon shines bright ♪ on my kentucky home ♪ and one of these days ♪ i'll go back home again ♪ when you came to this old town ♪ ♪ city folks just couldn't stand ♪ ♪ but i knew it wouldn't last forever ♪ ♪ soon as we had saved enough ♪ gonna catch that greyhound bus ♪ ♪ heading south back to my kentucky home ♪
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- [musician] sing it with me, sing. ♪ the moon shines bright ♪ on my kentucky home ♪ and one of these days ♪ i'll go back home again - oh yeah, i like it. [relaxing bluegrass music] - yeah. - [alice] i like that. [relaxing music] - there was a direct ascent on alice's part from her rebelliousness and independence as a child to her ability to make something of herself
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in the world that she chose. [dramatic music] - [announcer] welcome to antioch college. nestled in the rural arms of picturesque yellow springs, ohio, in the heart of the miami valley. - i have no idea how i got into antioch. i remember arriving and seeing people sitting around under a tree playing a guitar, and it was like i had come home. [gentle guitar music] a number of the people that was becoming friends with were playing music. there was this guy named jeremy foster. jeremy had a copy of the harry smith "anthology of american folk music". - it was a reissuing of old records from the '20s and '30s, early country music, early blues. it was just an azing collection that had got everybody excited. - that was a huge influence. and i went to the library and i took out this recording
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of a woman named texas gladden. ♪ come, papa ♪ come, mama ♪ and sit you down by me - [alice] and it was incredible to me. she has a very mournful sounding voice. it's very piercing. those kinds of things, they're the ones that grab me. ♪ my body salivated ♪ and i'm bound to die - so i started trying to teach myself how to play the guitar and the banjo. [upbeat banjo music] jeremy and i were getting closer, kinda going together. - i met alice for the first time in 1958. i spent the rest of my brief college career [chuckling] pretty much at their house listening to music, playing music.
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they were already deeply involved in it. - we were anti-folk revival. that was like the thing that we had to define ourself as different from. we just played the music we loved and that's what this is all about. - our co-op jobs were in washington, d.c. [upbeat banjo music] washington, d.c. at that time was an amazing place for bluegrass music and traditional music, and it was a really amazing time of cultural mixing too. 'cause there were all these people like jeremy and me, middle class kids getting into the music and mixing and learning from working class people who had come from the south up to the baltimore area to get jobs, just good old boys, mostly boys, playing this music. [upbeat banjo music]
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- there were parties all the time with different bands and different rooms, but there was always a sort of primo band, and alice was always in it. - i remember jeremy first saying to me, there's this little girl with this great big voice and you gotta meet her, and that was hazel. [alice chuckling] ♪ hello stranger ♪ put your loving hand in mine ♪ hello stranger ♪ put your loving hand in mine ♪ you are a stranger ♪ and you're a pal of mine - alice and hazel were two women who were thoroughly immersed in the music and in the tradition of it. hazel came by it naturally, having grown up in west virginia, and her whole family sang and was involved in music. - [alice] at the parties i think
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we were the only two girls playing music. we were both able to cross that divide. i just didn't think that we couldn't do it. nobody had ever said you can't do that because you're a girl, but people had said that to hazel. - [hazel] i think it's probably largely due to my upbringing because a woman's place was in the home, and this was ground into us from the time we were born. that was a very hard thing for me to cope with. - and the bands that she played with before we played together, she was the chick singer. - [hazel] i never really felt that they accepted me or really appreciated what i did. - [alice] why do you think this was? - [hazel] probably because i was a woman and partly because they couldn't sleep with me. that's the only way that they had to relate to you, you were good enough to be their girlfriend or their wife
