-[Narrator 1 VO]: This program is brought to you in part by Santa Cruz Guitar Company and Santa Cruz Parabolic Tension Strings.

-[Narrator 2 VO]: Also brought to you by Paige Capos.

And by Peluso Microphone Lab.

Additional support provided by these sponsors.

Hello and welcome to The Life of a Musician.

Tonight's episode is recorded live from Merlefest at Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, North Carolina.

Let's step inside and listen.

-Hello everybody and welcome to The Life of a Musician .

And we are coming to you live from Merlefest with the iconic legendary innovator, motivator, and just good all around human being, Mr. Roy Book Binder.

-That's me.

-[chuckles] Thank you so, so very much for doing this.

I have been looking forward to this for a year now.

-Right.

We were scheduled before, but I had a health issue last year and I had to cancel a bunch of things.

-[Brandon] Yeah, but now we're, Merlefest.

-We're back.

The Book is back.

-The Book is back.

-I think it's my 29th or 30th year at Merlefest.

-That's--that's an accomplishment.

That's crazy.

-It all started because, well you see...

I learned how to play blues from old timers that made records in the '20s and '30s.

And I was wanting to make a new record.

Merle Haggard's manager was trying to get me a deal.

And I was at the airport in Nashville for some reason going to Cleveland.

And I was in the waiting room with Jerry Douglas and Peter Rowan.

And I was friends with Jerry's wife and he said, "Oh, where are you going?"

I said, "I'm going to Cleveland."

I said, "Where are you going?"

He said, "We're going to Ireland.

We got a 12-day tour."

I said, "Oh, geez, nice."

He said, "What's happening in your life?"

I said, "Well, Merle Haggard's manager, Tex Whitson is trying to get me a deal.

He thinks we got something to sell here."

And he said, "What's your concept for the next album?"

And I said, "Well, I kind of want to blend blues and bluegrass together."

He said, "Oh, I like that."

And he said, "Why don't you just record for Rounder?"

Well, I was a pretty young man in '88.

I said, "Well, I'm not calling up anybody.

If they call me, I might consider it."

And he said, "I'll have them call you."

-Yeah.

-So, I got a call from Rounder Records.

They said, "Jerry Douglas says you want to make a record for us."

I said, "Yeah, that's a possibility."

He said, "Jerry wants to produce it."

I said, "Yeah, that's cool."

-[Brandon laughs] -And they said... "We're gonna be in Nashville next week and we can sign contracts."

I said, "Well, I'm doing Ralph Emery's show.

I'll have my...

I'll be in my bus parked at the Opryland thing."

And we signed the contracts in the Opryland parking lot at the new Grand Ole Opry.

-They moved it there -[Brandon] Yeah.

back then in '88.

And then, we recorded in Nashville that winter and we had Stuart Duncan playing fiddle and he was--I think he was still in his teens.

-Yeah.

He was one of those child prodigies.

-Yeah.

And Mark Hembree on percussion.

And uh-- No, that was Kenny Malone.

Mark Hembree, he played something else.

He was a bluegrass guy.

-[Brandon] Yeah.

-And Bill Fleck was there, but we didn't use him.

-What?

Did you just make him hold the charts?

-We just winged it.

-We just--wow.

So, you winged it with Jerry Douglas and Stuart Duncan and all those.

-Well, they knew how to wing.

-I didn't.

-[laughs] -I just--all I had to do was do my little thing and Jerry told everybody what to do.

And we called the album "Bookeroo" because the country market, you know, for a whole while people would say, "Roy Book Binder, and his new album, 'Bukaroo.'"

I said, "No, it pisses off Buck Owens if we say that.

It's 'Bookeroo."

-[Brandon] "Bookeroo."

Get it right, home folks.

-And then they sent me to the Bluegrass Convention, wherever that was.

So, we had some kind of convention.

And I did a set there with Jerry and-- who was the great bass player that was in the first New Grass Revival?

-[Brandon] John Cowan?

No, the guy played stand-up bass.

Really-- -By that first New Grass Revival.

-Well, maybe it wasn't the first blue-- -Taklin' about Edgar Meyer?

-Yeah, Edgar Meyer played on a few tracks.

It was quite an album.

It did really good.

-Oh, yeah, I'd say.

-Put me in them.

