Felton Williams Interview
Highly regarded among steel guitarists who grew up in the Church of the Living God, Jewell Dominion, Felton Williams was a talented man with a lifelong thirst for knowledge. He was born in Tupelo Mississippi in 1934. Following the premature death of his father, at the age of four, he moved with his mother and four siblings to Mt. Clemons, about twenty miles northeast of Detroit, Michigan. As an adult, he went to work for the Ford Motor Company where through hard work, a four-year apprenticeship, and vocational studies at a local community college, he became a skilled electrician. He built steel guitars in his home workshop, one of which is on exhibit in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. He wound his own pickups, fashioned amplifiers incorporating circuits he designed, and even created some electronic effects for his guitars. At his home in the Detroit suburb of Ecorse, he served as a musical and spiritual mentor for several aspiring teenage steel guitarists who gathered there regularly. Among them were Sonny Treadway, Calvin Cook, Ronnie Hall and Wayne White, all of whom became highly skilled church musicians who played significant roles in shaping the music of the Jewell and Keith Dominions.
– Robert Stone
Click here to view Williams’s guitar at the National Museum of African American History and Culture digital archive.
This is an interview originally recorded for research purposes. It is presented here in its raw state, unedited except to remove some irrelevant sections and blank spaces. All rights to the interview are reserved by the Arhoolie Foundation. Please do not use anything from this website without permission. info@arhoolie.org
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Interviewee: Felton Williams
Interviewer: Robert Stone
Date: 8/28/03
Location: Telephone
Language: English
For the archive overview:
The Robert Stone Sacred Steel Archive
Felton Williams Interview Transcripts:
Robert Stone:
First of all, I want to thank you for taking time out. What I usually start off with is just first a little family background, like when and where you were born and who your mother and father were, and if you came from someplace other than Detroit, when you came and that sort of thing.
Felton Williams:
Oh yeah. Well, I can tell you, I was born in Tupelo, Mississippi.
Robert Stone:
Tupelo, Mississippi, and what-
Felton Williams:
My father was a minister, my mother was a minister.
Robert Stone:
What was your birth date?
Felton Williams:
January the 3rd, 1934.
Robert Stone:
1/3/34, and your father, what was his name?
Felton Williams:
Same, Felton W. Williams.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative), Felton, same as yours.
Felton Williams:
Yes, I’m junior.
Robert Stone:
And your mother, her name?
Felton Williams:
My mother’s name was Katie Lee.
Robert Stone:
She spell that K-A-T-Y or I-E?
Felton Williams:
I-E.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative), Katie Lee.
Felton Williams:
Williams, her maiden name was Ware.
Robert Stone:
Ware? W-A-R-E?
Felton Williams:
Right, correct.
Robert Stone:
When did you come to Detroit?
Felton Williams:
Well, I came… First of all, my father died in ’37, and we moved up here, came up here, to Mount Clemens in ’38. Then we moved down into Detroit in ’42 or ’43, I think it was. We moved down to Detroit. We were going to church there where Ted was.
Robert Stone:
Now, is the Mount Clemens close by? I’m not that familiar with Michigan.
Felton Williams:
Yeah, Mount Clemens is about 20 miles northeast of Detroit.
Robert Stone:
You came to Detroit and what year was that?
Felton Williams:
About ’43, 1943.
Robert Stone:
- I was born in ’44. Were they both in the, you’re from the Keith Dominion, right, all the way?
Felton Williams:
No, we from the Jewell Dominion.
Robert Stone:
You came from the Jewell Dominion?
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Are you still in it?
Felton Williams:
No, no.
Robert Stone:
So your family was in the Jewell Dominion in Mississippi?
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
Were you part of that group that joined over to the Keith Dominion in ’55?
Felton Williams:
No.
Robert Stone:
No, so you stayed in the Jewell?
Felton Williams:
Yeah, until about 19-, what was it, ’70, somewhere in there, and I go to a non-denominational church now. But I was one of the, what we call with Ted, the second line musicians with the Jewells.
Robert Stone:
What do you mean by that?
Felton Williams:
Well, the Jewells musicians started in 1940, and we started in about ’43 or ’44, so we were the second group.
Robert Stone:
Oh, okay. How do you know they started? Who started in 1940?
Felton Williams:
I can give you the names of the two musicians that were starting, but the steel guitar man was named Fred Neal. He started it with Bishop Jewell in 1940, I think it was. Harvey Jones was the Spanish guitar player with him, and they traveled with Bishop Jewell and that’s how the sound started, original. That’s the original sound of the Church of the Living God, Fred Neal and Harvey Jones.
Robert Stone:
That’s great, and they were both from Detroit or where were they from?
Felton Williams:
No, no, no, they were from… Well, we normally were from Nashville. They were traveling. See, because Bishop Jewell was the head of the organization, she was traveling all over. These were the musicians she had with her. The steel guitar was Fred Neal, and right after that, it was Bishop Lorenzo Harrison. He took over and I started playing about the same time he did.
Robert Stone:
When was that?
Felton Williams:
I started playing in the ’42, what would it be, when I got into Detroit, and that’s about the same time Ted started playing, because we played together at the same church for a long time.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative), I think Ted said he was about age five or seven when he first heard Fred Neal, and he was born in ’35, so that’d be about ’42, ’43.
Felton Williams:
When he first heard him, that’s about the time. When we first heard him, we started to emulate Fred Neal, and we were the second line.
Robert Stone:
Okay. I see. I got you and…
Felton Williams:
Different churches in different places had their own guitar players. See, so Ted and I both were here in Detroit. They had some in Toledo and Cleveland, places like that.
Robert Stone:
Now, you’re almost exact same age as Ted. He was born in ’35.
Felton Williams:
Yeah, I was born in ’34.
Robert Stone:
Do you remember Harvey Jones?
Felton Williams:
Oh yes, I talked to him regularly.
Robert Stone:
Oh really?
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
He’s still alive?
Felton Williams:
He is. He lives in Kansas City. I might can get you his phone number.
Robert Stone:
That might be good, because of course-
Felton Williams:
Now, he’s one of the originals, even from the Keith side. Well, it was another fellow. What is his name?
Robert Stone:
Well, the Eason brothers.
Felton Williams:
No, before them.
Robert Stone:
Oh, Harrison?
Felton Williams:
Before Harrison. I’m trying to think of over on the Keith side, they had… He’s still playing, I think.
Robert Stone:
Well, Willie Eason is still playing.
Felton Williams:
Eason, that’s right.
Robert Stone:
Willie and Troman and Henry Eason.
Felton Williams:
Eason, yeah. I didn’t know about the other ones. I remember Willie Eason was a steel guitar player, and that was the time Harvey Jones and Fred Neal was playing. Hang on a minute I get the phone number.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, I would love to talk to Harvey Jones.
Felton Williams:
He was the original one that started with Fred Neal and with Bishop Harrison. I played with him a little bit.
Robert Stone:
Now, let me ask you this out of curiosity, when he plays a guitar, does he play with a pick or with his fingers, with a thumb pick or flat pick?
Felton Williams:
He played with a thumb and finger picking. He was a finger-type guitar player, and most all of us started that way. I play both guitars, steel and the Spanish, and I played with finger and thumb pick on both.
Robert Stone:
Right. One thing, when I was talking to Ted, that came up is that, as you probably know, his father, Maurice Sr., played with Bishop Jewell.
Felton Williams:
Yes, and my father did too.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Felton Williams:
Yeah, but they didn’t travel much.
Robert Stone:
Well, anyhow, he was saying that his, Ted’s father, came from Beaver Dam, Kentucky. There’s a style of guitar picking that later became really popular, mostly through Chet Atkins and Merle Travis.
Felton Williams:
Oh yes, I’m familiar.
Robert Stone:
That originated right over there by Beaver Dam.
Felton Williams:
Oh yeah? I didn’t know where that sound was from.
Robert Stone:
They call it-
Felton Williams:
I tried to emulate Chet Atkins for a long time.
Robert Stone:
They call it the Kentucky thump picking style. That’s what it’s called.
Felton Williams:
Well, that’s the way Harvey Jones played, with thumb picking.
Robert Stone:
I wonder where Harvey Jones comes from.
Felton Williams:
Actually, he came from Michigan, and he went to Cleveland and that’s when he started. They went down to Florida and picked up Bishop Harrison, see, because Fred Neal was playing with him. Then when they went down to Florida, Bishop Harrison started, and he had to go in the service.
Robert Stone:
You see, I’m right near Ocala.
Felton Williams:
Oh yeah, well, that’s where they were…
Robert Stone:
That’s where the higher… Did you know Henry Nelson?
Felton Williams:
I knew of him. I don’t remember him personally.
Robert Stone:
Well, of course, Henry died a couple of years ago, but his older sister, she’s just a year older than he was, she was born in ’28, Mary Linzy. She’s my good buddy. She lives right here in Ocala, and I’ve talked to her a lot. She’s got a real good memory. Her body’s failing her, but she remembers even when Mother Tate had a house there in Ocala. She remembered when Lorenzo met Nettie Mae.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. Well, he met her down there, and Harvey Jones married down there.
