Uncle Josh...
Josh Graves
Burkett “Buck” Graves a/k/a ‘Uncle Josh’ was for years the Dobro player for Flatt and Scruggs Foggy Mt. Boys. To me and many others he was the definitive Dobro player. Showed the world what it was ‘s’posed to be….
Wayne Dye was a guy who talked like Foghorn J. Leghorn, the deep-voiced, southern- talking rooster in Warner Brothers cartoons. He liked his bourbon at the time (as did I) and something of a Bull Thrower and had a habit of using off-color language when he talked. He wore a red western style suit and pointy-toed cowboy boots. The guys in the band called him ‘Cowboy Wayne’. He was about 5’ 10” of a fleshy build with a black mustache, and thick black eyebrows and black hair.
He liked me and he loved country music.
He decided he was going to be a promoter and tied in with some people who sponsored the first Northern CA Grass Valley Bluegrass festival. He lined up the headliner...Josh Graves.
He put together a pickup band featuring Jack Mace on five-string, Tony Tichnor on bass, Richard Somers on mandolin, Tommy Mayfield on guitar and me on Dobro. Wayne played rhythm guitar and sang.
The idea was that we would open for Josh and the band, minus me, would back him and his singer, Bobby Smith.
Bobby Smith was a good, but not well known bluegrass and old country style singer with a sly grin and a sharp wit. Josh, since his young manhood, always had a devils’ grin and a gentle, charming, style of relating to people.
We were to play four dates with these men. The Palomino Club in L.A., the (now defunct) Boarding House in SF and some club in Berkeley, and The first annual Grass Valley Bluegrass Festival.
Both of these men had a warm, gentle sense of humor and were very careful not to say anything bad or negative about our musicianship. Very supportive to work with.
We were very surprised to find out that these guys Did Not Rehearse. Their stated reason was that they did it for a living which puts a whole different light on ‘playing’.
To be honest, I think we cured those guys of using local pickup bands. Tony chose that time to get pushy and argumentative. End result was some discord among us.
Wayne, I, Josh and Bobby were heavy drinkers, Tony, Richard, Jack and I smoked Pot and Tony, for certain and maybe Dick, were into “sniffables”… it was the late sixties, early seventies, a lot of things were going on then. The worse result of this was the Boarding House engagement when Tony and Richard were so wired that they started our first song in something like F-sharp instead of its normal key of A or whatever. Not a way to make a good crowd impression. The critics were kind. (Merciful might be a better word)
The Palomino Club’s advertising was off by a day which hurt the venue there. Grass Valley was OK. The turnout was not what it would later become but it was OK for a new venue.
Josh, when he played, was riveting. He has a true aura of authority and excitement of a true artist as they play their instrument. To see him get all those "Uncle Josh" shots so effortlessly was a real treat. Bobby had a really good voice, very reminiscent of Lester Flatt but still His Own.
Josh was a generous, sharing, man. One of my best memories of Grass Valley was seeing him and Sally Van Meter (who later gained a good national reputation as a Dobroist) sitting cross legged in the grass, him showing her some techniques. Truly wished, at the time, that I’d had a camera…
The other fun thing was me playing and singing Poppa Played The Dobro with Buck Graves. He played the backup and one lead break and I played one lead break. HOT! Did the tune at every gig. Josh ‘n’ Bobby both loved it
The Berkeley booking was a fiasco because it was a Stupid Booking. Too close to Grass Valley and the Boardinghouse Booking. Only two people showed up.
Wayne took a bath on that one. He had to borrow money to pay Josh and Bobby’s airfare home. They were kind enough to let him off the hook about not getting paid (contracts, y’know?) for the Berkeley engagement.
We learned what the difference playing for a living does for your musical technique. Those two guys, no matter what they may have imbibed, were in tune and meticulous in their timing. Absolutely No Errors.
We were definitely outclassed
However I also learned a Basic Truth about myself playing with these men.
It was at the Boarding House, essentially ‘our turf’. I was getting ready, behind the curtain, to make my contribution with the band.
It suddenly occurred to me.. ”What am I doing here? I’m standing here wearing a Dobro opening for one of the best Dobro players alive?!”
