1978 Joe Meadows Mountain State Bluegrass Fiddler - 6-Page Vintage Article

Description

1978 Joe Meadows Mountain State Bluegrass Fiddler - 6-Page Vintage Article
Original, Vintage Magazine Article
Page Size: Approx. 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm) each page
Condition: Good
Numerous fiddlers have made notable
contributions to bluegrass music. Joe
Meadows ranks among the more promi-
nent, particularly during the decades of
the fifties and the seventies. In between
Joe took a long vacation from music but
during his two active periods he
established himself as an influential and
significant sideman. Currently, as a
member of Jim and Jesse’s Virginia Boys,
Joe is continuing to fulfill this role with
distinction.
Born Ralph Meadows at Basin, West
Virginia on December 31, 1934, Joe grew
up listening to old-time string music. He
spent most of his boyhood in nearby Camp
Creek. Both communities were located in
Mercer County. His mother picked the
guitar with considerable skill and taught
all of her nine sons to play that
instrument. Joe’s father and both
grandfathers fiddled but he never took a
formal lesson from any of them. He did not
actually take much interest in the fiddle
until he reached the age of fourteen. He
first learned on his own.
Once Joe began to study fiddle, he
received much of his teaching from the
radio. At nearby WHIS Bluefield such
groups as the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers
with Curly Ray Cline, Rex and Eleanor
Parker, and Fairly Holden with Wayne
Tilford on fiddle all made an impression on
Joe. Somewhat farther away at WCYB
Bristol, the Stanley Brothers band usually
featured a fiddle. Most significant of all,
the sounds of Howdy Forrester, Benny
Martin, and Chubby Wise influenced Joe
and his stylings.
Joe did his first professional work with
a group at WGEH, Princeton, West
Virginia called the Whispering Strings.
This band played a type of music akin to
....he tried to convince
the maid the smoke
she smelled was com-
ing from the street at a
time when the fumes
were pouring from a
dresser drawer....
western swing and did a lot of square
dances during the six months Joe worked
with them. He then moved to WHIS in
Bluefield, West Virginia and fiddled with
Rex and Eleanor Parker for a few months.
In August 1953, Joe teamed up with the
youthful Melvin and Ray Goins. The boys
had a daily radio show at WHIS and
resided in the Drake Hotel. Financial
success eluded the youths and they often
had to cook their meager food in their
hotel room on an electric hot plate
contrary to house rules. Melvin humor-
ously recalls one embarrassing incident
when he tried to convince the maid that
the smoke she smelled was coming from
the street at a time the fumes were
pouring from a dresser drawer where
they were futilely concealing the hot
plate.
Joe played with the Goins Brothers
until November 1953 when the band
fragmented. Melvin and Ray then joined
the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers. Joe, on a
strong recommendation from Curly Ray
Cline, went to Bristol and became one of
the Stanley Brothers’ Clinch Mountain
Boys.
At the time Joe joined Ralph and
Carter’s group, the Stanley's had achieved
wide acceptance from their daily
appearances on WCYB’s Farm and Fun
Time. They had also begun to record for
Mercury Records. In the couple of years
that Joe played with the band he
participated in some of the Stanleys' more
memorable Mercury sessions. His fiddling
is, of course, most prominent on such
instrumental showpieces as “Hard Times"
and “Orange Blossom Special." However,
it can also be heard on such classic songs
as “Nobody’s Love Is Like Mine,” "Harbor
of Love,” and “Baby Girl" as well as
several sacred numbers. Joe also played...
13969-AL-7810-34