Robert Stone:
So, you say you’ve got Harvey’s number?
Felton Williams:
Yeah. I have.
Robert Stone:
Okay. And where is he?
Felton Williams:
He’s in Kansas City.
Robert Stone:
Kansas City.
Felton Williams:
I got the address there.
Robert Stone:
Sure. Terrific. I’ll get ahold of him right away. I actually was going to call you sooner, but you may or may not know Ronnie Hall.
Felton Williams:
Yeah, I know Ronnie.
Robert Stone:
I’ve talked to-
Felton Williams:
He was my student.
Robert Stone:
Really? Well, we’ll talk about that in a minute, but I’ve been trying to get ahold of him for, gosh, about a week now.
Felton Williams:
Wait a minute, I can give you his number.
Robert Stone:
Well, I’ve got his number. It’s just a matter of getting together. He’s a busy guy.
Felton Williams:
Yeah, he is.
Robert Stone:
He stays on the move, and we’ve talked about three times, but we haven’t been able to do our interview yet.
Felton Williams:
Oh I see. Ronnie was one of my students.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Felton Williams:
Yeah, and Treadway was one of my students.
Robert Stone:
Well, of course, I know Sonny well.
Felton Williams:
I had some students during the time. They used to come over here every week, and naturally, after we went on the guitar then I would preach to them, so that I could keep them straight.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, young fellas.
Felton Williams:
And Wayne White. Did anybody tell you about him?
Robert Stone:
No.
Felton Williams:
Well, those three used to come over together. [crosstalk 00:11:22]
Robert Stone:
Wayne White.
Felton Williams:
Henry Wayne White, Sonny Treadway.
Robert Stone:
What’d you say? What was Wayne White’s full name?
Felton Williams:
Henry Wayne White.
Robert Stone:
Henry Wayne White?
Felton Williams:
Yeah, we called him Wayne. He’s a bishop now.
Robert Stone:
In the Keith Dominion?
Felton Williams:
No, he just left the Jewell Dominion. Ronnie was in the Jewell Dominion, and he went over to the Keith Dominion, and then he left that. He’s got his own church now.
Robert Stone:
Right, I know that.
Felton Williams:
So let me see if I can get you Wayne’s.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, that’d be good.
Felton Williams:
He’s in Southfield, Michigan, right outside of Detroit.
Robert Stone:
Great. You know who else I’ll talk to is Starlin Harrison?
Felton Williams:
Who?
Robert Stone:
Starlin Harrison.
Felton Williams:
I don’t think I know him.
Robert Stone:
Well, actually, he was Lorenzo’s brother.
Felton Williams:
I’ve known about him, but I never met his brother.
Robert Stone:
He played in the Keith Dominion. He played with Calvin Cooke-
Felton Williams:
Oh yeah, Calvin was one of my students too.
Robert Stone:
… for quite a while, and after he went into service and he moved to Seattle. He’s been out there ever since, and I think he’s in the Church of God in Christ now. Well, let’s try to get back to the timeline here. So, you’re in Detroit by 1943. You heard Fred Neal. Right there in Detroit?
Felton Williams:
Yes. I heard him Mount Clemens before we came to Detroit.
Robert Stone:
Mount Clemens?
Felton Williams:
Uh-huh (affirmative), when we lived in Mount Clemens.
Robert Stone:
Okay, and then when did you take up the steel?
Felton Williams:
About 1943.
Robert Stone:
How did that go? I mean, how’d you get your first steel?
Felton Williams:
Well, it wasn’t mine. It was my uncle bought one, and everybody was trying to play it, and it just caught on with me.
Robert Stone:
What was his name?
Felton Williams:
My uncle, Bishop Mayes.
Robert Stone:
Bishop Mayes?
Felton Williams:
N.W. Mayes, Ned Mayes.
Robert Stone:
N.W. Is that Mayes with just M-A-Y-S?
Felton Williams:
Y-E-S.
Robert Stone:
E, with an E, and he had a steel, but he wasn’t catching on, huh?
Felton Williams:
He bought one after everybody was so interested in it when Fred and them came through, that you know, and he had two sons that played, the musicians in Mount Clemens was his sons. Mack Mayes played the steel.
Robert Stone:
Tell me about, can you describe Fred Neal’s playing?
Felton Williams:
Yes. He played an open string. No, he didn’t play open string. No. He played out of the fifth fret with this straight tuning, ‘Did my Dog have Fleas,’ and he had six strings like that, and he played from the fifth fret mainly. I just don’t know much about tuners, we play strictly by ear.
Robert Stone:
So he played out of the fifth fret a lot.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. That was his key fret and he used-
Robert Stone:
The third string was the E string?
Felton Williams:
I don’t know where you… It would be the G string on a Spanish guitar. It was turned like of Spanish only it was tuned straight.
Robert Stone:
I know exactly what you mean.
Felton Williams:
It’s like you would play it if you was playing about [00:15:37] I guess.
Robert Stone:
That’s the same tuning that dobro players use today. It’s the same tuning that Henry Nelson used. It’s what they call a one, three, five, one, three, five. So your keynote is on the third string?
Felton Williams:
Yeah, that’s right.
Robert Stone:
Okay, great. Well, that’s good to note. That was probably one of the oldest tunings that anybody used.
Felton Williams:
Yeah, well, that’s the only tuning we knew for a while until Steel Guitar Rag came out, that’s when we went open.
Robert Stone:
Oh, is that right? That’s when you went to the E tuning?
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
Really? Where did you hear the Steel Guitar Rag?
Felton Williams:
From out of Nashville on the radio, and that’s what some us did. I might’ve been playing out of that tuning before, because I don’t know much about tuning. I just had a special tune I had myself, and we all use different because I don’t use pedals.
Robert Stone:
You don’t?
Felton Williams:
No, I hadn’t learned to use the pedals yet. I have a 10 string, and I have my own tuning, and I’ve been playing that way for years.
Robert Stone:
Is it a pedal steel, but you just don’t use the pedals?
Felton Williams:
Yeah, I got a pedal steel now, but for years I just had a regular eight string. I built an eight string and bought a 10 string, and then I finally bought a double 10 pedal.
Robert Stone:
Are you telling me you basically taught yourself, or was somebody helping you when you were a little boy?
Felton Williams:
No, I was just emulating what I was hearing.
Robert Stone:
Just what you heard. Was Fred Neal around a lot?
Felton Williams:
No, no.
Robert Stone:
No, so who were you-
Felton Williams:
I picked up his style just for a little. Then I went to my own style, and if you would hear my playing against some of the others, it’d be so different. I think I’m about the only one that you would hear that plays my style was Ronnie Hall.
Robert Stone:
I’ve never heard him.
Felton Williams:
But you’ve heard of Treadway, he started with my style.
Robert Stone:
Yes, and we did a record on Treadway.
Felton Williams:
Well, he started with my style, but then he went to his, before he went to a pedal even.
Robert Stone:
Well, he doesn’t play pedals.
Felton Williams:
I didn’t know whether he did one now or not.
Robert Stone:
No, I actually haven’t talked to Sonny in a while. It’s been a little while.
Felton Williams:
See, the first one that I heard with a pedal was Tubby in Cleveland.
Robert Stone:
Tubby Golden?
Felton Williams:
Yeah, and he was the first one with the pedal that I knew of. Then Calvin around here, I don’t know, around this group. See, Calvin started from Ronnie Hall, who was my student.
Robert Stone:
Ronnie was your student.
Felton Williams:
Yes, and Calvin was Ronnie’s student.
Robert Stone:
Now, when you say these guys where your students, were you actually giving them lessons or they were just sort of…
Felton Williams:
No, we never give lessons. They come around to find out what I was doing and trying to emulate that, and that’s how we all learned was just trying to emulate something like we hear on the radio. Like with my nephew over in Toledo, he had a record, and he heard some sound on it and he wanted to get it. He asked me if I could pick up that and play it and see if he could learn it, stuff like that. That’s how we learned. Then if I got something, and they liked what I did, they’ll come over, let me see what you’ve done. Because that’s what I mean by student, they started with me.
Robert Stone:
When did you start playing in church? Your uncle-
Felton Williams:
’43, me and Ted both was right there at the same time when we started playing.
Robert Stone:
Then I believe he told me that you had two brothers-
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
… that played with you. What were their names?
Felton Williams:
My older brother was Arthur Williams. He passed recently, and my younger brother was Lapious, L-A-P-I-O-U-S, Williams. They play with me the most.
Robert Stone:
L-A-P-I-O-U-S.
Felton Williams:
Yes. It looked like Lapious, but we pronounce it La-poe-cious. We called him Poe, that’s his nickname, P-O-E. Well, he played with me more than the others.
Robert Stone:
He was a drummer?
Felton Williams:
No, he was the Spanish guitar when I play the steel. He was a drummer, but most of the time when we were playing, he played the Spanish guitar with me. He was my accompaniment when I played the steel.
Robert Stone:
Okay. Ted mentioned somebody named Shona?
Felton Williams:
Yeah, that’s the older brother, Arthur.
Robert Stone:
Arthur, you called him Shona?
