Tuesday, September 14, 2004

 

Pickers fiddling in the rain

From the Troy Messenger (Alabama)
Rain and the threat of rain didn't dampen the spirits of those who braved the weather to enjoy the Fall Fiddle Fest and Music Jamboree at the Pioneer Museum of Alabama Saturday.

Charlotte Gibson, museum director, said the crowd was about half the number that attended a similar event in April, but attributed that to inclement weather.

"With the facilities that we have here at the museum we can always adapt to the weather conditions," she said. "The musicians just gathered inside the main building and on the porches of our cabins and kept picking and singing. In spite of the weather, everyone had a good time and we had a successful festival and jamboree."

"Bluegrass, gospel and country - I love all three of them," Dorothy Coe said. "When we lived in Louisiana, we went to the Louisiana Hayride and the Ozark Jubilee every chance we got. There's just nothing like that kind of music. It's music from the soul."

And that's the kind of music that fills the heart of a "syrup soppin' senior and former cotton picker."

"That's what I am," Coe said, laughing. "And this is my kind of music. I could sit and listen to it all day long."

Laverne Sanders, the heart and soul of Mercy Rain, said gospel music is a way of life for her.

"I was singing with he Masters Quartet and we were involved in a terrible car accident," she said. "Four members of the quartet died as a result of the accident. The drummer and I were the only ones to survive."

"This guy wanted to sing and I agreed to sing with him," she said. "We didn't have a name and needed to have one. One night, he suggested Mercy Rain because he said God had rained down His mercy on me. Since we took that name, things have been going really good for us."

Read the article
Troy Messenger


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