Pine Breeze was a mental health institution for the youth of Chattanooga, and was located on Stringer’s Ridge from 1968- 1982. Pine Breeze existed before, and was in a way a predecessor to, Mocassin Bend. Ron Williams began work at the institute fresh out of college, and was immediately tasked with supervising the kids in the dormitory. Ron is quoted saying “I didn’t want to supervise mayhem and chaos in the evening”, so he thought the kids may relate and enjoy being immersed in a passion of his- old-time music. Thus, Ron loaded the kids up in a van, along with a reel to reel recorder in-tact, and headed for rural Chattanooga with the intent of making field recordings of traditional musicians in the nearby area. This would go onto create Pine Breeze Recordings.
“We recorded the last of the really authentic old-timers that learned a lot of their repertoire in the oral tradition, not off records and radio,” – Ron Williams
The liner notes give a good tale. “In the fall of 1975, a group of Pine Breeze students began a field research project in traditional music as played in the Chattanooga area. We saw the project as preserving a significant aspect of our local heritage: after searching several sources for old-time musicians, Paul Skiles, who works in the boiler room at the school, mentioned that his brother Raymond played fiddle. We contacted Raymond and he agreed to play for us, and said he knew a “real fine old-time fiddler—none of that bluegrass stuff, just straight fiddlin’.” They had not played together for several years, and he did not know whether he could find him or not, but he said he would try.
We set a date for the taping with Raymond. The tape recorders were set up, and Raymond arrived with his friend from Soddy, Eldie Barbee, the fiddler he had mentioned. That night in November we heard some excellent old-time fiddle tunes played by Eldie. We knew we had found our fiddler.
Eldie Barbee was born 66 years ago in Soddy, a small community several miles from Chattanooga. He and his kinfolks have lived in the Soddy-Daisy area since the 1940s. He was born in Rhea County, Tennessee and went north during the Depression. Right now, he is living in a small trailer several miles off the main highway.
Raymond says it’s so far back “you have to bring the sunshine in on a wheelbarrow.”
Eldie doesn’t let his age slow him down. He prefers to spend the daytime rabbit hunting and, during the night, he brings out his fiddle. Eldie says he really doesn’t get started fiddling till after midnight and admits to taking a shot of bourbon to keep him going.
The group encountered several problems before taping a suitable session, the major problem being getting the people and the equipment together in the same place at the same time. After several failures due to equipment breakdown, Eldie’s concern about leaving his home in bad weather, finding microphones, and the major loss of Raymond Skiles (for personal reasons), we finally taped a session of the quality needed for this record.
The session started with Eldie introducing himself, cracking a few jokes, and telling some stories about the songs he played. During the actual taping, Eldie discovered if he stomped his foot on the microphone stand, it made a sound “like an old washtub bass.” He really liked the rhythmic sound that it made on the recordings. He played a variety of tunes with his fiddle braced midway on his chest, using several “cross-tunings,” particularly what he called “flat A” tuning. He used this tuning on one of the more obscure tunes, “Citico,” a fiddle tune indigenous to the Chattanooga area. Milton Fairiss, who had heard about our project from a newspaper article, volunteered his services on guitar.
In August of 1976, after we knew we had received the grant, we went to Soddy to take pictures of Eldie for the album. While we were there, Eldie’s brother Oscar, and friends Malcolm Brown and Norris Grant came over and played. Oscar Barbee turned out to be an excellent clawhammer banjo player. Fortunately, we brought a tape recorder and were able to record several tunes for this album.
Despite Eldie’s foot stomping and a telephone ringing, the music was of a high quality. We hope these few intrusions convey the fun and enjoyment of the sessions that was felt by all the participants.
Susan Hallman
Beth Boling
William Camp
January – August, 1976
There are many people responsible for the production of this album. First, all the recording, engineering, photography, and liner notes were done by the students. They had to learn many new skills and work hard and energetically despite several disappointments. I am quite proud of the quality of work they did and the manner in which it was accomplished. My thanks also to Blair White, our arts & crafts teacher, for the album artwork; Fred Wunderlich and the merchandising students—they will supervise the sales; and Dan Predmore, principal, for his support.
Thanks also to Jim Carroll for the microphones, Dr. Wolfe and Richard Blanstein for their encouragement, Libby Wann and Leighton LeBoeuf for publicity, Linda White and the Tennessee Arts Commission who made the album possible, and to Bill and Ellyn Trigg of Kim-Pat Records.
Ron Williams
6/28/76”
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