Felton Williams:
I call him Shona. Shona was his name because his middle name was Mashona.
Robert Stone:
I see.
Felton Williams:
So we called him Shona.
Robert Stone:
Then Ted was telling me that his brother Douglas-
Felton Williams:
Yes, Doug.
Robert Stone:
… was a good guitar player.
Felton Williams:
Oh yes, he’s one of the better ones.
Robert Stone:
Now, did he play with his thumb too?
Felton Williams:
Yes. He played that same style that Harvey Jones played until he… His uncle was a professional musician, and his uncle started giving him some lessons or something. Anyway, he was emulating him, and he went away from that thing. He does a lot of innovation.
Robert Stone:
Whose uncle?
Felton Williams:
Ted’s uncle.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Felton Williams:
His father’s brother.
Robert Stone:
Well, you know who that was?
Felton Williams:
His name was Elwood, Elwood Beard. Ted didn’t tell you about him?
Robert Stone:
No.
Felton Williams:
Well, he didn’t play in the church. He was a professional, he played…
Robert Stone:
You know, but he gave Doug some lessons, Douglas?
Felton Williams:
I don’t know if he give lessons or Doug just pick them up.
Robert Stone:
Doug just picked it up, right?
Felton Williams:
Yeah, because I was over there at one time, and he was doing some stuff and me and Doug both picked it up.
Robert Stone:
So you’re saying after he had that influence, he got away from the thumb pick thing?
Felton Williams:
I don’t know if he ever got away from it, but he was innovating with a lot of other stuff, because he was the first one of our group that started using the Spanish guitar as a bass.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Felton Williams:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), Douglas was.
Robert Stone:
What do you mean? Would he tune it down low?
Felton Williams:
Yeah, he’d dropped the bass string, and he just played bass with it. Since he had an amp, you could always get a heavy sound. He was the first one of our group and that was back in the ’40s.
Robert Stone:
Wow, because they didn’t have electric bass guitars back then.
Felton Williams:
No, but he dropped the string, and he played it like a bass.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. I’ve heard of that sort of thing before. Did you ever know Roosevelt Eberhardt in the Keith Dominion? They say he did that too.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. I heard that name. I didn’t get around much though, that’s why most people don’t know me and I don’t know them.
Robert Stone:
Because you didn’t travel or anything?
Felton Williams:
Oh no, I didn’t do that.
Robert Stone:
You stayed right there?
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
You were playing in the same church with…
Felton Williams:
At first with Ted, but then we went to split up. We had a different band. I went with another band in Detroit here.
Robert Stone:
Where was that church?
Felton Williams:
That was on a different street, Brady Street.
Robert Stone:
Brady Street.
Felton Williams:
We started on Garfield Street, and I went with… On Brady street, my family went over there with Bishop Hankerson, and I played there for years with-
Robert Stone:
Bishop who?
Felton Williams:
Bishop Hankerson.
Robert Stone:
Can you spell that?
Felton Williams:
H-A-N-K-E-R-S-O-N.
Robert Stone:
H-A-N-K-E-R-S-O-N. Hankerson?
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
You got a real good memory.
Felton Williams:
Oh yeah. I can remember back to ’36.
Robert Stone:
The way I heard it, that… Well, Ted even said that, he said that Douglas was so good on the guitar. You were so good that people wanted the two of you to get together, but because of the families and all, you didn’t do that.
Felton Williams:
It didn’t work out. On the side, we played a little bit but not in church. Doug was good. He was very innovative.
Robert Stone:
Now, what kind of instrument were you playing? How did that go?
Felton Williams:
I was playing a six-string lap guitar, and he was playing a Spanish guitar. That’s the way it’s been, before bass and all that. Someone would have a steel guitar and someone would have a Spanish guitar, and that’s the system that we used throughout the Dominion. Whenever you find one, you’d find the other, that they would play together. Then we started moving from different churches. I used to run over to Toledo a lot and play, and I was playing over there with Clifford Warren Jr. He picked up the steel from me too.
Robert Stone:
Clifford Warren Jr.?
Felton Williams:
Yeah, in Toledo. He was over there, and when I was young, about 13, 14, 15, some of the ministers would take me with him over there. That’s where he picked up the steel from me but he was picking up the Spanish too. He and I played together in the latter years of our youth, in our 20s, because I married his auntie.
Robert Stone:
Let’s see. What happened when these other folks went off to the Keith Dominion, ’55, your family stayed in the Jewell, huh?
Felton Williams:
Yes, yes.
Robert Stone:
How did that go musically? Did that…
Felton Williams:
Well, we lost contact with each other for a long time, because we were at another church. We’d go to different places, and we didn’t see each other much. Going back, when they left the Jewell Dominion when Bishop Beard, his father, left. Well, we lost contact with him for a long time because I didn’t go visiting or nothing like that.
Robert Stone:
Now, how about Lorenzo Harrison? Did your paths cross with him a lot?
Felton Williams:
Only when he come to the conventions, he was the chief musician there. So when it comes to the- he would play, and sometimes when he wasn’t able to play, they had asked me to play, and I played with Harvey Jones at the convention some. So, say passed a lot, only maybe once or twice a year.
Robert Stone:
Now, these conventions would be where?
Felton Williams:
They would come to Detroit or go to Toledo or in Cleveland, and I would go as far maybe as Indianapolis, when they had the headquarters in there for that convention. Those were about the only place that I’ve been, and that’s where I would see them in the convention. In Detroit, Mount Clemens, Toledo, Cleveland, and Indianapolis, those four places or five places is the only places I had been, because I didn’t go to Dayton, but they had conventions all over.
Robert Stone:
Right, right. But you weren’t a traveling guy?
Felton Williams:
Oh no.
Robert Stone:
That’s why I wasn’t that familiar with you, because the first guys, naturally, that I would get in contact that aren’t in Florida would be the ones that do get around. Of course, frankly, I haven’t, as of yet, I’m not giving up hope, but I haven’t got a whole lot of information from the Jewell Dominion steel players. Sonny has not talked a whole lot and I don’t know what’s up with Ronnie Mozee.
Felton Williams:
Well, he just knew them. Well, I can give you the biggest history of it, because I’ve been there the longest, and I know all the ones that was playing from the ’40s on up.
Robert Stone:
Well, do you play anything like Harrison played or is it totally different?
Felton Williams:
Totally different.
Robert Stone:
Let me ask you, did you use a wah pedal like he did?
Felton Williams:
No, I didn’t.
Robert Stone:
No wah pedal?
Felton Williams:
I didn’t use anything like that.
Robert Stone:
Do you use a bass strings like some of those guys do? Play a lot on the bass?
Felton Williams:
Sometimes, yes. Sometimes I use a lot of bass, but a lot those things that used were on three or four basses.
Robert Stone:
Now, I know a lot of what I’ve heard of Harrison’s playing and people play like, of course in the later years he used that wah pedal a lot.
Felton Williams:
Yes, he did, and he was the pattern that most of the Jewell steel players play with. He was the pattern, and so therefore, I played differently and only a few that heard me took up my style. It was two different styles.
Robert Stone:
Any way you can describe your style to me?
Felton Williams:
Well, I can tell you that I tried to emulate the saxophone. I was always like lead guitarist, a lead in the music. I would play the melody of the song, like the note for note, if I could, from what I hear. I don’t know notes, but that’s the way almost all the songs, instead of playing just riffs, I would start with the song, the way the song go. I would have the steel guitar doing exactly what the voices would do, and then I’d branch off into improvisation, into all kinds of riffs, like a sax.
Robert Stone:
Okay. Can you hold on a second? I’m going to change tapes. Thank you.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
So you would state the melody first.
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
And then improvise.
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
Rather than some of these guys just play improvise from jump street, as they say.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. So I had a different style. Most of the time, if you’d hear my style, you just say, you know who it is because I’m playing the melody of the song. And sometimes like a jazz, it was more jazzed out.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Because I would jazz it up.
Robert Stone:
Now, did you get your… Do you have any musical inspirations from outside the church? You mentioned jazz or any jazz guys in particular you listened to or anything like that?
Felton Williams:
Yes. I loved the Spanish guitar and I love Chet Atkins.
Robert Stone:
Chet Atkins. Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
And I first heard the other one, what was his name that played. You mentioned him.
Robert Stone:
Merle Travis?
Felton Williams:
Merle Travis. Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Well, he came first.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. I heard him first and I started trying to emulate him and then I was trying to emulate a lot of stuff they were doing on the Spanish, on the steel.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Yeah. So I had a kind of difficult thing. And then I went to, after Chet Atkins I heard Les Paul, I tried to do something like that. And I didn’t know he was duplicating. I was trying to do all of them. So I brought up a lot of new stuff that way.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
And I tried to do a lot of that on the steel.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative)
Felton Williams:
So mostly when I would riff, it would be like a jazz facts man riffing.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
That’s what I tried to do.
Robert Stone:
Any sax players in particular you listened to or?
Felton Williams:
I didn’t know the names.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Felton Williams:
It was just sounds that I was listening to.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Nobody in particular. Yeah.
