| Robert Hilbert |
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PT: Paul Tyler PT Will you tell me your name? RH Yeah. Robert. Hilbert. PT Good. And this is, today is June 18? RH Mm-mm. PT 2005. And we're in the home of Mr. And Mrs. Robert Hilbert in Eaton, Ohio. So Mr. Hilbert, Let's start at the beginning. When were you born? RH I'm sorry [doesn't hear well] PT When were you born? RH November the 7th, of 1916. PT 1916. So you're coming up on 90 years old in a year or so. RH Yes. PT How about that. And where were you born? RH A little burg about five miles north of Hamilton, Ohio, in a little town called Williamsdale. PT Williamsdale. RH Yeah. PT And where were your parents from? Were they natives of Ohio? RH They, uh. Okay. My mother was from Richmond, Indiana. And my dad was from Hamilton, Ohio. PT Uh-huh. How did they meet? RH I'm not sure of that. I think they met at a . . . my mother was visiting an older brother of hers, who lived in Hamilton. And I think that's where they met. PT Mm-mm. What was your mother's maiden name. RH [chuckles] Marie Klingebiehl. PT Klingebiehl. Sounds German. RH It is. She was born in Ehrrugenstadt [sp?], Germany. PT Ah. Uh-huh. And came to Richmond as a girl, with her family. RH She was raised there. Over close to where the Reed Hospital is now. PT Uh-huh. RH It was there then. But this, that part of down had deteriorated somewhat over the years. And her mother had a boarding house on 14th and J. PT Mm-mm. RH Yeah. PT And your father's family. He was born, you said. RH Yes. He was born in Cincinnati. PT Uh-huh. RH And his father came over from, mm, Spelle, S-P-E-L-L-E, Germany PT Oh. RH when he was seventeen. PT Uh-huh. So that would have been, probably in the 1840s, 1850s, or something like that, or you don't . . . RH Yep. He, uh, my grandpa fought in the Civil War in 1865. PT Oh he did? RH Yeah. Yeah. Went through all the swamps of the Carolinas. [chuckles] According to him. PT Yeah. So he must have been in Sherman's army? RH I don't . . . PT You don't know. RH I don't know that. PT That's all right. RH I'm not a real, uh, big fan of . . . a lot of things I just don't exactly remember sometimes. PT But, we're going to talk about your, your experience with music. But I want to get a little more picture of your life. You didn't make a living as a musician. You probably did some other trade. RH Oh. PT What did you do for a living? RH When I graduated from high school. I did work with music as a living. PT Oh yeah? RH Because, yeah. I was president of the graduating class. And I made a speech at the alumni banquet and went right out and I got in an old twenty-nine Chevy sedan. And we Rocky Mountain Ramblers went to Indianapolis, because one of the guys had, uh, been in with the Burton Booking Agency, and booked through them, through that part of the country. So he talked us into going over there. PT So you got out of high school and went right on the road with your music. RH Went right out. Yeah. PT Well, okay. Let's get into. Let's get into that part of the story. How did the Rocky Mountain Ramblers get formed? RH During the time I lived in Williamsdale as a kid, Russell Wing moved into Williamsdale, and he taught guitar for anyone that, that wanted to learn. For his part of it. And he also played for . . . We had, in those days in our town of Williamsdale, on Saturday night we went to what we called the firehouse. And it was really more than a firehouse. Our town didn't have a specified government, so we had what we called the Williamsdale Improvement Association. PT Mm-mm. RH And they met in this part we used as a dance hall, to decide whatever needed to be done in the neighborhood. And they also were the fire department. They furnished the fire engine and all of that. And by the way, the first fire engine that I remember was a 50-gallon soda acid container. And it was mounted on two wheels, and it took two men to run with that to wherever the fire was. PT Mm. RH Yeah. And then they just upset that cart, and they had soda acid pressure. And that was what they had for putting out fires. And if it burned faster than they, they didn't get it out. [laughs] PT [laughs] Wow. RH I don't know where that leaves us. PT That's interesting. So they had dances there at the firehouse. RH That's it. They hired Russ Wing and a couple of other guys who called themselves Wingo's Nighthawks. And I was about thirteen. And somebody mentioned to them that I played the violin. So they asked me to play some tunes with them. Said they'd catch up with me on it, if I'd start it. So I played "Turkey in the Straw." I can remember that. Oh, they thought that was remarkable. Thirteen years old and I played "Turkey in the Straw." [laughs] So . . . PT You played it there at the firehouse? RH At the firehouse. PT And people danced to you when you played it. RH Yeah. Okay. Wingo's Nighthawks occasionally. PT Uh-huh. RH And a guy from Hamilton, Ohio, who was a really, really good piano player, he and uh. I had a brother named Bill. Bill played the French harp and I played the violin and this Bill Sadler was the piano player. And we played every Saturday night. And they, after I more or less auditioned with Wingo's Nighthawks, why then whenever he could use me, why then he started-[laughs] This is real good-we played at bootleg joints. [laughs] PT Ah-hah. [laughs] And how old were you when you were doing that? RH Thirteen. [laughter, including Mrs. Hilbert] PT It's a little late to come and get you now for that, so I think
you're safe. RH So that's twenty-five cents and hour. [chuckles] But, they usually served a meal. PT Uh-huh RH And at that time, during the [Depression]-when I was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen-was all bad times. PT Right RH Real bad. The economy. Money, you didn't have PT Right. RH And the government sent out canned meat and stuff to keep you from starving to death. And then they started some . . . after Roosevelt got elected, why, he started some different programs. And they get you . . . you could some food that way. And then they had a Works Project Administration that they put into action. And you could work, and they paid you cash. And they like . . . well, our community needed a-they didn't call them 'highways' in those days, call them a road-we needed a road cut through, kind of catty-corner, to get to the next town up on the Trenton Pike. PT Mm-mm. RH And they . . . My brother, two brothers and my dad worked on
that W.P.A. And everybody had a big garden and fruit trees, and
stuff like that. So we had food, but there was a lot of days at
our house when we got up from the table and there was nothing for
the next meal. RH Big money. [chuckles] PT Yeah. Yeah. RH And food to boot. [laughs] RH We weren't a band. We didn't call ourselves a band. PT Mm-mm. RH My dad belonged to this Williamsdale Improvement Association.