And I started playing bluegrass festivals because I always played folk festivals because I'm really just a folk singer.

And then I said to Jerry, "What's with this Merlefest thing?"

He said, "Oh, just call them up and tell them what you need.

They'll hire you."

And they did.

And that was in '89 or '90.

It was a long time ago.

And here we are.

-Well, I'm grateful for it.

And I'm sure everybody here always looks forward.

I remember I played here back in 2018, and I didn't sell one album.

But we went past your box, and it was completely sold out with a sign in it that said, "Roy Book Binder.

Sold out."

-I'm a smart businessman, you know.

I never put a lot of CDs out.

And then you get the sign.

-[Brandon] Oh, I got you.

-Because you don't make the money that you would if you sold out.

My music-- This has always been a bluegrass-orientated festival, really.

Now it's Americana.

After--I did it two years in a row, and then I tried to call up B Towns, who was the talent coordinator.

And I couldn't get him.

And then I got a message.

He said, "You're gonna be at the Folk Alliance.

I have to talk to you about something."

And I started-- I got all paranoid.

Like, I wonder if I sang a song that offended Rosalie Watson last time, last year, because I was trying to get the gig again.

-Yeah.

-And I was a little freaked out.

And then I get to the Folk Alliance, and I'm chatting with some people, and B Towns walks by.

He says, "I have to talk to you.

There's a room over here we can go to."

And we go in the room, he says, "Doc asked me-- he said, 'Why don't you get old Roy to see if any of those old blues guys that he met at the Newport Folk Festivals back in '60, '61, whenever that was, to come to Merlefest?'

I said, "Yeah?"

He said, "So we're going to do that."

But I didn't even know about bluegrass.

I was an administrator at the college there.

And I got that down now, but I didn't know about Piedmont blues, Delta blues, Texas blues.

So, why don't you just call me up and recommend me people, and we'll book them and have a stage."

I said--"And of course you're hired."

I said, "Okay, I'll do that."

-[Brandon] That's a pretty good gig.

-So, it was semi-successful.

We had us up on the hill outside, a big hill back here somewhere.

And it was very scary because it was a really steep hill.

And Doc would come and do a set of bluesy stuff... with all his guys jammed with him.

And it was really dangerous.

If somebody tripped up there, there could be a lawsuit.

They eventually moved us indoors at the Chris Austin stage.

But we had huge crowds, especially when Doc played.

-Oh, absolutely.

-And I presented some of the old blues guys that made records in the '20s and '30s.

There weren't many left.

-[Brandon] Right.

-We had Robert Lockwood Jr., who was Robert Johnson's stepson.

Robert Johnson taught him how to record, and he made his first record in '41.

And he sounded a lot like Robert Johnson.

And then, he went on to... have a group called the Beale Streeters and B.B.

King auditioned to be in his band.

B.B.

King told me, he said, "I was still picking cotton when Mr. Lockwood and Sonny Boy Williamson had a little radio 15 minutes a week over across the river in Arkansas, in Helena" --right across from where they were picking cotton and all that-- "and I used to race home at lunchtime on Wednesday or whatever day it was to hear Mr. Lockwood play the guitar."

-Mm-hmm.

-And a couple years later, Lockwood was up in Memphis with the Beale Streeters, and B.B.

King went up there to audition to be in the Beale Streeters.

Of course, they called him Riley back then.

He wasn't B.B.

King yet.

And Lockwood became a friend of mine, old Mr. Robert Lockwood.

And he told me... "Oh, yeah, Riley came up here to audition, and we listened to the audition, and I told him, I said, Riley, you got a big problem with your music, your guitar playing."

And Riley was just a kid, you know.

He says, "Oh," He says, "Can I fix it?"

He says, "I don't know if you can fix it."

He says, "Is it serious?"

He says, "Oh, yeah, it's serious."

He said, "What's my problem?"

He says, "You can't keep time."

He said, "What can I do?"

He said, "Pay attention now.

You get yourself a big band, they'll keep time, and you follow along.

It'll work great."

And it did.

-Yeah, he did all right.

-Yeah, he did all that.

And they were friends until they were both in their eighties and early nineties for Lockwood.

Every time B.B.

played anywhere near Cleveland where Lockwood lived at the end, he would go over to Lockwood's who-- Mary Lockwood had the best soul food, you know.