Felton Williams:
No, just sound. And I could hear orchestras that I could hear the sounds that I would try to emulate for the whole orchestra, two or three sounds at once, three or four sounds.
Robert Stone:
Now this would probably be stuff, all this stuff you’d probably heard on the radio or?
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Did you watch the opera like some of these guys did?
Felton Williams:
Yes, I did.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative)
Felton Williams:
Yeah. I did watch the opera.
Robert Stone:
For the guitar pickers or the steel players?
Felton Williams:
For the guitar pickers.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Yeah, I did.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
And as I was growing up, I listened to almost all types of music and I really loved the country and the Western because of the guitar.
Robert Stone:
The guitar and the steel.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
In the country and the Western.
Robert Stone:
Now tell me something. Did back as early as you can remember, were they calling it the Hawaiian guitar?
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Yes. That’s… The dobro and the Hawaiian. See some people, lay the dobro across the lap.
Robert Stone:
A dobro, yeah.
Felton Williams:
A dobro, yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Felton Williams:
And that’s what I knew about… I started on just a regular Spanish guitar laid across the lap raised up with a clothes pin.
Robert Stone:
Oh really?
Felton Williams:
Yeah. And we played it with a can opener as our bar.
Robert Stone:
That was before you got to steel.
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
And this was acoustic.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. Acoustic guitar.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Clothes pin and a can opener.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. The can opener was the bar. Put a clothes pin under to raise the strings up.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Then we tune it straight open in place. That’s how we did it.
Robert Stone:
So did you… So I guess you never traveled to play any at the national events of the church?
Felton Williams:
I went national about three or four times, but I didn’t go to play, but it was happened that they would ask me to play sometimes.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Yeah. Only when Bishop Harrison wasn’t able to, or something like that.
Robert Stone:
You know what I just got in the mail today? I got, I suppose you’ve seen that history calendar they did of the… Or maybe you haven’t cause you’re not in the church anymore.
Felton Williams:
No, I don’t have it.
Robert Stone:
They’re having the hundredth anniversary of the church this year.
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
And the Jewell dominion, they actually celebrated it last June at their general assembly.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Anyhow, they published a history calendar.
Felton Williams:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
It’s got a lot of photos on it. Old photos of Lorenzo Harrison, Bishop Jewell, the bus they used to travel in.
Robert Stone:
Did you ever see the Jewell singers?
Felton Williams:
No. I seen the bus when they came.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
But I don’t remember how long. I came up to Michigan with Bishop Jewell. When my father died, she was coming up to Mt. Clemens cause that was the headquarters.
Robert Stone:
Oh it was?
Felton Williams:
Yeah. Mt. Clemens was the headquarters after she took it, before for her husband took over, Bishop McLeod.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
When he’s taken over that he lived in Mt. Clemens.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Felton Williams:
And that’s how we got to Mt. Clemens. She was down there for some church convention, I guess, In Mississippi, after my father died. And my mother sent her all those children. She had come up earlier and she sent for us and we came up in the car with Bishop Jewell and Nettie Mae, whole lot of folks.
Robert Stone:
Okay. And, how many children were in your family?
Felton Williams:
In my family?
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Felton Williams:
It was five of us.
Robert Stone:
Five children.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
And where do you fall? Are you in the middle or oldest or?
Felton Williams:
I’m [00:06:00] baby as they call it.
Robert Stone:
You’re…
Felton Williams:
I got two older sister, one older brother and one younger brother.
Robert Stone:
Okay. So, you’re next to the next to the youngest?
Felton Williams:
Yeah. Next to the baby. Yeah. That’s [00:06:14].
Robert Stone:
Okay. Are any of your brothers and sisters, are they alive or?
Felton Williams:
Two of my siblings are dead. My oldest sister passed and my oldest brother passed this year.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). That’s just too bad.
Felton Williams:
Shona, he passed this year. But my younger sister and my younger brother, there’s only three of us left.
Robert Stone:
Let’s see. So did you stay in that church there at Bradley street? Is that where you stayed until you left?
Felton Williams:
I stayed there until we moved out here at Ecorse. I live in Ecorse.
Robert Stone:
Where?
Felton Williams:
Ecorse, a suburb of Detroit.
Robert Stone:
How do you spell that?
Felton Williams:
E-C-O-R-S-E. Ecorse, Michigan, 48229.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Do you want my address?
Robert Stone:
Yes. Okay. So you stayed in the Brady street church until you moved to Ecorse.
Felton Williams:
I think we had moved to Ecorse first.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Because we had started a church in my mother’s basement.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
And Bishop Hankerson was put over us. And when they wanted us to go back to the other, to the Garfield, we went back with Bishop Hankerson. That’s how it worked.
Robert Stone:
So where did you wind up?
Felton Williams:
Now?
Robert Stone:
In church. No, not now. I mean, when you were…
Felton Williams:
The last I was with Bishop Hankerson last I was with the Jewells.
Robert Stone:
Okay. And that was on Brady street?
Felton Williams:
On Brady street in Detroit.
Robert Stone:
Okay. All right.
Felton Williams:
It’s down now and they got the freeway coming through there.
Robert Stone:
Okay. All right. So let me make sure I got… Who was it? Who were some of… Can you just list one more time some of the musicians that learn something from you?
Felton Williams:
Yes. We have Henry Wayne White.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Sonny Treadway, Ronnie Hall, Clifford Warren.
Robert Stone:
Clifford who?
Felton Williams:
Clifford Warren. That’s the one in Toledo.
Robert Stone:
Okay. Yeah. Right.
Felton Williams:
And Tubby somewhat. Tubby Golden.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Felton Williams:
And… I’m trying to think. These are the ones that were around here.
Robert Stone:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
When my style started to spread like-
Robert Stone:
You said Calvin and Ronnie, huh?
Felton Williams:
Yeah. Calvin from Ronnie and Flenory, Charles Flenory.
Robert Stone:
Right. I know him.
Felton Williams:
From Ronnie. And they came over a lot too, after they found out about me. But I can’t say they were my students.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Felton Williams:
We didn’t… And then there’s in Toledo there is Russell, Eric Russell. Anybody tell you about him?
Robert Stone:
No.
Felton Williams:
So he’s the chief musician over there in Toledo and out of the Jewell Dominion. Eric Russell.
Robert Stone:
He’s the chief.
Felton Williams:
Uh-huh (affirmative). He’s the top musician. He’s the chief steel player at Toledo.
Robert Stone:
No, I’ve never heard that name before.
Felton Williams:
He’s uses pedal too.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Felton Williams:
He’s good.
Robert Stone:
How old of a fellow is he?
Felton Williams:
Eric is about close to 46 to 48 somewhere in there.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Yeah. And then there were some more to come from, let’s see, there was Harold Smith Jr, Darryl White.
Robert Stone:
Darryl White?
Felton Williams:
Yeah, Darryl White. He’s a pastor now.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
And Harold Smith Jr. All of these to come over and Darryl’s brother, Fred White. He’s out in California now. And he used to come over here to play.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
He was going to a lot of them and I can’t keep up.
Robert Stone:
I mean, do you guys just sit around and share licks and stuff and show him stuff.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. Now…
Robert Stone:
Did you stay up late or how’d that go?
Felton Williams:
Sometimes, yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. And now I got two nephews that played, started playing now. You know Kirkwood, Derrick Kirkwood.
Robert Stone:
I know him.
Felton Williams:
Huh?
Robert Stone:
I know him.
Felton Williams:
Well, he’s the one that plays in my church now. I don’t play, but he plays there.
Robert Stone:
I took his picture.
Felton Williams:
Oh yeah?
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Felton Williams:
He’s my nephew and you know Jay Caver?
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Felton Williams:
He’s my nephew.
Robert Stone:
You kidding?
Felton Williams:
No. He’s my sister’s grandson and Derrick is my sister’s son.
Robert Stone:
Now, of course I know Jay well, and I’m going to talk to him some, cause I’m interested in a thing with this, the Spanish guitar style and the Jewell dominion, this finger-picking thing.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
And do you know who he learned from?
Felton Williams:
Huh?
Robert Stone:
Do you know who Jay learned from?
Felton Williams:
I was part of the influence.
Robert Stone:
On his guitar playing.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. I was part of the influence, but after… Just the beginning.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Because naturally, since he was a little kid coming up while I was playing. He and Derrick both, they were… Cause Derrick and now I tell you who playing now at the Jewell Dominion here. He is Bobby Cook, Robert Cook. You heard of him?
Robert Stone:
No.
Felton Williams:
He’s one of the better ones.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
How old of a fellow is he?
Felton Williams:
He’s in his early thirties.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Robert Cook. He used to be drummer for us. He picked up a guitar and now he’s one of the better steel player in the Jewell Dominion.
Robert Stone:
And he’s playing there in..
Felton Williams:
In Detroit.
Robert Stone:
In Detroit?
Felton Williams:
Yeah. He was Jay’s mate.
Felton Williams:
He and Jay was the couple here in Detroit.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
I don’t even know if Jay’s going to the Jewell dominion church here anymore.
Felton Williams:
I don’t know either.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. I think I heard that he wasn’t.
