Talk; Singing parts, biographical

Collected by Bob Blackston for Mary Celestia Parler Transcribed by Nathaniel Lucy Told by Ed Alford Delmar, Arkansas January 3, 1960 Reel 326 Talk Alford: That's got the sweetest alto in a song ever I heard. And you know Ruth . . . used to sing alto. Boy, boy. She'd sing alto for me. Parler: You sing alto? Unknown Woman: Nuh-uh. Parler: I didn't know people did much, um, harmonizing on those old songs. Woman: Well they always did around here. I don't know if they did anywhere else. Alford: Sure did around here. Woman: They usually had all parts. Parler: Oh, I see. I thought it was pretty much just solo. Alford. Well, shoot. . . . all parts. You take the soprano and tenor and bass and all of that . . . I always thought it was so. Why he'd teaching schools and I would lead for them and I . . . all fall. Well there'd be two weeks, two weeks to hitch . . . was a boy and I had the best time of my life then. I'd get to meet all of the girls and all I thought about just to make the time. I never tried to learn the music. I could but had a good chance but I never . . . Parler: . . . contest and see who could sing the most songs? Alford: Oh Lord, they got me in. I had to sing . . . mountain a while back. The first one they had, I got by with two. Last one they put me up to four and got on the floor and hollered after one. There's some people lining out here named the Whitakers and they's just crazy about a song. They said they had come all the way to hear that. And then . . . get to that, my sister-in-law jumped up and she wanted to hear "Lonesome Valley" and had to gothrough that. They puts to me four but one of the, maybe tell you her name directly, her dad died here just awhile back now, a preacher. I talk about a guitar player, she could make that thing talk and she'd play that for me. . . convention. And the next day. That wasn't the singing convention next day at Compton was it? It sure was. And we left at noon . . .Funding for digitization provided by the Arkansas Humanities Council and the Happy Hollow Foundation