Bob Smallwood Part 3

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_00 0:00

list and she would go gather all the groceries up, put in boxes. Then we would carry them, as boys would, out to the pickup truck and we'd take them to their house.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

I even back when I was twelve, thirteen years old, I could throw a hundred-pound sack of feed on my shoulder and walk up those past to where the barn where they wanted.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

And I'll tell you about the general store I learned pretty quick. Uh there was federal men come by there and they said, um tell me something boy. Does your mom sell a lot of sugar? I said, I reckon so I said, why? Anybody buy more than two pounds? And I said, well I reckon so I never know that they made moonshine out of sugar. And and wheat medlins? Do you sell a lot of wheat meddling? Yeah for the hogs because the hogs eat that was hog food. But you mix that up with some sugar and get some good corn not corn liquor but good sugar liquor they call it. And and so running the general store I learned to keep my mouth shut to these revenuers that come by and ask me anything at all. I kind of feel like I I told that joke one time I went by this general store and this uh this fella he had the whole everything in there was peanut butter all across every case he had. And all them shelves were loaded down I looked it all out and I said you must sell a lot of peanut butter he said no sir I don't sell much peanut butter but now that guy sells it to me he can sell peanut butter I I thought about that. But we never had buggies or nothing like that. And but we had a feed house right next to it and that's where because we had to sell feed and hay because we didn't grow no hay in Macdown County. Right right and we didn't have no beef cattle and we never heard nothing like that. We had hogs weeding and stuff but not no beef we'd have a milk cow and usually turned it out up the holler there wasn't no law back then.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

But you know when I talk about music John let me tell you about the 50s they were magic. Those years were given to us by God Almighty. I ain't just talking about country music but you know what gospel music was on the country charts.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

I remember I I started loving music. I used to go down to the beer joint and stand outside and listen to the jute box and all that pretty country music you know because and but there was a song that old Red Foley came out with and I said boy that's the prettiest thing I ever heard he was a country singer and it was called There will be peace in the valley for me. And all the disc jockeys when I learned to be a disc jockey in the 50s we always played a song of faith at 15 till the hour. That was just what we did. I didn't know that yeah nobody ever told us to that's just what we all did when I went to Cleveland Ohio I did it Detroit I did it and but anyway even even I worked down for the Grand Old when they opened Opera land and I sit in a little old booth out there and I interviewed different people but uh I played some music you know I was on all kinds of stations I don't know how many stations we were on but I uh I would always 15 people put me on a gospel song and gospel music made the charts quite often if you you remember in the 60s Ferland Husky had the song On the Wings of a snow went to number one and and and and and then in the in the sixties that that young boy came out with that song he's got the whole world in his hand that made it way up there. But there was always gospel music was mixed in with country music and it was there was a magic bat in country music we had those greats like Ernest Tubb and uh Ernest Tubb had a record shop down in Nashville and Jimmy Skinner that I worked with some he wasn't you probably never heard Jimmy he's been dead for years but me and Jimmy I I would when I was working in Cleveland I used to work for him and I would pick him up at Cincinnati and we would drive to Nashville and go to the Ernest Tub Record Shop. Well around to Wapri and then Ernest Tub Record Shop after that and and uh Jimmy told me his story he said brother Bob he said I love playing music and I quit playing back in the 30s because my wife said you can't sing. You got a terrible voice and he had a different voice but anyway he said I set that guitar up in the corner so long the neck was work when I got it. I told my wife she said you needn't tune that thing up you can't sing and then he said well I'm going to go somewhere to sing tonight so he went out to one of them beer joints and in Cincinnati. He was living right out of Cincinnati then and he uh he used to have a record shop too above Cincinnati Jimmy's Kenner record shop but anyway uh worldwide famous but anyway Jimmy said that that that he he wrote a song because his wife had made him mad she wanted to leave him and he said uh I'm gonna take it to Nashville and see and he went in there and just happened somebody told him about Ernest Tubb because he sounded a little like Ernest and he wrote a song called I'm not asking that you pity me but would you be satisfied that way? Would you be satisfied? So Jimmy said you pretty good. I mean Ernest Tubb did so he recorded him and put him on deck of records. Yeah so Jimmy told me uh he said biggest thrill I ever had that song made it in the charts pretty big you know and he said uh Skeeter Davis and Betty Jack was booked with him the other girl did Cecil Knowles song of I forgot more than you'll ever know about from War West Virginia that boy was but anyway they had recorded it and it was way in the top charts number one and uh they they booked Jimmy on there with him in Cincinnati at that big old place and right in the front row sat his ex-wife and he said I sang that song for her would you be satisfied that's beautiful and but on the way there Betty Jack and Skeeter and her her boyfriend was in the front seat Betty Jack and her husband in the back her boyfriend's in the back and they wrecked the car and killed Betty Jack. My lord uh but they're the ones that did Cecil's song I forgot more but but the music from the 50s had a magic. Now not not just Country John I'm gonna tell you about rock and roll music and and a whole lot of it was black a whole lot of it was white but it didn't matter it all had a magic. Who would have thought somebody like Elvis would ever be born yeah perhaps the greatest singer that ever lived and when when when he did that song uh uh You Ain't nothing but a hound dog that was an old black song he learned but us disc jockeys wonder what's on the other side oh it was even better don't be cruel yeah and it went to number one and was better than the hound dog was and then and then I got songs like C.C. Rider uh Chuck Willis did that and and then and then the song Ivory Joe Hunter come in there what a song I I got I got to meet a lot of people. Ivory Joe Hunter wrote that song he was at one of them beer joints singing nightclub whatever you want to call it and he met a girl there that night so when he went home he was I he what couldn't sleep he was fixing him some breakfast and he said I got to singing since I met you baby my whole life has changed and everybody tell me what a magic that was I'm not the same rock and roll if we if we did not have black people in this country we would not have that music.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Do you think Bob the the depth of that when I think about how the move that move began to become strong yeah music began to get promoted in such a way that it wasn't you know 15 10 years before that it had no way to be promoted like that. Right. And you and we're we're watching today even today's music there's so much gospel music intertwined on the charts and people saying because there's a move going on right now there's really a move in in in Christianity there's a bigger move than what people think there's things happening. Amen but when I look at you well it yeah I share we do our part and we just we that because what happens now is there was a lock that that was had on artists okay for years and years. But now through the way social media works and everything works they they can they can have 10 million people hear their song okay uh the there's one girl that that sung on American