He sent a limo down to pick up Mr. Lockwood.

But Lockwood also recorded in the '40s and '50s.

He was Little Walter, the harmonica player who broke away from Muddy.

He was his band leader because he understood music.

-[Brandon] Yeah.

-And he produced-- he was on a lot of records by Howlin' Wolf and B.B.

King, all those Chess recording artists, not B.B.

King, Howlin' Wolf and those guys.

-Yeah.

That's crazy.

You've been a part of or been witness to, you know, for me, you know, my roots are in bluegrass.

But bluegrass has a root in blues.

And you have been a part of or a witness to some of the great American music.

And I would call blues and bluegrass-- -[Roy] Yeah.

-American music.

And you've been a--kind of had a front row seat to that.

You know, and like when you were coming up and when you were learning, like, you know, how did you go about just absorbing and becoming your own musician?

-Well, I was a rock and roll kid in the '50s.

Growing up in New York City was a great thing because everything came to New York.

I saw Buddy Holly and the Crickets three times.

-[Brandon] Yeah.

-I saw Bo Diddley and Ray Charles and all those people.

I lived at the end of the subway line in the beginning of suburbia.

And 15 cents or a dime, whatever it cost, I could go downtown and the parents weren't such a, you know, be home for supper.

-[Brandon] Yeah.

-That's the way it was in them days.

So, I saw everybody.

I mean, I worked with Ray Charles later on.

That's a long story.

But I told Ray Charles, I said, "So, you do three shows at the Apollo for $1.75?"

He said, "We got a union now, Brother Roy."

-[laughs] That's crazy.

-That was in 1979.

A friend of mine, I was living in my bus for 17 years before I met my new wife.

And I was parked in this guy's driveway and he put on shows.

He put on little shows.

And then he got to the-- he started booking the Tampa Theater and he had Ray Charles booked there.

And I said to him, "Ooh," I said, "1979."

I said, "You know that money you owe me from the poker game?"

I said, "We could clear that debt out."

He put me on with Ray Charles.

He said, "Oh, geez.

It's not really appropriate."

But he said, "I'll talk to my partner."

Well, I ended up getting the gig.

I rented a top hat and tails.

-[laughs] -And uh-- that's only the second time I did that.

The first time was when I opened up for Doc Watson.

We'll get to that.

And I went out there and the audience was in the Tampa Theater.

It was 1,400 seats, two shows.

And I hung out with his road manager in the afternoon and... we did some stuff in town.

And then the rehearsal-- Ray didn't do the rehearsal.

Somebody else played the piano.

And then the night came.

And there I was in my top hat and tails.

I walked out with a black Martin guitar, a custom-made hat, had pearly inlay on the top in black.

That was pretty cool.

And the audience was being a little rough on me.

And you never stop when you make a mistake or something.

You know, you bash on.

And I stopped.

And I said to the audience, they quieted down when I stopped.

Like, you know?

I said, "You know, I'm really proud to be here.

And I wouldn't have the nerve to come out here if Brother Ray didn't dare me to try to entertain you people."

And they started laughing.

And then I knew I had them.

-Well, you read the room.

That's an important thing as a young musician to learn.

You learn to read the room.

-Yeah, when I walked off the stage at the end, I closed.

I said, "I learned to play this song from a blind Black preacher."

And most of the audience was African-American.

And I was singing "Oh Gloria, How Happy I Am."

And I said, "You sing the chorus when we get to it.

And I'm going to keep singing the verses."

And it took them a while to catch on.

But they were singing "Oh Gloria," and I was singing "Fire baptized," and "Holy Ghost filled."

And I walked off the stage.

I stopped playing the guitar.

I walked off the stage as they were singing the chorus and tears coming down my eyes with my top hat.

[laughs] And I go down the spiral staircase and his road manager, Raspberry, he said, Ray wants to see you.

And I thought, oh my God, he's pissed off.

I closed with a Christian song.

And I go down the spiral staircase.

And one of the Raelettes sticks their head out from the dressing room and says, "Oh, there he is."

And two more heads popped out, and one of them said, "That was the cutest little show."

-I said, -[laughs] -[Roy] I got tears coming down my-- I said, "Was it?"

And the guy said, "Yeah, that was cute.

That was cute."

