The Devil's Dream (18 page)

That Virgie! It's like all the fire went out of Tampa and straight into Virgie, who is thirty-two years old now but don't appear to know it, or have a lick of sense. She's bad to drink, too, and bad to take up with a man. She's done this several times in fact, but so far it hasn't worked out too good, because Virgie's picky, too. Not to mention real vain and high-strung. She takes medicine for her nerves right now. Virgie is the only one of the three women who was just as excited about this trip as R.C. She jumps out of the car, smoothing her dress down over her hips. Virgie looks like a souped-up, more intense version of her mother: black-haired, skinny; big dark eyes, pouty red mouth. Everything that has gone soft in Tampa is sharp as a razor in her daughter Virgie.

Tampa hands Bill out to Virgie. Then Tampa and Lucie get out. Then Lucie takes Bill, and the rest of them get their instruments out of the back. “Oh, Lord,” Lucie says as it hits her what they are about to do. She looks all around at the city buildings, the city cars. She's got beans to put up, back home.

“Come on, come on,” R.C. says. He shepherds his women around to the side of the building, past some fellers that are having a big loud argument on the sidewalk, through the door, up the dark staircase to a little landing, then through another door with a pane of frosted glass in it. R.C. doesn't even knock. He just walks in like he owns the joint.

Ralph Peer is there waiting for them, leaning against a table covered with papers, pens, notes, coffee cups, drinking glasses. Blankets have been tacked to all the walls.

The women hang back, looking around, but R.C. crosses right over to Ralph Peer and sticks out his hand. “I'm R.C. Bailey,” he says, “and these here is the Grassy Branch Girls.”

Mr. Peer makes an elegant little half-bow in their direction, “Ladies, I'm so pleased to make your acquaintance,” he says. “I understand you've traveled some distance to get here today.”

Virgie and Tampa both start talking at the same time, then stop.

“We sure have,” Lucie says.

Mr. Peer walks over and tweaks Bill's cheek. “Now that little feller is not likely to cry, is he?” he asks.

“Not if we go right ahead on,” Lucie assures him. “He'll sleep for an hour at the leastest. I will just make him up a pallet right over here in the corner iffen you don't mind,” she says, and Ralph Peer nods, and she does it while he says to R.C., “Now you, sir, are the manager of this group, as I understand it?”

When R.C. says that this is so, Ralph Peer motions him to the table. “Well, if you will just take a chair, then, Mr. Bailey, we will conduct our preliminary business with as much dispatch as possible while that little feller is asleep. You ladies just make yourselves comfortable over here.” He indicates several benches and chairs, where the women settle. Tampa takes the autoharp out of its case while Virgie gets out the archtop guitar that she's been favoring lately. They start tuning up while R.C. discusses business with Mr. Peer.

The terms are simple. Mr. Peer, representing the Victor Talking Machine Company, will pay fifty dollars per selection plus royalties of about two and a half cents per side. To R.C. Bailey, this is a lot of money.

Mr. Peer seems especially happy to learn that R.C. has written two of the numbers the Grassy Branch Girls plan to sing this afternoon: “Melungeon Man” and “Down by Grassy Branch.” The other numbers, R.C. assures Mr. Peer, feature his own personal arrangements and may be copyrighted as well. The fifth, “Shall We Gather at the River,” is an old hymn that has been recorded many times previously, by many artists, but R.C. assures Mr. Peer that theirs is a brand-new styling. Mr. Peer nods.

A dapper, refined gentleman with hooded eyes and a fleshy, florid face, he has little regard for most of the “hillbillies” he deals with. Nor does he like their music much, but a man has to make a living, and this hillbilly music is making him rich. Ralph Peer is no fool. He realizes that R.C. Bailey is smart, a cut above most of the hillbillies who have come in here, and treats him with consequent respect. Many of these hillbillies have never heard of copyrighting songs, for instance, which is “the basis of the music business,” as Mr. Peer tells R.C. now.

“You know, I have been recording nigger music for many years,” Mr. Peer says, and mentions some of the Okeh 8000 series of “race” records he's made: Mamie Smith's “Crazy Blues,” recorded in Memphis; Louis Armstrong's “Gutbucket Blues”; minstrel acts such as Butterbeans and Susie, recorded in Negro vaudeville theaters throughout the South. But Mr. Peer is always looking for original material, he tells R.C., and “niggers can't write.” So he's turned to hillbilly now. Mr. Peer gives R.C. the necessary papers to sign and R.C. reads them through carefully, as befits the importance of this occasion. Some of the hillbillies Mr. Peer has signed can't even write their own names. The illiterate fiddler G.B. Grayson signed his contract with an X.