And I answered myself…: ”I play, too!” I never forgot that answer…
We managed to talk Bobby into letting us put in a new bridge saddle on his Martin. The original bridge had chipped and kept cutting strings. That was a magnificent pre-war D-28. Hard to play past the third fret but the tone on that thing was awesome.
Josh was using Cliff Carlisle’s model 60 Dobro at the time. I got it away from him so I could replace thelittle sleeves that go around the string posts so I got to play it a little but I couldn’t make it sound the way Josh did. I took me a couple of years to figure out why. Has to do with learning how to play an acoustic instrument firmly (as opposed to hard or softly) to get the most out of them.
It looked like he had been using the same Stevens Steel he had as a kid. For a third of the bar’s length the nickel plating had worn down to the basic brass. And his thumbpick was so worn it almost had sawteeth on its edge. Both men cautioned me to not clean or polish the instruments in any way. Bobby was particularly adamant about this. They were very concerned about disturbing the patina of years and possibly affecting the tone.
Here’s Josh’s tale of how he came by the Carlisle guitar…
Cliff Carlisle was a very well known instrumentalist in his day. He was one of the early steel guitarists (on Dobro’s and National’s). He played on several Jimmie Rogers recordings to give you an idea of his time period. Cliff Carlisle was one of Josh’s idols.
Cliff got tired of the road and making no money so he retired from the music scene. He thought, however, that the guitar should still be played so he let it be known that it was for sale but only to a player, a musician, not a collector or speculator.. Josh couldn’t afford it and it finally went to some guy who showed up with a bandaged hand. Told Cliff he could play but couldn’t demonstrate because of the ‘hurt’ hand. He paid Cliff a good price and kept the guitar for years.
Finally, for whatever reason, the guy either gave or sold at a very reasonable price, the guitar to Josh. He confessed that he really couldn’t play it and thought that Josh deserved to have and use the guitar.
Josh now plays one of the State Of The Art 'Signature' Dobros and Cliff’s guitar is in the Country Music Hall of Fame museum in Nashville.
Josh seemed to truly love the sound of my RegalDobro and kept teasing me about buying it. His best ‘offer’ was 400.00 but I think he’s glad I didn’t take him up on it.
He told me never to sell it, but if I ever really wanted to sell it to let him know and he’d see what he could do.
While we were in L.A. Josh did a track dubbing recording. Two tunes. Used my Dobro on one of them. Nice feeling. He wrapped up the session in about an hour. He don’t fool around….
Buck Graves told me about the time right after he’d joined Flatt and Scruggs and they’d recorded Randy Lynn Rag, Shuckin’ the Corn, etc. which had all those hot Graves Dobro solos in what was then the hottest Bluegrass group around. Apparently, according to him, Oswald Kirby offered him the opportunity to visit him so he (Oz) could give him (Buck) some tips on playing the Dobro.
Nice of him.
Buck Graves told me about being on the road in the fifties with Flatt and Scruggs and being accosted in a parking lot by a rural sort who had a Dobro to sell. Buck played on it and allowed how it sounded pretty good how much did the man want?
“Two fifty.”
Well, the most Buck ever made with Earl was 250.00 a week, so he said to the man: “I can’t afford no two hundred and fifty dollars for that guitar”
“Oh no,” says the man, “I’m only askin’ two dollars fifty cents.”
I believe Buck paid him 25 or thirty dollars which was what I’d seen them going for second hand in a store back home in those days.
Buck Graves is another one who implied that the road in those days was a rough row sometimes and that he often carried his steel in his fist if things were tense. As a matter of fact, when I had my ten day tour with him he would never go into a mensroom alone. He always asked one of us to go in with him because he claimed he’d been mugged once in a mensroom while on the road. .
Josh Graves traveled with his Cliff Carlisle Dobro in a case with his name painted on the side (crudely by one of his grandkids) as baggage. When I asked him about the risks involved he told me you couldn’t get carried away worrying about such things. “You just slack the strings and always have a couple of extra bridge saddles just in case..”
Josh tells about having his 14 fret Dobro stolen. (These instruments have a brighter sound to them.) Same instrument he recorded the Randy Lynn Rag etc sessions on.
