Early Times in the Fresno Folk Scene
Quotes from folks you may have known . . .
by Evo Bluestein
I hope you enjoy these excerpts from interviews I’ve gathered over the years.
From singer Rita Byxbe
In 1962, I came north, from L.A. to Fresno, as advance person for The Stanley Brothers, whom we were sponsoring. I was supposed to go to a place called Sweet’s Mill that I’d never heard of, to leaflet and meet The Fresno Folk Club people because there was a belief that it was an important, tight, active group. We knew about Sweet’s Mill because Kenny Hall was already a regular, playing at The Ash Grove. I never made it to Sweet’s Mill that time; I got lost because I had no map. It wasn’t ‘til years later that I finally made it there.
I started my so-called professional career, in 1956, when I finally got paid something. Before that I was singing for Jewish community centers and one thing led to another. I was hired to open for Lou Gottlieb of the Limeliters. Before I knew it, I was singing all the time and getting paid for it. Then I moved to L.A. to work at the Ash Grove. I started at the office doing all their PR and graphics and graduated essentially to general manager–auditioning and everything.
The inception of The Ash Grove, in the early Sixties, was modeled after a Jewish community center. It was a center where people of all ages and persuasions could initiate and carry through all kinds of activities. Many centered on music, a lot centered on the peoples from which the music came–history, political activity, even down to organized politics. A lot of the people who helped defeat Nixon, when he ran for governor, were working out of The Ash Grove. We were the first people to hire Berniece Reagon and The Freedom Singers. I had a ball doing the flyer because I convinced my boss that we would put red in it. It was the first time I got permission to use a second color. We were the first to put on Chuck Berry after he got out of jail, also Ravi Shankar. It was a wonderful place. You could live your entire aesthetic, political and personal life there–and many did. One of the kids who hung around there, hanging on everyone’s sleeve saying, “Teach me your lick,” was Ry Cooder, who has a deep grounding in traditional music.
From mandolinist Kenny Hall
photo: Evo Bluestein
I was born in San Jose, California in 1923. My father had an old warped guitar that he had since 1913. I taught myself to play lead on it before I ever learned chords. I had fiddle lessons from Natalie Bigelow when I was twelve at the State School for the Blind, in Berkeley. She tried to teach me classical but I wouldn’t learn. She bought me a book of fiddle tunes with her own money and taught me about twenty tunes, by ear, out of that book. That was the first old time music I learned in depth.
Then I learned mandolin from a blind guy in Campbell named W. D. Samford. He taught me old-time tunes from Texas where he was from. I tried to hold it like a fiddle at first. Then I had to learn to pick in both directions. It took me two or three months to catch on. I learned later that the way I balance the mandolin on my knee was the proper way to do it. [Kenny only played round back mandolins.]
I also played with the band of students at the school for the blind known as The Room 26 Gang. They played cowboy songs.
The bulk of my music I picked up at The Record Exchange in San Francisco–172 Eddy Street, second-hand records and some new ones. New ones were only thirty-five cents and you could get some darned good used ones for a dime. I had quite a record collection. From a person standing 5’7”, chest high clear on down to the ground–78s. I gave them away to an Irish kid who was studying to be a step-dancer. The Swedish and Norwegian music I learned from a jukebox at a bar called Hunter’s Inn, in Oakland, while I was under age. I went to picnics with Mexican, Portuguese and Italian friends and that’s where I learned those kind of tunes.
From guitarist Frank Hicks
photo: E.Z. Smith
I was born in Fresno in 1922, right down there on R Street. My parents came from Illinois. I went through high school here and graduated from the old Fresno Tech on Stanislaus where the big Chevrolet car lot is. They tore it [Fresno Tech] down to build that. I was in the first graduating class in the Memorial Auditorium, in 1941. Then I went to work in the mill cabinet shop, here in town, and I was playing music. I’ve been playing ever since I can remember. There were no other musicians in my family except my sister was a good singer.
I was about six or seven years old when I picked up a guitar. My brother bought me one for my birthday. I took a few lessons. Mainly though, I grew up where people were playing–big bands–Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington. I’d go meet them. They played here every week at the Rainbow Ballroom. I’d go over to Santa Cruz to the Coconut Grove. About the time I was fourteen or fifteen, I was sitting in playing with them. It was never hard for me. For some people music is hard but to me it never was. [Even if] I never heard the tune before–I could play it . . . I was playing for old time dances when I was eleven. Back then, in the Thirties, they wanted foxtrot, Varsuvien, waltzes–at Ross’s Ballroom, Sorensen’s–with different orchestras and big crowds. It was a big thing then. I read a little music, but not much because it wasted my time. I could put in two times more than what I read. I played in the symphony in school and ad-libbed. The teacher didn’t know it, but I did it. I played a lot of bass then. It always came easy, and I could hear more than what they had on the music. I played better when I was ten years old than I do now. More to come!