Standing
On Tradition Standing
On Tradition comes from songs I learned most when
I was a teenager from the ballad singers of Sodom Laurel;
Lee, Doug & Berzilla Wallin, Cas Wallin & Dellie
Norton. They all sang different versions & in different
styles. I suppose the way I sing is a combination of all
of them. I wrote "Old Man of the Mountain" shortly
after Lee Wallin's death from a dream I had about him.
He was a dandy! Lee was a crack shot & a hog rifle
champion. He and Berzilla had several huge African geese
that loved to pinch me until I bled. Berzilla would follow
me around with a broom to beat the gander off.
Since
1790 when the first pioneer walked into the mountain wilderness
(of what is now Madison County and my home) with a fiddle under
his arm, an unbroken line of notable musicians and ballad singers
have followed. Traditional mountain music is one of Madison
County's most treasured handmade crafts.
Madison County has been home to some of the finest
fiddlers and "pickers" of Appalachia. The mountains
have nourished and sustained a musical heritage derived from
the Celtic forbearers of present-day inhabitants.