Some years later a woman called him and told him to come get his guitar. Her boyfriend had stolen it and now that she was splitting up with him she thought she’d give Josh the opportunity to get his guitar back.
Josh claims that Lester Flatt always made him (Josh) carry his (Lester’s) guitar.
There is a famous photo of the band lined up by the side of The Bus as if about to board, each with his instrument case in his hand. After the shot, Lester put down his guitar and said “Pick it up, Josh” and climbed onto the bus…. Eventually Josh got it straightened out but that went on for years.
While he was out here Josh got tipsy and gathered us around the phone while he called Earl Scruggs… at about 4:00 in the morning where Earl was.
Told Earl he was in jail in San Francisco and would Earl please wire him some money for bail.
Poor Earl.
To his credit, though, he was willing to go do it
Sadly, Josh has had some misfortunes. He was diagnosed with Diabetes and had to have both legs amputated. He still does shows plays, however, laying his instrument on a table…
I got to work with Wayne Dye and Bobby Smith on one more occasion.
Wayne booked Bobby to play a ‘Day on the Green’ at Bay Meadows racetrack. Bobby very kindly requested that I play Dobro for him.
He taught me a couple of valuable lessons.
First, he told me: “I play rhythm. If we don’t mesh and play together in time you best believe it ain’t because of me!”
Next, he took me through Little Rosewood Casket. Sang it through for a verse then asked me to play it.
“Nope, No, No, yer playin’ it wrong.”
“How so?” I asked.
So he showed me. He made me play the melody as he sang it. He would pause until I got it right, then go on. Only when I was able to actually play the melody line perfectly all the way through would he allow me to back him up on the song.
“You were playin’ at the song …now you kin actually play the song. Without being able to play the song proper you just can’t do it justice in a band situation.”
Bobby’s dead now. Alcoholism, I hear. Too bad. He was a warm, but firm musician and a gentleman. I can still hear him walking me through that song…
“Thar’s a leetle Rose-wood Caskit…Settin’ on a mar-ble stand…”
Burkett “Buck” Graves a/k/a ‘Uncle Josh’ was for years the Dobro player for Flatt and Scruggs Foggy Mt. Boys. To me and many others he was the definitive Dobro player. Showed the world what it was ‘s’posed to be….
Wayne Dye was a guy who talked like Foghorn J. Leghorn, the deep-voiced, southern- talking rooster in Warner Brothers cartoons. He liked his bourbon at the time (as did I) and something of a Bull Thrower and had a habit of using off-color language when he talked. He wore a red western style suit and pointy-toed cowboy boots. The guys in the band called him ‘Cowboy Wayne’. He was about 5’ 10” of a fleshy build with a black mustache, and thick black eyebrows and black hair.
He liked me and he loved country music.
He decided he was going to be a promoter and tied in with some people who sponsored the first Northern CA Grass Valley Bluegrass festival. He lined up the headliner...Josh Graves.
He put together a pickup band featuring Jack Mace on five-string, Tony Tichnor on bass, Richard Somers on mandolin, Tommy Mayfield on guitar and me on Dobro. Wayne played rhythm guitar and sang.
The idea was that we would open for Josh and the band, minus me, would back him and his singer, Bobby Smith.
Bobby Smith was a good, but not well known bluegrass and old country style singer with a sly grin and a sharp wit. Josh, since his young manhood, always had a devils’ grin and a gentle, charming, style of relating to people.
We were to play four dates with these men. The Palomino Club in L.A., the (now defunct) Boarding House in SF and some club in Berkeley, and The first annual Grass Valley Bluegrass Festival.
Both of these men had a warm, gentle sense of humor and were very careful not to say anything bad or negative about our musicianship. Very supportive to work with.
We were very surprised to find out that these guys Did Not Rehearse. Their stated reason was that they did it for a living which puts a whole different light on ‘playing’.
To be honest, I think we cured those guys of using local pickup bands. Tony chose that time to get pushy and argumentative. End result was some discord among us.
