Billy Jack Reems counseled me to just take it easy for a while and listen for the Lord's opinion, so that's what I did. I quit touring for three months. I really got to know my little twins, Sean and Shane, for the first time. I had a big wedding for Annie May when she married Donnie Hart. I put Tommy in rehab. I bought a gazebo. Rhonda had a mastectomy.
Then one summer evening I was over visiting with Ramona Smoot and her friend Carole Bliss, down at the old tobacco barn which honestly they have turned into the cutest house, all ruffles and ducks, right when
Masterpiece Theatre
was just going off TV. Ramona never misses an episode of
Masterpiece Theatre
. She loves Alistair Cooke. Anyway, we were sitting there sipping on ice tea when all of a sudden Virgie Rainette came on the screen, big as life. I sat straight up in my wicker chair, spilling my ice tea.
“Good heavens,” Ramona said.
“Hush,” I said. “It's my Aunt Virgie.”
And sure enough it was, Virgie being interviewed on public television by the nicest young long-haired boy. She told him all about living up on Grassy Branch like she had invented it. She told about working tobacco like she'd done it herself. She said it used to take them a day to get to a doctor, which was not true either, Cana was not that far. She told all about being a Grassy Branch Girl without once mentioning R.C., who was the genius behind it all. When the boy asked her if she would favor them with a song, she was as ready as ever. “This song was brought into our family by my mother, Tampa Rainette,” Virgie said, and then she sung “White Linen,” accompanying herself on her old guitar. While she sang, the camera panned around so that we could see her audience sitting in a circle around her, paying close attention. One boy was writing things down in a notebook. Virgie didn't sound any better than she ever had, and she looked a lot worse. She looked old as the hills. When I said as much, Ramona said, “But she's
authentic
, Katie. That's what they're looking for now. She was
there
, after all. She's the real thing.”
The idea of the
real
thing being a
good
thing was certainly something new for me to think about.
After “White Linen,” Virgie did “The Preacher's Son” and then “Down by Grassy Branch,” which got her a standing ovation. They didn't care about her voice, I realized. They cared about something else. Then the show switched over to Doc Watson, who was the real thing for sure. The minute that show went off, I called up Georgia long-distance, from Ramona's.
“You won't believe it!” I said. “Your mamma was just on ETV.”
Georgia said she knew it, that her son, who goes to school up North, was actually
there
when they filmed it.
“I wish Mamma wouldn't act like this,” Georgia said. She said that Virgie had been in a private rest home suffering from senile dementia when she was discovered by hippies who recorded her and then started carrying her around to all these festivals.
“It sounds like she's got a whole new lease on life,” I said.
“Well, we think it's embarrassing!” Georgia snapped.
We talked some more, and when I hung up Ramona said, “Virgie's a hoot, isn't she? Maybe you ought to put
her
on your next album. Actually it might be kind of interesting.”
“Are you kidding?” I said. “Virgie will drive you crazy. I know what Georgia means. She's better off in the rest home.”
“No, now
listen
,” said Carole Bliss, a CPA with a real forceful way of speaking. “We've just been talking, Ramona and I, while you were on the phone, and we were wondering, why
don't
you get Virgie and your whole family together and make an album of all your old family songs? The time is right. People are really interested in that kind of thing.”
“That's a completely crazy idea,” I told her. “It's not commercial. Nobody would produce it.”
“Then produce it yourself!” Carole Bliss snapped, and I just stared at her.
If it is possible for God to speak to Paul on the road to Damascus, it is possible for Him to speak to me in the voice of a crackerjack lesbian accountant.
Why not? Why not?
is the question to ask anyway, Billy Jack says, instead of
Why
?
So we are going ahead with it, and RCA has approved the idea.
I am the producer. Carole Bliss is the associate producer.
They've got Alan Rubin, one of these new young ones, to record and mix it. We are actually going to record it in the old Ryman itself, and some people are going to make a documentary film out of us recording it. That's kind of like the little girl on the Morton's salt shaker, isn't it? She's carrying a salt shaker that's got a picture of a little girl carrying a salt shaker. It all comes around full circle, don't it?