And then, we knock on Ray's door.

And he opens the door.

And he shakes my hand and he says, "Oh, this is Roy Book Binder.

He's just come off the stage."

He shakes my hand.

He could feel my tux-- he said, "Oh man, you're still in your tux?"

I said, "My wife helped me get in this "at 10 o'clock this morning.

I ain't taking it off till I go to sleep."

-And he laughed.

-[Brandon laughs] -And I told him, I said, "I saw you do three shows at the Apollo Theater for $1.50," or whatever it was.

He said, "We got a union now, Brother Roy."

-[Brandon[ [laughs] It's crazy.

-You can't make it up.

-No, you cannot.

You cannot at all.

-Yeah, so that was a good one.

And the other time I wore the tux was I played at a little theater in Norfolk, Virginia.

Opened up for Doc, Doc and Burrell.

Well, I met them in-- I had a gig in Connecticut, Wesleyan University.

I still have the poster in my office at home.

And it's a picture of Doc and a picture of me, and under Doc's picture in tiny letters it says, "And Merle Watson."

-[Brandon] Oh, wow.

-It was early.

It was like '71 or '72.

And we hit it off.

They liked what I did, I liked what they did, and we became chummy.

And then I played with them in Norfolk, Virginia.

And I did the top hat again and the whole thing.

Doc was laughing.

He said, "Roy, you never looked better."

[laughs] -That's great, man.

Well, you became a showman.

So, why don't you play us something, Roy?

-Show us some of that-- -[Roy] All right.

that Book Binder magic.

[♪ ♪ ♪] -My other mentor was Pink Anderson from Spartanburg.

Now, he made two records in '28 or '27 for Columbia with Blind Simmie Dooley, who taught him to play guitar.

And he made his living not recording because Columbia Records or whatever they were called, they wanted him to make more records.

But to leave the old blind guy, he didn't want the second guitar player and the harmonies or whatever.

And Pink didn't record again until like '56.

He was singing on the streets of Richmond.

And they recorded him, some folklorist.

And then he worked in medicine shows his whole life.

Before there was a CVS and a Walgreens on every corner, you were lucky if a medicine show came through your little mountain town and sold you relief.

-[Brandon] Mm-hmm.

-They didn't cure nobody.

-[laughs] But they had to have entertainers to drag the streets for a crowd, Pink told me.

He went out in 1918 with CW Blair's Medicine Show.

-Wow.

-And in the '60s, he was still working with his buddy Peg Leg Sam, who danced and played the harmonica, pulling a good crowd.

-[Brandon] That's crazy.

-That was Chief Thundercloud's Medicine Show.

And then Pink had a stroke, so he never played the folk circuit until I found him in '72.

And he wasn't in great health, but he was going to the clinic.

And I set up some gigs for him, and he came back to life.

And it was incredible.

This is a song I wrote for the medicine show crowd, the people I knew.

I knew a lot of people that were involved in those kind of shows when I was coming up.

I call this-- it's on my new album.

My new album is 13 years old.

-[laughs] -[Roy] It was the best-- -I can relate to that.

-It was something I really wanted to do.

I always wanted to record with, instead of a fiddle player, -a clarinet player -[Brandon] Okay.

-and a little jazzy thing.

So, I had a clarinet player, and I had a popular blues guy, friend of mine, Damon Fowler, electric music, a good songwriter and player.

His second instrument was lap steel, and I wanted to have some of that little Western swing on there.

And I called up Damon.

-We weren't really that chummy.

-[Brandon] Right.

-And I called him up, and I said, "Hey, how you doing?

I'm in the studio, and there's a few tracks that could really use a little lap steel on it.

What would it take to get you to come down here?"

He said, "You tell me how much I have to pay, and I'm coming."

-[Brandon] Wow.

-And that record was number three on the Americana charts online for a brief moment behind--number one was Guy Clark at the time.

-May he rest in peace.

-[Brandon] Yeah.

-And number two was a reissue of a Townes Van Zandt album.

And I was number three.

You can't ask for more than that.

-Yeah, that's not bad.

-And I wrote all the songs, which was rare for me.

And I just figured I could never make a better album, so I stopped recording.

Plus, since I got Netflix and Amazon Prime in the bus, I haven't written anything.

[laughs] -Me neither.

-Huh?