And we played there because of that. RH And it was pretty economic for whoever, for the Improvement Association. And they all . . . they were like every small community, they like to really give credit to people from Williamsdale that did anything, that could bring a little bit of attention. PT Right. But that was you on violin, your brother. RH Violin, piano and harmonica. PT Your brother played harmonica. And his name was . . .? RH William. PT William. And the piano player, again, his name was . . .? RH The piano player was Bill Sadler. PT Uh-huh. RH He was an exceptionally good piano player. And I had a sister
that played piano, too. But in those days that didn't fit. RH Okay. And this Bill Sadler was . . . they had a theater organ. I'm trying to remember the name of the movie theater. There was a movie theater right in Hamilton [phone rings]-O think it was on 2nd Street-right across from the courthouse. And it was a really fantastic . . . the way it was built and everything at the time. Completely air-conditioned and all of that kind of stuff. PT Wow. RH And he was . . . he played the theater organ there for a lot
of years. RH Yes. Yes. PT How much older? RH Mm. About six, about six, eight years. Okay. PT Okay. And your brother was older than you? RH Three years older. RH Yes. PT You had a brother and a sister. Is that . . . RH I have . . . I was the youngest of nine. PT Of nine. Wow. RH Yeah. PT And was there any . . . you said your sister played the piano. RH Yes. PT But it wasn't . . . girls didn't play out in public, right. Is that what you meant? RH At that time. PT At that time. Yeah. RH These beer gardens PT Mm-mm. RH were kind of . . . in somebody's memory from Germany, evidently. PT Yeah. Yeah. RH 'Cause that was a pretty heavy German part of the world, down there. Cincinnati was really German. PT Yeah. RH And a lot of the German came to Hamilton . . . fact is, Greenwood Cemetery down there- as a young guy-about half of the cemetery stones were written in German. PT Uh-huh. So was there a lot of music . . . Hold on. Let me back up. The dances at the Improvement Association, were they mostly square dances? Or did they do round dances too? RH Both. PT Both. RH Yeah. PT Uh-huh. RH All of it that I played was both. PT Mm-mm. RH And I used to sing. PT Used to sing. RH I was . . .Yeah. In our group I was mostly the singer. PT Were you doing the popular songs that were current then? Or were you doing older songs? Or what? Or a combination? RH Whatever somebody wanted to hear. PT Uh-huh. RH It ended up that . . . some of the older, like families came to this Saturday night thing. And there was no liquor or beer sold. PT Uh-huh RH Families came to this Saturday night dance, and the older people liked to hear some of the songs like you heard your mom sing around the house, or PT Uh-huh RH or heard on a record somewhere. PT Can you think of some titles? RH Uh. "After the Ball Was Over" was one of them. PT Did you know all the words to that? RH I used to. [chuckles] Today I don't. PT Yeah. RH And "Pop Goes the Weasel" was the one that everybody loved to hear, because I flicked that string. PT Right. RH Uh. Okay. I learned most of the square dance stuff from an old guy from Alabama. Who . . . we had a steel company from Middletown, Ohio built a steel . . . an iron-processing plant just a couple miles south of where I lived, and along the Miami River. Am I going to lose that? Give me a clue. PT Did you forget what you were doing? [chuckles] Uh, the fellow from Alabama who you learned a lot of . . . RH Yeah. PT Yeah. RH And he used to play for square dances. PT Mm-mm. RH And he was the only music. He was all they had for music, was the fiddler. PT Uh-huh. RH And he played . . . that's the way he played. So, he taught me. PT He played there in W[illiamsdale]? RH In Alabama. PT Oh, in Alabama. RH He didn't play professionally in Williamsdale. He was busy working at that Hamilton Coke & Iron place there. PT Mm-mm. RH But he taught myself and another kid that was probably five
or six years younger than me RH the songs that he played. But I can't remember the name of them, today. PT Mm-mm. RH When I was still playing, I could remember the names of all of those. I never wrote them down. And I have a hard time PT Yeah. RH recalling the exact name. There was one waltz that everybody seemed to know, except me. [laughter] Today, that is. Called it Sweet, "Sweet Bunch of Daisies." PT Oh, yeah. RH That's it. PT Yeah RH "Sweet Bunch of Daisies." Yep. PT Well, how'd you get started on the violin? RH When I was a little guy, they'd tell me that I would take a stick here and a stick here and play the violin, with those sticks [chuckles] imitate. In our family, everyone, when you got to the fourth grade in school, was offered the chance to take music lessons. And quite a few of my sisters played piano. They took lessons and learned to play the piano. And I had a . . . my oldest brother played very well. And he liked to play hymns. So, I don't know if he ever accompanied, like, choir or anything like that. PT He was a piano player? RH Yeah. PT Okay. RH Yeah. He and uh . . . and my oldest sister took lessons. And the next sister took lessons. My youngest sister was the one that could play the type [of] stuff that was being appreciated in the 1930s. PT Mm-mm. RH And uh, in Hamilton there was, like I say, there was a lot of German population, and they really looked forward to going to their neighborhood beer garden and spend the evening. They took their family PT Right. RH and went and spent the evening. And they used to like to hear a German song once in a while. And I had one-I can't think of the name of it, right at the minute-that they liked to sing. PT "Du Liebst Mir Im Herzen?" RH I'm sorry? PT "Du Liebst Mir Im Herzen?" RH Yeah! That's it. That' it. Yeah. [chuckles] RH I don't know that one by name. Yeah. Herzen. [chuckles] PT But, so you took violin lessons? RH Yeah. I took violin lessons. My teacher had gone-when he was a young guy-to Italy! The southern part of Italy, and studied from a master over there. PT Oh. RH And he was really great. Middletown, Ohio is what? Just ten, twelve miles from Hamilton. And I think that in the early years there might have been a little bit of competition for people to settle in one place or another. And Middletown had an orchestra. What did they call it? Where you had all strings. I forgot the name of that. And he was headlined PT Mm-mm. RH with the Middletown Symphony Orchestra. I got that. Symphony. PT Okay. What was his name? RH Giovanni . . . [laughs] PT But he was Italian? [laughter] Did you go to his studio? Or was this at a school? RH Yeah. He has a studio upstairs over one of the stores on High Street in Hamilton. And he lived over on the west side of Hamilton. That was where all the really employed people lived, over in that part of the community. And he drove into the downtown area to give those lessons. PT Mm-mm. RH Yeah. PT So you took lessons in downtown Hamilton. How far away was that from where you lived? RH About five miles at the time. PT How did you get there? RH Uh. We had a bus we called "Smitty's Bus." It came out, in those days . . . the next town to us, between us and Hamilton, was called New Miami, according to its place there in relation to the Miami, Great Miami River. That's it. PT Mm-mm. Mm-mm. RH And uh, yep. And Smitty-Smith was his last name, we just called him Smitty-he bought an old bus from somewhere, and he would drive that catty-corner across from the courthouse in downtown Hamilton. And it was