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or you were bad enough to be their whore. they didn't know how to take me. i just wanted to play and i needed to play. - so i'm not sure what's on this side. i just found this. it was stashed in a box in the back of the closet there. [distorted music] oh, this is [alice chuckling] all this stuff i don't remember that we did. [relaxing bluegrass music] ♪ times ain't now ♪ ain't nothing like they used to ♪ - oh, this is interesting. we recorded this but we recorded it unaccompanied. and maybe this part is from 1963, which would be amazing. ♪ i said if you don't want me
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♪ why don't you tell me so ♪ i said if you don't want me ♪ why don't you tell me so ♪ because it ain't like a woman ♪ ♪ ain't got nowhere to go - so, that goes in this pile. they're all ready to go to the library. i'm gonna talk to them about maybe this idea of hazel and alice, the closet tapes or something. jeremy found out that he was due to fail, [alice chuckling] flunk out of antioch college. he decided the smart thing to do would be to quit. i quit too. [cheerful music]
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i discovered i was pregnant and so we decided to get married. - they were 23 and 24 when i was born. that is really young. and they were also people who thought it was good to let nature take its course and so kids would raise themselves. - [alice] we were hippies. we didn't plan our lives and it was that way with raising kids too. we were so clueless. - i dot have a lot of memories of her as a mom. it was really free range parenting back then. - and we had the two boys. jeremy was a total 50% parent. emotionally, i think he was more ready than i was to have kids. i barely knew how to cook. we had a lot of corn on the cob, macaroni and cheese. - i don't think you would call them involved parents. i mean, i think you've probably seen the pictures of how they kept house,
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as in they didn't. i mean just, oh my god. - and then we moved back to d.c. every weekend we would get together with our friends in baltimore. hazel and her friends would fix a picnic lunch. they'd fry chicken, they'd make deviled eggs and they'd pack it all up and go to the parks north of baltimore, sunset park, new river ranch. ♪ riding on that new river train ♪ ♪ riding on that new river train ♪ ♪ that same old train that brought me here ♪ ♪ and is soon gonna carry me away ♪ - [alice] jeremy was a close friend of mike seeger. mike was in some ways a linchpin for all of us. he was doing a lot of recording traditional musicians. the music parks were amazing and incredibly influential on my development as a musician and on a lot of people's development. it wasn't just a stage,
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it was people that you got to know. you'd ask about their families. they'd ask about your family. there was just this very informal meeting ground. everybody was kind of bonded together by the fact that you just lived music. ♪ riding on that new river train ♪ ♪ well the same old train that brought me here ♪ ♪ and is soon gonna carry me away ♪ - [alice] we were living with my cousin. jeremy had gotten picked up by a friend and they were on their way to work and an oncoming vehicle hit the side of the car, the passenger side. and this friend called me and told me he was dead. - i remember arriving at the house
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and alice comes to the door and just bursts into tears. it was this emotional outburst, i guess, i'd never seen before. - [cory] hazel told me that mom used to go sit out on the front stoop and cry. [somber dramatic violin music] - we were all dumbstruck. a lot of people really cared about jeremy. he had pulled a lot of people into the world of this music. it was devastating all around. ♪ i don't know, ♪ i don't know ♪ where i'll go ♪ or what i'll do ♪ it makes no difference ♪ what i do without you
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♪ so i'll sigh, ♪ i'll cry ♪ i'd even wanna die ♪ for the one i love has gone - music happened a lot more after my dad died. ♪ come back - [cory] i don't remember a beginning of hazel, she was just there. - you would hear them practicing and working on a number over and over. - over and over again to get it right, get the harmonies right. - [child] mommy. - we were working around the kids a lot. - [child] mother? [knocking on wooden door] [relaxing guitar music] ♪ who's that knock [laughing] - [son] my mom would be smoking and coffee would be going but very hard at work, those two.
