I was blessed to spend many days with Melvin, working on his place, selling his "stuff" at the livestock sale, burying our poor old horse, and teaching a bruised and defeated city boy about the true things in life. God used this wonderful man during 1975 and 1976 to mentor me and help me to heal following a very difficult time. I was building fence behind his and Etta's house during the first day's recording of Cold Frosty Morning; Hearing that music, in that setting, was an awakening that, for me, was the beginning of a redeemed and productive life.
I met 91 yr. old Melvin in 2001 at the Bluff Country Gathering in Lanesboro, MN. Gerry Milnes from Augusta Heritage Center brought him there and accompanied him. His music really influenced me and his age made me realize how important it is to keep the old time tunes alive!! I just returned from Augusta after a week of fiddle classes with Erynn Marshall, who taught many of dear Melvin's tunes, along with his ornamentation and bowing! I am one delighted fiddler!! Your video is precious to me!
Awe, sweet Melvin. I had the great fortitude to spend a week at his house in 1993! Woke up to biscuits baking in the over and a huge breakfast every day. What a wonderful man and awesome fiddler. I miss him!
Thanks bob, for these videos. Such an amazing longbow fiddler. I met him at cliff top. Wish I could have spent more time around him. This old type sound is dying out
I lived in Glenville, West Virginia in the 90's up Bonnet Hollow and frequently visited with Melvin at his home if I were on my way to Gassaway or Summerville or someplace like that and he always had time to play some tunes. We'd sit in his kitchen, which looked like a room decorated in the 40's or 50's with brightly colored padded chairs in chrome and covered in vynal and knick knacks all over the walls and drink coffee and play old time. It was like being in a room that was a cross between an old house and a dinner. I always had a great time and once I expressed an intrest in learning "crooked tunes" with extra measures and crazy timing he seemed to make it his mission to teach me as many as I cared to learn. He was a good old man. I left West Virginia just before 2000 and returned to Raleigh, North Carolina where I'm from and never saw him alive again. When I finally heard he'd passed away it sort of brought a tear to my eye but I wound up with a bunch of great memories and odd fiddle tunes (that very few know) and I still think of him as a friend I could always twin with. I bought a copy of the CD, Cold Frosty Morning that he produced around the time he was invited to play at the White House and got his National Endowment For The Arts Award and now it's getting warn out. I think it may have been recorded by the Smithsonian Institution but that escapes me now. Melvin was surely a national treasure.