on High Street, that's what they called it. That's what they call it East and West, [the] Main Street in Hamilton. PT Mm-mm. RH Okay. And uh, he had a permit to drive to . . . from . . . Wll, finally they built a little station there. PT Mm-mm. RH Okay. And then other buses came in there. Buses to Cincinnati. Cincinnati used to send a lot of buses up there to get people to shop down PT Mm-mm. RH there. We called Cincinnati "the city." PT Mm-mm. [chuckles] RH And that was big-time. As a kid, boy, you get to go to Cincinnati and you'd been clear out of this world. [chuckles] PT Yeah. RH If I'm not careful, I'll get lost here. PT That's all right. I'll try to keep you on track [laughter] RH Yeah. PT But Smitty's bus, then, it operated . . . RH Okay. It uh . . . at that time they had not yet built an extension from Hamilton of North 3rd Street, this U.S. 127 that goes into Hamilton, didn't come out on 3rd Street. Third Street comes right straight out of downtown Hamilton, and it goes right straight north. There's no curve in it. PT Right. RH And it came out to New Miami. After they built. Right at this northeast corner of New Miami, that was as far as Smitty's bus came. PT Uh-huh. RH And we could walk down out of our burg. It was about a mile from our house, PT Mm-mm. RH and catch that bus, and took it right to downtown Hamilton. PT Mm-mm. RH He ran once an hour. And we had what was called, in later years . . . starting out they called it Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton PT Yeah. RH uh, trolley car. PT Right RH Okay. Then later on they ran that trolley line right up to Lake Erie. PT Really. RH So they called that Cincinnati & Lake Erie. And they built those trolley cars to fly. PT Yeah? RH Yeah. High speed. And uh . . . PT Is that what they called the Interurban? RH Yeah. PT Yeah. RH Yeah. Interurban. PT Mm-mm. RH And they went every half hour. PT Wow. RH And they made their last trip at twelve thirty at night. So if you had a girl friend or anything, you could catch the 12:30 or you walk those five miles. [laughter] PT I won't ask you how many times you ended up walking. [laughter] So you were about nine or ten when you started the violin? RH Yeah. PT And you were learning classical? RH Yeah. That was all classical stuff. Yes, this Giovanni Bruno! . . . That was his last name. PT Ah. Okay. RH Giovanni Bruno. And uh, my dad always said he knew him when his name was Johnny Bruno [laughter] PT Okay. RH and lived in Hamilton. We had a lot, we had a lot of Italians, along with the Germans. My grandpa lived next door to a big Italian family. And they got along just great. [chuckles] Yeah. PT Was your, was your dad a musician at all. RH Well, dad was the only one in our family, according to his statement . . . Everybody says that our whole family was musically inclined. He said that about the only thing that he could do is wind the victrola. [laughter] PT And your mom. Did she play anything. RH Mandolin. PT Really. RH Yeah. But she never played except for her own pleasure. PT Uh-huh. RH Yeah. Yeah. I've got the mandolin. It's really an old timer. PT Oh wow. RH They used to make those up with that pot PT Yeah. RH pot-bellied type. PT Right. Yeah. Did she play with sheet music? Or just play? RH No she had just learned by ear. PT Uh-huh. RH Yeah. PT Well, how did you learn "Turkey in the Straw?" RH I must have read it off of music somewhere, because PT Uh-huh. RH I uh . . . But Wingo's Nighthawks had only played there a few
times before I, before someone . . . I think that maybe the first
time they came, that somebody said, told them that I could play.
So . . . I already knew "Turkey in the Straw." [chuckles]
The old guy from Alabama. He never played that one. He played several
others. PT You say a 'Kentucky-type square dance,' what's that . . . what does that mean? Was that, was that different the way they danced on the floor? RH Yeah. And faster. RH And they didn't, they didn't use any call instructions. PT Mm-mm. RH They . . . whenever it was . . . They would go through this quietly. PT Mm-mm. RH And whenever it was time to change something or another along they'd go "Yoop." Or something PT Yeah RH similar to that. PT Oh. Okay. RH And they'd start doing something else. And they loved to have that music fast. [chuckles] PT Uh-huh. So there were a lot of people who were living in the area who came up from Kentucky? Came up from the south? RH Different parts of Hamilton had different types of dancers. PT Mm-mm. RH And Middletown was different than that. Uh. Out in the east . . .what, yeah, East Hamilton they had a hill out there off of what they called the Grand Boulevard in Hamilton. And on that hill, they called that Gobbler's Knob. That must have come from ancient history. [laughs] PT Yeah. Yeah. RH Yeah. And if you played anything out in that part of the world, it had to be Kentucky. PT Uh-huh. RH Over at Middletown, it was more a family affair there. And in the Hamilton beer joints, we only played popular music. PT You didn't play square dances? RH No. We used to play a hoedown if somebody thought they wanted
to hear one. RH They did both. PT They did both? RH But they mostly, they mostly danced the square dance. That's what they loved. Boy. PT Yeah. Did they do the square dances in a regular four-couple square? Or did they do them in a bigger, a bigger . . . RH No, they did the four-couple square. Yeah. PT How about that. RH Yeah. PT So, all of this playing in other places, that was with Wingo? That you . . . RH Uh. Okay. PT How did you go from playing at the Williamsdale Improvement Association firehouse dances to playing elsewhere? RH Well, we started playing at these bootleg joints. PT And that was with who? RH That was still Wingo's Nighthawks. PT Okay. RH And I think we got to be Rocky Mountain Ramblers when we started going to Burton to get booked. PT Okay. So who was in Wingo's Nighthawks? RH I'm sorry. PT Who was in Wingo's Nighthawks? RH Uh. Some of those . . . Adrian Barger. PT What did he play? PT Uh-huh. RH And he did lots of tricks and stuff with it. And he was always . . . he was the-I don't know what you'd call it-live wire. And like he would do stuff like . . . he would bet you that he could drink a whole glass of beer without ever putting his nose in the glass. [laughter] He could do that until he'd start getting pretty well corked. And he would take and put a glass to his lips, and then he would lean forward and take that glass, that beer into his mouth. And by the time he got that, he was clear over. And he never got his nose into the glass. [laughter] PT Well, he won a few bets that way. RH Yeah. And then he would take a small, a real small harmonica, and he would put that in his mouth. And he could play that in his mouth without ever changing anything. I think he did it with his tongue. PT Yeah. Yeah. RH And then he'd play that with his nose. He'd play it. And he could play a harmonica and smoke a cigarette at the same time. What he would do, he would start, get that cigarette. He'd take about a half a cigarette, and he'd get that started. And he could take his turn, tongue, and turn that lighted cigarette back into his mouth and play that harmonica. PT [laughs] His name was Adrian? RH Adrian Barger PT Barger RH Yes. PT . B-A-R-G-E-R? RH Yeah. PT And who else? RH And he could, he did what he called an Indian dance on the Dayton
radio station, WSMK. And you wouldn't think that something like
an Indian dance would be all that easy to put across. He put it
across. [laughter] It just tickled everybody to death because .