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- i remember them sitting in the living room and making recordings that we had to be - mommy! - [cory] absolutely quiet for it or out of the house. [child screaming] - [alice] hey, shush. - [child] why shush? - [alice] the recorder's on, you close the door and be quiet. [upbeat humming] ♪ nice in the country ♪ nice in town ♪ it's nice where we live ♪ and we're still going down - one day hazel and i were practicing, just wailing away, you know, just bang, bang, bang, sing, sing, sing. and i looked over and there was jenny sitting on this overstuffed chair at one end of the room, cross-legged in her nightgown going like this. ♪ hey daddy, baby it's nice like that ♪ [alice laughing] - they definitely had their thing and we were sort of second fiddle to all of that. ♪ now get your nights, your cap and gown ♪ ♪ now come on daddy let's break it down ♪
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♪ it's nice like that ♪ i said it's nice like that - hazel would show up with that beehive thing going on and i was like, this is cool. she was so coiffed. i would ask hazel to tease my hair and do that hairstyle for me and she would. ♪ it's nice like that, it's nice like that ♪ ♪ it's nice like that - she was hilarious. they used to have to pay to use the toilet at the rest stops and they traveled a lot. and i think some of her humor came off bathroom walls. she would say, here i sit brokenhearted, paid a dime and only farted. [laughing] ♪ hey, it's nice like that [alice laughing] [upbeat banjo music] - the number of women in bluegrass fronting a band,
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there was hardly any before hazel and alice. - i actually would go into record stores and look for albums with women on them. i didn't have any women role models that steered me towards a sound that i wanted to emulate until i heard hazel and alice. ♪ who's that knocking at my window ♪ ♪ knocks so loud and won't come in ♪ - a friend of mine gave me a bootleg cassette tape of hazel and alice's first album, "who's that knocking?", and just played it over and over and over again. [audience applauding] ♪ oh daddy don't go to the mine today ♪ ♪ for dreams have so often come true ♪ ♪ oh daddy, dear daddy please don't go away ♪
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♪ for i never could live without you ♪ - one of the things that caught people's attention when they heard us was that hard lead singing with that very cutting tenor voice, but it blended together and it wasn't two guys, it was two women. [southern folk music] - it was just so washed in the blood, so real. they had that high, lonesome sound, but it was a feminine sound. ♪ well there's more to her ♪ than powder and rings ♪ and her peroxided bleached out hair ♪ ♪ well, if she acts that way ♪ it's 'cause you've had your day ♪ ♪ don't put her down ♪ you helped put her there - it's an unvarnished sound. it's not concerned with perfection.
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that's the way to tell the story. ♪ whose windows they are broken ♪ ♪ and whose chimney's dark and cold ♪ ♪ but jobs were hard to find back then ♪ ♪ it wasn't easy to survive ♪ so one by one we all left home ♪ ♪ to change our way of life ♪ 'cause you gave me a song ♪ of a place that i call home ♪ a song of then ♪ a song of now ♪ a song of yet to come ♪ if i had it my way ♪ i would tear this building down ♪ ♪ i would tear this building down ♪ - [alice] anne romaine and bernice reagon
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started the southern folk cultural revival project which was an outgrowth of the civil rights movement which anne and bernice had been very active in. the idea was to tour in the south and speak to the struggles of working class people. - [announcer] according to anne romaine, the shows will feature everything from "fiddling", like that performed by 70-year-old frazier morris. [upbeat fiddling music] to blues, by johnny shines [upbeat blues music] ♪ hey ba-ba-re-bop ♪ hey ba-ba-re-bop - the music represents the strength of a culture and of a people. [audience applauding] - it's importance was that it was blacks and whites traveling around the country to let people see you have people right here in your community that are preserving our old traditions. ♪ a gypsy woman told my mother
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♪ on a night that i was born - [sparky] the first full tour i did was with alice and hazel. - [alice] '60s and '70s primarily is when hazel and i went on the tours. - [reporter] along the georgia interstate representatives of america's hill country past rolled toward a rendezvous with the present. - [sparky] all the time while we were driving to the south, especially hazel, was very frightened that we were gonna be pulled over and disappeared and never be seen again. - [alice] we all rode together. we all ate together. we all sat on a stage together. for me it made me much more aware of the politics of race relations in the south. for hazel, i think it gave her permission to give voice to stuff she was already feeling. - [alice] how do you think that affected your life? - [hazel] i think it affected me a great deal. the tour makes you be you proud of your music. if you feel strongly enough about something
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i don't see any reason why you have to die with it in you, 'cause then nobody will ever know how you felt. - [alice] i started writing songs during that time too. january 8th, 1972, this needs some work. [relaxing guitar music] but i just wanna get the tune down and the idea. ♪ all my tomorrows are yesterday ♪ i wrote a song about my kids, what it felt like to never have a minute to yourself. ♪ in the early morning light in the early morning light, ♪ i creep on down the stairs i creep on down the stairs. ♪ hush you for hush you for i'll keep your squeaking down. ♪ keep your squeaking down. i used to get up really early in the morning 'cause it was the only time i had to myself before things started.