Felton Williams:
Yeah, he may, may not. I hadn’t seen Jay- Now he’s my nephew and he lives here, but he stays on the road so much I don’t hardly see him.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. He’s been, we’ve been playing with Calvin.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. He and Calvin was-
Robert Stone:
Doing the gigs and stuff. Yeah. He’s a good guitar player.
Felton Williams:
Yeah, he is.
Robert Stone:
I like what he does.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
I like that, all that stuff those Jewell dominion guys. Of course Ronnie Mozee is a good one too.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. If you want to hear the good one, you’d hear Robert Cook.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Does he play pedal steel or not?
Felton Williams:
No.
Robert Stone:
No pedals?
Felton Williams:
No.
Robert Stone:
Like an eight string?
Felton Williams:
Mozee was better on the Spanish guitar.
Robert Stone:
Robert Cook is better on the Spanish?
Felton Williams:
No, Robert is better on the steel. He don’t play Spanish.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Felton Williams:
Mozee play both.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Felton Williams:
And he played better on the Spanish than he do on the steel.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. He’s good on both, but yeah, he’s a great Spanish guitar player.
Felton Williams:
He just picked up Bishop Harrison style and just continue on.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Felton Williams:
With the rest. I know Robert, he plays a lot of other stuff.
Robert Stone:
He has his own style.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. He was influenced by me more than the others.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Because he was here. We was at the same church that he is.
Robert Stone:
So he heard you a lot.
Felton Williams:
Oh yeah. He lived down the street.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative)
Felton Williams:
So, I’m his godfather actually.
Robert Stone:
Do you have his phone number by any chance?
Felton Williams:
I don’t know, well, I have his, but I have his mother’s.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Now, does it have an E on the end of his name? COOKE or it doesn’t?
Felton Williams:
I don’t think so.
Robert Stone:
No E. Yeah.
Felton Williams:
Robert last name got an E on it. Cook. Just Cook. No…
Robert Stone:
No E.
Felton Williams:
No. I… See he moves around, but his mother, we keep certain number.
Robert Stone:
And what’s her name?
Felton Williams:
Lucille.
Robert Stone:
Lucille.
Felton Williams:
And they lived down the street.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Yeah. I’m trying to find Lucille’s number here so that she can get in touch with Robert. Here it is, Lucille Cook.
Robert Stone:
Okay, great. Thank you.
Felton Williams:
I think that would be the only way you can get a hold of Robert because he’s there sometime and then-
Robert Stone:
Young man on the go.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. He’s one of the better ones.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Yeah, no, I hadn’t heard of him. Okay.
Felton Williams:
And you hadn’t heard of Eric Russell in Toledo?
Robert Stone:
Eric…
Felton Williams:
Russell.
Robert Stone:
Eric Russell?
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
No I hadn’t.
Felton Williams:
He’s pretty good over there in Toledo.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Maybe I can get his number.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Felton Williams:
Let me see. Russell. All right. I got Derrick but don’t have Eric. I have his mother’s number. I should’ve had his, but it’s not here.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. I can give you his mother’s and she can give you…
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Felton Williams:
… His number. This is from 2001.
Robert Stone:
Okay. Okay, great.
Felton Williams:
They used to live next to each other, so they’re fond of each other. So if they still live there, she could easily give you Eric’s…
Robert Stone:
You’re right.
Felton Williams:
He used to play the steel player there in Toledo, Ohio.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Great. Do you know the Postelles over there in Philly?
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. I’ve been over there and seen, to that church in Philadelphia a couple of years ago. And we visited with Kim Love.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. She has contacted me quite a bit. She plays good too.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Both steel and guitar.
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
So she had been over to visit you?
Felton Williams:
She had come from over there. No, it was Kim from over there, after Kim had took a tape from me over there and she contacted me and took quite a few of my old tapes.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Yeah, Kim.
Robert Stone:
You don’t have anything you could send me, do you?
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
I’d love to hear some of your playing.
Felton Williams:
Most of my stuff, somebody else has. I make it get some stuff, but I really couldn’t promise.
Robert Stone:
Let me give you my address just in case you do. Cause I would love something like that.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. Give me your name first.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Bob Stone. S-T-O-N-E.
Felton Williams:
Bob Stone?
Robert Stone:
Right. Well, Robert is my real name.
Felton Williams:
Okay. Robert Stone.
Robert Stone:
And that’s Gainesville.
Felton Williams:
Gainesville.
Robert Stone:
That’s G-A-I-N-E-S-V-I-L-L-E. Yeah.
Felton Williams:
That’s Florida.
Robert Stone:
Florida.
Felton Williams:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Okay. Mr. Stone.
Robert Stone:
And let me get-
Felton Williams:
I got Eric’s number now, if you want to get it.
Robert Stone:
Oh, great. This is Eric Russell.
Felton Williams:
Eric Russell.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Okay.
Felton Williams:
He’s the lead steel guitar player there in Toledo.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Felton Williams:
He plays pedals.
Robert Stone:
Great. He plays pedals.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). There’s a bunch of steel players in the Jewell Dominion down in Mississippi.
Felton Williams:
Yes. I don’t know them.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. I haven’t talked to any of them yet. I’ve got a couple of contacts and I think most of them were playing pedal.
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
Now you played, what’d you settle on finally, an eight string or 10 string.
Felton Williams:
10 string. 10 string I played with my personal tuning.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
I couldn’t describe it for you. Yeah I’ve played 10 strings.
Robert Stone:
You have some pretty big strings on the bottom end on the bass?
Felton Williams:
Nothing big just standard.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Like the old tuning they use the last two strings and you duplicate them again.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Felton Williams:
I don’t do that. Every one of my strings is at a different tone.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Felton Williams:
All 10 strings. And I twist the bar too.
Robert Stone:
You do slant the bar? Okay.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. I twist it to get the pedal type sound.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Felton Williams:
I was doing it for years before I heard of pedal.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. How’d you learn how to do that?
Felton Williams:
Just sound.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Sound. I was just trying to make sounds.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Did now… Let me ask you, do you play the Stevens type bar or do you use a bullet bar? Do you have a bar with a groove in it for your finger?
Felton Williams:
Yeah. That’s the bullet, right?
Robert Stone:
No, that’s Stevens.
Felton Williams:
Oh, Stevens. Yeah, I’ve used both. The other just was just straight, right?
Robert Stone:
Right.
Felton Williams:
Just round.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Just round with a bullet nose.
Felton Williams:
Yes. Yeah. I got both kinds.
Robert Stone:
What do you usually use?
Felton Williams:
It’s hard to say but I just pick up one.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). So you don’t care.
Felton Williams:
No.
Robert Stone:
When you, the way you play, do you lift the bar up a lot? Like some of the pedal steel players, they never lift the bar.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. I lift the bar cause I leave some strings open.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Right. Okay. Now, do you play in all keys or do you mostly play out of the open key?
Felton Williams:
I play mostly out of the open.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
And I used to put a bar up under it to change the key. Keep it open, but just move to a different key. I don’t do that anymore.
Robert Stone:
Like a sort of a capo.
Felton Williams:
Yeah, like a capo. I did it on the steel.
Robert Stone:
You had a bar up underneath the strings that you could slide-
Felton Williams:
Yeah, one that wasn’t too high.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
That I could slide easily and just lock it in at the first, second, third, fourth, fifth fret or something like that.
Robert Stone:
Right. I’ll be- You’re the first guy I’ve heard of that did that.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. Well, I didn’t know anybody else did it either, but I did it because it was easier for me to do that and play my open tuning because all the things I played, I had learned in the open tuning.
Robert Stone:
Right. Yeah. Now those…
Felton Williams:
To change keys it’s easy just to move the bar up.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. And those open strings have a certain sound to them.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. So this was this bar that you made or something?
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
It was just about the height of the end, just enough to hold the tone, you know. I didn’t want it to too high.
Robert Stone:
Let me ask you, do you have any photos of, especially from a few years back?
Felton Williams:
Yes. I got some.
Robert Stone:
You know if you would be willing to lend me some photos, I can scan them in digitally…
Felton Williams:
I can send them to you cause I got mine scanned in too.
Robert Stone:
Great.
Felton Williams:
I wouldn’t need to get them back.
Robert Stone:
Naturally, I want to give them back to you. I want to get them back to you, but if you… I’d be very appreciative, if you could do that. Cause one of the things I’m going to put in the book is some of the older photos. And like they say, a picture’s worth a thousand words.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
So if you got two or three good ones, that’d be great.
Felton Williams:
I’ll send you what I got.
Robert Stone:
Okay, great. And especially, the old black and whites are usually the best, but whatever you got. And…
Felton Williams:
I got the black and white.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. From how far back do you have?
Felton Williams:
I have some from the fifties.
Robert Stone:
Great.
Robert Stone:
What brand guitar… By the way, I play…
Felton Williams:
Kind of cut in, I didn’t get that.
Robert Stone:
I play steel a little bit myself too, by the way.
Felton Williams:
Oh yeah?
Robert Stone:
So I can talk shop. What brand guitar did you settle on?