. . he was a tall guy. And he could make, he could make you hear
it, the Indiana dance. All the war whoops and [laughs]. And he had
a little old piece of plywood that he did the steppin' around on.
And you could hear him step, you know. RH Okay. Where's that leave me? PT Okay. Who else was in the Nighthawks? RH Okay. Adrian Barger. And a guy named Johnny, he played the -uh, what did I say my mother played? PT The mandolin. RH Mandolin. He played the mandolin. And when he played, Wingo's Nighthawks was composed of a guitar, I think Estel Hobbs, and guitar and mandolin. And . . . no, Russ Wing played the guitar. Russ Wing played the guitar. He took up that tenor banjo, later on. Yea. And that was about it. I think they had. And Baker. Uh. Boy, he'd kill me if he was still able to. Uh. PT Can't think of his name? RH Ralph. Ralph PT Ralph. Ralph Baker? RH Ralph Baker. PT Mm-mm. RH From [indecipherable]. PT Uh-huh. RH Does that answer your? Did that answer it? PT Yeah. Yeah. RH That's what Wingo's Nighthawks was composed off. PT Ralph Baker played? What instrument did Ralph Baker play? RH Violin. PT Violin. RH Yeah. PT So you had two violins? RH Yeah. PT Did you ever play anything else besides violin? RH No. I did that and sang. PT Okay. RH We used to have a floor show type, as part of our program each night. And like . . . we did, we called it the "merry mix up." I don't know whether I can describe it accurate enough to make it sound like anything. But like, one guy would lay down his instrument. PT Mm-mm. RH And then he'd go and he'd do the fingering for somebody PT Oh yeah. Mm-mm. RH that was playing, that was playing any instrument. Whatever it was PT Mm-mm. RH He'd do the fingering. And he would . . . he did that. Ralph Baker did that part. And he would do that until he covered the whole cycle. PT Mm-mm. [laughs] RH Yeah. And sometimes he would even come back around and do the picking, instead of the fingering. [laughter] And I used to do "Pop Goes the Weasel," they called it. PT Uh-huh. RH And I played it on top of my head, and on my back, PT Mm-mm. RH and underneath each leg. And I could lay on the floor and play underneath [laughter] underneath my back. PT [to Mrs. Hilbert] Did you see him do that? MH No. I didn't know him at that time. [laughter] I've seen him do it since. PT You're not going to do that for me today, though, huh? [laughs] RH I haven't done that forever and ever. PT So Wingo's Nighthawks, the played . . . that's when you played around Hamilton and the different . . . RH And when they . . . when we got ready to go to Burton Booking Agency, I'm pretty sure that's when we turned into Wingo's Rocky Mountain Ramblers. It wasn't Wingo. Uh, Rocky Mountain Ramblers. PT Uh-huh. RH 'Cause we wanted something . . . uh, Cincinnati had the Fiddling Farmers. PT Oh yeah? RH On . . . yeah. PT On WLW? RH No. KRC. PT KRC. RH Yeah. PT Fiddling Farmers. RH Fiddling Farmers. And they were, they were pretty big competition for us. And so we wanted some kind of a name that was impressing. Wingo's Nighthawks, nobody ever heard of such a thing. [chuckles] Except us, I guess. PT Mm-mm. RH But uh . . . That's how we took the name. We all thought that sounded pretty good. PT Mm-mm. RH Because, also, right about the time that we were big, Gene Autry just started out. I'm not sure. I'm not sure about the dates on that, or anything. PT Mm-mm. RH But an awful lot of people in this part of the country didn't
like the cowboy type RH music. So we didn't want to get mixed up with them. And we played under that name . . . well, I guess, that whole . . . it was probably a year that we used that name. PT Mm-mm. RH I just thought of something else. No. PT Okay. So you were still in high school when . . . RH Yeah. We started taking . . . My folks were pretty strong on education. And uh, there was a few times that I played during the week. PT Mm-mm. RH Tuesdays, it used to come up. Like once a month, somebody thought there ought to be some dances on Tuesday night. And I used to play for those, and then the next day . . . you play till midnight, it was always starting out, the closing time. PT Mm-mm. RH It's awful, awful hard to do school work. [laughter] You've got to get rid of the effects of all of the . . . Okay. Part of your pay was what you could drink PT Mm-mm. RH and eat. They always served a . . . we called it a midnight, midnight supper. PT Mm-mm. RH And like I said before, that proved a big item to get a big plate of food. [chuckes] PT Mm-mm. RH But this Tuesday night thing, the folks protested pretty heavy about that Tuesday night. PT Yeah. RH So . . . we . . . all the time I was in high school I played music PT Mm-mm. RH during . . . mostly on Saturday night PT Right RH and Sunday night for the broadcast. PT And that . . . okay, you graduated from high school what year? RH Thirty-four. PT Thirty-four? RH Yeah. PT Okay. And . . . I want to make sure I got this clear. You played through high school with Wingo's Nighthawks? RH Yes. PT And then when you graduated, you went off for the Burton, the Burton Agency? RH Yes. PT You changed the name? So that was '34. RH Yeah. Yeah. PT Okay. Now . . . um . . . did you consider yourself country? Did you consider yourself pop? Or did that not matter? RH It didn't matter. Except whatever . . . we tried to play according to what the people wanted to hear. PT Mm-mm. RH And the type . . . an awful, awful lot of playing we did was for family-type affairs. And I don't think we developed this type of thing what we're saying there. PT Mm-mm. RH I think that, I think that came later, when you were pop or country. PT Yeah. Mm-mm. Okay. What about jazz? Did you consider yourself jazz at all? Or is jazz something different? RH Okay. Jazz is a feeling. PT Okay. RH Okay. And uh . . . it was popular enough, but it . . . okay. The people we played for . . . the audiences that we PT Yeah. RH played for weren't really interested in jazz. PT Okay. Yeah. RH So we didn't get, we didn't do much in the jazz part. PT Mm-mm. RH We had a guy . . . we hired an extra fiddle [coughs]. Excuse me. We hired an extra fiddle, and that guy liked to play jazz. PT Do you remember his name? RH I don't remember. He was from Camden, Ohio. He also could eat fire. PT [laughs] Not everybody can do that. RH No. Not set the place afire when [laughs]. We met him later after I was back from