The Kate

ANNOUNCER: From the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center in Old Saybrook Connecticut, it's The Kate.

(guitar music) Philadelphia, Mississippi is my hometown.

And, right off the bat, you know, full disclaimer, Philadelphia Mississippi had a rough past.

Well big bright moon is shining Down on the desert sand The world came down on that town, and judged it by the actions of a handful of radicals and crazy people.

But the Philadelphia Mississippi I know and love, is filled with the most kind-hearted generous people, the personification of Southern hospitality.

Music was my life.

Our little radio station WHOC came on the air in the morning playin' country music, and the afternoon was Southern gospel for an hour.

And the afternoon was rock 'n' roll and top 40.

So that was my world, I mean I was a sponge.

Had my first electric guitar when I was nine and, you know, the Beatles and the Stones and all those bands were just kinda rippin' it up at that time, but, it's country music that I loved the most.

I felt like I was Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash's representative in the middle of Mississippi.

By the time I was 12, my mom and dad let me go on tour with a group called The Sullivan Family Gospel Singers.

At the end of that summer, they brought me back to Philadelphia and I had to start going to school, and I tried to study and I knew the band was out there playin' and people were applaudin'.

And that killed me, and I got kicked out of school.

(guitar music) I called a buddy of mine who played at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville with Lester Flatt.

And I was 13.

And Lester heard me playin' in the back of his bus and he said, "I want you to do that "on the show this weekend."

Walkin' into the Grand Ole Opry with Lester Flatt was like walkin' into the Vatican with the Pope.

Instant acceptance into deep family of country music.

He saw somethin' in me that I didn't see in myself at that time, that he invested in.

And at the end of it, he gave me his guitar which is the ultimate gift in country music.

My heart is sad After Lester Flatt passed away I needed a job.

So we went to Cowboy Jack Clement's studio, and there's Cowboy Jack Clement and Johnny Cash.

And John stood up, and he just kept lookin' at me, says, "Where you from?"

I said, "Mississippi."

He said, "I thought so."

He said, "You're that kid played with Lester?"

I went "Hmm mm" He said, "Where you been", I said, "Gettin' ready."

He said, "Let's go."

And two weeks later I think I was onstage and here we went around the world.

Strangest thing, the first two records I ever owned, to call my own, were a Lester Flatt and Earl Scrugg's record, and a Johnny Cash record.

And the only two jobs that I've ever had in my life was with Lester Flatt and Johnny Cash.

Go figure that out.

We're gonna debut something on your show tonight that we've never done before.

We've recorded a double, 20 song, all-original, hillbilly surf band record.

(surf music) Somebody say "Howdy"!

(audience applauds and cheers) Somebody say "Well".

AUDIENCE: (Well) Well, well well well AUDIENCE: (Well, well well well) Well Well there was a time I could drink my cares away Drown out all of the heartaches That hurt me night and day When the thought of you came crashin' through Well I'd have me just one more And now the whiskey ain't working anymore That's right I need one good honky-tonk angel To turn my life around That's the reason enough for me to lay This ol' bottle down A woman warm and willin' Lord that's what I'm a lookin' for Sing it 'Cause the whiskey ain't working anymore Somebody say owww They knew my name at every bar in town They knew all of the reasons I was comin' round, round, round In my mind, peace I'd find, when they'd start to pour That old whiskey ain't workin' anymore, oh I need a one good honky-tonk angel To turn my life around That's a reason enough for me to lay This ol' bottle down A woman warm and willin' Oh that's a what I'm lookin' for 'Cause the whiskey ain't workin' anymore Lord, the whiskey, it ain't workin' anymore Ah c'mon, it's almost the weekend, come on.

We can take it.

Well I need one good honky-tonk angel To turn my life around That's a reason enough for me to lay This ol' bottle down All right, y'all sing it for us, c'mon Well, the whiskey it ain't workin' anymore (audience applauds and cheers) Everything all right so far?

All right.

Clap your hands one more time.