Felton Williams:
I got a MSA now.
Robert Stone:
MSA.
Felton Williams:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
That’s your pedal steel?
Felton Williams:
Yeah. Before that, most it was, I made myself.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Felton Williams:
Yeah. The first one I got with the Epiphone, way back in, when was it? ’50-? No, it was ’46, ’47. My 13th birthday I got an Epiphone.
Robert Stone:
So that was the first one that was actually yours?
Felton Williams:
Yeah. The first one that was a real guitar, it was a steel guitar.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
It was a lap. And Ted had a Gibson and I had an Epiphone.
Robert Stone:
What did it look like?
Felton Williams:
It was like these little small bass, like the first bass that came out by Fender.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Felton Williams:
It was shaped like that. It was just had the guitar type shape, but it was kind of fat.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Felton Williams:
With a fat neck.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Felton Williams:
That was the Epiphone.
Robert Stone:
What color was it? Do you remember?
Felton Williams:
White.
Robert Stone:
White. Yeah. No. Just interesting sort of stuff. And that’s what Willie Eason played all his life was Epiphones. Yeah.
Felton Williams:
But I must have got the same kind he got, cause I got it in ’47.
Robert Stone:
He had a couple of them, but the ones he’s settled with were black and white.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. So…
Felton Williams:
I got a bunch of steels now most of them homemade.
Robert Stone:
Is that right? How do you… Where would you get the pickups and stuff and the fret boards and all?
Felton Williams:
The first one I wound myself. I got the magnets and wound my own pickup.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
How’d you figure out how to do that?
Felton Williams:
That’s my trade. I was an electrician.
Robert Stone:
Oh really?
Felton Williams:
Yeah. And I was before that, when I was in school I was really a science buff.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
So I knew… I made my first echo chamber with [crosstalk 00:26:34].
Robert Stone:
Really?
Felton Williams:
Yeah. I would solder, old phonograph pick ups on the end, each one on each end of a string or spring.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Felton Williams:
I’d pick it up from there.
Robert Stone:
Fascinating. So you were an electrician, that was your last work?
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
I take it. You’re retired now.
Felton Williams:
Yeah, I’m retired.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Did you have your own company or?
Felton Williams:
No. I worked for Ford motor company.
Robert Stone:
You worked for Ford?
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). What kind of electrician work did you do there?
Felton Williams:
Industrial electric. I did everything like maintenance, repair, fielding. Whatever electrical needed to be done.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Machine repair.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Felton Williams:
We were staying in the factory and I worked, as electrician I worked at about six of the, well, no, more than that. I maintained all the factories at the roots for that complex.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Wow.
Felton Williams:
Engine plants to stamping plants to frame plants, the steel mill, all of that.
Robert Stone:
And when did you go to work for Ford?
Felton Williams:
I started in ’56.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
And I retired in ’94. I had 37 years there.
Robert Stone:
Wow. And so did you get training as an electrician? Did you do that?
Felton Williams:
Oh yes. I took the four year apprenticeship and then I was also trained on a special machines that came in and when the numerical control and computer control machine came in, I was trained on those too.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). So you were a member of IBEW?
Felton Williams:
No, I was a union man.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. That’s…
Felton Williams:
Local 600 UAW.
Robert Stone:
UAW?
Felton Williams:
Yeah. I never went on salary.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Right. I was thinking… You were UAW instead of the IBEW, [crosstalk 00:28:31] International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
Felton Williams:
No, I was working in the United Auto Workers.
Robert Stone:
Right. Yeah, I got it. Yeah. Now I heard that… So did you, you wound your own pickups and what’d you do for fret boards.
Felton Williams:
I made them.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Yeah. I painted and cut and paint. Only thing I had the buy generally was the tuning pegs.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
You can pick those up anywhere.
Robert Stone:
Among these photos you’re going to send, do you have any shots of these homemade steels?
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
I’d love to see one or two of them. Really. That’d be great.
Felton Williams:
Okay. I’ll send them-
Robert Stone:
You’re the first guy I’ve talked to that’s done that. Oh yeah.
Felton Williams:
Oh yeah?
Robert Stone:
Although let me ask you something, I heard, of course I haven’t sat down and interviewed Ronnie Hall yet, but I heard that he and his father made their own amplifiers and stuff.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Did you know that? Are you…
Felton Williams:
Yeah, I made mine too. I made about five or six amps.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
And Ronnie did make one that I can remember.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Were you involved with helping those-
Felton Williams:
I was not involved with them with that.
Robert Stone:
You were?
Felton Williams:
No.
Robert Stone:
You were not. Okay. Just taking a guess.
Felton Williams:
No. But I heard that he had made one. But I had made about four or five.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
In fact, the one I use now is home made.
Robert Stone:
Can you hold a second while I change tapes?
Felton Williams:
Oh, yeah.
Robert Stone:
Thank you.
Robert Stone:
It’s really interesting. I had no idea.
Felton Williams:
Well, if you go back, back in the ’40s, the first guitar I ever got, even before ’47, my mother bought a $5 acoustical Spanish guitar and I electrified it.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Felton Williams:
Yeah. That was the first time I wound the pickup, and bought some parts. We used it and we made a radio into an amplifier, my brother and I.
Robert Stone:
When was that?
Felton Williams:
That’s what we used, playing at the church.
Robert Stone:
What year was that?
Felton Williams:
That was about ’46.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Felton Williams:
Yeah, that was ’46-
Robert Stone:
So, it was an acoustic guitar and you put a pickup in it.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Did you put the pickup in the sound hole, or how did you-
Felton Williams:
No. I raised a string and cut a hole at the back of the sound hole.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative), between the sound hole and the bridge?
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Yes. Uh-huh (affirmative), that’s where I put it. I wired it up, put a volume and a tone control on it.
Robert Stone:
Wow. That’s incredible. That was pretty early on.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. That was the only time that I’ve made the echo chamber and all that.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Yeah. I did a lot of things like that.
Robert Stone:
I’ll bet that was fun.
Felton Williams:
It was.
Robert Stone:
I’ve always wanted to make my own guitar, really.
Felton Williams:
I made one of the first fuzz boxes, too, but my brother didn’t like it, so I stopped using it. I wound them with some inductors, and I ran the signals through the inductors and a self-wound coil. When I got the coils… I don’t know how many turns it was, but it started to distort the music, so I could start to add more windings and get more distortion. What I could do then was put a moveable part on it so I can adjust the resistance of it, and that made the first fuzz-
Robert Stone:
So, you could adjust the amount of distortion?
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. That’s pretty sharp. Sounds like you had a natural ability for this sort of thing early on.
Felton Williams:
Yes, I think I did.
Robert Stone:
You picked up on it.
Felton Williams:
I had a natural ability for the guitar, because I never really had anyone teach me anything. I just picked up what I heard.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Were you good student in school?
Felton Williams:
Yeah, well, I was about a B student.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Did you go to high school?
Felton Williams:
I went through high school, then I went through the apprenticeship at Ford, and then we went over to the community college for our special training. Then we went to special classes that they set up with other manufacturers for their equipment.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Now, what high school did you graduate from?
Felton Williams:
Ecorse.
Robert Stone:
Ecorse High School?
Felton Williams:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). That’s the same one Ronnie Hall graduated from. Of course, he’s a lot younger than me.
Robert Stone:
Right. Yeah, how about that tragic accident he had?
Felton Williams:
Oh, yes. Yes.
Robert Stone:
That’s awful.
Felton Williams:
He gave a testimony.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Yeah, because he sounds like he’s still a live wire.
Felton Williams:
Yeah, he is. Yes, he is.
Robert Stone:
I know I can’t catch him. A matter of fact, the longest I talked to him was when they had that blackout last week.
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
I didn’t know he was blacked out up there, and I had called and he came to the phone in the dark. It was about nine o’clock at night, and he says, “Yeah, we’re in the middle of this blackout.”
Felton Williams:
Yeah, we had about two days.
Robert Stone:
So, what community college did you go to?
Felton Williams:
Pardon?
Robert Stone:
What community college? Remember the name of it?
Felton Williams:
It was Henry Ford Community College, but I didn’t go as a college. I went as a student from the electrical field.
Robert Stone:
Right. I understand.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Night classes or whatever.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Felton Williams:
That’s where we had our apprenticeship classes too. Four years of that.
Robert Stone:
Right. Okay.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. So, you got a lot of knowledge there. That’s interesting.
Felton Williams:
Well, I did pick up a lot of stuff, though the steel guitar was one of my first interests, and then the Spanish guitar. I’m still playing, sitting around the house, but I don’t play in church anymore.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
When did you say you left the Jewell Dominion?
Felton Williams:
It was around the ’70s.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know the year. Ida? Do you know the year this Gospel Truth started up?
Ida:
’84.
Felton Williams:
They started in ’84? When did we leave the Jewell Dominion?
Ida:
’83?
Felton Williams:
She say ’83. I thought it was the ’70s.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Ida:
’83 or ’84.
Felton Williams:
It’s ’83 or ’84. It must have been ’83. She said the church we go to now started in ’84.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Did you ever play the steel in that church?
