Nettie Mae Harrison Interview
- RS 131 00:00
- RS 132 00:00
Interviewee: Nettie Mae Harrison
Interviewer: Robert Stone
Date: 9/11/2003
Location:
Language: English
For the archive overview:
The Robert Stone Sacred Steel 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
Nettie Mae Harrison Interview Transcript:
Robert Stone:
I’m so glad to reach you. I’ve actually spent quite a bit of time talking with Mary Linzy. You know Henry Nelson’s sister? She-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Whose sister?
Robert Stone:
Henry Nelson.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Henry Nelson.
Robert Stone:
Bishop W.L. Nelson. You remember him?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh yeah.
Robert Stone:
The Nelson family there in Ocala.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I was a kid when he was living. That’s been a… Oh God, you really took me back.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Well, Mary was born in 1928.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Okay.
Robert Stone:
She’s still there in Ocala. She had left for some time, I guess, and went to Chicago and so forth. But she’s been back in Ocala for years.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Well, this is amazing. That’s where my husband lived.
Robert Stone:
Well, that’s a big part of why I’m calling because you know what-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yes. He lived in Ocala, Florida.
Robert Stone:
Yes.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Isn’t that something?
Robert Stone:
That’s where he joined the church, right?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yes, he did.
Robert Stone:
Did he join up with the Jewell Dominion there?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah. He fell in love with me.
Robert Stone:
Yes.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Then he wanted to follow Bishop Jewell. Yes. You know, it was like a little, I don’t know. I would call it a little pre-proposal. He was putting his bid in, and he told my grandmother, he said, “You know, I know now she’s too young.” He says, “But when she gets old enough, can I marry her, please?” Of course, mama got excited and jumped the gun. “You’ll marry her now.” Oh boy.
Robert Stone:
So you got married when to Lorenzo?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
See, my daughter was-. I think it was ’42. I think it was ’42 or ’43. I can’t remember exactly because I was married just exactly a year when my daughter was born. Gammy knows, I think, when his mother… Isn’t that a shame that our mother doesn’t know? I can’t put it together. I can’t remember. But it was either ’41 or ’42.
Robert Stone:
Oh, when Naomi was born?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
Oh, okay. Well, I know when she was born, I’ve got that.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Okay. I was married exactly a year prior to her birth.
Robert Stone:
Okay. That’s real good to know. Because as you can appreciate, one of the difficulties I have in trying to reconstruct some of this history and focusing on the music and the steel guitar tradition, but to make it more interesting, and naturally, all the other history gets involved, too. Now, I was talking recently to Felton Williams.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Okay. I know him.
Robert Stone:
He told me that he understood that you learned how to play the steel guitar from Willie Eason.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
No. Well, no, I didn’t. Now I started taking Hawaiian lessons from a Hawaiian musician.
Robert Stone:
You did?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I was living in Cleveland at the time and I was just a kid going to school. I must have been around 11 or 12 then. A lot of things happened around 12. I knew how to play the Hawaiian songs, the music. And then we had a fellow with us. No, Willie Eason. Then we heard Willie Eason playing. Well, we were all taken by him because he was amazing. After we heard Willie Eason playing, well, different ones started trying to play like Willie Eason. Now, I think the reason why Felton said that is because I was the first one to play the Hawaiian guitar. In fact, I was the first one to play all the music in the church.
Robert Stone:
So you were the first one in the Church of the Living God to play.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Well, Bishop Jewell is my grandmother, and I traveled with her. I played the piano. I played xylophone. I played the drums. I played the guitar. In fact, I taught Harrison how to strum on the guitar. And the cutest thing he used to… I used to be so angered by him. He always wanted me to show him how to play while I was pregnant. I didn’t feel like playing the guitar and listen to anybody learning. And he would get upset and he’d tell mama, “Will you make her show me how to play the guitar? Will you make her play with me?” I even had to play the piano along with him and show him how to strum it.
Robert Stone:
Now, when you say the guitar, do you mean the Hawaiian guitar?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
The Hawaiian, yeah. That’s the only guitar he played. Gammy is the one that is multi-gifted.
Robert Stone:
Right? So you were the one who really got Lorenzo started on the Hawaiian?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I got Lorenzo started. And it’s amazing. Now, Fred Neal was one of the persons that took over the guitar about the same time… He was the Hawaiian player. About the same time that Harrison was playing. I think before him, Fred was playing. Then we met a guy, I mean, Harvey Jones. He was a Spanish guitar player. And then Harvey and Harrison started playing together. Well, Harrison used to… He would play all the time. He was rehearsing and playing all day and all night. He became obsessed with the guitar and he got very good. Once a year, we would all meet in Nashville, Tennessee at the general convention. There would be musicians from [00:06:26]. There was musicians from Bishop Nelson’s side and musicians from Bishop Jewell’s side. And we’d all get together on the stage. Sometimes there’s a little chaos and there’s a little friction, but we managed to get through it and everybody managed to play together. Harrison became so professional. He became so good at it. It just seemed like he was just spiritually endowed. God just blessed this man.
Robert Stone:
Oh, sure.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
He became a legend, in the Jewell.
Robert Stone:
Sure. Yes, absolutely.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
You talking about- listen. Oh, he was the greatest.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. I regret that I never heard him himself.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
He was the greatest. I used to watch him and when he was playing in the services and when he would get caught up, look like he would go up a level, and he’d close his eyes and then he would look up. He said the music was coming down on him. You know, like he was hearing something nobody else heard. Whatever he was hearing was coming out in his fingers and he was driving people in all directions with it.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
So he became a legend. I tell you, Felton plays almost just like him.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Gammy plays exactly like him and everybody just started patterning their music after Harrison.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. I guess the guy that’s playing the most of that steel today is Ronnie Mozee.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, oh Lord. Now here’s another guy that’s great.
Robert Stone:
Yes.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Well, mama adopted Ronnie just a little… Well, his mother passed and she brought Ronnie to Bishop Jewell to adopt, to take her son, and Ronnie became a member of our family like. So Ronnie and Gammy played together.
Robert Stone:
I see.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Listen, let me tell you, those two fellas, they had a different style of playing than any of us, but it’s amazing how all of them played different, but you could tell that they were inspired from the same person.
Robert Stone:
Right, sure. Sure.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
It was something in their playing let you know there’s another one that was inspired by Harrison. Now the musicians from Nelson’s side, I think they were all mostly inspired by Willie Eason and Bishop Lockley’s son J.R. Lockley. Now he played piano. J.R. Lockley played piano, but I think he played guitar, but he was a piano player, and he was professional.
Robert Stone:
The son, you mean?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
No, I don’t think he played guitar because he was like the director of the music.
Robert Stone:
You mean J.R. himself or his son, junior?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
J.R.’s son. J.R. Lockley’s son. J.R. Junior.
Robert Stone:
He played Hawaiian a little bit.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I thought he did.
Robert Stone:
A little bit. Yeah. In fact, I have an old LP that Bobby Tolliver loaned me. Do you know who Bob Tolliver is?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
The name sounds familiar.
Robert Stone:
He was from up in Ohio, I believe. He has retired to Orlando now.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, okay.
Robert Stone:
He’s about the age of Ted Beard and those fellas.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, you know Ted Beard.
Robert Stone:
Well, I know him well.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh my God. My mother was once married to Ted Beard’s father.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh my God. Where are you from? Wait a minute. Now you say you are… Where are you from?