-Me neither, man.

-Play it on.

-This is-- [sings] ♪ Step right up ♪ ♪ You just got to see ♪ ♪ The magnificent magical Mysterious menagerie ♪ ♪ It'll amaze, it'll amuse, It'll arouse, and astound ♪ ♪ Go down to the most bodacious Show in this here town ♪ ♪ Pack up your sorries, Kiss away your cares ♪ ♪ You won't have To worry no more ♪ ♪ If your're tired And run down ♪ ♪ Life ain't worth Living no more ♪ ♪ You can't hardly drag yourself Out of bed like before ♪ ♪ You got no health, No vitality ♪ ♪ No vigor, no zest ♪ ♪ The Chief's Indian Remedy Elixir's the best ♪ ♪ Don't hesitate ♪ ♪ You don't want to be late ♪ ♪ You're damned Before it's all gone ♪ ♪ Yeah, I said, step right up ♪ ♪ You just got to see ♪ ♪ The magnificent magical Mysterious menagerie ♪ ♪ Like I said, it'll amaze, Amuse, arouse, and astound ♪ ♪ No doubt the most bodacious Show in this here town ♪ ♪ You better pack up Your sorries ♪ ♪ Kiss away your cares ♪ [♪ ♪ ♪] ♪ That's right ♪ ♪ You got to drink it neat ♪ ♪ That's right, It ain't too sweet ♪ ♪ Before long You'll be back wanting more ♪ ♪ The chief will Make you believe ♪ ♪ The doc ain't there To deceive ♪ ♪ And the story that he weaves Will relieve you ♪ ♪ Of some of your pain ♪ ♪ And all of your change ♪ ♪ But you'll be glad That you came to the show ♪ ♪ They got a peg-legged Dancer and an Indian chief ♪ ♪ They got a blues-singing lady ♪ ♪ She got diamonds In her teeth ♪ ♪ They got a Two-headed turtle man ♪ ♪ You just got to see it ♪ ♪ You know they got a chicken That can count to ten, no lie ♪ ♪ Follow them down To the free show tonight ♪ ♪ You don't want To miss it begin ♪ ♪ I said, step right up ♪ ♪ You just got to see ♪ ♪ The magnificent magical Mysterious menagerie ♪ -[laughs] That's good, man.

That's a tongue twister.

-Yeah, it's a lot of words for me to remember.

I got a few songs.

A lot of my songs I noticed in shows lately are shorter than they were when I first heard them.

-I forget the words.

-[Brandon laughs] -I do that all the time.

-Yeah.

You just got to keep rocking on.

-What I was loving about what you're doing there, I'm watching you play, and it's kind of mesmerizing.

It's almost kind of like watching a banjo player almost with where you're moving your positions and you're hitting those notes, you know, and all that.

So what's--I mean, I get it.

I know practice, practice, practice.

-[Roy] No practice.

-No practice?

-[Roy] No.

Once you're a touring musician, you got it down.

I mean, people tell me, "How do you know when it's time to start looking for gigs?"

I said, "When somebody besides your mother and your friends will tell you."

Like all of a sudden, people are coming out to see you.

If you live in Norfolk, Virginia, then you go to the next town and you stretch it out.

And then you got to have something.

I recorded one song in 1967 for Blue Goose Records.

The guy was a record collector, 78 RPM blues records.

There's a whole bunch of those interesting people.

[narrator 2 VO] Tune in next time for more interesting stories from Roy Book Binder.

Thank you for being a part of our show.

We look forward to seeing you on the next episode of The Life of a Musician.

♪ The most bodacious show In this here town ♪ ♪ Pack up your sorries, Kiss away your cares ♪ ♪ You won't have To worry no more ♪ ♪ If your're tired And run down ♪ ♪ Life ain't worth Living no more ♪ ♪ You can't hardly drag yourself Out of bed like before ♪ ♪ You got no health, No vitality ♪ ♪ No vigor, no zest ♪ ♪ The Chief's Indian Remedy Elixir's the best, don't-- ♪ [Narrator 1 VO] This program is brought to you in part by Santa Cruz Guitar Company and Santa Cruz Parabolic Tension Strings.

[Narrator 2 VO] Also brought to you by Page Capos.

And by Peluso Microphone Lab.

Additional support provided by these sponsors.