Bob Smallwood Part 2

Bob Smallwood Today on John Dash and Friends John sits down with one of his closest friends Bob Smallwood. A man whose music has touched lives across the mountains healing broken hearts and bringing hope to those who need it most. Together, they share a passion for reaching the lost and shining light in dark places. This is more than a conversation it’s a moment you won’t forget. We hope you enjoy this episode of *John Dash and Friends*. #JohnDashAndFriends #BobSmallwood #DashTv #DashTvNet #TalkShow #PodcastLife #InterviewSeries

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

But this guy, uh Mike Payne, became uh a legendary writer. Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. Songs for the Henson, like when he was on the cross, I was on his mind.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

He he was a great writer. First time he uh he they uh I'm I'm sorry if I talk too much, you should. I would you ever eat one of them liver sandwiches down there? And and I was you know good.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

You think they was good, don't you? But when you think back on what it's really made of liver and the onions and hot sauce. That's what I think. You know, you'd always put a little hot sauce on anything you get from. You know that we owned half of the hole in the wall. My family did. Wow. And we owned it for years and never knew it.

unknown 0:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

What that was, because we owned the building beside of it, and Harry Gates owned the other building, and that was an alley. All that was was an alley. Well. That was never meant to be uh any kind of restaurant, it was an alley to walk between the buildings. Wow. But someday some somebody over time built that and put it in there. Well, Harry was getting the rent off of it. And we had owned it 20 years and didn't know we're supposed to be getting half the rent. Yeah, when when that comes through. You know, but man, we would go in there and eat, and Lord, there's a good boy, you go in there, and that chili, it you never now I've seen the recipe for the chili in a while, and I thought, Lord, if I knew all that stuff was in it, you know what I mean? It was just uh but you think about those things growing up. Oh, that hold on the club. The Liberty Cafe. Remember it there? I remember, yeah. Liberty Cafe was there.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Yeah, you're talking about the Rocket Boys too. What a story. What great talent from MacDowell County.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Come out of the county.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Just everywhere you look. That boy that's a comedian got a TV show from McDowell, from Welch. What a great talent, the the black guy. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

I can't remember names anymore, but uh when when I I joined a band in Welch, called himself the Elgians. We had a saxophone player who was Ronnie Sagetty, and I played the guitar. Right. And uh a dear friend of mine, he he he died so young. He died about twenty-one years old, but he played a guitar with me. And the the lead singer was a a black man, a boy named Brad Howe. Very young fella, lived at Gary. So you know where he got us booked all the time. Right. Right there at the Colored Country Club. Yeah. And they danced and what what a what a great singer he was. And I've often wondered, you know, because in time we had to split up. I had to leave and and uh Charles, the boy that played guitar with me, uh he died, and I heard that he had died. I was working in Cleveland by then. But what uh his daddy was uh yardmaster up at uh Hensley, Charles Hensley's daddy was Chester Hensley. He was the uh uh train master at uh at uh for NNW up there at at Gurry. And uh so I eat dinner at their home many times.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

But I think of the music and the talent that come out of McDowell County, people like Barney Stillner. Yeah. That man could play a guitar. The only man in the world I believe that had the system of two capos, and that's how he got that wonderful sound. Yeah. Now I play the guitar, but I ashamed to play in front of him. He was so good.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

He really was. One time I tell you what I did, you know, and I own a couple guitars, and I took lessons a little bit, but I this is the reason why I believe the Lord won't let me really learn. Because if I could, I would be probably any old beard join up and down the road, they'd let me sing in. I'd be in there singing a little bit of Conway Tweety. And I told my wife one time I was talking to her because I sing a little bit going down the road, you know. I sang a little bit, hello darling, you know. And I I'll sing in the and I tell I tip my hat like it's a cowboy hat. Now I told her, I said, now if you come to some of my shows where I was singing, you couldn't sit up front because I wouldn't want people to know I got a wife. I said, it would cramp my style. I tell you. She said, and I I was singing, you know, I try to dance a little bit every day. Okay. I dance a little bit. I got some. I get me a little boogie going on. Yeah, I think it helps you. Oh, yeah. Okay. And uh and I was singing this morning to her, and they come on the radio, and I picked up on it. I'm come on there and it said, uh, I I never promised you a rose garden. And I told her, I said, that ought to be the theme for our marriage that I never promised you a rose garden.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