(guitar music) There's a girl trying to steal my heart And I'm tempted Even though she can tear it apart, I'm tempted In her eyes there's mystery Every time she smiles at me Well I know how it could be and I'm tempted Each time she looks my way, I'm tempted Just a little more every day, I'm tempted It's so hard to resist The thought of her sweet kiss Can't take much more of this, I'm tempted Tempted and tried, deep down inside I can't deny that I'm tempted Ahhhh yea!

Ever since she caught my eye, I'm tempted Just one look and you'll know why I'm tempted So if I'm burned by the flame There's no one but me to blame 'Cause every time she calls my name, I'm tempted Tempted and tried, deep down inside I can't deny that I'm tempted Tempted and tried, deep down inside I can't deny that I'm tempted I'm tempted, I'm tempted, I'm tempted (audience applauds and cheers) We kicked off a record, a project back called Way Out West up in this part of the world, yeah?

(audience applauds) I love that project very much.

And if you haven't heard anything about it I can tune you in right fast.

It is a blue-sky palm-tree-based twangified psychedelic journey through the Mojave Desert.

(audience laughter) Like you don't know what I'm talkin' about.

And, it takes you out there, and one thing I can tell ya after you listen to the record, you will feel like you've been on Willy Nelson's bus for 21 days, all right?

It's a good feelin'.

Can we do ya a ballad off of Way Out West right about now, huh?

All right.

(guitar music) The border is nowhere in sight And I've got me a feeling won't be seeing it tonight But I'll ride on as fast as I can go Freedom waits for me in Old Mexico Well there's a pretty senorita waiting there With mysterious eyes and wavy black hair She always welcomes me to her door Love's on the line in Old Mexico Well it's a place where I'm not wanted There's no price on my head I can live and breathe and come back from the dead The shadows are friendly and friends well I've got many As far as I know In Old Mexico, in Old Mexico, in Old Mexico Well if you ever steal some gold From the red white and blue They've got an army of soldiers They'll be sending after you Those government horses sure ain't slow They can run all the way to Old Mexico Well it's a place where I'm not wanted There's no price on my head I can live and breathe and come back from the dead The shadows are friendly and friends well I've got many As far I know In Old Mexico, in Old Mexico, in Old Mexico All right!

(audience applauds and cheers) Gentlemen the time has come, for Cousin Kenny to come up front in his customized cowboy suit!

And sing you a song.

Ladies and gentlemen, how about a hand for Cousin Kenny!

(audience applauds and cheers) Kenny, Kenny.

AUDIENCE: Kenny, Kenny, Kenny.

Thank you for that.

(guitar music) Country music got a hold on me It bit me in the worst degree When I was little heard a fiddle or a steel guitar I started hoppin' and a boppin' like a man from Mars Country music got a hold on me It's an affliction that won't let me be It is a certain fact that's plain to see Country music got a hold on me When I turned eighteen I joined a Hillbilly band Rocked every joint from Maine to Alabama Now the people they're a comin' from miles around Wanna hear me play that country sound Country music made me what I am Lord I'm a take-off pickin' guitar man When I'm rockin' and a rollin' I'm a sight to see Country music got a hold on me Yes indeed Well I got my guitar but I love my girl My hillbilly princess really sets my heart a-whirl But she's meaner than the Devil when I gotta go away I got another show to play Country music got a hold of my soul I can't stop it now Lord I'm on a roll One thing in life holds a guarantee Country music got a hold on me Yeah (guitar music) Thank you Saybrook Connecticut, thank y'all.

(audience applauds and cheers) How about a hand for Professor Scruggs, ladies and gentlemen!

A good old western swing kind of blues thing for ya, little thing called the "Brain Cloudy Blues", and it goes like this.

(guitar music) Oh yeah.

My brain is cloudy, my soul is upside down (audience cheers) My brain is cloudy, my soul is upside down When I get that low down feeling I know the blues must be someplace around Well, you got to treat me right day by day Get out your little prayer book Get on upon your knees and pray 'Cause you're gonna need You're gonna need my help someday And you're gonna feel so sorry, oh, For treatin' me this way Oh yeah SCRUGGS: Brothers and sisters that's Kenny Vaughan and his guitar let's hear it for him now yea.

