Wash Nelson

Wash Nelson: Annadeene Fraley met fellow musician Orin Nelson in Ashland while working at Jean Thomas' festival.  His father Wash was a fine traditional singer with a repertory very much in the mold of John Cox' best informants in his well-known Folk-songs of the South.  Although I never met Orin, one evening his wife Mary took Annadeene and me up to meet Wash for a splendid evening of old songs.  He lived up a hollow somewhere outside of Ashland proper.  It was a hot evening and we recorded outside.  Unfortunately, a popular moonshiner lived up the road a bit and the diligent listener can hear the crunching of gravel as cars drove back and forth on their nocturnal missions.

Wash was about ninety-three when we recorded him and had just survived a dreadful house fire.  Nonetheless, he talked and sang virtually nonstop for a period of several hours.  He was a vivid storyteller and told many tales of a rugged pioneer life.  These were a bit disconcerting, because sometimes he would describe himself as a devout Christian penitent and sometimes as a thuggish near-outlaw.  Which presentation was accurate?  Well, probably a mix of the two.  At one point in his life, he had sung in medicine shows.  He told us that you could sing anything one wanted at those, including old ballads like The House Carpenter, but he indicated that Groundhog represented a particularly effective comic favorite.

Part of the booklet notes, written by Mark Wilson, to the Musical Traditions Records 4-CD set Meeting's a Pleasure (MTCD341-4)