Robert Stone:
I’m in Gainesville, Florida. Well, you see-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
How did you get [crosstalk 00:10:06]. I mean, how did you connect with-
Robert Stone:
Actually, the way it started, I’m not in the church. I’m a folklorist and what I do, my job is I document and present and do concerts and record albums, whatever with people that do traditional arts. I came upon the steel guitar tradition here in Florida in 1992 basically through an acquaintance of mine who was down in Hollywood, down in South Florida who had a music store. He said, “Bob, these guys are coming in and playing this and trying out these lap steels,” which especially 10 years ago but even today, you don’t just find them in any music store, but they had them there. He said, “These guys are coming in and they play, and they have a really different way of playing. And they say they play in church.” To make a long story short, these guys would say, “Well, you really need to hear. And the two names they would put out was either Aubrey Ghent or Glenn Lee.”
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, listen, Glenn Lee. Listen, this guy, he was someplace else. He played for my daughter’s albums.
Robert Stone:
Yes. Right.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Let me tell you, Glenn Lee on that organ. I tell you, he and Jimmy Smith would have to stop and listen for a moment to see [crosstalk 00:11:34].
Robert Stone:
Now, that was a great keyboard player and arranger.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Well, he’s my nephew. Glenn Lee is my husband’s nephew.
Robert Stone:
Right. Understand.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
His father is my husband’s brother. Of course, they’re all passed now.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. You know, I grew up right down there in Perrine. I went to Perrine Elementary School.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Really? In Ocala?
Robert Stone:
Yeah. I was born in ’44.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
In Ocala?
Robert Stone:
No, in Perrine down there where the Lee family was.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, I’d never been there.
Robert Stone:
Well, you know way down south of Miami.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Okay.
Robert Stone:
South of Miami.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I only remember those who moved to Richmond.
Robert Stone:
Richmond Heights?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yes. Richmond Heights.
Robert Stone:
Well, that’s that same general area. Yes. That’s where we’re talking about.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Okay. I’ve been to Richmond Heights because Harrison’s brothers live there. He had a couple of brothers that lived in Richmond Heights.
Robert Stone:
Oh yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Marshall.
Robert Stone:
Marshall lived in Richmond Heights?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yes, he did. That’s way past.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
And his son lives in Detroit. Marshall Junior.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah. I talked to him pretty frequently. Every so often he’ll call me.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Marshall Junior has been in Detroit, I guess, for the past 35 years or something, or so something like that.
Robert Stone:
You know, I may be making a trip up to Detroit. I’m thinking about trying to get up there around November to… A part of my work, I take photographs and I’d like to meet Felton. Ronnie Hall is up there. I don’t know if you know Ronnie Hall. And Felton and-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, yes. I know Ronnie Hall.
Robert Stone:
Of course, I already know Calvin Cooke very well and his family.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh. Now see, Calvin is from Cleveland.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Now, Calvin, his mother… See, these kids that you’re talking about, I was in the generation with their parents. Calvin’s mother was one of the singing-est women you’ve heard in a long time, Elizabeth Cooke. He has a sister that is out here that was once out here in California somewhere. I don’t know if she’s still out here now or not, but her name was Sandra. She used to sing in night clubs and in churches. Let me tell you, she had a voice that you have never heard before.
Robert Stone:
Wow. Sandra.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
His sister could sing, but Calvin, he played the guitar. It’s amazing how Harrison became a legend and so famous, but they… Well, I’ll tell you who else. I’ll tell you who else was inspired by Harrison. Elvis Presley.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Elvis Presley used to come to our meetings in Mississippi. In Tupelo, Mississippi, once a year, we’d have camp meetings, put up a great big tent. People would come from miles around in wagons, vans, cars, droves of people.
Robert Stone:
When would that would’ve been?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, that was back in the forties, and Elvis Presley was just a little boy. That’s where he got that wiggling in his legs from, because in mama’s church, boy, they didn’t jump and just jump around like you see people do. They actually danced. There was dances that came out of that church to the Savoy in different stages.
Robert Stone:
Well, that’s some of what Mary Linzy had told me that she remembers the dancing there at Bishop Jewell’s church in Ocala.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, honey, let me tell you some of the dancing, these people that you’ve ever seen came out of mama’s church, came out of that church. I mean, they didn’t jump straight up and down and shuffle across the floor. I mean, they danced.
Robert Stone:
So it was like jitterbugging, or Lindy hop or something.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
The only thing, they didn’t have partners. They were solo dancers.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
But everybody listened. That’s where I learned to dance. After I grew up, and I traveled for a while with Aretha Franklin, and then I used to get offers to dance in nightclubs and places.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I learned how to dance in church. Well, I dance better to church music. And then I went into jazz. Oh honey, in New York, oh, I used to work at nightclubs there. I could fill up a club in a minute just dancing, and I was a barmaid.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh yeah.
Robert Stone:
What’s some of the clubs you worked at in New York?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I used to work at the Zanzibar.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. I’ve heard of that.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
On 145th. I used to work at the L Bar up on Broadway. And I used to work at the… Let me see. Down the street. What is the name of that bar? I used to hang out on the corner of 125th Street at the… What was the name of that bar? Duchess- A barmaid named Duchess was there all the time. It’s where all the musicians hang out.
Robert Stone:
Corner of 125th Street?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
At 125th and Seventh Avenue. 125th and Seventh Avenue. It won’t come to me. You could eat there and you could drink there.
Robert Stone:
Did you ever run across Sister Rosetta Tharpe in those days?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah, I met Rosetta. In fact, I sang on the same stage with Mahalia Jackson at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
God, when was that?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I sang on the same stage with her.
Robert Stone:
When was that?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
But you see, I used to sing. I was Bishop Jewell’s… I was the singer that carried the crowd from years back. People would come from far and near to Nashville, Tennessee and wherever I went to hear me sing.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, I sing all across country. Then I played piano. That’s where Gammy gets it. Gammy guy, he don’t have a choice, but to just play some music. His mother played piano. And you want to hear somebody sing, have him play one of her albums for you.
Robert Stone:
Oh, I have one.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, that girl could sing.
Robert Stone:
Yes, yes, absolutely.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Amanda. Well, then you know where she got it? From me.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
That’s where she got… She used to tell people, she said she got it from my mother.
Robert Stone:
In fact, the very first of this music that we recorded was at the Jewell Dominion Church in Deerfield Beach, where Bishop Treadway is, Sonny Treadway. And your mother was-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, listen. Oh, God. You got a chance to hear Treadway. Now, he is one that has… Listen, he’s in the world all of his own.
Robert Stone:
Yes. Yes.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Treadway’s aunt was married to my uncle. We have all intermingled into a family type thing almost. You know?
Robert Stone:
Oh, I know that. It’s the same on the Keith Dominion side.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
Of course, as you know, like Glenn Lee’s family, they were on both sides.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Robert Stone:
There’s a lot of that, too.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh my God. Yes. Glenn Lee is my daughter’s cousin.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Because you see, I married their uncle. That’s when I married, when I was 12.
Robert Stone:
Right, right. Lorenzo. Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
So I got into that family of all of that crew and we all came… Listen, his mother and all of us, we came up together. I was the youngest aunt they had. I was like a doll set in the midst of them. They used to play with me. We used to play. Oh God. It was something.
Robert Stone:
So it was Lorenzo Harrison that you married in Gainesville?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yes. It was Lorenzo Harrison that married in Gainesville, Florida.
Robert Stone:
And that was in 1942. You know, I’ve got this Jewell Dominion calendar.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
At the courthouse.
Robert Stone:
At the courthouse in Gainesville.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yes, ma’am. Yes, sir.
Robert Stone:
Small world. I was right by the courthouse today.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I can see it in my mind. It was sort of inset off the street.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Well, you know what they’ve done? Actually, several years ago, they built a new courthouse. They outgrew that one, but it’s a-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Did they? That was the longest walk I’ve ever taken in my life.
