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Member Info: Alan Roberts - Down to the crossroads... |
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Name: Alan Roberts
Contact: Available to Members
Focus: Undefined
Location: Seattle, WA USA
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The Road To Ruin...
My first memories of music originate from the Tobacco Road area. Grandma's business was booming and gentlemen would often like to hear some music while spending time in the company of the girls who worked there. Granny would hire musicians to fill the house with music that still reminds me of home every time I hear it. One of those musicians was "Graveyard" Wilson. "Graveyard" was a colorful character who reputedly had quite a history. Accounts vary, but the basic story goes something like this:
Clarence "Graveyard" Wilson was the illegitimate son of a wealthy river gambler's daughter and a mysterious rambler known to history only as Legba. Graveyard was forced to live with the "maid" of the gambler's daughter's mansion where he was raised in semi-poverty. At 27 years of age, Graveyard was sentenced to death for the inadvertent demise of a fellow who questioned the tuning of his guitar. Although 3 attempts to execute Graveyard were made, he miraculously survived them and was eventually released from prison. Graveyard was hugely successful in the South until rumours of his past surfaced and he was deemed "too dangerous" to be employed.
Granny wasn't much scared of Graveyard and he continued to play guitar in her business until well into his 90's. I spent many an evening as a child at the feet of Graveyard, watching him play his guitar and trying to learn to recreate the sound he made while playing along on my own little guitar. By the time I was a teenager I had mastered several of the songs that Graveyard had taught me. Most of them were "standards", but several were actually written by Graveyard himself. There is reason to believe that these songs penned by Graveyard were recorded in the early part of the 20th century by an employee of the Smithsonian Institute while on a mission to record "Field Music" in the South. Those recordings have never surfaced but the documentation for them is recorded in an old log book that is in my posession.
In the early 90's, Graveyard, who had become disillusioned with the state of the music business, failed to show up for a gig and was never seen or heard from again. Neighbors who went to his house to check on him after not seeing him in town for several weeks reported that his guitar was still standing in the corner by his fireplace but that Graveyard was nowhere to be found. The only thing about his little house that seemed out of place was the small pile of ashes that were found in the seat of his favorite guitar playing chair.
I have continued to play the songs of Graveyard, as well as some of the other songs he taught me as a child. In my teens and twenties I played in a Rock band that was mildly notorious on the East Coast. I also continued to perform thru the early 90's until shortly after the disappearane of Graveyard, at which point I also lost some of my interest in the industry. At that point I ceased traveling as a musician and settled in the Northwest. Fame has never found me, but I continue to play on a regular basis. As I am now quickly approaching my twilight years I sometimes find what appears to be little bits of ash in my chair.
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Some Old Friends...
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Musical Influences
• "Graveyard" Wilson
• Peetie Wheatstraw
• "Crookshank" Drake
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Favorite Recordings
• Mary Had A Little Lamb-Thomas Edison
• The Best Of Esteban-Esteban
• It's Time For Regis!-Regis Philbin
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