Indianapolis. PT But you were playing on the radio in high school. RH Yeah. Sunday, PT [simultaneously] Sunday nights. RH Sunday nights over at Dayton. Yeah. PT Okay. Uh then . . . Oh, one more thing, did you learn how to play by ear? Or did you? RH Yeah. Yeah. It got so, it got so that if there was a good song on radio, why we'd practice it a few times. And everybody was the same way. PT MM-mm. RH And if we got into anything that somebody wanted to hear, why we would . . . I would read it, and then we'd all practice it that way. PT Uh-huh. But you'd have to come home and read it. You didn't take music with you on, when you went out and played? RH No. No. PT You'd have to come back and get the sheet music and learn it. RH Yeah. PT Mm-mm. RH We were pretty proud of the fact that we could play almost any song that we'd ever heard. PT Mm-mm. RH 'Cause we made, we made a little extra effort to learn some of those songs PT Mm-mm. Mm-mm. And I wanted to ask about Wing. He was kind of the leader? RH He was the band. That . . . PT Mm-mm. RH He was raised on a farm down in West Elkton, Ohio. And his dad was a left-handed fiddler. PT Mm-mm. RH And he was back from the old, real old days. And his dad lived a good long life. And he had a daughter here in Eaton. And when his dad was pretty old and frail, he lived with this daughter. And one day, Russ and I stopped to visit with him, and he played for us. And I said, I couldn't believe it. [chuckles] PT Yeah. Yeah. RH That left hand bow. PT Wow. RH Yeah. But he was real good. And then, Russell wasn't too gung-ho for the farm. PT Mm-mm. RH So he learned to play. And like, when I knew him, I never knew
him to do anything else but play music. RH And uh . . . he . . . I guess that's probably all he ever did. [chuckles] PT Well, he was older than you? RH Quite a bit. Like. PT Ten years older? Or not? RH Uh . . . yeah. Yeah PT About ten years. RH Almost all the guys . . . No. That's not the truth. I was going to tell you that most of them was older than me, but that's not so. After we got . . . uh . . . we had people that came and went. We had a couple of guitar players that came and went. They played with us a little bit. But they were still young enough they had other things they wanted to do on Saturday night, and . . . PT Mm-mm. RH than play music. This . . . and I played after, after '34. I went to the Civilian Conservation Corps PT Mm-mm. RH in the summer of '35. PT Mm-mm. RH And there was a bass player from Cincinnati. His name was Vaughan Brown. PT Mm-mm. RH He was our bugler. [laughter] Vaughan Brown. PT Mm-mm. RH And there was a guy we called Twenty-Five. I don't know how he got the name, and I don't know any other name. [PT laughs] Called Twenty-Five. He played the mandolin. PT Mm-mm. RH And I played the fiddle. And uh . . . I'm pretty sure. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that was it. We had a bass, guitar. Yeah, I don't remember who played the guitar. We had a bass, guitar and mandolin, and myself. And we played for a lot of things at Sidney, Ohio. PT Mm-mm. RH For, uh . . . some of the stuff was the church. Some of the stuff was community gatherings, and any special occasions, why we played for that. PT And this was while you were in the . . . RH We had no name. [chuckles] PT This was when you were in the Civilian Conservation Corps? RH Yeah. PT Mm-mm. RH Yeah. See, I played after I . . . after Wingo's Night-no, that's wrong-the Rocky Mountain Ramblers, the last thing they did was this record. PT Oh really? RH Yeah. PT Okay. RH Yeah. PT Let's . . . you told me some stuff before I had the tape recorder on. You went . . . you got with the booking agency, and they got you on the radio in Indianapolis. What . . .. RH They sent us to different things. We played . . . uh, wrestling was real popular, right down by the monument. PT Mm-mm.. RH And uh, that's downtownw. PT Yeah. Yeah. RH The wrestling matches, we played for them, and the theaters throughout, throughout Indiana. Well, we played the biggest nightclub in Indiana in '34. And I think it was called Show Boat. I'm not sure. PT Mm-mm. RH And it was so big that they had two dance floors and no partition. PT Mm-mm. RH Two bands. One for each dance floor. I don't know how it all worked out. But uh, we played there. And when we were there, the owner of the night club-his name was Vaughan Richardson. PT Mm-mm. RH And he didn't introduce us as Rocky Mountain Ramblers. He introduced us as Vaughan Richardson's Hillbillies. [laughter] So we got categorized. PT Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. RH That was, that was really some feeling. When you're seventeen, a lot of things look a little different. [laughs] Yeah. PT Did you, did you . . . RH I made . . . okay. The thing . . . I'll tell you the thing that really impressed me. We'd been playing all these dollar-a-night things for all these bad times. And this was still bad times, really. PT Yeah. RH When Burton booked us. He charged . . . we played a family theater over at Muncie, Indiana. PT Mm-mm. RH And I'm not sure of the name of all the rest of it. There were drive-in food and drink places. And they like to have-a lot of them had a platform somewhere-and they liked to have live music. And we played a lot of those, and I have no idea what the name of them was, or anything. PT So you were playing outside? Outdoors, right? RH Yeah. PT Did you have any kind of amplification? Or is it just . . . they didn't have microphones and stuff in those days. RH No. No. Amplification wasn't big at that time. That . . . they had just started having electric units in violins. I played on one of them. PT Mm-mm. RH And uh, we didn't subscribe to that, because we couldn't afford, actually, PT Mm-mm. RH the P.A. system, PT Yeah. RH even if we'd wanted to. PT So how much would you get paid for one of those gigs? Was that better than the dollar-a-night? RH I figured out, I figured out that . . . okay. These programs that we went, it was either one or two programs that we played in these theaters, and it ended up about an hour, about an hour program is what we had, is what we put together, about an hour program. And my part of that was eight bucks. PT Uh-huh. RH So I was rich. PT Yeah. RH Every . . . all of us was rich. PT Uh-huh. RH And a lot of the guys-not a lot of the guys-the guys, some of the guys that were buying