Robert Stone:
Well, it’s a fine old building-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Is you get from the car inside that courthouse.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. It’s a fine old building and they’ve made it the… It’s a theater where they have live plays upstairs and they have movies downstairs.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Is that right?
Robert Stone:
Yeah. They call it the Hippodrome State Theater now. It’s very nice.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, really? I never get to go there again, but I’d love to see that.
Robert Stone:
It’s a nice town. You know, it’s a university town. Actually, like I said, I grew up in the south end of Miami. We’ve been here since ’89.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Is that right?
Robert Stone:
See, I was born in ’44, so I’m the same age as Calvin Cooke.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Okay. I was born in ’29.
Robert Stone:
As a matter of fact, Calvin and I figured out that, because he would come down there and stay with Marshall Harrison and with the Lees and all that, we were probably fishing on the same banks at some time and didn’t know it.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
How about that?
Robert Stone:
Back in those days, at that age, I was like him. I lived to fish. I love to go fishing like a young boy. You know?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Right.
Robert Stone:
My teens. The fishing was real good in those days, back in the fifties down there.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
How about that? I tell you, I used to love to go to Florida until I went down there and got married and I felt I was mad. I was so angry with my grandmother, but I just said, now I’m not… You know, it just changed my whole life. It just changed my whole young life. You know, I didn’t…
Robert Stone:
Yeah, that’s a big deal.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I didn’t feel like a little girl anymore. You know?
Robert Stone:
You weren’t. You weren’t.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I don’t know. I felt invaded and I just felt a lot of weird things. But anyway, I have some beautiful memories that came out of the marriage, my daughter and my grandchildren.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, sure.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I have about five great grands now.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
And there’s nobody left, but just me and the kids.
Robert Stone:
Wow. Now, Naomi Manning was a beautiful person. I met her down there.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, she’s one of the most beautiful person you ever met.
Robert Stone:
I met her a couple of times, and right away, you see that she was a real special person.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, she was very special. You’re talking about a special person. That girl, I don’t know nobody like her. She had the biggest heart.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, sure. No I mean right off, bingo. You see that.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
She’s a jewel. She was a jewel. She loved everybody and met no strangers.
Robert Stone:
No, exactly. She was…
Nettie Mae Harrison:
She was genuine from the heart out.
Robert Stone:
Yep. Exactly. From the beginning.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
They don’t make them like her anymore, and that was a great loss to me to lose her.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. I’m sure.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
That was the only child that I had living. I had five children.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I had twin boys, but I lost them at six months. So Harrison, I would’ve had five children had they all lived, but she was the only one that made it because I was so young and I was so tiny. I was such a little girl. You know, Naomi, she was my pride and joy. I loved her with most of my heart. I loved God with all my heart, but she was next in my heart.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Gammy, was… I called him granny’s man. I’ve called him that from a little boy. I said, come on granny’s man, and he would just smile and blush. I called him that today, and I feel the same thing today that I felt when he was just little. He’s still to me granny’s man.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Gammy has a beautiful heart. Gammy has a good heart. He just need to be pushed. It’s in him. You got to pull it out. You understand what I’m saying?
Robert Stone:
Yeah. I’ve met him a couple of times.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
This boy is multitalented, let me tell you.
Robert Stone:
Oh yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I’m sure you’ve heard him by now.
Robert Stone:
Oh yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
You’ve heard him. You should hear him play a bass guitar and you should hear him play the Hawaiian. I know you’ve heard him play the Spanish.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Right.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
You should hear him. But this boy is so bad on a bass guitar.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Let him pick up one and play for you. That boy, listen, he is a genius. And I tell him all the time. I said, baby, you can stand before the world and say, I am the greatest, even to those that don’t know yet. I brought him out here when he was… He came out here when he was 15, and I took him up on Sunset and Vine to a guitar shop and he picked up a guitar. Listen, it wasn’t but a few minutes before that place was full of musicians from all over LA.
Robert Stone:
Oh, yeah. He’s very, very good.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, he draws a crowd. And the man said, “Wait a minute, we can’t have a jam session here.” He said, “I sell him here.” That boy drew… They was trying to get him. They was trying to gig him. They said, “How old is he? Where did he come from? Where has he been? He’s amazing.”
Robert Stone:
Yeah. I could imagine.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
He don’t know his self, how great he is with that guitar.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yes, he is. I am so glad that he decided at long last to follow his gift because God gave him a gift.
Robert Stone:
No, he’s exceptional. That’s for sure.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
He’s exceptional. He is exceptional. He is a prodigy. That boy had been strumming a guitar since he was five years old.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
It was the funny thing. He was the boy, the only boy and the baby. So Harrison wanted him to play the guitar, and I said I wanted him to play the piano. So we left him alone. Of course, the man overruled and Harrison got him a guitar. Let me tell you, he sat down there and shocked us all. He’s been playing the guitar ever since. He was strumming on his Hawaiian then, because it was easy to do that and slide the bar up and down.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
But this baby, let me tell you… I know you know Les Paul.
Robert Stone:
Sure.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
He can do a Les Paul for you. He has had tapes that he made of himself where he complemented himself all the way down the line, and you thought it was three or four musicians when nobody but Gammy. He’s something.
Robert Stone:
Well, I hope to see more of him. Well, I saw him at Glenn Lee’s funeral when he came down for that and I’ve seen him… Well, I’ve talked to him one other time. I’ve seen him once or twice, I think. He is friends with the Campbells and the Keith Dominion.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yes, he is.
Robert Stone:
Chuck and Phil and those guys. I know he’s spent some time with him up there… Anyhow-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
He was in Florida last weekend, I think it was.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah. He’s going down there taking a little theory, I think from a guitar player that you… And you’d know him if I could call his name. His father was a minister in Treadway’s Church there in Deerfield, Florida. Listen, I almost called it. I can’t, but you would know him. Probably tall, dark young man, and he plays a guitar. He is very good and he’s teaching. He’s helping Gammy with some things.
Robert Stone:
Wow. No, I didn’t know that.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh yeah. So Gammy, he goes down about once a month and have a session with him. I think they’ve made… What do you call it? The disc.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. CD.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
- I think they have a CD.
Robert Stone:
Oh, I have to ask him. I’ve got to.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Have you talked to Gammy?
Robert Stone:
Yeah. That’s how I got your number. I just talked to him this afternoon, briefly on his cell phone, I guess.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Ask him about it.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah. Because he’s in… You know, he doesn’t need it. I mean, he’s only trying to. What they’re teaching him is what he’s doing. God already got him doing it, but he can’t theorize it. You know what I’m saying?
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
It’s like playing the piano by ear. It’s like playing by ear and then learning the notes and the chords. That’s what he’s doing.
Robert Stone:
Well, it won’t hurt. You know what I mean.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
It don’t hurt at all.
Robert Stone:
Even if you have the natural gift, in my opinion, it doesn’t hurt to also have some training.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Not at all, not at all. It’s only enhancing him.
Robert Stone:
Right. Exactly.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
And it’s only letting him know the chords that he’s making. Whereas he makes the chords, but he couldn’t name it. If you say, well, is that a G sharp or what is that, whatever, he wouldn’t be able to… [Tape stops]. Gammy is doing- I’m very pleased with him since his mother passed. He’s really stepped up to the plate.
Robert Stone:
Great.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I’m very pleased with him and I’m encouraged, and I encourage him all the time. “Gammy, know who you are and know what you are and pursue the thing that God gave you. Don’t let people shove you into a slot that man wants you to be in. You follow the lead of God. God gave you the gift for a reason and for a purpose. Use it because that’s what you’re great in.” And he’s doing it. I tell you he’s my little heartthrob. Love him.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Hey, if you don’t mind, if we could digress, go back a little bit to where you were talking about your Hawaiian lessons?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Do you remember the circumstances of taking these lessons? First of all, do you know about what age you were?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Well, if I was 12 when I married, I must have been around 11.
