My brother Joe was the oldest boy in the family, about 12 years older than me. Daddy relied on him heavily, along with brother Jack, to carry on the work of our family farm. Most of us remember him, though, for his love of his guitar. He didn't play fancy, and he didn't know a lot of chords, but we loved to hear him. A lot of the times we got together to sing happened to be when Daddy was drunk, a state my brother often shared. No matter that we almost always sang the same old country songs and hymns, we enjoyed doing them anyway.
Joe loved Hank Williams, and I think he sang about every song ol' Hank ever wrote. Beyond that, he loved to pick Wildwood Flower, a song every local guitar picker had to know back in the day. On a few occasions, when I wanted to sing some new-fangled song like one by Johnny Horton, he would complain I wasn't singing it right, because he couldn't find a chord that fit. None of that mattered; he was still the family's resident musician, and we loved and admired him for it.
I recall vividly the night in September 1967 when Joe got up from the bed where we were sleeping, sitting on the side as he pulled his boots on. Hours later, I woke up to hear the wail of an ambulance siren going by. It wasn't until much later in the day that we discovered that Joe, only 30 years old, had been killed in a car accident with two of his friends. It was a devastating blow, especially to Daddy, who refused at first to believe the news.
It was largely because of my memories of my brother that I began learning to play the guitar about a year and a half later. That has been one of the great blessings of my life for almost 40 years. It is not at all unusual for my mind to go back to Joe when I play, particularly when I play "Wildwood Flower".
Posted by gwcavend at December 15, 2006 12:18 AM