guitars had payments to make back home. PT Yeah. [laughter] RH That was, that was a big thing in those days. They would sell, they would sell music instruments of that type, PT Mm-mm. RH something like a couple of bucks a week, or something. PT So you were working every day of the week, uh, for Burton? RH Yeah. Working any day that he could get us something to . . . PT Uh-huh. When you say you did the theaters, would people come just to see you or were you part of a . . . RH No. In those days as vaudeville was dying, and, I think, Burton kind of wanted to help keep it alive a little bit. Because they . . . that was the way they made their money. PT Mm-mm. RH And uh . . . like . . . Saturday afternoon used to be the time when they had, uh, vaudeville acts PT Mm-mm. RH in the different movie houses. And uh, that would be on Saturday afternoon.. They would have, they would have the movie. And between that movie and the next movie, they had a stage show. PT Uh-huh. RH All the stages were still equipped to handle PT Mm-mm. RH live performers. Yeah. Yeah. PT So you'd play between movies? And . . . RH Yeah. PT Uh-huh. RH Between the movies. And if they wanted two performances-which would bring us in, in a lot later in the day-why then we'd get twice as much. PT Uh-huh. RH So much for each show, that's the way we sold it, anyway. PT And how, how much were you on the radio? Every day? Just weekends? RH We were on every day, but we didn't get paid. We were trying
to advertise ourselves. RH WKBV. No. Indianapolis. We weren't on the radio at Indianapolis. Just at Richmond. PT Richmond. And that station was? RH WKBV. PT KVV? Yeah. Is that station still there? RH No. PT Yeah. RH I don't think it is. They got one on the west side of town, and I don't remember the name of that. I don't . . . okay. PT Uh . . . and. RH I could be right or wrong. PT I could find out. [chuckles] Um . . . And you were on . . . what time of day? Do you remember? RH About eleven o'clock in the morning. PT Mm-mm. RH We tried to get, uh . . . we used to have a Bay [sp?] Department Store here in Eaton. PT Uh-huh. RH And we tried to get them to uh . . . sponsor-that's what they call it-sponsor us. But they didn't think that they needed that. So, they had been here for quite a few years. PT Mm-mm. RH And uh, got along with out it. And uh . . . PT You couldn't get Bay to sponsor you? But you were on at eleven . . . was it like a half an hour you were on? Or . . . RH Yeah. PT Mm-mm. PT And then you did a barn dance show at the same time? Or was that earlier? RH This was still PT You said that you . . . RH This was still the summer of '34. PT Okay. RH Okay. And we were still doing the . . . After we, after we left here and went to Indianapolis, as the Ramblers. When we came back, we didn't . . . we didn't do much of anything that first uh, that first winter after that summer. PT Uh-huh. RH We split up and stayed pretty well split up. Once in a while, uh--we called Russ Wing 'Wingo'-Wingo'd find somebody that heard us play there, or heard of us, and he'd get a few of us together, and we'd play at, PT Uh-huh. RH for whatever they wanted. PT Uh-huh. So uh, you said that the recording session at Gennett was the last thing that the band did. RH I think so. PT Mm-mm. Can you tell me about, anything about that session? How did it come about? And what was it like? RH Well. We were trying to get, we were trying . . . okay. We started to come apart. So we were trying . . . Russ Wing was trying to figure some way. We were really successful in Indianapolis. I don't know why we ever left there. PT Yeah. RH Except that some of the guys were married and we weren't making enough yet for them to bring their families into that part of the world, and all that. PT Mm-mm. RH So, when we left Indianapolis, we just came apart. And Russ was trying awful hard to put us together, and uh . . . back together. And uh, so he came up with the idea of recording. PT Mm-mm. RH And he went up and talked with people at that . . . and they told him "Yeah. Come on in!" So when we got there, whoever . . . a lot of the business meetings I wasn't in. PT Mm-mm. RH Russ liked to have me pretty close, because I was the only guy out of the whole bunch that ever graduated from high school. [laughs] And uh . . . so I . . . I don't know a lot of the . . . I can remember the day that we recorded, that uh . . . we had a real, real bad habit that you could get by with at square dances. But you couldn't get by with it on different broadcasts. PT Mm-mm. RH And on recording, it was probably just never heard of. We didn't have any sign of when the fiddler was going to quit playing the fiddle. [laughs] PT [laughs] Yeah. RH Yeah. So there was . . . they used to call, they had a name for those little plinks or plunks or whatever PT Yeah. Yeah. RH that came after the fiddler quit. Well, on a square dance business nobody cared. [laughs] PT Yeah. RH So uh, there was a remark made about that. And I remember that I tried to figure out someway . . . yeah. Everybody put . . . we called it, in those days, 'shave and a haircut, two bits.' PT Right. Yeah. RH They all tried to put that on at the tail end of their music. And uh, I hadn't done any of that before, but I got it ready for that one. PT Mm-mm. RH Yeah. That's one thing I remember for sure, they were horrified
[laughs] at that plink, plink, plink. RH Yeah. PT And then you had to do another take, right? RH No. No. We only did one take. Uh, we auditioned for this . . . PT Oh. Okay. RH We auditioned to make this record. PT Mm-mm. RH And then they told us what they wanted us to play. Or the type of thing that they wanted us to play. And they said that they had plenty of vocals, so I didn't get to vocalize. PT Uh-huh. RH And uh, they said that they preferred to have some good, good square dance music. So that's what we gave them. PT Mm-mm. RH Yeah. PT So did you audition and then record all in the same day? RH Yeah. Yeah. PT So . . . all right. RH After the audition, why they said "Okay. Let's go ahead." And that's what they did. PT Where did you go for the audition? Do you remember what the building was like? RH No. No. I can't come up with that, because there's so many things, and-right now, I think there was a time I could have PT Yeah. RH told you a lot more. PT But the audition was not, probably not in the recording studio?