Felton Williams:
No, I really didn’t because-
Robert Stone:
No.
Felton Williams:
… that’s where Derrick wanted to play… Well, we didn’t have a steel for a long time. Yeah, I played it a little bit there, didn’t I, when we first started?
Ida:
[00:06:01].
Felton Williams:
Yeah, Donny plays some, well, Derrick he just picked it up like… He didn’t really get into it heavily. Derrick took up the Spanish, and then he wanted to go with the steel. So, we don’t have a steel guitar player there.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Felton Williams:
No, just-
Robert Stone:
Derrick is in the Jewell Dominion, right?
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
He is?
Felton Williams:
No. No, he’s with us now.
Robert Stone:
Oh, he is?
Felton Williams:
He grew up in the Jewell Dominion. His father was the pastor of where we go, and we all grew up in the Jewell Dominion.
Robert Stone:
Oh, okay.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. That’s my sister’s husband.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Gets confusing.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Everybody’s related.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. Yeah, my two nephews are the most famous, talking about the guitar. That’s Derrick and Jay. Those are my two nephews. Buddy is my nephew-in-law. He’s my wife’s nephew. Buddy Warren, which we called Clifford Warren in Toledo. There’s some other musicians over there, I don’t know them, in Toledo.
Ida:
Del Ray.
Felton Williams:
Oh, yeah. Del Ray Grace. Del Ray Grace plays steel guitar.
Robert Stone:
Del Ray?
Felton Williams:
Del Ray. D-E-L R-A-Y. Two words. Grace is his last name. Give me the phone book- He plays steel guitar too.
Robert Stone:
He’s in Toledo?
Felton Williams:
Yeah, he’s in Toledo. Yeah, he plays, and his sisters plays too.
Robert Stone:
She plays steel?
Felton Williams:
One of them.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Felton Williams:
Yeah, and there’s another group over there. They call it… What’s them sisters’ name? The Brown Sisters. They sang and play in Toledo, and Del Ray could give you more information about them because they made a record with his sister.
Robert Stone:
Really? Okay.
Felton Williams:
That’s Del Ray Grace.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Felton Williams:
I have it spelled D-A-L-E, then capital R-A-Y.
Robert Stone:
D-A-L-E?
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Okay. Okay, great. Well, I’ll tell you, I got to wrap it up because I got to get to something else.
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
I sure appreciate it, and any photos you could send me that might be good, I’d love to have. Like I say, whether you’ve already scanned them or not, I can scan them and then send them back to you.
Felton Williams:
Okay. What is your phone number?
Robert Stone:
Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
If I ever need to contact you, I’ll call you.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, okay. Please do. Don’t hesitate.
Felton Williams:
Yeah, okay.
Robert Stone:
We can talk on my dime as long as you want. You’ve been really, really helpful. It’s not always the case.
Felton Williams:
Well, that’s because I’m older and have a history longer than most of them.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, and you’ve got all these phone numbers and all at your fingertips. That’s good, yeah.
Felton Williams:
Oh, yeah. I keep up with some of them.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Now, if I can just get Ronnie-
Felton Williams:
Ronnie Hall?
Robert Stone:
Ronnie Hall to hold still long enough for an interview.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. Well, do you have his church number?
Robert Stone:
No. Do you have that?
Felton Williams:
He’s a pastor, see.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Felton Williams:
So, let me see. I can give you his church number.
Robert Stone:
That might be a big help.
Felton Williams:
Oh, here it is. So, you might catch him at one of those. So, you’ve got his regular number?
Robert Stone:
Yeah, right. Yeah, I think that’s the one I’ve been calling.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. Well, that’s his home number.
Robert Stone:
Right. Right. Yeah. That’s good. I’ll try that.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. That’s usually the way I catch him, is at the church.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. No, I’m glad you volunteered that because I was thinking there had to be a better way, because obviously he’s one of these guys that’s not home much.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
I am mostly a daytime guy. Sometimes, I’m already writing on this book at seven o’clock in the morning-
Felton Williams:
Wow.
Robert Stone:
… because I’ve got another job… it’s only part of what I do, so I got a lot of other things to tend to, and I travel some with my work, so I get around. Matter of fact, I’m going to be up at the… The House of God is having their centennial, the Keith Dominion, on September 18th; like Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I’m going up for that in Nashville. I’m actually helping them out, working for them on… They’re doing a small history book for their centennial.
Felton Williams:
Oh, yes.
Robert Stone:
They want to do a little history book. Like I say, the Jewell Dominion, they did a calendar, and it’s real nice.
Felton Williams:
Yeah, I haven’t seen it.
Robert Stone:
It’s great for a guy like me, but you’d probably really enjoy it.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. I’ll find somebody over there and get one.
Robert Stone:
I tell you who you get it from-
Felton Williams:
Who?
Robert Stone:
… is Rosette Coney.
Felton Williams:
Oh, yeah. I know her.
Robert Stone:
You have her number and all?
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Okay, because that’s who’s handling it. It took me a while to find that out. They ask for a $20 donation, and it’s real nice. Well, it’s about 12 inches square, and then it folds out double. It’s got all of the different dates of when people were born and died and certain things happen. It’s got, gosh, old photos of Bishop Jewell and Bishop McLeod and photos from the ’40s and ’30s. It’s pretty neat.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. If you wanted to really get the history of the music at the Jewell, then Harvey Jones would be the one to talk to.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Yeah, it sounds like it.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Yeah, that’s real interesting. I had no idea that he was still alive, even.
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Felton Williams:
Yes, he’s still alive.
Robert Stone:
Because he must be, what, about 80?
Felton Williams:
Close to it.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
You say you’ve talked to him fairly recently-
Felton Williams:
Yeah. Uh-huh (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
Is he pretty sharp?
Felton Williams:
Oh, yeah.
Robert Stone:
Good.
Felton Williams:
Yes. He’s still thinking straight.
Robert Stone:
Good. See, Willie Eason lives just a couple of hours from me, down in-
Felton Williams:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
He’s down in St. Petersburg, and his mind is… He’s pretty far gone now.
Felton Williams:
Oh.
Robert Stone:
I’ve known him since about 1993, I guess, and he’s… Well, he had a heart attack a couple of years ago, and that affected his mind a lot.
Felton Williams:
Oh, that’s too bad. I never really met him.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. He was born in 1921, so he’s 82 years old.
Felton Williams:
But I’ve heard of him, naturally [crosstalk 00:13:41].
Robert Stone:
Yeah. He’s a great guy. He’s a barrel of fun, let me tell you.
Felton Williams:
They told me when they started that he was the one that was playing over there with Keith Dominion.
Robert Stone:
When Harvey Jones and Fred Neal started?
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
They said that Willie was playing?
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
She was playing too.
Robert Stone:
She?
Felton Williams:
Nettie Mae.
Robert Stone:
Oh, really?
Felton Williams:
Yes. She played before Bishop Harrison played. In fact, she played before Fred Neal played.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Felton Williams:
Yeah. Yeah, she was the first steel in the Jewell Dominion.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
I never knew this.
Felton Williams:
I thought maybe you… since you told me you talked to… You didn’t talk to her?
Robert Stone:
No. Is she still alive?
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
No, you’re kidding.
Felton Williams:
Nah, she’s still alive, Nettie Mae Harrison.
Robert Stone:
You don’t have her number, do you?
Felton Williams:
Yeah. It’s somewhere here.
Robert Stone:
Oh, boy.
Felton Williams:
Here it is, right here. I got the number, which is the last, back in 2001 when this was made up.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Felton Williams:
That’s the number I have for her.
Robert Stone:
Is that Philadelphia?
Felton Williams:
No, that’s Los Angeles.
Robert Stone:
Los Angeles.
Felton Williams:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
Okay. I’ll be doggone.
Felton Williams:
[crosstalk 00:15:15].
Robert Stone:
Yeah, I want to talk to her because…
Felton Williams:
You can tell her I told you-
Robert Stone:
Oh, okay. Sure. I think I told you that Mary Linzy, she was born in 1928, she was Henry Nelson’s sister. But she’s still in Ocala. She went away for a few years as an adult, but she’s been in Ocala a long time, and she’s telling me all about Bishop Jewell’s church there. She had a electric sign. It was like a train. Nettie Mae danced there at the church, and that’s when her and Lorenzo met. One of the things I’m trying to nail down as best I can, the more I know, the more interesting it’ll be, is who might’ve played first?
Felton Williams:
Well, Nettie Mae played first.
Robert Stone:
Well, in the Jewell Dominion, but see-
Felton Williams:
Oh, Willie Eason. She told me.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Felton Williams:
Yeah. She told me Willie Eason was playing when she started.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). See, Troman was even before that.
Felton Williams:
Who?
Robert Stone:
Troman. His brother, Troman. T-R-O-M-A-N.
Felton Williams:
[crosstalk 00:16:29].
Robert Stone:
The story is that Troman… Now, this is probably like 1936 or ‘7. Troman was in Philadelphia. Now, see, you have to remember Troman was about more than 20 years older than Willie, because there were 16 kids.
Felton Williams:
Wow.