Robert Stone:
Okay. And this was in… Where was it again?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Cleveland.
Robert Stone:
Cleveland.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
We lived in Cleveland then. At that time, that was the headquarters.
Robert Stone:
Do you remember the name of your teacher or where you went for the lessons?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Now, that’s the one thing I don’t remember, but I do know he was from Hawaii.
Robert Stone:
He was Hawaiian.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
He was a Hawaiian and he was from Hawaii. I kept my sheet music for a long time.
Robert Stone:
Oh really?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
And I don’t know. Moving around, I can’t find it.
Robert Stone:
It wasn’t one of those O’ahu things or they called them the Honolulu Conservatory.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah. It was the Honolulu music that he did the little dancing and stuff by in Honolulu.
Robert Stone:
Because they had a whole system of sheet music that was called tablature. It was a tablature with the… You know, you put the bar on this fret, at this string, at this fret.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Well, see, I was taking Hawaiian lessons from this Hawaiian teacher before I started strumming in the church. That’s how I started playing in church because I was taking Hawaiian music, but I wasn’t taking it for gospel music. So the only thing that I could do there… Fred Neal-
Robert Stone:
Now were you playing acoustic or electric at the time?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Was I playing acoustic or electric?
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
No, I played Hawaiian.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, but was it electric? Did you have to plug it in or was it just acoustic?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah, it was electric Hawaiian. You can’t play Hawaiian acoustic.
Robert Stone:
Well, you can, but you can’t-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
You can’t hear it.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
You can’t hear it.
Robert Stone:
Right. Right.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
So I had a little Hawaiian guitar and I took my lessons at home, and I don’t know, I guess I was just a person that just loved music. And then I played the piano. I started out taking piano lessons and I stopped. I wasn’t consistent in either one because I guess I always wanted to hear… I admired jazz, blues and I was inspired by Ray Charles and Erroll Garner and musicians like that.
Robert Stone:
Right. Then did I understand you to say that when you heard Willie Eason, you kind of picked up on that style?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yes. Willie Eason, he did a lot of-
Robert Stone:
Tell me about it.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
He had his own style of playing. I never played in the General Assemblies because by that time, Fred Neal… I think at that time, Fred Neal was playing and Harrison. Harrison was playing. I don’t remember playing ever for the General Assembly, but I used to play at our church in Cleveland, which was the biggest church on that end of the coast. Everybody would congregate there many times because see, in my time I was the vice president of the organization. So I wore many hats. I used to write plays and produce them. I used to have classes and gym classes. I organized a fundraising group among the youth and I raised a lot of the money that paid for the building for the church there. Then I sing and I organized the choirs and the groups that we had, the groups of singers and inspired children to come. We carried more youth than any church in the city.
Robert Stone:
Now did you start playing in church? I hope I’m not being… You know, I didn’t mean to be rude or anything by stopping you. I’m trying to-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
No. It’s okay.
Robert Stone:
I have to keep my mind. I’m trying to keep this thing, develop a sort of a chronology of what happened when and how that steel guitar thing developed. Did you start playing in church more or less right away while you were taking these Hawaiian lessons? You know, when you were a little girl, 11?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah, because see, what happened was we didn’t have a lot of musicians in church. I was the only one that really… Chester Henderson, a fellow named Chester Henderson, he played piano. At that time, Fred Neal traveled with us. So Fred Neal played the Hawaiian guitar. We didn’t have a lot of music. So I just sort of played on most of them.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I played the drums for a while. I played the xylophone. I played the guitar, but I didn’t play long because I married Harrison at 12. I mean, he started playing shortly after I got married to him. I had to teach him, show him. But see, now what I taught Harrison… It was far from what God gave him. I just taught him the fundamental, the strum, the chords. He played the chords and played with Fred Neal. The fellows would always play together, he and Fred. He grew into his music as we traveled.
Robert Stone:
Do you think Harrison was influenced by Willie Eason?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
He possibly was. I really believe that-
Robert Stone:
You know Willie had an older brother.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
See, Harrison knew Willie Eason. He knew him because… See, Harrison lived in Ocala and he grew up with Nelson’s children. So he knew them.
Robert Stone:
Right. Now, when you met Harrison in Ocala and then got married in Gainesville, your home was actually in Cleveland.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
At that time.
Robert Stone:
But Bishop Jewell had a… Didn’t she have a home there in Ocala, like a part-time residence or something? That’s one thing I’m trying to put together. She had a church there.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah, she had a church there.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. You may not remember.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I’m trying to think. Did she have a home? See, usually where ever she went and stayed any length of time, she built a house-
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Because Mary Linzy makes it sound like Bishop Jewell was there for quite a while from time to time.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
She was. She come there frequently because Ocala became like the headquarters for her in Florida. And she spread it out from Ocala. Then we stayed with Harrison’s mother. I remember staying with Harrison’s mother for a while.
Robert Stone:
She was there.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). We stayed in different- of the members. We gained members as we stayed there.
Robert Stone:
Sure. Right. Sure. Yeah, I understand.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
It was just really upcoming.
Robert Stone:
Right, right. That was pretty early on.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
See, because she built that church, so we had to spend some time there. Because my uncle Frank, he was the one that was over the building part of it.
Robert Stone:
What was his name?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Frank McLeod.
Robert Stone:
McLeod?
Robert Stone:
Yes.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
That’s my grandfather. He was the one that was the overseer before Bishop Jewell, way before then.
Robert Stone:
Oh really?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh my God.
Robert Stone:
How do you spell his last name?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
M-C-L-E-O-D.
Robert Stone:
Oh, McLeod. Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Well, you call it McCleod. Some spell it M-C capital C L-O-U-D. Some spell it. M-C capital L-
Robert Stone:
L-E-O-D.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah. L-E-O-D.
Robert Stone:
Right, right. I just never heard it pronounced McLeod.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
His name was Bruce McLeod.
Robert Stone:
Okay. McLeod. Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
But we call it McLeod. I know they used to call ourself McLeod.
Robert Stone:
I see. That’s probably actually… You know, that’s-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
So it’s like you say, Reagan or Reagan.
Robert Stone:
Well, and actually I think the origin of that name is probably Scottish and that’s probably closer to the way the Scotts would say it. McLeod. You know?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Probably so.
Robert Stone:
They have that accent.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
You know, we don’t know who our ancestors are. I know my mother was a Caucasian, my grandmother, but I don’t know what she was. You know, I never met her. I don’t know if my mother even remembered her. See, because my grandfather married Bishop Jewell years ago. At that time, I think he met her in Pennsylvania. I don’t know nothing much about that, but I just know this lady came into our lives at a early age. We were all young. We were just children.
Robert Stone:
Now I have heard varying stories of how tall of a person Bishop Jewell was. Do you know how tall she was?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
She was six feet and weighed 300.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
But when you saw her, you didn’t see the monster. You didn’t see the big number. You saw a stately person.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Very sophisticated lady. She was proportioned from the head down and dressed accordingly.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Well, there’s photos of her in this.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
She was a very handsome woman. Powerful.
Robert Stone:
Yep. There’s photos of her in this. Have you seen the calendar that the church did? The historical calendar?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
I’m looking at that here as we talk.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
She was a queenly type person.