It was in a separate building? Separate from the . . . PT Mm-mm. RH See . . . I could even be a little mixed up. PT That's okay. RH But uh, but I do remember that we played enough that I got this 'shave and a haircut, two bits' part down without using it. [laughs] I think I gave some kind of signal, but I don't remember what it was. PT For the audition, did they have . . . did you play several numbers for them? Did you sing for them? Or what? RH No. They told us what they wanted. PT They told you before you even auditioned? RH Yeah. It had to do with sales. It didn't have anything to do with anything else. PT Yeah. RH Yeah. So uh, they said they wanted . . . they wanted a good record. And that's exactly what we gave them. PT So they told you that's what [they] wanted, and then you played for an audition? And . . . RH Yeah. PT Did you play all the way through a few times? Or did they just hear a little bit and say "Let's go do it?" Or did you have to play several numbers for them to audition? RH We played, we played several numbers. PT Mm-mm. RH But uh . . . PT Did they pick which ones they wanted, after they heard them? Or did . . . or just . . . RH No. No. They told us the type they wanted. PT That's all they specified, huh? RH They said they wanted square dance music. And that's exactly what they got. 'Cause we thought we had some pretty good vocal programs. But they weren't interested. The market wasn't there for that. PT What do you think you would have sung for them, if you could have done a vocal? What was your favorite? RH Oh, they had an old song called "Corinne, Corinna." PT Uh-huh. RH And I did pretty good with that. I never did yodel. Never was really interested in yodeling. But I . . . PT Uh-huh. RH And uh . . . there . . . of all things, a cowboy song. I'm trying to think of that. . . . Part of the words are "Your sweetheart waits for you, Jack." PT Oh. Cowboy Jack! RH Yeah. PT Mm-mm. RH Yeah. That was one of my favorites. It was long. It had [chuckles] PT Yeah. RH a lot of verses. PT I like that one. RH Yeah. Yeah. PT So then they said, "Okay." They auditioned you and they said "Let's go make records." Did you go right away? Or was there . . . did you have time to catch your breath, rehearse a little bit? RH We rehearsed. I remember we did all the rehearsing. Uh, we were staying with Russ Wing's widowed sister. PT Mm-mm. RH And we were sleeping on the floor. RH And I know that we went back home from there. And that's what we did. We set up the music for the recording. And uh, did that the next day, I think. Or PT Oh so you auditioned . . . RH maybe more days than that. We auditioned, and then we came home and practiced what we thought they wanted to hear. And we had to get it timed, PT Mm-mm. RH for some certain length of time. And that's what we had to really work at. PT Mm-mm. RH And uh . . . yeah. We did all that, and then went . . . when we went back the second time, that was to make the record. PT Okay. And then you were in the recording studio. RH Yeah. PT Can you remember what it looked like? Or how they, what did they do to set you up? Anything you can tell me about that would be interesting. [pause] Did they have microphones? Or did they have a horn? RH Some of the broadcast studios, I can remember, that we had, they had . . . they would set you up in certain positions as to what kind of an instrument you were playing, and what effect that had on the group. PT Right. RH Whether it overrid, PT Uh-huh. RH overrode [chuckles] overrode some of the other instruments or not. But this . . . I don't remember the microphone, period. [pause] PT They might have still had . . . RH There was nobody in the room with us. PT Uh-huh. PT Uh-huh. RH And when that came on again, you were done. PT [laughs] And when it came on, you started right away, right? RH Yeah. It came on PT Uh-huh. RH and just like . . . [clicks] PT Yeah. RH Yeah. PT Did it take you a long time to get set up. RH No. No, they . . . [pause] they must have, they must have taken care of all that stuff the day before. PT Uh-huh. RH 'Cause, near as I remember, we went in there. They said they were ready. I think we sat around and waited there somewhere. But I don't remember the looks of that building either. But when we went into the studio itself, it was like almost another world. PT Yeah. RH I mean it was quiet, really quiet. PT Uh-huh. RH And uh, where the microphones were, I do not know. I can't picture one at all. PT Mm-mm. RH It's almost like a guy does with one of these modern phones where you can just talk. [laughs] PT Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. If Russ was playing a tenor banjo, my guess
is they must have had him standing further back. PT Yeah. RH I'm pretty sure they monitored what went out, but . . . PT Yeah. RH [laughs] That microphone . . . only one time that I ever had. Sometimes you could get a microphone fever type thing that would . . . what happened to me was. I think I might have been really new at it then. It might have been the first . . . yeah, that was the first, that was the first. They had a great, great big microphone, about like that [gestures], hanging down, out there in the middle of the room. And they placed you here and there, according to where they thought you ought to be. You were so far, this is right close, and this one here's a little further, and this one's a little further PT Mm-mm. RH and this one's a little further. And they . . . that blended, evidently, all right. Some of the . . . the only way we had to know anything was we had friends who would tell us that . . . they always kept track of when we were going to broadcast. PT Right. RH And they would listen to us and tell us, tell us what they heard. PT Mm-mm. RH They'd say it really went well, or this, that, or the other. That's about the only way we had of knowing . . . we could almost, you could almost tell us PT Mm-mm. RH yourself. PT Mm-mm. RH 'Cause you could hear all that . . . when you learned, learned to play by ear, you learned to hear a lot of stuff. PT Yeah. RH Yeah. RH Oh. I couldn't play. I just froze. I froze. I don't know why. Oh yeah. It was at Dayton on a Sunday night thing there. And it's a good thing there was two fiddles. I looked at . . . came in and here this whole studio is a bunch of amateurs, this that and the others. PT Mm-mm. RH And uh, I took at that microphone, and that son-of-a-gun. [thumps table] I couldn't do anything, really. [PT laughs] That microphone went from zz-zz-zz [gestures]. I think it got as big as the room, I don't know. [PT laughs] And I just looked at that, and looked at it, and I . . . they wanted to put me right up here. PT Uh-huh. RH Right up there. And I couldn't believe I was going to get that close to that thing. I thought it could even hear me breathing. [chuckles] PT Yeah. You were probably what, about fifteen, sixteen-years-old then? Or a little older? RH Not too much over. PT Yeah. RH Yeah. I did most, did most of the broadcast stuff as . . . yeah, from sixteen to seventeen. PT Yeah. RH Or from sixteen to eighteen, really. PT Yeah. RH Yeah. PT But . . . so you don't remember in Richmond then about where you were set up? RH Yeah. I don't, I don't remember at the record . . . PT Yeah. RH When we made the record, I don't remember seeing it . . . seeing a microphone. I know they had to be there, because that was PT Yeah. PT Yeah. RH Yeah. But there was always one, for the studio there was always one. But I don't remember seeing that PT Yeah. RH one in the recording studio. PT They might have had it hidden or something. When they brought you into the studio, did someone come in and tell you where to stand at Gennett? RH Yeah. They placed us. PT They place you. RH Yeah. PT Do you remember anything about that? Were you . . . you were the only fiddler? Although, this says, this book says there were two. RH Yeah. There were two of us. But that, that day, I don't know why. But I'm pretty sure he didn't . . . he wasn't able to make it. PT Mm-mm. RH 'Cause he was one of the married guys. PT Uh-huh. RH And when we got back from Indianapolis, why he was pretty anxious to be home. PT Yeah. RH So, I'm not sure . . . like I say, we were about to come apart. PT Do you remember what his name was? RH Oh yeah. Ralph Baker. PT Oh that was Ralph