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♪ all around i can't find my shoes, i can't find my socks, you know, stuff like that. [alice laughing] [guitamusic] [raxing huing] ♪ell anyw, i guess m gonna stay ♪ ♪o come onow, you ma's gon stay ♪ ♪ in e early rning lit ♪ creepn down t stas oh my god, this was, i wonder what happened to all these? well, there's a bunch i've started but this one, this is the most recent. i just had this idea
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of a little southern graveyard in the rain. it was kind of all over the map at first, like, wh's this story i wanna tell? ♪ in a little southern graveyard in the rain ♪ ♪ the waters gathered round as light began to fade ♪ ♪ and they lay them down the i'm wrestling with these lines. ♪ all but last, no sorrow, no more pain ♪ ♪ the sweet family have this dream seem closer now ♪ and then i wanna get more into this next line about war and something, bombs and bullets almost gone. and then, ♪ a sweeter memory guides him on his way ♪
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♪ to that little southern graveyard in the rain ♪ and then that chorus again. - jeremy and mike were extremely close friends. jeremy kind of said if anything ever happens to me i want you to take care of alice. - we started going places together and eventually he asked me if i'd marry him. and i was like oh, ooh, ooh, okay. [alice laughing] - when they got married is when we moved to pennsylvania. that was in 1970 when i was seven. that whole period of time when we lived in pennsylvania they were touring actively, so they were gone a lot. - [alice] the biggest issue in my life was often who's gonna babysit the kids? - [son] we joked about how we were free range children. - [son] they cut us loose and we had 80 acres
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of land to run on. - and we had old sheds and old cars that were abandoned up in the woods and we'd go up there and smash the windows out of them. - the kids were just [alice chuckling], they'd talk about the stuff that they used to do that we were totally unaware of. i mean, it's a miracle any of them survived to adulthood. - [jesse] we were often left with virtual strangers when she went away. in a way we're all kind of recovering from this childhood. [gentle music] ♪ da da da di da la - there were some issues that were really starting to bother me. ♪ daddle, daddle, ♪ daddle li da la - [alice] daddle kind of, da. as amazing a singer as she was, hazel had a lot of pitch issues.
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nobody has perfect pitch but when you're the only two people singing together, it sometimes was very difficult. one of the things that we couldn't navigate very successfully was total equality. i think that was part of what brought us down. [upbeat music] i had this song i had written called, "beaufort county jail", which was about the joanne little case here in north carolina. ♪ a hot summer night in the beaufort county jail ♪ ♪ beaufort county jail - [reporter] in the early morning hours of august, 27, 1974 the body of clarence aligood, beaufort county, north carolina's lone night jailer was found in one of the jail cells. the 62-year-old white man had been stabbed 11 times
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with an ice pick he kept in a desk drawer. 20-year-old joanne little, pleading self-defense gave herself up to authorities. the case has become a cause among women's and civil rights groups which are raising allegations about what goes on in small-town jails and what rights women have to defend themselves against sexual attack. ♪ black woman in a white man's jail ♪ ♪ black woman in a white man's jail ♪ ♪ no mercy while in jail ♪ the jailer tried to bring that woman down ♪ ♪ bring that man down. - we feel it's so important because it goe the very art of the queion as to whether or not a black woman has the right to defend herself when she's the victim of a white rist sexist attack? ♪ no more shame, no more pain ♪ you can't treat me this way
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♪ treat us this way no more ken ehler did not wanna put it on the record. he was afraid that it wouldn't sell in the south and hazel would not back me up. that was the last straw. it was really bad. we were on cusp of some really good stuff. she just totally dropped out of my life and the kids'. she was very hurt by this whole thing. [upbeat bluegrass music and birds chirping] cece conway approached me about doing a film project with less blank on tommy jarrell. ♪ darn whisky and pretty women may have been my downfall ♪
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♪ meet me and bang me but i love them for all ♪ - [alice] so we spent weeks at tommy's house, living there. we were all crammed into this small space together. my relationship with tommy started because mike had arranged this tour and he wanted tommy to go on at it. - [mike] we would go down to tommy's and just spend all day doing whatever tommy did and a lot of music. basically, he was a mentor. a friend of mine called him swommy tommy. - [tommy] i ain't got my fiddle back. - [mike] there were people there all the time from all over. some of the local people would come by and see who's there or what kind of curiosity entertainment was going on? [cheerful folk mic] - licei spent t of time th tommy
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i kind olooked ohim in se ways aa father, andfatr sort o gure in lif oh mlord! [ace laughg ] what's good music? - [tommy] well, something like a "sweet bunch of daisies" or some of them waltzes and things like that. - [alice] well they're nice tunes, but your tunes are good music, i think. - [tommy] there you got it, alice. [upbeat violin music] - [tommy] yeah. - [alice] that's a good tune. [dramatic calm violin music] well i did have a short musical life with mike. - mike was a very exacting guy. working with him in a close musical relationship could be a little edgy, especially if you were also in a romantic relationship.