While R.C. reads over the contract, the two sound engineers come in carrying cold Coca-Colas in a box and hand them around. The engineers are introduced as Mr. Eckhardt and Mr. Lynch, and Virgie immediately begins to make eyes at Mr. Eckhardt. R.C. writes his name across the bottom of the contract in his habitual large scrawl, embellishing the capital letters with a flourish. Mr. Peer nods approval. He appreciates style in a man. Ceremoniously, Mr. Peer folds up R.C.'s copy of the contract and hands it over to him; R.C. deposits it carefully in his vest pocket. He stands up and shakes hands again with Mr. Peer.

“Now then, girls,” R.C. says.

The engineers are rigging things up.

Mr. Peer shows them all over to the platform where they are to sit, since they'd rather sit than stand. “It's more like home,” as Lucie says, and Virgie wishes the rest of them would quit acting so country. Mr. Eckhardt adjusts the microphone, brushing up against Virgie's shoulder. “Excuse
you
!” Virgie says. They grin at each other.

“All right now,” Mr. Peer says, and nods to Mr. Lynch, who flips the switch that starts up the electrical equipment, made by Western Electric. When Ralph Peer first went out into the country recording for Okeh, the heavy revolving turntable, covered by an inch of wax, was run by a mechanism involving weights and pulleys, like a cuckoo clock. This modern electrical equipment, which ensures a far superior product, fascinates R.C., who crosses the studio to observe its operation at close range while the women sing.

They start out with “Shall We Gather at the River,” and after the first verse, Mr. Peer nods, a barely perceptible nod, to Mr. Eckhardt. Lucie plays the little Gibson guitar that R.C. got her so long ago, Tampa the autoharp, Virgie the big archtop guitar. Their harmony is perfect. It is a simple, direct, appealing sound.

“That's just fine, ladies,” Mr. Peer says when they get done. “Now let's run through it one more time, and
you
”—he nods to Virgie—“back off from the microphone a bit. That big guitar is drowning out the other one.” Virgie pouts but does it, scooting her chair back, and they sing it again, flawlessly.

For the next number, “Melungeon Man,” R.C. joins them on the fiddle, sad and shrill on the refrain:
Melungeon Man don't know where he's going, Melungeon Man don't know where he's been
. This is an unusual, mournful tune, and it has a special sound to it, something different. Ralph Peer gets a hunch about this one. He snaps his fingers.
Done
.

On “Down by Grassy Branch,” R.C. stays on the fiddle and Virgie switches to the banjo, which fascinates everybody. Girl banjo players are a rarity. This is a rollicking dance tune, and it will require four takes to get it right. Then R.C. sings bass with the girls on “Down in the Valley,” which adds to the song's deep, sad resonance.
Down in the valley, valley so low, hang your head over, hear the wind blow
. Bill wakes up crying, so everybody takes a break while Lucie retires to the ladies' room to nurse him.

Tampa and Virgie smoke cigarettes out on the fire escape landing with the engineers while R.C., filled with that energy he just cannot control sometimes, strides wildly up and down State Street like a crazy man, running his hands through his hair. The afternoon has grown darker, hotter. It will rain soon. Back on Grassy Branch, R.C.'s crops need rain, but he can't think about that now. Alone among his carload of kin, R.C. understands the importance of this day, of this new recording equipment, of this infant industry. It is always R.C.'s blessing—and curse—to understand a little too much about everything.

When the session resumes, Lucie and Tampa sing a duet on “The Cuckoo Song,” accompanying themselves only on autoharp and guitar, while Virgie reluctantly holds Bill.

For Lucie, this song will always bring back the fresh open faces of Lizzie and Sally, who taught it to her years ago. Tears come into her eyes then but do not fall, and her voice takes on a deeper shading of emotion, a tremor, that renders the simple old song almost unbearably poignant. Mr. Peer raises an eyebrow at Mr. Eckhardt. The last note lingers and lingers on the still, hot air, falling finally into silence. Even Bill is quiet, sucking his thumb, gazing raptly from face to face. Finally Mr. Peer clears his throat.