Robert Stone:
Yes. Right. Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Because that’s the way she thought, she lived. She believed that that’s what she was, and that’s what she became to her and to others. She patterned the Queen of England.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
At her church. That’s why it’s the family church.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
See, you could not be over this church, her church, if you wasn’t a member of the family. That ceased. I was the first one that became a family member that was in position of the church. I was the vice president to her. Before then, it was a lady. Bishop Ella Ware from Duke, Kentucky was the vice president. Mama moved her and put me in that position when I was a teenager. And from then, it stayed in the family.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
And then after I married Harrison, he became vice to me and on down the line. That’s why when Bishop Jewell passed, my daughter just automatically took it over. And then when she passed, they automatically thought Gammy would take it over. I just decided this is where it should end. [crosstalk 00:41:56].
Robert Stone:
So right now it’s still undecided, isn’t it? Isn’t it still undecided as to who’s going to lead the church?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Well, I don’t know what they’re going to do, but I know whoever it’ll be, I doubt very seriously if it’ll be a member of the… Well, it won’t be from this immediate family because God gave me that it was over, that the Jewell saga had ended and that the dynasty had ended for her. It’s time now for the people to lift their minds from seeing an individual in a family, because God is Supreme overall. And as long as you’re looking in the pulpit at a body… God is spirit and you serve him in spirit and in truth. And as long as you look at a body, you’re not listening. If you don’t see God in that body, then you’re hung up. You’re hung up right there. These people have been Bishop Jewell’s people from years and years and years back. It was time for that to end and to move on. So I did not encourage my grandson to take that position. First of all, he’s too young. He has too much to offer to be stationed someplace and dealing with that type of situation. Because see, I know what it was. I did it at age 18 and I had to leave it. I think I was about 30 when I had to leave it. I had to go. Because see, from that… Now when I was there, we had the Jewell Trio. We traveled and Harvey and Harrison and myself.
Robert Stone:
Can we talk a little bit about the Jewell Trio?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
My first question is I know they recorded for Nashboro and some other labels. One question I have-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Atlantic.
Robert Stone:
Atlantic. Was Harrison’s steel guitar on any of those records?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh yeah. On all of them.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Because that’s something. I actually haven’t heard any of those. I think I can get ahold of them.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Well, see, we didn’t make a lot out. We didn’t make a lot of records. I think we had one or two records out and one of them was “Too Late,” a song that I arranged. I think it was a single.
Robert Stone:
Right. Yeah. As far as I know, the Jewell Trio in any configuration, never made any albums. They just made singles.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
You know Candi Staton?
Robert Stone:
I know who she is. Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Well, she was one of my lead singers.
Robert Stone:
Right. Right.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Her and her sister and my daughter, then we added another girl Sederia Boles, who sing like Shirley Caesar. So Shirley Caesar called me from South Carolina, wanted to join the group at that time. We had someone already to sing just like her, so we didn’t need her. She went to the Caravans. And from there, she left and come out on her own.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Right. She’s done pretty well.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Uh-huh (affirmative). I think she did exceptionally well.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Yeah. Really.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
She’s very popular now.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, absolutely.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
She’s a pastor.
Robert Stone:
Oh, she’s great.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
She’s moved on.
Robert Stone:
She’s very, very good. She’s very, very good.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Very good.
Robert Stone:
Very good. Yeah. Let’s see. Oh, another thing that Mary Linzy was telling me about was that she recalled that at that church in Ocala, at Bishop Jewell’s church in Ocala, that this was back when basically nobody else had electricity, but she had some sort of electric thing up there that was like a train, of people getting on a gospel train. Mary recalls that it was powered by batteries that were around the back of the church. She remembers that. She was just a little kid then that she wasn’t allowed to go… The kids weren’t allowed to go back there. Do you remember anything about it?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
A train?
Robert Stone:
Yeah. You know?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I don’t recall.
Robert Stone:
Sort of a thing on the wall. The way she described it, sounds like it was made with electric lights and maybe something painted and cut out.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
In the church?
Robert Stone:
Yes. Inside the church, she said it was, and that it was…
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Mom’s picture was up there.
Robert Stone:
It had lights on it. And that she recalled that there was a bunch of… Because there were no electric lights in that part of town at that time. This was 1940 maybe before, or maybe before that, around 1940.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
How old a person is this Mary?
Robert Stone:
She was born in ’28.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Well, just a year before me.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. She remembers you well. She remembers you dancing there-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
But I don’t remember. [crosstalk 00:47:15].
Robert Stone:
… and how good of a dancer you were.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
What a what?
Robert Stone:
How good of a dancer you were.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I told you.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, yeah. Of course, she was in the Keith Dominion. Her father was Bishop Nelson, who was an important man in the Keith Dominion churches and built-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, Mary Linzy is Bishop Nelson’s daughter?
Robert Stone:
Yes. Yes.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, okay.
Robert Stone:
Her name was Mary Nelson. Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Okay. You know, was this in Florida where she saw this train?
Robert Stone:
Ocala. In Ocala where she still lives.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
In Ocala, there was a train?
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
In the church that had lights?
Robert Stone:
Yes. I’m just wondering if you remember.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Well, if it was electric lights, why wouldn’t they have had them in the church as opposed to just having them on a train? I don’t understand.
Robert Stone:
Well, they probably did, but what I’m saying is that they didn’t have electric power. These lights were powered by batteries that were out back. In other words, you just didn’t turn the switch on to your wall.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I don’t remember that.
Robert Stone:
There wasn’t electricity in that small town at that time according to her.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I don’t remember that.
Robert Stone:
She said that they used to… Like at their church, they didn’t have any electricity and they had… She called them lamp lights, kerosene lights mounted up on the wall with a little reflector back then, back in the late thirties, early 1940s. I think it was apparently… It must have been up towards World War II before they got electricity back in the… more in the mid-forties or even a little later.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Because it was a country out in the country.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh my God. Yeah. It was really woods out there because we used to walk a country road. We used to walk to the church and back in Ocala, but I don’t-
Robert Stone:
You don’t remember that.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I really don’t. You know, it could very well have been, but because as I said, I met Harrison in ’40, ’41, I think it was and we had lights in the church because the music. We had the music. I don’t remember ever not having lights in the church.
Robert Stone:
Do you remember who was playing music in the church there in Ocala at that time, by any chance?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I’m trying to think who was traveling with us at that time? Fred Neal was traveling with us. He was one of the musicians. I believe it was Harvey. I believe it was Harvey. I’m not sure. It’s a little-
Robert Stone:
Harvey? What’s the name? Jones?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Harvey Jones. I believe it was Harvey Jones because… You know, he’s still alive. He went into the ministry and he’s in Kansas City.
Robert Stone:
Yes, I have his phone number. I’m going to be talking to him, too.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah. He’ll be able to tell you about that.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
And if it was anything like that, he was the older person, much older than me. Maybe he can tell you more about that, about the lights. I don’t know about that.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
But I do know that I think it was, it was Harvey and Fred, I think so because Harrison was being… They were bringing him into the music and Fred Neal was the one that was traveling with mom at the time, I think.
Robert Stone:
Right, right. I don’t know if I already asked you this. Do you remember Willie Eason’s older brother Troman?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I don’t remember him by name.
Robert Stone:
Apparently, he died. He died fairly young, but he was… You know, they were 16 kids in that family. So he was something like 20 or 25 years older than Willie.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, really?
Robert Stone:
But apparently, he like yourself, he took lessons from a Hawaiian up in Philadelphia.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, really?
Robert Stone:
One of his daughters, his oldest living daughter remembers that Troman heard this guy on the radio, which was probably like 1936 or something like that, ’37. Heard this guy on the radio and called up the radio station and would go down there and arrange to take lessons, went down there and took lessons from the fella at the station. All they remembered, they do remember his name was Jack.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Is that right?