Baker. PT I'm sorry. You told me that before. Okay RH Yeah. Yeah. PT So they showed you in the room, told you where to stand-did you get to play and tune in the studio before they . . . ? RH No. We tuned up outside. PT Uh-huh. RH Yeah. PT And they told you where to stand, and then . . . RH Yeah. PT and then disappeared? RH Yeah. [Mrs. H laughs] They went out of the room. There was nobody in the room, that I remember. PT And there wasn't glass that you could see anybody? Today in a recording studio, the guys who's doing the controls, there's usually a glass window, so you can see into there. RH I remember that light. PT Just the light is what you had? RH That's all I remember. [chuckles] PT Okay. Good. This is really good stuff. [Mrs. H laughs] This is good stuff. And then the light came on and you played one? RH Yeah. PT And then the light came on and you stopped? RH Right. PT Did you see anybody else then? Did they open the door, come in and say "Let's do the next one" or? RH No. We went by the light. PT So the light would go on, you'd play. The light would go on, you'd stop. RH We had, we had our program set up. PT They knew what you were going to do, and then . . . RH No. They never opened the door. PT Never opened the door? RH No. PT So you just went through four numbers? RH Yep. PT Each one just once? RH Yep. They . . . I think I missed something there. PT Oh, you played each number just once. You didn't do any . . . RH Yeah. That's it. PT Only one take on each one. RH Never did any retake. PT Uh-huh. So you were probably in the studio for less than an hour? RH Yep. PT Maybe even less than a half an hour? Do you have any . . .? RH Less than a half hour, I think. PT Mm-mm. RH Uh . . . We were probably in that . . . in there, made the record, and back out of there in a half hour. PT Really? [laughter] RH Yeah. That was, that was the second trip. The first trip, I can't remember the length of it, because, like I said, the thing I did remember about it, was that they weren't too satisfied with these little blip blips. PT Yeah. RH [laughs] and came out and said . . . PT They heard the blip blips during your audition? RH Yes. PT And told you you had to fix them? RH We got rid of them. PT Okay. RH Yeah. PT That's clear. That's good to know. Uh, did you see other musicians waiting? Or going . . . did you go into the studio after someone else? RH No. There was no type of a crowd at all. No. I, we . . . we never met anybody, any other group or person PT Uh-huh. RH that day. PT Okay. RH Yeah. PT Did you . . . RH We were it. PT Did you know of other people who recorded? I mean did . . . RH [pause] No. Not really. PT You never met anybody else who had gone there. RH We knew, we knew that Gennett was national. RH And that's what we were after. PT Yeah. RH We thought the stuff that we had would sell in Kentucky like hot cakes. PT Mm-mm. RH So I never, I never heard how much money came in. I don't, I don't think we . . . I don't think anybody got rich there. [chuckles] PT Did you get any pay for the session at all? RH I'm sorry? PT Did you get paid at all? RH No. No. PT for the session? RH No. Not a thing. PT Mm. RH That whole, the whole amount of money that you were getting out of that, out of that record, it was absolutely on record sales. PT Mm-mm. RH They kept track of the record sales, and every record that they sold paid some certain amount of . . . PT Mm-mm. RH What's the right word for that? PT Royalties? RH Royalties. Yeah. PT Uh-huh. RH Yeah. It was the royalties. And uh, each record paid some certain amount. What it was, I don't remember. Once upon a time I knew. The records didn't sell for anything like a dollar, or anything like that. Some records were, what? I bet you . . . PT Thirty-four they might have been as low as thirty-five cents. RH I bet they were. Some were probably a quarter. PT They came down in price. They used to sell for seventy-five, and then . . . RH Well . . . PT they came down, because they hit, that's how they could sell them. RH The early thirties the worst time this country has ever seen. PT Yeah. RH And this was, this was it. PT Mm-mm. And when you left the studio, anybody say "Thank you," or did you have to sign any papers? Or did Russ do all that? RH Russ did all that. PT Mm-mm. RH He did . . . yeah. He did all the paper work. PT And so you just came out of the studio and left? And that was it? RH That was, that was just about it. Like I say, later on, there was something going on. Everybody in Butler County and part of Preble County knew Russ Wing. People that needed music . . . you know, that heard him play or heard the group, or whatever. If they needed that type of music, they went to him. PT Mm-mm. RH So . . .[pause] I'm not sure I'm going to answer your question. PT I'm just trying to figure out what your day was like in Richmond, the day you recorded. RH Oh. PT You finished and you drove back to Ohio? After that, that night?
Or were you . . . PT Oh. That was the widowed sister? That was here, in Eaton, not in ? RH Yeah. PT Not in . . . okay. RH Yeah. So . . . when we got done recording, we felt like we had been pretty successful. And we had done anything that anybody suggested to us over there to be sure we had a good take. PT Mm-mm. RH And uh, we never had to do any retake. And so . . . I was pretty well-if I remember right-I was pretty well satisfied. I thought it would be great to hear myself play. PT Did you get the records? RH No. PT Never? RH Russ Wing got the records. [laughs] PT So you never even heard them? RH [laughs] I got a chance one day . . . like I say, at the time he lived, he lived at Williamsdale. And uh, I got to hear that record one time. And then he wanted it back. [chuckles] Said, "Play it a couple of times." I said "I wanted to see how I did." And he said, "Play it a couple a times." So I played it a couple time [laughs} and it was gone. [chuckles] He took it. PT So how did it sound? RH Well it sounded, sounded real good. I thought if I was going to do square dancing I'd probably prefer that record to any of the others. [PT laughs] I don't know why. [he laughs] But uh, we could have, we could have been pretty tough competition for a lot of, PT Mm-mm. RH for a lot of different type groups. But there was groups at
that time that could . . . almost all of the players could sing.
And some of those we met over at Dayton. And they could do an awful
lot of the group singing. RH Along with their instrument. They were pretty impressive locally. PT Mm-mm. RH I don't think they could have, I don't think they could have traveled the same route as we, that we travelled. PT Mm-mm. RH We stayed . . .we rented a, uh, furnished apartment over on the east part of Indianapolis. And we walked downtown tp that wrestling, to those wrestling meets. And it was, oh probably . . . what, a fifteen, twenty-minute walk . . . PT Mm-mm. RH to . . . down there. [long pause] PT So, how much more did you play after . . . the summer of '35 you were in the Conservation Corps, and . . . ? RH Well, I took a job . . . for the three Cs, they liked for you to have a job when you left there. And uh, when you went in there, they furnished you everything. PT Mm-mm. RH From the skin outward. All your clothes. Your shaving kit. PT Mm-mm. RH And shoes. World War I surplus, I guess you'd call it these days. PT Yeah. RH Yeah. World War I uniform. And we did what they called drainage work. The farmers had ditches that would grow up and slow down the, uh, drainage ditch that was supposed to be keeping their property pretty well drained. There was . . . most of, most of the guys in that were eighteen PT Mm-mm. RH through about twenty-five. I don't remember . . . but that was . . . that's what we did. We helped make a lake PT Mm-mm. RH over at . . . a little further east and north in Ohio. PT Where abouts? RH I'm trying, I'm trying to think of the name of it. I can't . . . Mrs. H Fort Laramie? RH That's it. PT Fort Laramie? RH Fort Laramie. Lake Clarly. And uh . . . PT And you got a, you got a job when you left . . . RH Oh, to get out of there. Okay. I had a sister that worked at the Estate Stove Company in Hamilton . . .
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Interviewed
at his home by Dr. Paul Tyler
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