“Sally, Don’t You Grieve:” Reminiscing on starting a bluegrass band

I have a few memories from my life before first grade. Most are indefinite. But there is one indelible remembrance. Not so much the where — it could’ve been kindergarten or just as easily vacation Bible school — but the who. It was a little red-headed boy spotted with freckles. Some adult brought him to the front of the class and asked him to sing. I don’t recall the song. I don’t recall if he had a pianist accompany him. What I remember is his voice.

It was clear, clean, perfectly pitched and phrased. It was like nothing I’d ever heard in my long 5-year-old life.

Too good! Almost surreal. Not that my 5-year-old self had any idea what surreal was.

Every now and then, I’ll get an email forward of some little kid singing way better than any little kid should be able to sing. It was like that.

And of course, it was Malcolm Lee.

In the summer after Kindergarten Malcolm, my family began moving. I went to eight different schools in six years before finally landing in 7X (or was it Y?) at Airport School in Sikeston, Mo. In the summer of 1959, I was introduced to Sikeston jock culture through organized baseball, where dwelt the heretofore unknown Holy Trinity of Sikeston Little League; a.k.a. Doug Marsh, Hunter McClain and Chuck Heath. Of course, there was also Rob Mitchell, but I had known him since the age of zero — our parents were besties. All four of these guys were shaving at 12, or at least, that’s the way it looked to me. And they probably needed “jocks,” as well. For me, that was going to be a while.

And then, it was on to football in the fall. I’d never played any kind of organized sports, but all my new friends — and one old one — did.

So, although I knew and saw the kindergarten krooner, we didn’t really hang out.

And then, around age 13, I began to get interested in making music by way of Jim Critchlow’s baritone ukulele. For my 14th birthday:

I got my first real six string

Got it at the five and dime

Played it till my fingers bled

It was the summer of ’61.

Terry Burke and I got a group together that included Patti McMullin, and we decided to compete in a talent show at Richland High School. I could play only one song on my new guitar, “Freedom’s Calling,” and that got us second place to the Folklores, another group from Sikeston. They had a bass fiddle, played by Mike Jensen, and made us sound like amateurs — which, of course, we were.

Because, as everybody knows: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLnZ1NQm2uk.

We decided we had no chance against this polished bunch of musicians without a bass, but who would play it? Terry was already good on the banjo, and I was struggling to learn a second song on the guitar. What about Malcolm Lee?

Somehow or another, Terry, Malcolm and I ended up in somebody’s car discussing the possibility in the summer of 1962, and “If I Had a Hammer” came on the car radio. The three of us started singing along.

The click was almost audible over our voices: We just fit! Malcolm became our bass singer and player; Terry, whose voice would someday change, was our tenor; and I did the melody. Patti stayed, and Sue Foster joined, as well, to round out our quintet. I was fortunate. They were all better than I. Bass, baritone, tenor, alto and soprano gave us a very full sound.

And now, we had a bass player! None of us had the money for the big instrument, which turned out not to be available at the five and dime. So Malcolm prevailed on the school orchestra director, Richard Powell, to give him the usage of one of the school’s instruments. They were music buddies.

It wasn’t until a couple of years later that Terry found a secondhand blonde bass fiddle, which he still has to this day.

When we did our “audition tape” in 1968, we each chose a song to solo on. Malcolm chose “Sally, Don’t You Grieve.” It was a Woody Guthrie song, and Malcolm liked it because it showcased his deep, resonant voice — which was just as serenely surreal then as it was when he was that little freckled-faced red-headed kid I first heard sing in kindergarten. It also let the “Ladies’ Man Malcolm” out, and he liked that a lot, as well. “Here I come, and then I’m gone again” — unlike most of Woody Guthrie’s songs, this had no discernible political purpose.

Of course, the tape led to no entertainment positions for any of us, but it was part of what led to now. Malcolm did well in radio, probably achieving his most success in the ‘90s as Scott — sometimes Scooter — Sherwood, when he was program director and afternoon drive time DJ at a big station in Orlando. In those days, the program directors partied with the bands, at the band’s expense, hoping to get air time. All the big groups. Think of it.

What a ride!

Then, along came satellite radio, and now, Malcolm’s just like the rest of us.

But, WHAT A RIDE!!!

Once more, we hear the boy section of the Travelers, from spring of 1968, solo by my longtime friend Malcolm Lee. Sing along. He’d love it.

Here’s the link: http://www.veed.io/.../ac11ce4d-e8cd-4f65-8b48-099655cd03dc.

But just the chorus. Don’t step on Malcolm’s solo. He wouldn’t love that.