Robert Stone:
Through some other connections, I have a pretty good idea of who it was. They were two brothers, two Hawaiian brothers named Jimmy and Jack Kahauolopua. They were supposed to be the best in that area at that time. You know? But as you can imagine, trying to reconstruct something from 1936 is-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
My Lord, that was the year Bishop McLeod, my grandfather died. He died in 1936.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
We were living then in Michigan, and I was only six years old. I was six years old. That’s when Bishop Jewell became the overseer of the church, in 1936. Yeah, that goes a long ways back with daddy.
Robert Stone:
I’m just trying to-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
You know, I have cousins out here that play and Fred Neal’s son, he plays. He has a grandson. Well, Ronnie’s son actually. See, Ronnie was married to Fred Neal’s daughter.
Robert Stone:
Ronnie Mozee?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Ronnie Mozee.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah. His kids are… Hey, if you want to hear a guitar player, and I think he’s maybe 15, they tried to take him to Japan a few months ago.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, this boy is outrageous and he’s only 14, about 15 years old.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Look identical like Ronnie and plays that guitar. Listen, you close your eyes. You think you’re in another world.
Robert Stone:
Wow. Well, Ronnie’s very good on both the Spanish and the Hawaiian.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Fred Neal’s son is the grandfather of this boy.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
And they live out here. Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Wow. He lives out in LA?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Pardon me?
Robert Stone:
He lives in Los Angeles?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Ronnie’s son?
Robert Stone:
Fred Neal’s son.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yes. Uh-huh (affirmative). And Ronnie’s son lives here with his mother because Ronnie was married to… He has two children for Fred Neal’s daughter, granddaughter and his son plays the guitar. Fred Neal’s son plays guitar. Fred Neal’s grandson plays guitar.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I’m telling you, it went out all through the congregation.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, sure.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Believe me, that Felton Williams, he’s a guitar player. He is good. I think he has his own studio in his basement. We used to go down there and play. He just too long ago sent me a tape of him playing and he’s still good.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Actually, he had given me your phone number, but apparently it was a number that’s not any good anymore.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh.
Robert Stone:
I had interviewed Felton. Gosh, we talked for a couple of hours about two weeks ago and he gave me the… Whatever number he gave me, it wouldn’t work. And so that’s-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, well, he probably wrote it down wrong because this number hasn’t changed in quite a while.
Robert Stone:
I think all he had wrong was the area code. I think he had 317 instead of 327. Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
It wasn’t no seven. My area code is 323.
Robert Stone:
- Excuse me. Yeah. I think he might have had 313.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
He might have had 213.
Robert Stone:
Or 213.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Okay. And what happened with the 213, they changed that area code to 313.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). That’s probably what it was.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I mean 323.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
That’s probably what happened. He didn’t know that it changed. He probably had the right number.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. That happens all the time.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
But just the wrong area code. That’s what happened because I haven’t spoken to him in quite a while. In fact, I saw him for the first time in, oh, I don’t know how many years when my mother passed. I went back there and stayed about a month and he and his wife came over and spent three days with me. It was a beautiful reunion.
Robert Stone:
He sure is a nice-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Since being the vice president of organization, everybody knew me and I was just a teenager. So I was quite popular. I sang. I danced. I did it all.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. And you had a lot of responsibility as a young lady. Gee whiz.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh my God. Did I ever.
Robert Stone:
You know, I’m sitting here looking at this photograph of you and Harrison and Naomi in about 1940 or sometime in the forties. That’s a beautiful photo. That’s great.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Thank you. She’s a little girl.
Robert Stone:
A good looking little family there.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah, we were. And she’s a little girl then.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
She was a beautiful baby. So we’ve been in the music field all our lives. At least, I have, and Harrison came into it because he was 17 when I married him. He’s five years older than me.
Robert Stone:
Wow. You all are so young.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
And wasn’t that… Listen, somebody, I said, Lord, it’s a wonder they don’t hang mama for this. She always got her desires and what she wanted. Now that was for sure.
Robert Stone:
So she was behind it, huh?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Huh?
Robert Stone:
She was all for it.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, all for it. Listen, she was the director, the dictator, the controller. She was all of that. Yes, sir. Everything revolved around her.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
That’s how it went. And she was the captain or she’d sink that ship.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah. That’s the way she ruled, and that’s the way she… That’s why the people, well, they’re so geared and so programmed, possessed with her. It’s in their blood and take God to get it out. But that’s all they know because she was a powerful woman in her day. Got to give it to her. She was a powerful woman in her day, and she took over in 1936. That’s when daddy died. I was a little girl. I was only six years old. He told her, “If you hold onto little Nettie, you’ll be successful with the church.” And she held onto me.
Robert Stone:
I guess so.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I tell you, she didn’t ever want to let go of me. I mean, she guarded me. She guarded me with her life. It’s a long story. I guess I should write my book now.
Robert Stone:
Well, I tell you, writing a book is a lot of work.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
It’s time for me for the whole truth and nothing but… [Tape ends.]
Robert Stone:
So you went to a lot of those General Assemblies back when you were young, I would assume.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Honey, I went to all of them. I was the General Assembly. I’m telling you, I sing. I was the one that did all the singing and Harrison played for me-
Robert Stone:
And these were in Nashville?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Nashville, Tennessee at them tent meetings.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Right on Heiman Street?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Harrison was so renowned and so great, Count Basie came to Nashville, Tennessee and tried to get Harrison to travel with him.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yes, sir. That man was the greatest. He was just good and it all came from God. He was a gifted man.
Robert Stone:
The little I’ve heard, basically just some homemade tapes of Bishop Harrison playing in churches and some of these things are really low fidelity and they’re copies or whatever, but a lot of it, compared to the music in the Keith Dominion, it seems that he may have had a lot more worldly influences from jazz and blues and stuff. I hear a lot of those blues shuffles and those sorts of things. Do you have any idea where that came from or how that got into his music?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Well, you know what? I used to tell people, when I sang you would’ve thought I was a blues singer. I attributed that to… People laugh when I tell them, I said the blues is nothing, but somebody laughed and somebody cried. The blues, it comes from feelings. That could be spiritual, or it could be jazz. It could be in any feel of music. And it’s a feeling. And it’s an experience that you had that you express through your singing, your dancing, or your playing. Music is expression on the outside of what you feel on the inside, whether it’s joy, sadness, tappy toes, tap, tap, tap dancing, toe dancing, or ballads. Whatever you feel. And to know what a person feels that plays an instrument or that sings a song. Let’s take Aretha Franklin for an example. Aretha Franklin was one of the greatest women blues singer ever, other than maybe Big Maybelle. And she was on another level. But Aretha Franklin is renowned and known for the blues. I traveled with her. Let’s look at some of the times-
Robert Stone:
When you traveling with her what were you doing?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I was her companion.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yes. And I background when Pat wasn’t there because pat sang also with Isaac Hayes and she was one of her background girls. So whenever Pat wasn’t there at rehearsal, I was background for Pat. But I was her companion and I used to date her father. But anyway, Aretha was such a blues singer because of the life that she lived and her experiences with her father, with her husband, her mother committed suicide. And all of that came out in her singing. She would sing songs like, “Just give me a little respect. That’s all I want.” Or, “I’m so pitiful.” And the songs that she sings was expressing her soul.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
And I always told people when I sang in church, I had a free spirit, but I had a blue soul. And that’s the reason why when you sing, when you play your instrument or whatever, it reaches out and touches the spirit and souls of those who have experienced or who are going through the same thing you feel, that’s what makes you popular. Most people have gone that way. Okay. Let’s take them back to the South. You go all the way back to the South when people were heavily burdened under cotton fields and this same type of thing. This is where your best singing came from, your hymns. “Father, I stretch my hand to thee. No other help I know.” Or, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.” That came up out of the cotton fields. You see what I’m saying?
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
So it was an expression. So Harrison was versatile. He could play country, he could play country music. He could play blues and he could touch on a little jazz, but he played from his inner soul, his feelings.