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- [alice] we definitely sensed the tension. ♪ forgotten, forgotten can no longer see ♪ - [cory] one sumr, mom went through a major depression. ♪ my soul can't feel - i kind of took over running the house. yeah, i remember that was a hard time. - [alice] he had this affair and i found out about it and things just kind of went from bad to worse after that. we were fighting all the time. so we split up, mike and i. ♪ just knew it was done and the love was the price ♪ ♪ the price i really missed the old time music.
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then i thought maybe i should move up around [mumbles]. - i remember driving up to this house which was like a little more than a shack. - alice's house was a little more uptown because she had indoor plumbing. we began to visit some of these musicians together. there was more music there than i imagined was left. - [alice] andy and i got a grant from the virginia arts commission to do this project. - [andy] we worked like crazy. - [alice] we were doing a lot of recording and a lot of photographing. - there were some resentments, a distrust of people who weren't from there. the vast majority got to know us as people that had pure interests. - it cut through a lot of barriers, i think, the fact that you were a musician. [upbeat bluegrass music]
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- [andy] luther davis was probably both of our biggest influences. he was 92 when i first met him. [fast-paced violin music] - [luther] that's a little hard to play. - [alice] that is hard, you know? there's some stuff that you're doing, i still don't have it. i'll just have to listen to the tape. you just rock your bow a little bit in those bottom strings - yeah. - [alice] and i can't figure out what you're doing. the secrets of luther. [fast-paced violin music]
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- luther was very aware that his music would live on beyond him because people were learning it and passing it on. that meant a lot to him. [luther] it don't sound a bit good to me. - [alice] but luther, even if you're not playing as fast like you used to, the heart of your music is still there. and there's nobody else hardly left anymore that plays in that style of playing like you play. - i know, i know. [mellow violin music] - sometime around '83 alice and i decided to throw a bash. - [alice] and it was at my little place. we invited earnest east, tommy jarrell, luther davis, john rector. we wanted to just have all these people together
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in one place, hear them play music. - [andy] some of them had heard of each other 50 years earlier. - so there was just all these iconic people all in the same place at the same time, iconic to our world. [alice chuckling] - [andy] they all played a kind of music that was about to be extinct. - [alice] it was the end days for a lot of those people. ♪ oh, they're calling me home ♪ they're calling me home ♪ i know you'll remember me when i'm gone ♪ ♪ remember my stories ♪ remember my songs ♪ i'll leave them on earth, sweet traces of gold ♪
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♪ oh, they're calling me home ♪ they're calling me home. [people chatting] - [alice] so many of the old people had passed on and i moved to durham in '89. okay, so we'll do "strange land". i never really see myself as a solo performer. let's see, okay. ♪ i'm just sitting in this bar room ♪ ♪ yes, it's whisky that you see ♪ - that was you. okay, i'll walk you, i can walk you through. - [alice] if you can walk it in, yeah. - just start with just, ♪ sitting in this bar room [imitates guitar strumming] ♪ ♪ i'm just sitting in this bar room ♪
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♪ yes, it's whisky oh, okay, okay, okay, okay. - so you start, your voice starts the song and then brad's walk up and then we all come in. ♪ i'm just sitting in this bar room ♪ ♪es, that's whisky that you see ♪ ♪ and my name's mary johnson any combination of people i've been with, they bring different things to the table. i feel like it's always been very collaborative. you speak the same language in a sense. [upbeat folk music] ♪ we're back singing ♪ holiday ♪ home back singing ♪ holiday ♪ oh, we're singing ♪ holiday ♪ going around singing ♪ holiday ♪ circle in ♪ holiday
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♪ circle in ♪ holiday ♪ into the center ♪ holiday ♪ back again ♪ holiday [upbeat folk music] - okay, so "james alley blues". now, this one the tape was really rough. ♪ i've been seen better days ♪ i ain't parting love with you ♪ - so just to give you an idea of where this one started. - yeah. ♪ i ain't parting [speaking faintly] - [alice] oh my god. [alice chuckling] - so i went in and i coaxed out as much treble - oh my god. - as i could find. - yes. that's amazing. - i mean, there are already existing those studio records.