Wayne, I, Josh and Bobby were heavy drinkers, Tony, Richard, Jack and I smoked Pot and Tony, for certain and maybe Dick, were into “sniffables”… it was the late sixties, early seventies, a lot of things were going on then. The worse result of this was the Boarding House engagement when Tony and Richard were so wired that they started our first song in something like F-sharp instead of its normal key of A or whatever. Not a way to make a good crowd impression. The critics were kind. (Merciful might be a better word)
The Palomino Club’s advertising was off by a day which hurt the venue there. Grass Valley was OK. The turnout was not what it would later become but it was OK for a new venue.
Josh, when he played, was riveting. He has a true aura of authority and excitement of a true artist as they play their instrument. To see him get all those "Uncle Josh" shots so effortlessly was a real treat. Bobby had a really good voice, very reminiscent of Lester Flatt but still His Own.
Josh was a generous, sharing, man. One of my best memories of Grass Valley was seeing him and Sally Van Meter (who later gained a good national reputation as a Dobroist) sitting cross legged in the grass, him showing her some techniques. Truly wished, at the time, that I’d had a camera…
The other fun thing was me playing and singing Poppa Played The Dobro with Buck Graves. He played the backup and one lead break and I played one lead break. HOT! Did the tune at every gig. Josh ‘n’ Bobby both loved it
The Berkeley booking was a fiasco because it was a Stupid Booking. Too close to Grass Valley and the Boardinghouse Booking. Only two people showed up.
Wayne took a bath on that one. He had to borrow money to pay Josh and Bobby’s airfare home. They were kind enough to let him off the hook about not getting paid (contracts, y’know?) for the Berkeley engagement.
We learned what the difference playing for a living does for your musical technique. Those two guys, no matter what they may have imbibed, were in tune and meticulous in their timing. Absolutely No Errors.
We were definitely outclassed
However I also learned a Basic Truth about myself playing with these men.
It was at the Boarding House, essentially ‘our turf’. I was getting ready, behind the curtain, to make my contribution with the band.
It suddenly occurred to me.. ”What am I doing here? I’m standing here wearing a Dobro opening for one of the best Dobro players alive?!”
And I answered myself…: ”I play, too!” I never forgot that answer…
We managed to talk Bobby into letting us put in a new bridge saddle on his Martin. The original bridge had chipped and kept cutting strings. That was a magnificent pre-war D-28. Hard to play past the third fret but the tone on that thing was awesome.
Josh was using Cliff Carlisle’s model 60 Dobro at the time. I got it away from him so I could replace thelittle sleeves that go around the string posts so I got to play it a little but I couldn’t make it sound the way Josh did. I took me a couple of years to figure out why. Has to do with learning how to play an acoustic instrument firmly (as opposed to hard or softly) to get the most out of them.
It looked like he had been using the same Stevens Steel he had as a kid. For a third of the bar’s length the nickel plating had worn down to the basic brass. And his thumbpick was so worn it almost had sawteeth on its edge. Both men cautioned me to not clean or polish the instruments in any way. Bobby was particularly adamant about this. They were very concerned about disturbing the patina of years and possibly affecting the tone.
Here’s Josh’s tale of how he came by the Carlisle guitar…
Cliff Carlisle was a very well known instrumentalist in his day. He was one of the early steel guitarists (on Dobro’s and National’s). He played on several Jimmie Rogers recordings to give you an idea of his time period. Cliff Carlisle was one of Josh’s idols.
Cliff got tired of the road and making no money so he retired from the music scene. He thought, however, that the guitar should still be played so he let it be known that it was for sale but only to a player, a musician, not a collector or speculator.. Josh couldn’t afford it and it finally went to some guy who showed up with a bandaged hand. Told Cliff he could play but couldn’t demonstrate because of the ‘hurt’ hand. He paid Cliff a good price and kept the guitar for years.
Finally, for whatever reason, the guy either gave or sold at a very reasonable price, the guitar to Josh. He confessed that he really couldn’t play it and thought that Josh deserved to have and use the guitar.
Josh now plays one of the State Of The Art 'Signature' Dobros and Cliff’s guitar is in the Country Music Hall of Fame museum in Nashville.