(audience applauds) Ah here comes Marty with his mandolin.

Aw here I go now.

(Audience applauds) MARTY: Well go ahead Christopher, play it brother.

Oh yeah.

MARTY: Haha, yeah.

Come on.

(audience applauds) Whoa!

(audience whooping) (Marty laughs) (audience applauds and cheers) Well, good evenin', don't that sun look good goin' down Well, good evenin', don't that sun look good goin' down Don't your home get lonesome when your lover ain't around Now I've tried everything, baby, to get along with you And now I'm gonna tell you what I'm gonna do I'm gonna stop cryin', gonna leave you alone If you don't think I'm leavin' You can count the days I'm gone 'cause You're gonna need, you're gonna need my help someday And you're gonna feel so sorry, oh, For treatin' me this way My brain is so cloudy, thank you very much.

(audience applauds and cheers) MARTY: Oh, Professor Scruggs.

Yeah!

MAN: Yeah, all right!

MARTY: Oh there's more, how about a hand for Handsome Harry?

(audience applauds and cheers) HARRY: Thank you so much.

Back in the 1930's there was a notorious outlaw named Pretty Boy Floyd.

And this is a song that Mr. Woody Guthrie wrote about it, "The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd", here we go.

MAN: A one, two, hit it!

(guitar music) Well gather 'round me, children, (audience cheering) What a story I will tell About Pretty Boy Floyd the outlaw, Oklahoma knew him well Well it was in the town of Shawnee Was a Saturday afternoon His wife beside him in his wagon While into town they rode Well there come a deputy sheriff And in a manner rather rude Using vulgar words of language His wife she overheard Thus when Pretty Boy grabbed a log chain And the deputy grabbed his gun And in the fight that followed He laid that deputy down That is no way to talk around a lady, folks Well he ran to the trees and bushes And livin' a life of shame Every crime in Oklahoma Was added to his name And many a starving farmer The same old story told How that outlaw paid their mortgage And saved their little home That's right!

Well it was Oklahom- (Harry holds a note for an extended period of time) - ma city (audience cheers) It was on a Christmas Day Come a carload full of groceries And a note that did say You say that I'm an outlaw You say that I'm a thief Well here's Christmas dinner For the families on relief Merry Christmas!

Happy New Year from Pretty Boy Floyd.

Well as through this world you travel You'll see lots of funny men Some will rob you with a six-gun Some with a fountain pen I said some with a fountain pen That's how they rob you But as through this world you ramble Through this world you roam You won't never find an outlaw Force a family from their home Take us home Marty Yeah!

There it is!

Thank you so much!

(audience applauds and cheers) MARTY: Cousin Kenny Vaughan, ladies and gentlemen.

(audience applauds and cheers) (surf music) All right we've been here all day and we hereby declare Old Saybrook Connecticut the surf music capital of the world tonight!

(surf music) (audience applauds and cheers) In the early 1980's when things started really changin' in the world of country music, the urban cowboy thing kinda exploded, and the older world of country music, the master architects, the people who raised me, were kind of deemed irrelevant.

Relegated to the Grand Ole Opry for honorary spots and things like that.

That never felt right to me, I thought the whole story should move forward.

But one day I walked into a junk store in Nashville, and Patsy Cline's train case, makeup kit, like one of those hand-tooled like a saddle, was for sale for 75 bucks.

I went, this is wrong.

It just, look, too important to let slip away.

So I just self-appointed myself that we can't let this stuff get away.

It's a stream of American culture that is just as important as anything else in the arts.

And so I started in my bedroom my little collection and then it went to a little warehouse.

And the little warehouse, a bigger warehouse, more warehouses, and now it's in, you know, probably a 30,000 square foot facility and there's 22,000 plus items.