Like an album.
The name of the album is going to be
Shall We Gather at the River
. I knew I had to come up with something religious or Mamma wouldn't make the trip.
RCA is paying for R.C., Little Virginia and her boyfriend Homer Onslow, Virgie and her hippie companions, and Mamma and Mamma Tampa to stay at the Opryland Hotel, which I bet they will just love. It is really something at Christmastime, with miles of lights. Mooney and all the boys will be in on it too, even Frosty, who's coming up from Alabama with his wife to hit a lick or so. Everybody I've ever been associated with except Georgia, who has given up music altogether, is going to be on this album.
And the best part is, they're going to let Rose Annie out of prison to sing with us! It has been at least twenty-five years since Rose Annie and me have sung together. I can't wait. I don't even care what she sounds like.
I have never sounded better.
And Alan Rubin is rounding up some young traditional singers to join us on the album anyway, such as Don Oakes and C.J. Barnes. I'm surprised I can get them so cheap, because I can't pay them what they're used to, but they seem to want to do it. So it's shaping up!
I'm starting to get real excited about it myself. For instance right now it's two a.m., the middle of the night, and I can't sleep a wink for thinking about this album. I've been tossing and turning across most of Arkansas, my mind is so full of music. There's
too many
songs, is the problem. The longer you live, the more songs you get attached to, they just get to be a part of you somehow. It's going to be hard to pick and choose. Maybe R.C. will help me out. But I love it, you know, I love riding along in my bus in the middle of the night, thinking about it.
To tell you the truth, I'd rather be here than home in Nashville, where there's always too much stuff that keeps happening, that you have to deal with. I got my fill of it last summer. I don't really want to go to Sean and Shane's lacrosse match tomorrow for instance, I'm
glad
we'll be in Little Rock! I never heard of lacrosse before I was forty years old, I am not going to get into it now. I am not into sports, anyway. Or sports cars. Or running. Or jewelery. Or real estate, or astrology, or therapy, or bonsai trees. I know other women in music that are just wild about these things. I never had time for a hobby, and I'm too old to get one now. When I was in Vanderbilt Hospital, they forced me to make an ashtray out of little mosaic tiles and I just
hated
it.
But don't get me wrong, I still know how to have a good time. I like to dance. I will take a drink from time to time. I like to have a date. There's nothing wrong with any of this. Billy Jack says that, above all, God does not want us to put ourselves under a bushel.
Right at this minute there's a young bass player from East Texas sleeping in a bunk not thirty feet from where I am right now. He's got a certain look in his eye. I believe I might want to get to know him a little better. It will probably be darn good for him, too! I also believe I might as well get up and put some beans in to soak, then I can cook them tomorrow in Little Rock. I have plumb spoiled my boys! They won't eat any but my cooking if they can help it, and I've certainly got time to put the beans in, Lord knows, tonight I've got nothing but time.
Shall We Gather at the River
The Opryland Hotel has got a lobby as long as a football field. Right now at Christmastime this lobby is decorated from top to bottom with fresh-cut evergreen garlands, poinsettias, a tree so big it can't be realâand maybe it's not, who cares!âred ribbon bows, lights, and all kinds of Christmas decorations.
Homer Onslow would never admit it out loud, but he for one is damn glad to be met at the door by these slick little boys from the RCA record company, still wet behind the ears but at least they seem to know their way around this goddamn hotel. The Grassy Branch group pauses just inside the lobby while the boys go to get a wheelchair for Mamma Tampa. As for Mamma Tampa herself, she is a sight to behold, as usual; today she's wearing a large green velvet hat, which Little Virginia has stuck a red bow on, for the season. Mamma Tampa must be closing in on a hundred by now; nobody seems to be sure exactly how old she is. You might think she looks terrible, but just rememberâfor her age, she looks great! Little Virginia plops Mamma Tampa down in the wheelchair when they come running with it.
Homer is further impressed to learn that they don't even have to check in at any of the forty check-in desks, it's all been taken care of by RCAânow that's
service
! The RCA boys are a little confused, they keep thinking that Homer is R.C., and frankly, Homer is just letting them think it, he's kind of enjoying the celebrity. He ought to get
something
for putting up with R.C. Bailey all these years!
