Bob Smallwood Part 7

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

That long because I thought the pain we suffer pain. Yes, sir. But now one other thing that you didn't say yet that ain't gonna be in heaven is pain. Yes, sir. No pain. No pain. Hallelujah. So many of my friends I've seen that were dying of can. You know Barney, I don't know what he suffered. Right. My heart breaks because he did not want visitors. He had a sign up there on his house. He just I know that that Barney, he just uh whatever he was going through, he had to do it. Right. He had to do it. I had given him a Martin guitar, and his daughter brought it back to me when he was real sick.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

You know, I didn't really want to take it, and I didn't keep it, I gave it to somebody else. You know, I was at uh I've given away so many Martin guitars. Good Lord's blessed me too. Right. Whatever, and my wife don't argue if if God says to do it. We were saying we used to have his decoration days at the cemetery. Right. And they were the little boys who were a bit retarded, and I had played a Martin, and that little fella one dad, he wasn't over 14 or 15. Yeah. All my life I wanted me a Martin, and his daddy said, You'll never get one because he was a poor man. And I put it in a case and handed it to him. Well, I was me and my wife was down there in Bristol somewhere, and this little boy run up, young man I mean, ran up to me and Bob, do you remember me? I said, I don't believe. You gave me a Martin guitar. Hallelujah. He still got it.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

We don't know when such a little thing as a guitar.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

But I had a guitar that Barney loved. I played it on TV, you know, Barney loved it. I said, You really like that guitar, Barney? He said, I love it. I said, Well, I'm gonna give it to you. I said, You meet me there at Grundy somewhere, and he told me where to meet him, and I gave him the guitar. And he always thanked me for it.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

But boy, he could play that thing. And the first guitar he had that was uh was it a Blue Ridge or a no but anyway I sold it to him. I sold Eddie Street his first guitar, the one he's still playing today. I sold him. I I worked at BR Music. I did a uh uh remote there from WRG Radio. And so when the remote was over, Bill said, Would you hang around? A lot of people like to buy a guitar from you. I said, Sure, Bill, I'll hang around. Get me a cup of coffee, and I'll sit behind the counter here. So I I did. I sold Eddie Street and Barney Stillner's and and that boy that's got that song out, he said it's a long way from Pawpaw, Kentucky, just to buy a guitar from old Bob at BR Music. He made a song about that. I kind of got a kick out of it, John.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

What a journey, Bob.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Yeah, it's my journey's been great because of people like you. Yeah. Cindy, I I have not got the talent that you have to do some things you do. I've not by the way, you still got horses?

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Jesus. What we do now, we uh uh we have racehorses. Wow. Yeah, and my daughter and my son-in-law train. They train racehorses. They they've got probably 45, 50 race horses. And uh they they're really good at it. They're they work hard, it's hard work, uh, it's different than show horses, you know what I mean? But they enjoy it and they do a good job at it. Two or three times I've asked her, I said, Morgan, there's there's a lot easier ways to make a living and then what you're doing. She said, I know, but I just love the horse. She said, I got a horse, I like them. I love them. She said, I like them, and I I enjoy doing that. So I said, Well, if that's what you're enjoying, I said, then you you stick with that and do that. But uh, I said, I just know that there's easier ways to make a living.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Yeah, oh goodness, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

But yeah, you know, and I enjoy those things, enjoy that living. I've got donkeys, I've got a bunch of donkeys too, which are really fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Are they here in Tasmania?