Robert Stone:
Troman was born about 1900.
Felton Williams:
Wow.
Robert Stone:
We don’t even know when, and he died young. He died when he was like 49 years old. But Troman has supposedly heard this… See, one of his daughters is still alive. He heard this Hawaiian guy on the radio playing steel, and he liked it. He called up the radio station, and all we know about is this guy’s name was Jack. We think we know who the Hawaiian guy might’ve been, but Troman called him up at the radio station and arranged to take lessons at the station in Philly. Like I say, I have a pretty good idea of who this Hawaiian guy might’ve been because I’ve talked to some people from that era that say, “Well, it had to be Jack Kahauolopua because he was the best in that area at that time.” He was real good and he was in Philly for several years, and they had a teaching studio and all that. But that’s interesting that you say Nettie Mae has told you that it was Willie Eason that got her going, and then Lorenzo, see.
Felton Williams:
Yes. Yeah, well, see, Lorenzo come a little later, after Fred, but Nettie Mae was before Fred. See, Fred was playing the Spanish and Nettie Mae was playing the steel when they found Harvey Jones. So then Fred went to the steel, and Harvey Jones played the Spanish. When they went down to Ocala, that’s when they met Harrison.
Robert Stone:
Down to Ocala?
Felton Williams:
Ocala, yes.
Robert Stone:
Right. Yeah.
Felton Williams:
Yeah, they met Harrison there.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Felton Williams:
He started, but he didn’t do much until he come back from the service. When he come back from the service, me and Ted both were playing then. Naturally, we was playing from Fred Neal’s style because Nettie Mae quit right after they got Harvey going. Yeah. She was the first that started there in the Jewell.
Robert Stone:
Well, that’s interesting. All this is… well, it’s very, very interesting. I’m glad we got to do this because, as you can appreciate, I’m trying to get the line of events straight. Many people told me that they thought that the Eason brothers, Troman and Willie, were the first-
Felton Williams:
Well, I guess they were because that’s what Nettie told me about when they got started there. Willie Eason was playing.
Robert Stone:
Well, I’m sure going to give her a call for a number of reasons. One thing I’m trying to do is sort of paint a picture of what it was like back in Ocala around 1940 when all this stuff-
Felton Williams:
She can tell you.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Right. Mary Linzy has told me her version, and it all sounds real interesting. As you know, it looks to me like the steel guitar became stronger in the Jewell Dominion early on than it did in the Keith Dominion. In other words, the Keith Dominion eventually developed a very strong steel guitar tradition, but it wasn’t as early on. It took, really, apparently, until Henry Nelson came along in the ’50s for this thing to really take off, whereas Harrison, Lorenzo got it going earlier and got it in there really solid early on. Lorenzo and you other guys.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. Well, I was the second line there. About the same time as Lorenzo, because Fred was the first; the first of the men.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Right. So, you guys in the Jewell had this music pretty solid, and it wasn’t such a big thing in the Keith Dominion.
Felton Williams:
Yeah, that’s true from what I heard, because we used to play in different places, and a lot of people from the Keith Dominion hadn’t heard it that way.
Robert Stone:
Right. The other thing that I’m hearing, and I’d like your opinion on this, is that in the Jewell Dominion, for a long time, like all through the ’40s up until about 1950, they apparently played a real melodic style. They stayed close to the melody, whereas you guys in the Jewell Dominion were doing that more of a boogie-woogie, jazzy style.
Felton Williams:
Yeah, it was more jazz.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, okay. Yeah, that’s what I’m picking up. In fact, it looks like, to me, that the steel eventually became a big draw. Particularly Lorenzo, when he was playing at the Assembly of the Jewell Dominion in Nashville, and that Bishop Keith initially didn’t like that kind of music-
Felton Williams:
That’s what I heard.
Robert Stone:
… but when she saw that he was such a draw… Then she had these new guys like Calvin and Ronnie Hall and Starlin Harrison coming in, playing the music they had learned from the Jewell Dominion, she kind of changed her mind.
Felton Williams:
Yes. Well, I think they did get quite a bit from the Jewell Dominion-
Robert Stone:
Yeah. No.
Felton Williams:
… because Bishop Harrison was playing in different places besides Nashville. Some of us that were staying still, we had our style, but people were still hearing it.
Robert Stone:
Well, see, when Calvin started traveling with Bishop Henry Harrison and Bishop Keith, he was just a teenager. That was in ’58, and his family came over from the Jewell in ’55, so he was still fresh out of the Jewell Dominion. Plus, he maintained his contacts because some of his family stayed in the Jewell Dominion, so he never lost that musical contact.
Felton Williams:
Oh, yeah. He kept coming around, because he’d been here quite often to come around, and we’d sit down.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). In fact, Calvin’s told me that he would go to the Jewell Dominion General Assembly and Lorenzo Harrison would invite him to play sometimes; play for the offering or something like that.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Well, that’s real interesting.
Felton Williams:
Okay.
Robert Stone:
Well, if you could send me some photos, I sure appreciate it. Let me ask you… see what I’ve got here. Have you heard Treadway’s album?
Felton Williams:
Yes, I did.
Robert Stone:
Do you have one?
Felton Williams:
I think so.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Felton Williams:
I have most of those Sacred Steels.
Robert Stone:
Okay, because if there’s any you don’t have, I’d love to send… How about the video?
Felton Williams:
No, I don’t have a video.
Robert Stone:
How about if I send you one?
Felton Williams:
That’d be okay.
Robert Stone:
I think you’ll like it. It’s part of the story. Yeah, I’ll send you the video.
Felton Williams:
Okay.
Robert Stone:
I got one right here. I’ll mail it out today or tomorrow.
Felton Williams:
Okay.
Robert Stone:
I think you’ll really enjoy it. We’re going to have it… it might not be until the first of the year. It’s going to be converted to a DVD. But it’s a nice video. It’s like a broadcast, TV quality, and I was the director of that project.
Felton Williams:
Calvin is the-
Robert Stone:
Calvin’s on there just a little bit. The Campbell Brothers are big in it.
Felton Williams:
Yeah, the Campbell Brothers.
Robert Stone:
But Willie’s on there.
Felton Williams:
Oh, yes?
Robert Stone:
We got him doing a piece of the Roosevelt song.
Felton Williams:
Oh. Yes.
Robert Stone:
In fact, it was just a couple of years after we did that, maybe a year or so after that, that he lost a lot when he had his heart attack. So we didn’t catch him any too soon.
Felton Williams:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
In fact, when we did the video, we got Willie doing the Roosevelt song. We kind of cut it short because it’s long. It’s like seven minutes.
Felton Williams:
Wow.
Robert Stone:
We couldn’t put all that in there, but he could still do the whole thing.
Felton Williams:
Oh, wow.
Robert Stone:
He could still do the whole thing, but he can’t do that now. They’re actually going to have him up at this centennial celebration in Nashville. They’re going to have a parade. They’re going to have him on a float, playing his guitar. I think they just going to have recorded music coming out of the speakers, but that’s going to be nice because there’s a lot of people that either never met him or haven’t seen him in 50 years, so he’ll be a real throwback to the 1930s and ’40s and all that. He really got around.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. Well, I heard a lot about him. I never met him myself.
Robert Stone:
Quite a guy. Well, when you see this video, you’ll get a taste of his personality. You can only imagine what this guy was like when he was a young man. He had to be killing them.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. He had to be.
Robert Stone:
Because not only did he sing… He was a very good singer. Singing is really his strong point. He’s good on that steel, but the singing is his big thing. Plus, he could preach, he could barbecue, he could fix cars, he could play the piano.
Felton Williams:
That’s good.
Robert Stone:
He made a lot of money working on the street corners.
Felton Williams:
Oh, yeah?
Robert Stone:
He’s told me several times that in the 1940s he could make $500 in a weekend in those big cities.
Felton Williams:
Well, I helped build a church in Kansas City playing the guitar on a street corner.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Felton Williams:
Yeah. Me and my cousin, Mack, Mack Mayes. He’s Bishop Mayes’ son. Yeah, we built a church there for Jewell Dominion.
Robert Stone:
I’ll be doggone.
Felton Williams:
That was in ’52. 1952. Went out there and built a church, and that’s how we got most of the money. We just go out there on the street corner and pick up buckets of money, and then go buy mortar and blocks and start building.
Robert Stone:
Wow. Do you remember where the church was located?
Felton Williams:
I forget the name of the street, but Harvey Jones can tell you if you talk to him, because the building is still there, but it’s no longer a church.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Felton Williams:
Yeah. Because he’s there in Kansas City. Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Okay. Well, I better get going.
Felton Williams:
Okay.
Robert Stone:
I sure appreciate it, and I’ll send you this video. If you can loan me any of those photos, I’d love to have them.
Felton Williams:
Okay, I’ll do that.
Robert Stone:
Thanks a lot, Mr. Williams.
Felton Williams:
Thank you.
Robert Stone:
It’s been a real pleasure talking with you.
Felton Williams:
Thank you.
Robert Stone:
Thanks for all your help.
Felton Williams:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
Okay. Bye now.
Felton Williams:
Bye.
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