Little Virginia, a handsome woman by God, steps along right smart in her big plaid pantsuit, pulling whiny sour little Alice by the elbow. As for Alice, all the lines on her face go down. Her mouth looks like a shovel. Right now she's still trying to act like she's not here.
One boy from RCA is talking on a walkie-talkie. “I tell you what, sir,” he says finally, deferentially, to Homer. “We're supposed to rendezvous at the Pickin Parlor in about thirty minutes, and then we'll take you on into town by bus. We've got a pretty tight schedule since your plane was late. Frankly, sir, I don't think we've got time for you all to go to your rooms now, if that's all right with you, I mean. I believe we'd better just send your bags on up there. It's too far to walk, sir, you'll see what I mean later. We'd better just head on over to the Pickin Parlor.”
“Why, sure!” Homer says magnanimously. He has no idea what this boy is talking about.
Mamma Tampa smiles and nods and waves as she is wheeled along through the crowded lobby, exactly like a beauty queen on a float. She's got that beauty-queen wave down pat. They wheel her past a crowd of senior citizens from Columbia, South Carolina, past Santa, around a boys' choir singing “The Little Drummer Boy.”
Then wow! They stop at the entrance to the giant Conservatory, and even Alice is impressed. “Oh!” she says involuntarily, and then immediately claps her hand over her mouth.
The Conservatory, crowned by a one-acre skylight, covers more than two acres. Although it's starting to sleet outside, it's always summer in the Conservatory. Even now, in December, it's full of palm trees and blooming flowers and giant ferns, little water falls and babbling brooks and grottoes and brilliant birds.
Tampa leans forward to touch a fragile pink flower. “Durwood Bailey and I went to Key West on the train,” she says. “We bought a box stew in South Carolina.”
“What's a box stew?” one of the RCA boys just can't keep himself from asking, but his question goes unanswered because right then the Singing Fountain starts up. This happens every hour on the hour regular as clockwork, and of course today it's a Christmas medley, with the spotlights shining red and green and gold and blue on the dancing jets of water. The jets shoot up, down, sideways, forming arcs, sheets, squiggles, spirals in time to “Deck the Halls.” Then the Singing Fountain changes to “White Christmas” and an involuntary “Oh!” goes up from the crowd as a magic doorway high up in the courtyard wall opens and Lloyd Lindroth emerges onto a little balcony, majestically dressed in a white sequined tuxedo. He flips up his tuxedo tails, seats himself before his giant harp, and lifts his arms to flex his fingers in the air. “Irene, Irene, is it Elvis?” one of the ladies from South Carolina says too loud, they just
knew
she would embarrass them all, they should have made her stay home.
“Well, I swan!” Alice says mildly when the whole show is over with. It is as close as Alice has ever come to being impressed.
And now, here they go! With one boy from RCA pushing the wheelchair and another one leading the way, with the rest of them holding onto each other for dear life so they won't get lost, they follow the fancy path over the arched bridges, past the Seven Singing Dwarves doing “Muleskinner Blues,” past cocktail lounges and fancy shops and special Christmas displays until finally they are completely exhausted and Little Virginia puts a heavy hand on the first boy's shoulder and drags him to a halt. “Now just a durn minute!” she says. “How much further is it?” Little Virginia is a big woman, she goes everywhere in a car and hates to walk. Also she thinks Homer might cardiac out on her at any minute, his chlorestol is naturally sky-high. “Nobody mentioned that this was going to be a marathon!” she says.
“The Pickin Parlor is just around here past the fireplace,” the boy says. “I promise.”
They make another turn and pass the enormous fireplace, big enough for a man to walk into, its blazing fire tended by elves, and then there they are at the Pickin Parlor, where Katie Cocker is waiting with Carole Bliss and some people from RCA. Katie jumps up and runs to meet them. “Oh, Mamma Tampa,” she says, kneeling and taking her hand, “Mamma Tampa, I'm so glad you're here!”