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Yeah, I've got them here in Tasmania. One time I had 23, I've got four now, but uh I I just uh them donkeys have such a personality, and they they just listen, I can talk and they know my voice. I don't care if it's been a month since I've been around, they just come and they'll line up so I can pet them. They get in a line and I'll sit on a bucket, I'll sit on a bucket, and I'll rub them in another one to push her away out of the way, and they'll come in. I have to rub this one, you know, and do that.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

And uh I gotta go see them.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

It's really something. I I laughed another day. My my cousin got my grandson uh uh back for Christmas, I guess for Christmas, got him a brought him a baney rooster, okay? And gave him a rooster, okay? That's been something. He's got this rooster he carries around everywhere, okay? And he's got a little ball he puts it in out in the yard, and we have built it, we built this big old chicken coop for this one little rooster, okay? One little rooster, and it just it's real imprinted. It wants to be around people all the time. If it ain't around people, Lord, it just throws a fit and hollers and yells. And yesterday we had a birthday party at the house. He went, put his rooster in the ball, and brings it in the house, you know, and everybody has to hold the rooster. And uh it but it's I don't know, you enjoy those things. Oh, I do.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

I I love it.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

I like them.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

I love it. I I was I was surprised one time Ralph Stanley. Uh I worked some with Ralph. Now, Ralph's another talent from Southwest Virginia. Right, Lord. But anyway, we we we were up there to market to buy us a chicken, me and Lori, and I I told his boy to get that out of the cage for him. No, yeah, they're scared to death of chickens. Uh don't hand to them one of those chickens. You know, uh that Ralph was a great songwriter, and when we talk about music again, uh uh it seemed like people like Ralph and Carter, who who were just different, that's all. Right. Um a whole lot like Barney. But I remember that uh uh a song came out called Rank Stranger. It went up in the top ten uh in the country music field in the 50s. Now that had been recorded by all kinds of people.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Big gospel groups, never made nothing. Never made nothing. Old boy wrote that wrote that, wrote I'll fly away and all those songs. And uh but anyway, because Ralph Carter didn't write this, but it did get in the country charts. And I'm that back then they just called it Hillbilly Music. But before that, uh Carter wrote a song. They were coming back from North Carolina, he said, and he wrote a song and just from his heart, and Ralph got mad him because he had the, you know, we'd had a little dome light. You couldn't just get one to shine on you. And he said, I got an outy.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

I got an outy. In the deep rolling hills of old Virginia, there's a place I love to dwell, where I spent many years of my childhood, and a cabin. And it but anyway, uh, when they got to Bristol, Carter, Ralph said, You about killed me driving that line. Carter said, Where do you hear this song? He said, You'll let away tomorrow. Because you know they lived up above up on Smith Mountain up there. But those that was a and and and when Carter died, think of what happened to Ralph. Ralph was the one who was just did tenor work. Right. He was so quiet he wouldn't speak to nobody. And it wasn't that he didn't like people, he just didn't talk.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

And Carter did it all. Carter was so outgoing, he was just joy, he was like you, he could he never met a stranger. I think Carter could talk to anybody, and here he is gone, just bam.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Yeah, and you know, we don't think it at the time, but so much stuff, and I I've got friends of mine that were pioneers that once they did, and and I know life has to move on, but I hate to see their stuff disappear. Okay. You know what I mean. And I know there will come a time. I mean, I have got recordings that I've done since I don't know when, since the early nineties. And people ain't gonna be interested in all that later on. I mean, I I I I hope they are. But you know, but people because people move on. Yeah, I'm not gonna. But I I think what we do there's some of us that have a job to do, and it's to sort of keep that history alive. Amen. It's history, and uh, and I think it's so important that we do that in the time that we're allotted, and we're supposed to be able to do it. And and that's sort of what I'm concentrating on. And you're doing it. I just want to do that, Bob, and and I want to be good to a few people as we make it through this thing and and and try to take our time and enjoy our family, enjoy with people that love us, and the people that don't love us, I just try to stay away from them, you know, and let them handle their own business and but do my little part and and and preserve some history. You know, because man, with the stuff we're talking about today, when we talk about McDowell County and we talk about these music and stuff I'm in, this is McDowell County. They don't know.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

My goodness gracious sakes alive, and and and the people you wouldn't know, like Bon Thornsbury, fiddle player. You probably