And we're building a cultural center down in Mississippi.

The Congress of Country Music will open probably in all phases around four years from now.

The film that Ken Burns did that we worked on for eight years together couldn't have come at a better time for this particular project, because it raised an awareness in the nation of that culture.

That it is far more than just hay bales and hound dogs.

"Six White Horses" is a song popularized by Johnny Cash and his brother Tommy.

And it speaks about the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.

There's a line in the song that talks about guns.

And, how deadly guns can be in the wrong hands of the wrong people.

And it's a song that I remembered earlier this year, and I went, "I want to adopt that song."

(guitar music) Mhm Some folks drink some folks smoke Some folks love some folks don't Some folks laugh some folks frown Then they will gun you down Goodbye John Six white horses gonna take you home Goodbye John They took you away before you sang your song hmm mmmm mmm mm Some preach wrong some preach right Some preach love some preach fight Takes every kind to make the world go round Takes only one to gun you down Goodbye Martin Six white horses gonna take you home Goodbye Reverend They took you away before you sang your song hmm mmmm mmm mm Some people stick pretty close to home Others were born with that urge to roam Welcome welcome to our town Hope nobody tries to gun you down Goodbye Bobby Six white horses gonna take you home Goodbye Robert They took you away before you sang your song hmm mmmm mmm mm (guitar music) (audience applauds and cheers) Well goodbye John Goodbye Martin Goodbye Bobby Six white horses gonna take you home hmm mmmm mmm mm They took you away before you sang your song boy (guitar music) (audience applauds and cheers) (guitar music) Trains, I love trains.

I've never lived in a house where I couldn't hear trains go by.

I was raised in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

(audience laughter) I invite you to visit Philadelphia, Mississippi.

It's a cool town.

We lived in a house.

The train ran pretty close to the back of our house.

And I used to lay in my bed when I was a kid playing my guitar under the cover.

And that train would come rollin' through that Mississippi darkness.

And it sounded like it was gonna tear our house down and I loved it, it was so amazing.

In front of our house there was a pasture, and a factory, where my daddy worked, he was a factory man.

And the story was that they used to stop that train behind our house in Mississippi.

And they would take the front half of the train over to the factory, had a little spur line.

Back it up, load it up with steel, and motors, and bring it back and hook the train up, run off to north Mississippi in Memphis with a load.

But when they would stop that train down there, me and my best friend in the world Butch Hodgins, we would go down in there, investigate it.

You guys remember when trains had cabooses?

I miss cabooses.

There was a man on the caboose named Mr Bill Davis.

He took a liking to me and Butch Hodgins.

We'd go down there and visit with him when that part of the train was stopped.

And Mr Bill Davis gave me and Butch Hodgins Gulf, Mobile and Ohio pencils, Gulf, Mobile and Ohio pens, Gulf, Mobile and Ohio stationery, Gulf, Mobile and Ohio hats, and Gulf, Mobile and Ohio flares.

(audience whoops) So y'all heard about that big fire down in Mississippi back then?

One day the train was stopped.

And there was a character standing by the train smoking a cigarette, and he was cool, I'm talkin', he was Paul Newman cool.

He had silver hair.

Smoking a cigarette, wearing a scarf.

(audience laughs) Wearing clothes that looked like they come from another time.

And he told me and Butch Hodgins fascinating tales about going to beautiful, exotic, faraway lands like Alabama and Arkansas.

And he captivated my mind.

So the train started to take off, he'd jump back up there and he'd thump that cigarette and gave me one of them, you know?

As he was taking off, I said, "What are you?"

He said, "Boy, I am a hobo."

When he said that, the light came on, and I had a revelation.

I went home, I said, "Mama, I got it, "I know what I wanna do with my life.

"I wanna be a hobo."

Silver hair, scarf, crazy clothes from another time, best band in the world.

I have been to Alabama, I have been to Arkansas, tonight we're in Connecticut, I am a hobo, ladies and gentlemen.

(audience applauds and cheers) Personification of the American dream, that's me.