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this is a little window into the process behind it and y'all really paved the way, i think, for a lot of female musicians and so there is a historical weight to this that i think people would be really, really interested in. [audience applauding] - thank you. it has been about 50 years, hasn't it? - you're witnessing history in the making here. this is the first time alice and i have sang together. - you're witnessing the past and the present. [laughing] - so alice, did help the music business a little bit, didn't we? - i think a bit. - so this is called "hello stranger". here we go. ♪ hello stranger ♪ put your loving hand in mine ♪ oh hello stranger ♪ put your loving hand in mine
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♪ you are a stranger ♪ and you're a pal of mine [somber music] - when i heard that she was dying i drove down to visit her in the hospice center and i think i got there about four in the morning and i went in. they let you go visit any time and i said she's my auntie. ♪ fly away little pretty bird ♪ fly, fly away
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♪ fly away little pretty bird ♪ and pretty you'll always stay ♪ ♪ all the good times are past and gone ♪ - [alice] in some ways the whole musical scene is like a big family. ♪ all the good times are past and gone ♪ - [alice] sing it with me. ♪ all the good times are past - i called up alice and i said, hey, you wanna come to festival of american fiddle tunes next summer and be on the faculty?
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and she says, oh, that would be great. do you want me to bring an older generation musician? [suzy laughing] and i said alice, [laughing] you're the older generation musician. i just thought that was so cute. ♪ all the good times are past and gone ♪ - [alice] those tunes live on through the younger people who learn them. ♪ all the good times are past and gone ♪ ♪ littldarling don't you weep no more ♪ - yeah, that sounded great. [people applauding] i mean, in a way we're the elders now. [alice chuckling] - there was a whole new relationship that happened once i had kids. alice was really involved in their lives growing up.
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her grandkids brought out a whole nother sense of purpose to her i think that she didn't have when we were growing up. - some people's parents at this age are getting dependent but mom's not getting dependent, and i can't imagine her becoming dependent. - a friend of mine said, okay, my kids are grown and what do i do, i get a dog with issues. she said, well maybe you needed a project. [alice laughing] - polly gets much more attention than what we ever got. jump. front. go, jump. here. jump. teeter. [see-saw rattles] yay, [alice clapping] good girl. good girl, polly. let's do that again, that's so good. - it's hard to tell her that she needs to slow down. she'll say, oh yeah, i'm gonna slow down and then she's gone for a week.
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- [announcer] please welcome to the stage, alice gerrard. [audience applauding] - [alice] thank you so much. ♪ since i was a child ♪ i've been looking for a home ♪ been everywhere and i've been nowhere at all ♪ - mike got that call to do a record with alice and we made this record called "follow the music". ♪ stars stretching out for miles ♪ ♪ keep me through the night ♪ follow the music ♪ follow the music home ♪ follow the music home - i got this phone call one morning, he said, have you ever been nominated for a grammy? i said no. he said, well you are now. [alice chucing] - when my mom was nominated for a grammy it was kind of like,
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really, mom? and the other reaction is, well, it's about time. - here we are in l.a. live for your grammy. - had her cowboy boots on on the red carpet. she looked so great, man. - she is, alice gerrard is a babe. - yeah, alice gerrard's a babe. she's a total babe. - there's no way around it. i think alice should've won that grammy. ♪ follow the music home [relaxing guitar music] ♪ won't you follow me back home ♪ ♪ where the sunlight used to be ♪ - what hazel and i did was important and this is more stuff that we never recorded.