Josh seemed to truly love the sound of my RegalDobro and kept teasing me about buying it. His best ‘offer’ was 400.00 but I think he’s glad I didn’t take him up on it.
He told me never to sell it, but if I ever really wanted to sell it to let him know and he’d see what he could do.
While we were in L.A. Josh did a track dubbing recording. Two tunes. Used my Dobro on one of them. Nice feeling. He wrapped up the session in about an hour. He don’t fool around….
Buck Graves told me about the time right after he’d joined Flatt and Scruggs and they’d recorded Randy Lynn Rag, Shuckin’ the Corn, etc. which had all those hot Graves Dobro solos in what was then the hottest Bluegrass group around. Apparently, according to him, Oswald Kirby offered him the opportunity to visit him so he (Oz) could give him (Buck) some tips on playing the Dobro.
Nice of him.
Buck Graves told me about being on the road in the fifties with Flatt and Scruggs and being accosted in a parking lot by a rural sort who had a Dobro to sell. Buck played on it and allowed how it sounded pretty good how much did the man want?
“Two fifty.”
Well, the most Buck ever made with Earl was 250.00 a week, so he said to the man: “I can’t afford no two hundred and fifty dollars for that guitar”
“Oh no,” says the man, “I’m only askin’ two dollars fifty cents.”
I believe Buck paid him 25 or thirty dollars which was what I’d seen them going for second hand in a store back home in those days.
Buck Graves is another one who implied that the road in those days was a rough row sometimes and that he often carried his steel in his fist if things were tense. As a matter of fact, when I had my ten day tour with him he would never go into a mensroom alone. He always asked one of us to go in with him because he claimed he’d been mugged once in a mensroom while on the road. .
Josh Graves traveled with his Cliff Carlisle Dobro in a case with his name painted on the side (crudely by one of his grandkids) as baggage. When I asked him about the risks involved he told me you couldn’t get carried away worrying about such things. “You just slack the strings and always have a couple of extra bridge saddles just in case..”
Josh tells about having his 14 fret Dobro stolen. (These instruments have a brighter sound to them.) Same instrument he recorded the Randy Lynn Rag etc sessions on.
Some years later a woman called him and told him to come get his guitar. Her boyfriend had stolen it and now that she was splitting up with him she thought she’d give Josh the opportunity to get his guitar back.
Josh claims that Lester Flatt always made him (Josh) carry his (Lester’s) guitar.
There is a famous photo of the band lined up by the side of The Bus as if about to board, each with his instrument case in his hand. After the shot, Lester put down his guitar and said “Pick it up, Josh” and climbed onto the bus…. Eventually Josh got it straightened out but that went on for years.
While he was out here Josh got tipsy and gathered us around the phone while he called Earl Scruggs… at about 4:00 in the morning where Earl was.
Told Earl he was in jail in San Francisco and would Earl please wire him some money for bail.
Poor Earl.
To his credit, though, he was willing to go do it
Sadly, Josh has had some misfortunes. He was diagnosed with Diabetes and had to have both legs amputated. He still does shows plays, however, laying his instrument on a table…
I got to work with Wayne Dye and Bobby Smith on one more occasion.
Wayne booked Bobby to play a ‘Day on the Green’ at Bay Meadows racetrack. Bobby very kindly requested that I play Dobro for him.
He taught me a couple of valuable lessons.
First, he told me: “I play rhythm. If we don’t mesh and play together in time you best believe it ain’t because of me!”
Next, he took me through Little Rosewood Casket. Sang it through for a verse then asked me to play it.
“Nope, No, No, yer playin’ it wrong.”
“How so?” I asked.
So he showed me. He made me play the melody as he sang it. He would pause until I got it right, then go on. Only when I was able to actually play the melody line perfectly all the way through would he allow me to back him up on the song.
“You were playin’ at the song …now you kin actually play the song. Without being able to play the song proper you just can’t do it justice in a band situation.”
Bobby’s dead now. Alcoholism, I hear. Too bad. He was a warm, but firm musician and a gentleman. I can still hear him walking me through that song…
“Thar’s a leetle Rose-wood Caskit…Settin’ on a mar-ble stand…”
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