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From:
Subject: [Melungeon] applachian story of Dock Boggs
Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 20:05:39 EST


Isnt there someone on this board researching Boggs? Found this on an
Appalachian site. Interesting.
donna

Jack Wright wrote:

February 7 is the birthday of Dock Boggs, the legendary early
recording
artist from Needmore, VA. He would have been 103. Dock also died on
February 7, 1971, 30 years ago today.
According to G.C. Kincer, his dad, Garnard Kincer, kept Dock Boggs'
banjo for many years when Dock was forced into early musical retirement.

It was about 1931. Dock traveled to Neon, Kentucky, and put his banjo
into "hock" with Kincer for $40. Dock hadn't been married long. It
seemed that his wife, Sarah, didn't like his music or the folks it
attracted. So, Dock asked his old friend to keep the instrument for
awhile until he could change her mind. The banjo was a beauty, a 1928
arch-top Gibson Mastertone. It stayed gone much longer than planned.
Dock retired from the coal mines in the early '60s, and just a few
months before he was reódiscovered by Mike Seeger, he made a phone call
to the Kincer house, and talked to the old man. Garnard had kept and
played the banjo for more than thirty years. He'd put the old Mastertone

to good use. The instrument had become part of the family. He frailed it

when he sang to his children as they grew up.
When Dock asked if he might get his banjo back, Garnard related that
it
would be okay. That had been the original agreement. Dock was fully
prepared to pay quite a bit of interest when he made the trip.
When Dock showed up on Garnard's porch they sat and did some
re-acquainting. They hadn't seen each other since the trade. They
swapped some tunes and some stories. When it came time for Boggs to be
going back home, Garnard told him that he needed to be paid for the time

he had kept the banjo.
G.C. said that Garnard insisted that a deal was a deal, and not a
penny
less, nor a penny more was the way they had shook on the transaction....

$40. Dock was thankful, to say the least, and overjoyed to get his
banjo back. His second musical career was about to begin.
The Kincer children cried when the old banjo went out the door. To
them,
it was a friend of the family. They knew there would be no more music.
When Dock passed on, he wanted the banjo to go to his good friend
Mike
Seeger. A year later, Mike picked up the old Mastertone from Sarah. It
can still be heard on occasion at a concert and on several of Mike's
recordings.
The only known film footage of Dock Boggs playing and singing is now
on
video. Dock performs three songs with his banjo. ( Shady Grove: Old
Time Music from North Carolina, Kentucky, and Virginia Vestapol 13071)
The filming took place while Dock was in Rhode Island for the 1966
Newport Folk Festival. Musicologist Alan Lomax filmed Dock at a nearby
studio.
Dock's signature song was "Country Blues." He also wrote and
recorded a
tribute to the Wise County Jail inspired by a runóin with a local
constable.
"The cops around Norton are a dirty old crew....
Your pockets they'll pick, your clothes they'll sell
for 25 cents, they'll send you to hell
Hard Times in the Wise County jail, hard times, I know"
And now playing in a theater near you is a popular Coen Brothers'
movie,
"Oh Brother, Where Art Though." The soundtrack features Ralph Stanley
singing a version of one of Dock's most mournful and chilling tunes,
"Oh Death." Dock didn't write the song but his recording defined it and
now it is being reborn for a new generation.
Happy Birthday Dock, and we thank you for the present.
Your "old master" tone is still ringing.





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