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this is not hi-fi, this is not perfect. and i'm curious to know how it will be received. [alice laughing] [audience applauding] thank you so much. i have to say it's great to be back in this hall. i haven't been back here since hazel and i recorded our very first cd, well it was an lp actually then [audience laughing] in this very hall. [audience applauding] [upbeat folk music] ♪ when you see that gal of mine ♪ ♪ tell her once for me ♪ when she goes to bake the bread ♪ ♪ to roll the dirty sleeves ♪ walking in my sleep, babe, walking in my sleep ♪ ♪ up and down that dixie line, walking in my sleep ♪
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♪ woo-hoo ♪ walking in my sleep, babe, walking in my sleep ♪ ♪ up and down that dixie line, walking in my sleep ♪ [audience applauding] - alice gerrard. - [alice] thank you, thank you so much. - the fact that she's performing and preserving and expanding the reach of that music, i think it's good work. - except, i can't be there that long-- - hey that was great, mom. i'm really proud of my mom. she's done a lot. even though my dad died and my mom and mike split up and hazel and my mom, they never blew the whole thing up completely. music is paramount to all of them. it was, it was all about the music.
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- there is a very much of a good old boys network in the bluegrass community and it's so important to me to have both alice and hazel recognized. i feel like finally we got them. [audience applauding] - it is with great pride and deep gratitude that i welcome hazel dickens and alice gerrard into the international bluegrass music hall of fame. [audience applauding] - [alice] thank you so much. [relaxing cheerful music] ♪ sing those hymns we sang together ♪ ♪ in that plain little church ♪ with our benches all worn ♪ how dear to my heart
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♪ how precious the moment ♪ we stood shaking hands and singing the songs ♪ ♪ sing those hymns - i knew she was an influence but when all those women came out on that stage, i remember just looking at my sister, like, holy crap, this is absolutely incredible. ♪ how dear to my heart ♪ how precious the moment ♪ we've stood shaking hands and singing the songs ♪ [audience cheering and applauding] [people chatting]
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- [alice] oh, i think we're headed in the right direction. i kind of feel like i fell into music which is what people do, i guess, when you hear something and you really like it and you gravitate to it. ♪ long before me ♪ bury me in paradise ♪ when i die - [alice] i love powerful traditional music because it's connected to everyday life. to me that's the beauty of it. ♪ i got a swing in my walk [clapping] ♪ i got a song in my talk ♪ i'm a weekday working woman, weekend queen ♪ ♪ so a time clock lady with a lazy dream ♪ ♪ i ain't got no fancy purse, diamond rings or silks ♪ ♪ i'm just surprised that saturday night ♪
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♪ it's payday at the mill so i just jumped in and then it turned into something of a career. it's like a patchwork of a lot of different things cobbled together. ♪ now there's some weary mornings at quarter to six ♪ ♪ when i wish i had a man to bring a paycheck ♪ ♪ but you can't have it all ♪ you can't disagree ♪ that i come in when i want ♪ go when i please i'm proud of what i've done, looking back. and it ain't over yet. [alice laughing] ♪ i missed the ride ♪ saturday night, it's payday at the mill ♪ [alice chuckling] that sounds great y'all. ♪ get up in the morning and do the right ♪ ♪ but don't you get up and go and do the wrong ♪ ♪ get up in the morning and do the right ♪
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♪ all day long [upbeat guitar music] ♪ you wonder why this world's going downhill ♪ ♪ big wigs and politicians lie and cheat and steal ♪ ♪ we're doing wrong to people in the name of freedom ♪ ♪ come on children, come on now, now ♪ ♪ get up [laid-back blues music] ["man done wrong" by valerie june] ♪ - [announcer] major funding for reel south. was provided by etv endowment, the national endowment for the arts, center for asian american media, and by south arts. additional funding for "you gave me a song" was provided by: and others. a complete list is available from pbs. ♪♪ yore watchg pbs.
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quickly shay doron shape it see any has to be my name is ariel to ecuador on shane my native language my name means thunder woman. i'm so happy to be here and i want to recognize the special territory of the coast me walk- for allowing me to be here today and it's so good to be here pioneers thirtieth anniversary. as a board member of pioneers i remember when i sit on this stage three years ago as a keynote. and one of the things that helped ease my time up here was the introducti
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