From a record we did called The Pilgrim .

"Hobo's Prayer".

(guitar music) Well under bridges, beneath trestles In the boxcars of dead trains Livin' to beat the cold of the pourin' drivin' rain A silent society moves out in the night Ragged rebels, homeless hobos and those like me Who've lost the light St. Peter is a prophet to all the hobo world An expert on everything from caviar to girls I met him west of Memphis on the eighth of July He handed me a can of beans and a rusty knife And he said "everything out here ain't what it seems And when you're down to nothing Just go ahead and dream Face the fact that you're a circle In a world full of squares Trading sorrows for tomorrows Now that's the hobo's prayer" Now Mother Mary is a lady from down in New Orleans She's seen a lot of living since she was 17 She said "I'm bona fide and worldly-wise, with original parts 'Cept for what set me to traveling, I'm talking about my heart" And she said "I can spot a broken heart from 20 miles away So are you passing through or have you come to stay You're running from a woman", she said with a grin "So what've you got to say," and I said I am a pilgrim Where everything out here ain't what it seems When I'm down to nothing, I just go ahead and dream Face the fact that I'm a circle In a world full of squares Trading sorrows for tomorrows, that's the hobo's prayer Trading sorrows for tomorrows, that's the hobo's prayer (guitar music) (audience applauds) (guitar music) (audience applauds and cheers) Clap your hands!

(energetic music) Well big bright moon is shining Down on the desert sand Well I reached down and touched the Earth And held it in my hand As the dirt fell through my fingers The wind did seem to say Don't put off until tomorrow What you can do today 'Cause, time don't wait on nobody Time don't wait on nobody Time don't wait on nobody It just keeps movin' on Time don't wait on nobody Time don't wait on nobody Time don't wait on nobody It just keeps movin' on And on and on and on, yeah!

A thousand angels dropped matches That lit up the desert sky A pillar of fire from East to West Came slowly drifting by Well a voice from the clouds like thunder Said start lookin' for a ride Said where yesterday meets tomorrow that'll get you to the other side Well time don't wait on nobody Time don't wait on nobody Time don't wait on nobody It just keeps movin' on Come on, sing it.

Time don't wait on nobody Time don't wait on nobody Time don't wait on nobody It just keeps movin' on And on and on and on Oh yeah!

Well time don't wait on nobody Time don't wait on nobody Time don't wait on nobody It just keeps movin' on I said time don't wait on nobody Wait on nobody No time don't wait on nobody It just keeps movin' on And on and on and on On and on and on and on Time Don't Wait Thank y'all very much.

(guitar music) (audience applauding) (audience rhythmic clapping) All right, sing it to us, c'mon now.

Well time don't wait on nobody Time don't wait on nobody Time don't wait on nobody It just keeps movin' on Time don't wait on nobody Time don't wait on nobody Time don't wait on nobody It just keeps movin' on And on and on and on On and on and on and on Time Don't Wait (audience applauds and cheers) Thank you.

While you're standin', we would love to leave you with a travelin' prayer.

It's called "Angels Rock Me To Sleep".

MARTY: Handsome Harry.

HARRY: Yes sir.

My heart is sad My soul is weary While traveling home Life's rugged plain The sky is dark The day is dreary It seems all earthly help is vain Angels rock me to sleep (Angels rock me to sleep) In the cradle of love (In the cradle of love) Bear me over the deep (Bear me over the deep) To the Heaven above (To the Heaven above) When the Savior shall call (When the Savior shall call) And the shadows shall fall Angels rock me to sleep Angels rock me to sleep Angels rock me to sleep In the cradle of love Ooh Oh, the cradle of love Ooh The cradle of love Goodnight everybody, thank you.

(audience applauds and cheers) ANNOUNCER: Funding for this program was provided by Whelen Engineering Company.

Whelen is a proud sponsor of The Kate, and wishes to voice its ongoing support for Connecticut Public Television, The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, and the Michael J.

Fox Foundation for Parkinson's research.