Robert Stone:
Do you recall anybody that he might have listened to, that were influential on him musically?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Harrison listened to country music a lot.
Robert Stone:
He listened to country music a lot.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
His daughter, my daughter loved country music. In fact, before she passed, she cut one record, “Crazy In Love With You.” “Crazy For Loving You.”
Robert Stone:
Oh yeah, it’s a great song.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Did you hear that?
Robert Stone:
I didn’t hear her version of this.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
When you meet Gammy tell Gammy to let you hear his mother singing that.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh God, it’ll give you chills.
Robert Stone:
That’s a beautiful song. Yeah, Willie Nelson wrote that.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
It’ll give you chills.
Robert Stone:
Willie Nelson wrote that.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Listen, I never knew she sang country until I heard that. She sang “Crazy For Loving You.” I mean that girl sang it.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. It’s a great song.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I’m trying to get a cut of it myself. But you ask Gammy to play that play that CD for you.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yes, sir. And that was the way she felt. So you see what I’m saying?
Robert Stone:
Right.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
She felt something on the inside that nobody knew but her and God. I think people communicate… I remember, I think it was Duke Ellington or Count Basie who said one time, said, “God, every man prays in his own language and God understands them all.” You know what I mean?
Robert Stone:
Sure.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
And so everybody have their own crosses and their own experiences that they’ve gone through and own feelings. Nobody knows your feeling but you and God, until you put it into music. This is why music is so powerful. They call it a ministry in the churches. Listen, people will come to hear music that won’t go hear a minister. And people sometimes are convicted quicker or faster through music than they are a sermon. They can understand that, it’s a feeling.
Robert Stone:
Right. It’s beyond language.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
They can understand that.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Beyond words.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh my God, yes. Oh my God, yes. Listen, that’s why I say music in heaven. Look at David in the Bible. He soothed Saul with music. He was evil and it would come upon him sometime. And he would want to do evil things to David and they would call David to play music for him. And it would soothe him. It would cool him right out. Music is powerful. It’s powerful.
Robert Stone:
Sure.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
And so this, I just love it. I’m telling you, music is great.
Robert Stone:
Do you do any music these days yourself?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Huh?
Robert Stone:
Do you play the piano at all?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I have one in my home. I play it every now and then.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Do you sing in church?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Well, I don’t have the voice for singing that I had. I have done some songs, congregational, but I don’t do no solo singing anymore. My voice… I have a condition of my throat. I used to suffer a lot with laryngitis and I have a esophagus condition from reflux. And so I crack up a lot. Oh, I can sing to myself, sing in the shower. I can do that.
Robert Stone:
How long have you been out there in California?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
But see, I expressed myself through my feet when I was young. This is what makes a good dancer. Your body moves to the music you hear.
Robert Stone:
That’s how you see yourself, mostly as a dancer? That’s your strongest form of expression?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
At the time, yes, because now I don’t walk. I don’t dance. If I was on my feet and in my good health, I probably would be dancing. Maybe that’s why the good Lord said, “No more walking because you will dance. You can’t do that dance anymore.”
Robert Stone:
So that was the thing-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
“I better sit you down where I can get your full and undivided attention into what I want you to do now.”
Robert Stone:
Now, are you still in the Church of Living God?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, I’ve been out of there for the past 30 years.
Robert Stone:
Oh really?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh yeah.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
But I’ve always communicated with my family, gone back there and the people. It wasn’t no hard feelings or anything, it was a spiritual move. But other than that, no. And I never encouraged anybody to leave, stay there. I think a spiritual decision is to be made personally because it’s a relationship. You know what I mean? You can’t tell a child who to love. You can’t tell nobody who to love and who to follow. So I never tried to tell my kids that. It was a spiritual move for me. And if you move, let it be a spiritual move for you. My daughter moved in, I moved out.
Robert Stone:
When you were married to Harrison, where were you based? Where was your home base?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Our last affair was in Nashville, Tennessee. I think that’s where I left him. No, no, no. Our last affair was in Englewood, New Jersey and I left him and crossed the bridge to New York and I didn’t go back.
Robert Stone:
So that’s where you were living at the time?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yes. Right down the street from Faye Adams and the Everly Brothers lived around… I mean, the jazz musician, I forget his name. But I lived in a nest of jazz musicians there in Englewood, New Jersey, right across the bridge from New York. And Faye Adams was my neighbor because Naomi used to go to school with her son. So, that’s where I left. And that was in ’50 something. I don’t know; ’50- ’64 I think it was.
Robert Stone:
’64.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah, I think it was in ’64 because I went there in the ’50s.
Robert Stone:
Did you live anywhere else for any length of time, particularly?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yes. I lived in Detroit. Well, I stayed in New York a long time.
Robert Stone:
With Harrison?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
No. Myself. Harrison was across the bridge.
Robert Stone:
No. Well, I’m talking about with Harrison.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
No.
Robert Stone:
I mean, were you-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, you said, is that where I left? That’s where I left Harrison.
Robert Stone:
Right. But did you live in some other city for any length of time with him?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
No. Oh, with him?
Robert Stone:
Yeah. While you were married?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Nashville, Tennessee.
Robert Stone:
Nashville, you lived in Nashville.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
We moved from Nashville to New Jersey.
Robert Stone:
Okay. So you lived in-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
So I was with him in Nashville, Tennessee for a long time. And then we moved to New Jersey and we were together there for a long time. And then I went across the bridge to New York and that’s where I stayed.
Robert Stone:
Okay. I was actually born in New Rochelle, New York in Westchester County.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
You’re kidding. I used to work in Tuckahoe.
Robert Stone:
Really? Small world.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
It was Italian, he had a bar up there.
Robert Stone:
A lot of Italian-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Dinner bar. Yeah. Oh, a lot of Italians.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
And it was a dinner club like, and I worked up there.
Robert Stone:
What were you doing?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I used to travel. I used to take that train.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). What were you doing there? What kind of work?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I was a barmaid. I was.
Robert Stone:
Well, I’m running out of questions or whatever. Usually, I find out… We’ve been talking for almost about an hour and a half and that’s usually when my mind starts to-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Starts to shut down.
Robert Stone:
… get saturated.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
But we’ve covered a lot of ground and I’d like to think-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Well, I hope I was of some help to you. What are you doing?
Robert Stone:
Oh, a whole lot. A whole lot.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Are you writing a book on the history of the music of the church?
Robert Stone:
Yeah, basically on the steel guitar tradition.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Is that for the church or just in general?
Robert Stone:
No, it’s going to be published by the University of Illinois Press.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, okay.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. They have a series called Music In American Life and it’ll be part of that.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, okay. That’s beautiful.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, it should be very nice.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah, well I hope I can get a copy of it.
Robert Stone:
Well, of course it’ll be for sale. But beyond that, I’ll get the word out on it. The big question is-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
For sale? I mean, where would you get it?
Robert Stone:
Well, any bookstore.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Well, if you tell Gammy about it.
Robert Stone:
Oh, for sure. He’ll know all about it, believe me.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah, tell him and he’ll get it for me.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, he’ll know all about it. No doubt about it.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh yeah, because he should be in it because he is terrific. He’s supposed to send me this CD. I’m supposed to get it within a week or so. And you know him and Treadway played together.
Robert Stone:
No, I didn’t.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
You didn’t?
Robert Stone:
I’m not surprised to hear that, but I didn’t know that.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Listen, Gammy and Treadway was terrific together.
Robert Stone:
When did they play together? Recently?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, after Harrison passed. And I’m trying to think, did Treadway play with Harrison because Lee and Gammy and Treadway played together at one of the conventions there in Deerfield, Florida.
