Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
In the second episode of the second season of Pocahontas County Opera House Story Sessions, fiddler Dave Bing shared tunes he learned from some of the most influential old-time fiddlers in the state.
Bing began with a tune he learned from George Steele, who was a childhood friend of his dad.
“He was from Wayne County and had moved out as a young man to Phoenix, Arizona,” Bing said. “He played [on the] radio and played a square dance every night for thirty years – had a half-hour spot, and he made his living doing that.”
When Steele returned to West Virginia, Bing met him and learned how to play in the manner of the radio personality.
“He was a really good hoedown fiddler,” Bing said. “That’s where I got that basic shuffle from. Everything he played – he called it Georgia bow – but I don’t see many people from Georgia doing it. It was just that basic, how you start a fiddle tune.”
With that said, Bing played Tennessee Wagoner.
He then spoke of Frank George, Bing’s neighbor when he lived in Roane County.
“He was a unique person, just had so many stories and a very sharp mind,” Bing said.
Bing shared a story of a time when he brought a friend to meet George. She was originally from France but lived in Switzerland. When George met her, he began speaking another language and shocked Bing. The two had a conversation in a language, which George referred to as high German.
“He had that kind of mind – just a very intelligent fellow,” Bing said. “Great fiddler. Just a good, relaxed style. He’d bring out the fiddle in the case on the stage when he’d play a big performance. He’d sit there and tune it, and if it hadn’t been played [for some time], it still played as sweet as could be.”
Bing played George’s version of Liza Jane.
It’s hard to talk about old-time music greats without talking about the Hammons Family, and Bing moved on to them during his session.
He first met Sherman Hammons as a young boy and didn’t know for a long time that the man played music.
“First time we came to Pocahontas County was when I was three-years-old, and I met Sherman,” he said. “He was the old guy that came by the camp and would tell stories about the area, maybe sing about it, and would spend time visiting with my dad. He would tell him all the good fishing holes and everything.
“Over the years, we got to know him more and more, but never knew he played music,” Bing continued. “He never mentioned banjo. Never mentioned playing.”
It wasn’t until Bing’s dad stumbled across a banjo case at Sherman’s house that he learned about the family’s musical prowess.
“That’s the first I’d ever heard that he played,” Bing said. “I just knew him as the neat old guy. I came up and visited him with my fiddle, and that was my first introduction to the really archaic, old-time fiddle. He would play these tunes – that my description of them would be not of this Earth kind of sound. It just captured me immediately.
“I dropped everything I was doing. I had a little camper, and I came up and stayed,” he continued. “The first time, a month to a month and a half, and just recorded him. He’d take me over to see his brother Burl Hammons. Burl and Maggie lived in the same house with two sisters. I had my little cassette recorder and I’d record them and then run back out on the Williams River and try to figure out the tunes and go back and see what they were doing.”
Bing learned several tunes from the family and enjoyed jamming with Sherman into the wee hours of the morning. On one occasion, Bing played a tune called Pretty Little Dog, one he learned from a fiddler in Clay County.
“Sherman loved that tune,” he said. “I was playing it and he had his banjo and said, ‘now play that again.’ I’d play it and he would pick it out on banjo – more of a rhythmic thing than actually playing lead. About every half hour, he’d say, ‘play that Pretty Little Dog again.’ And I’d play it. By the end of the night, we had a pretty good version of it.
“So I got to teach Sherman Hammons a song.”
Bing then played Pretty Little Dog as part of his story session.
Although the Hammons family played together, Bing said there were several tunes that each individual would add his own twist to. Sherman and Burl would often have their own takes to old tunes, and Bing would try to learn each version.
“I’m going to play Waynesboro, a tune I learned from Burl,” he said. “I’m going to play Waynesboro and you’ll hear a little bit of Burl and Sherman and Uncle Edden – the legendary Pocahontas County fiddler.”
When Bing got older, he started traveling around the state and meeting more fiddlers. He was introduced to the circuit of old-time music festivals and learned the variations of songs from central West Virginia fiddlers.
“I went to the West Virginia State Folk Festival and that’s where I first met Melvin Wine, the central West Virginia fiddlers, Ernie Carpenter and here came another big wave of tunes I’d never heard before; another style of music,” he said.
One of those tunes was Yew Piney Mountain, and Bing performed Melvin Wine’s version, which he said would probably have a little Hammons Family mixed into it, as well.
He followed that with another Melvin Wine tune, Horny Ewe.
Bing concluded the session by saying he needed to do a tune by Glen Smith, who was from the Galax area in Virginia in the early 1960s. Smith and his son were known as the Mountain State Pickers and played the folk music circuit for years.
“I learned quite a few tunes off of him,” Bing said. “We’d done a little festival up near his house and I was there early. Just me and him were standing there and he said, ‘Bing, did you ever hear anybody fiddle as quick like I do?’ And I said, ‘no, you’ve got a special touch.
“You ever hear anybody fiddle like me, Glen?’”
Smith’s answer was simple.
“‘Yes,’” Bing said, laughing. “Okay.”
Bing ended the session with a Smith tune called A Rose for Polly.
The video of Dave Bing’s Story Session is available on the Pocahontas County Opera House Facebook and YouTube pages.
The next Story Session will be Sunday, July 17, at 7 p.m. featuring Dwight Diller.