“I cannot say at the present time how many of these numbers the Victor Talking Machine Company will release as recordings,” he announces formally. “The final decisions always involve factors beyond my control. But I can certainly tell you that this has been a productive session here today, and I feel that we have gotten some fine tunes out of it. I will be contacting you shortly.” Mr. Peer shakes hands with R.C., then with each of the women in turn, except for Lucie, who is walking the floor with Bill.

Head down under pretext of tending to the baby, Lucie cries softly. For it seems to her that they have just given up something precious by singing these songs here to these strangers, and she feels a sudden terrible sense of loss. She knows it's silly to feel this way, but somehow that doesn't help. Mr. Peer notices and comes over to pat her, awkwardly, on the back. “Artists are real temperamental,” he says to R.C. “I've seen it a million times.”

R.C. nods. He puts his arm around Lucie and the baby and steers them out the door, saying he'll come back in a minute for the rest of the instruments. Mr. Peer nods. He takes a swig of excellent brandy from a silver flask the minute they are all out the door, then hands it over to the engineers, then to R.C. when he comes back up alone. R.C. tilts his head back for a long swallow. The liquor goes down fiery but smooth. He has never tasted any liquor like it. “Mighty fine,” he says to Mr. Peer, handing the flask back, and Mr. Peer says again that he'll be in touch.

It's already thundering by the time R.C. gets his instruments and women packed back up into the Model T; it's already raining by the time he finds Durwood exactly where he thought he might find him, in Bull Boyd's saloon down by the railroad tracks, dead drunk. Bull is happy to help R.C. load Durwood into the car. The thunderstorm has passed by the time they start for home in a gentle rain, with the windshield wipers beating time to R.C.'s thoughts. The women are first talkative, then querulous, then sleepy. R.C. doesn't pay them any mind. He's too busy thinking over the events of the past few days.

R.C. first learned about these recording sessions nearly a month ago as he sat reading the newspaper in a Bristol barbershop, waiting to get his hair cut. The advertisement was small. It stated merely that Victor would have a recording machine in Bristol for ten days commencing in late July. Interested acts and persons were urged to apply in writing. An address was given—the same address that is printed on the letterhead at the top of the contract now in R.C.'s pocket.

At the time, R.C. tore the advertisement from the paper and took it home to show his family, but only Virgie was interested. “It's too far to go,” Lucie said flatly, and even Tampa called the plan a “wild-goose chase.” Both women were mad at him anyway. They reminded R.C. of the money he had just lost on a disastrous land speculation involving a gold mine in North Carolina. R.C., chastened, gave up.

But then on July 28, with the Victor sessions already in progress, R.C. came across a reporter's account of watching Mr. Ralph Peer record local star Ernest Stoneman and Eck Dunford singing “Skip to My Lou.” The article read: “The synchronizing is perfect. Ernest Stoneman playing the guitar, the young matron the violin, and a young mountaineer the banjo and mouth harp. Bodies swaying, feet beating a perfect rhythm, it is calculated to go big when offered to the public.”

The last paragraph, the one R.C. kept reading over and over, revealed that Pop Stoneman was paid a hundred dollars per day; his sideman, twenty-five. It further stated that Stoneman had received thirty-six hundred dollars in royalties the year before.

R.C. read this article while sitting at the soda fountain in Sutton's Drug Store in Cana. He rolled up the paper, put it under his arm, and went to the back of the store, where he used Homer Sutton's telephone to call the number given. Mr. Peer would return the call in an hour's time, he was told. R.C. smoked and paced while he waited, refusing to tell the curious denizens of Sutton's soda fountain what he was up to.

Finally the phone rang. R.C. rushed to answer it. The appointment was made. Then all R.C. had to do was convince the women, but this was accomplished more easily than he'd thought. Tampa was impressed by the amount of Pop Stoneman's royalties; Virgie was ready to go anyplace at the drop of a hat anyway. Lucie had been feeling bad because she'd been so hard on R.C. about the gold deal (after all, he
was
a good man; he was a good provider; he did take care of them all), so a little sweet-talk did the trick there.

Now, driving them all back home, R.C. is still full of excitement. He feels like he might explode. He doesn't see how in the world they can all be asleep, in spite of the fact that they left home before dawn.
How can they sleep like that
? R.C. rolls the window of the Model T down. The night air is cool and mysterious, full of possibility. The rain comes in on his face. R.C. drives them home through the rainy night, on fire with thoughts of the future.