I beg or your pardon.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

But Bob, the heritage that we have is so powerful when you think about coming from the county. And you think about growing up, I don't know, man. And and I know times are always changed. Listen, people here in Taswell cannot remember the way things other stuff was and things like that. And then a lot of times, I don't blame them. They're not interested, okay? They're just not, and it's okay, all right. I mean, they gotta everybody's moving on in our whole lives and stuff. We got stuff for going, but it's I think about things though when I look back on the stuff and think about it, and and it's just to me, it's interesting and it's history, it's such important history. Well, to me it is and I I I want to try to hold on to it if I can.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Now, where were you raised there?

SPEAKER_00 5:26

You know, I was raised right downtown in war, okay? Right across the river tracks. The train run within sixty feet of my front door.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

I remember when you had the hot dog stand up next to the track.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

I had a I I'd be done that. We uh had drive had John Boys drive-ins. I I had eight of those at one time. Wow. But uh, you know what? I never thought it was nothing strange. You know, the train ran right in my front yard all my life growing up as a boy. And then we would walk down across the street and uh and go to the sweet shop downtown. It's called the sweet shop and get Pepsi's, and I'd go down and get stuff and things like that. And and uh, because I I was talking to Sheila one time, uh Sheila Stanley, we're talking about things, and she'll get telling me about how she growed up with the outhouse, and she'll tell me all these stories and all this. And I said, you know, I didn't do that. I said, I I I didn't, you know, uh I when I grew up, my mom lives in the same house that she's lived in all of her life for probably six six or eight months. She lived in this house. I love it. And uh and the only time she didn't live there is when it burnt down. Yes. And they built it back. But she uh I think about in our life, there's the different places. When I grew up right there and friends around me, you know, that I I this we grew up with a group of boys that we played together every evening, fought together, prayed. It was just it was fascinating. Right it beside Tim Boyd, grew up with him there and Rocky King and all these different people. But I I don't know, I think about those times growing up, how much fun it really was. You didn't know how great. And then you know, that's back when we would we would ride a bicycle till the tires wore out. You remember you'd ride that? You'd write you'd ride it till the tires wore out, and but we think about your mom, you're talking about a little little general store. How that that entrepreneur type spirit, okay, and you have definitely, definitely shown that in your life. When you think about the things that you've done, it you you weren't it wasn't just a minister and wasn't just a songwriter, and it wasn't just it, but that entrepreneur spirit that that and it was you know, I talked to people about my family. I didn't fish and hunt growing up. I didn't know. My daddy never took me fishing. Now I fished I fished twice in my life. And uh once when I was six and I seen the picture, and last time I just throwed the worms in because he was eating them off the hook. Charlie Absher got me a fishing pole a while back. He I told him, I said, I'd like to try fishing again, Charlie. And he he's a real fisherman. So he got me a fishing pole, and I said, I need one of those boxes that's got the stuff in it. A tackle box. He got me that and got me all set up. But I said, now you're gonna have to go with me because if a fish gets on the hook, what am I gonna do with it? I said, I don't know what to do with it. He just dies laughing at me all the time. I said, but we didn't do that. I mean, I I always thought about the entrepreneur type stuff. You know what I mean? I wanted to to be in business and I wanted to do some things, and I and I didn't just do it for the money, I just liked doing that. You know? And so for your mom to be that starting out, yeah, right, how that spirit was planted in you too is fascinating, ain't it?

SPEAKER_01 8:36

And I remember the store when when she had it years ago, of course, uh, there was no buggies or nothing like that. My people was mostly poor people, and they uh some didn't have vehicles and some did, but uh they they would come to the store and they give my mom a list. Now she had a long counter and the grocery was all behind the counter. The only thing out there was a a cold stove in the middle of the floor with a coal bucket split tobacco juice in, and and that everybody could sit around her. They give mom the