Robert Stone:
Right, okay. Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Uh-huh (affirmative). And Treadway, he was sort of eccentric with his music.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, he is. He’s a kind of a loner sort of guy.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
That’s what he is. That’s what he is. And my uncle was married… Bishop McLeod’s oldest son was married to Treadway’s aunt.
Robert Stone:
Really? No, I didn’t know that. There’s so much of the family stuff in both Jewell side and the Keith side, also. I mean, the same thing. And then you have the two sides that are mixed together.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
There you go. It’s like a gumbo.
Robert Stone:
It’s like a-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Jewell gumbo.
Robert Stone:
It’s like they say, you can’t say anything about anybody-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
No, you can’t.
Robert Stone:
… because it’ll get back, because everybody’s somebody’s cousin or uncle.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I wouldn’t advise it.
Robert Stone:
No, I don’t anyhow, but I mean, in fact-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
No, it’s funny you would say that. We were talking about it, Fred’s son and his wife was over to visit with me on Sunday. And we were talking about how Mama’s church was so that you couldn’t say anything about anybody because every was relatives.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, right. It gets back.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I say everybody’s kinfolk. So you have to be careful and shut your mouth.
Robert Stone:
That’s true. That’s true.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah. It was something. But I tell you, Mama had some talented people in her organization.
Robert Stone:
Oh, absolutely.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I can tell you that.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
And it mostly stemmed from Harrison. It’s like pulling up a stem with a lot of roots.
Robert Stone:
No, I wish I could have met him because I hear so much about him and everybody just speaks so highly.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
And you know what the thing about it, he thought nothing of it. It was just a fun thing for him. He had fun doing what he was doing. He wasn’t exalted with it. He didn’t think himself great, but he was just a bare essence to himself, but he was a musician.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Now Calvin Cooke has told me that if Harrison was alive today and we’ve made all these record albums of the Sacred Steel series and all that stuff, he said that Harrison would be totally into that.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
He most likely… Well, I don’t know. I don’t know-
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
… because Harrison was more of himself and he was…
Robert Stone:
Well, I think what Calvin meant-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
And Calvin, I mean, Harrison was a loner.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
And I don’t say that- What I mean by that, like I just said, he was into his music. It was a fun thing for him. He enjoyed it and he loved what he was doing and did what he loved. He traveled. And he would probably enjoy being around listening and things like that. I don’t know how much of a participant he would have been or how interested he would have been into that. But he loved music and he might have, maybe he could have fooled me. But he was a legend of his own and was in his own self.
Robert Stone:
By the way, did I ask you, were you born in Cleveland?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
No. I was born in Nashville, Tennessee.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
And Mother took me away from there when I was one month old and I hit the road and that’s where I was raised, on the road. And we went straight to Michigan. So I was raised in Detroit, a little place out from Detroit called Quinn Road.
Robert Stone:
Quinn Road?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Uh-huh (affirmative), between Mount Clemens and Detroit. And then I was brought to Cleveland because when Daddy died in ’36, Mama started her leadership in Cleveland. And that was the headquarters. That’s where Bishop Jewell started in 1936 when Daddy died. And I was just a little girl and she tied me in the hem of her dresstail and that’s where I stayed until I could cut the strings and break out.
Robert Stone:
Wow. Well, I think we’ve talked a good while and I sure appreciate it. I’ve really enjoyed it.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
What is your name again, now?
Robert Stone:
Bob Stone.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Bob Stone.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Okay. And I haven’t never heard of you. Gammy…
Robert Stone:
Oh, he knows me well.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Do you do sheet music?
Robert Stone:
No.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
No, he was telling me about somebody that he met in Indiana, Indianapolis. He’s a gospel… He’s a Christian, but he reiterated jazz of some of the Wes Montgomery and all of the Charlie Parker and those, and I thought you might have been him when you first called. That’s who I thought you were.
Robert Stone:
No, no. No, like I say, basically what I do is, most of the people in the church, the musicians and all that would know me for getting these records going. And matter of fact, we’ve done it with a label, a small label, independent label in California called Arhoolie, A-R-H-O-O-L-I-E. And I produced six records with them and there’s been some more. And then we also did a documentary video as part of that. And now I’m working on the book, because frankly, I got first informed of, and got interested in, this musical tradition, this Black holiness steel tradition, in 1992. And I recognized it right away, it’s great music and something that-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh, yes, it is.
Robert Stone:
… had not received much exposure outside of the church. So I’ve been working on doing everything I can to document it and find out all about it and record it and document it and that sort of thing. It’s just part of what… I don’t do this full time for a living or anything. It’s part of what I do. It fits in with-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Some moonlight into it.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Yeah, the rest of my work-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
What do you do for a living?
Robert Stone:
Well, I’m a folklorist, which means I do this sort of thing-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
You do folk music?
Robert Stone:
No, I document and present all sorts of folk traditions. A lot of ethnic music, but even crafts and dance. I do saddle makers, I do old cowboys, music, dance, people from India that live in Florida. The work I do for my main job is with the state of Florida. But of course the work I’ve done with the steel guitar stuff on my own, as an independent, naturally branched out. Just like I’m talking to you in California, I’ve been up to Nashville many times and Rochester, and I’m going to go up to Detroit. I’ve been to South Carolina and Georgia and so forth. But that’s just sort of on my own.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
So you freelance?
Robert Stone:
And I write magazine articles and so forth. And the state of Florida does its own publication. And then we have awards like you probably remember the Consolers that made all the records, Sullivan and Iola Pugh, they called themselves the Consolers. They made a lot of records for Nashboro. Well, they live in Miami. She died, but he’s still alive. One of the things our state program does is, we take people like that and give him an award, like a lifetime achievement award. We call it the Florida Folk Heritage Award.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
So, you’re familiar with all the great gospel singers and musicians?
Robert Stone:
A lot of them. I can’t know everything about everything, but I know a lot of them. And like I say, I’ve gotten to know Sullivan Pugh well of the Consolers and we helped them get that award and that was real nice.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Okay.
Robert Stone:
So, I work with museums and things, public presentations-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Well, that’s beautiful.
Robert Stone:
… TV. Actually, right now I’ve been, myself, doing a lot of radio programs. I just did a series of eight programs on different ethnic music in Florida. One of them was a program, for example, on-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
The way you express yourself in jazz is just… With jazz music is so beautiful. It’s a feeling, it’s between blues and maybe gospel or something like that. But what it expresses is so heavy. For me, it is, it was so deep.
Robert Stone:
I think it can be. And of course, as you know, jazz can get extremely sophisticated-
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Well, yeah, because if you going to… Thelonious Monk can take you someplace else-
Robert Stone:
Well, Duke Ellington, he knew what he was doing too.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yes, he did. Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Monk was really a pretty eccentric guy. Wasn’t he?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Oh Lord, listen, please.
Robert Stone:
Did you ever meet him?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Huh?
Robert Stone:
Did you ever meet him?
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
Wow. That must have been a trip.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
When I lived in New York, I used to go to the Apollo a lot. In fact, we used to sing at the Apollo and you’d see Monk standing over behind the gate in the back of the Apollo Theater tap dancing, looking up in the sky like he was counting stars, with his hat on.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. He was pretty far out there.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
He was a very eccentric dude, to me.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Yeah.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
Well, look, I got to run.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Okay.
Robert Stone:
I sure appreciate it. And I hope if I have some more questions that I can call you back.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Yeah. You can.
Robert Stone:
Well, thanks a lot.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
I hope I can answer them.
Robert Stone:
Well, I’m sure you can. It’d be really great if we could meet somehow, someday.
Nettie Mae Harrison:
Well, it would be beautiful. If you come out here give me a ring. You got the number.
Robert Stone:
Okay. [Tape ends.]
