>there must be something particularly
>insular and unwelcoming about the hillbillies.
>
>Doug
Never been there but I know West Virginia boasts some wild and wooly white people. Boone County West Virginia is home (or was in the case of Adkins who died in 2005) to both Hasil Adkins and Jesco White. Adkins worked for decades as a one man band. I saw him once live playing guitar and singing, while slapping cymbals and snare with one hand and playing bass drum with his foot. Legend has it he learned that way because growing up he listened to the radio and thought the singer was doing everything. He made some crazy records. One was called Poultry in Motion. John Zorn is a fan and the Cramps recorded a few of his songs.
Here's a bit of an interview with Miriam Linna and Billy Miller of Norton Records, who once brought Adkins to New York:
BM: Many years ago Miriam ran into Andy Warhol - he was standing on a street corner, and she said, "Stay right there!", ran into a deli, got a can of Campbell's soup and had him autograph it: We had it on a shelf in our house for years. Then Hasil stayed at our house, and I said, "Haze, I'm going out for a while; there's plenty of food in the fridge." I came back and asked, "Did you have lunch?" and he said, "Well, I just fixed myself a can of soup." You guessed it -
ML: I was going through the garbage trying to find the can -
V: You should have had Hasil autograph it.
BM: He's a wild man, but he is also a great musician. A lot of people think he's just bashing away because he goes way out of tune when he plays, but he actually has perfect pitch. He'll break a string in a show and replace it with a piece of fishing wire lying in the parking lot - he might come home and have some fishing line, a banjo string, some wire that was wrapped around a barrel (6 wires, none of which are guitar strings) but they're all tuned perfectly.
ML: When Hasil came to New York he was extremely distressed there were no hot pants stores.
BM: It was Easter Sunday, and he wanted me to take him to buy hot pants with rivets on them that say "New York" across the butt for his girl. He was bellowing, "All these stores, and no hot pants? Where do they get their hot pants?"
ML: He was thinking, "Boy. New York is really behind the times - all the gals in Madison, West Virginia wear their hot pants they're in the top of style. These New York women don't know how to dress!" He's got his own views as to what's great in the world.
BM: We got him a show opening for Public Image in Toronto and after soundcheck, Haze wanted to go out to our van and put on his western shirt. When he got outside, there were all these Johnny Rotten fans in line wearing ripped-up threads. Haze just shook his head and said, "Maybe I won't change my shirt - people in this town don't seem to care what they look like!" One night Hasil played in Philadelphia and we went to stay with our friend Ben Vaughn who was putting us up for the night. It was 5 AM, everybody was slumped down in their chairs, and I pulled out a record and asked, "Hasil, you want to hear some Hank Williams?" and he went, "Hank Williams, Larry Williams - it don't make any difference." He's funny he's into both Slim Harpo and Lightnin' Slim but he thinks they're the same person: "Lightnin' Slim Harpo." I gave up trying to convince him that it's two different guys. A film company that does documentaries on Appalachia was filming a documentary on Hasil, interviewing his family and friends. And in the film Hasil's walking around with this girl on his arm, a real sweet blond girl named Karen who wears a cowboy hat and coos, "Ooh, Hasil..." At one point the director asked her, "Hey, how long have you been Hasil's girlfriend?" and she replied, "Oh - I'm not Hasil's girlfriend; I just play his girlfriend in the movie!"
V: What does his house look like?
ML: A typical Appalachian 3-room shack.
BM: He's so far back in the woods that the landlord gave up driving out to collect the rent, which was $40 a month. He has ponds where he fishes and woods where he hunts. In his front yard is a broken - down New York City bus that says "HUNCHIN' BUS" - that's where he has his parties. The bus is actually bigger than the house.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesco_White
http://www.grandrapidsrocks.com/haze/haze2.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasil_Adkins