Pressing On: The Roni Stoneman Story

10. The Performing Stonemans

K < E The Performing Stonemans I keep mentioning about the family all performing together, so I want to focus for a little on how that went and how we worked with each other. At first when we were young, we’d be going out with Daddy, playing around the Washington area (after I had learned the banjo well enough to avoid those whuppings!). We were called Pop Stoneman and the Little Pebbles. There were other Stoneman family bands, and later we Pebbles would be in different groupings, because practically everyone played at least one instrument, and the makeup of the bands would change depending on who was available. But in any family band, it was the same. We were professionals. We’d keep rehearsing a song over and over until we got it right. Scott was our main guide, as I said, but if someone else was doing the lead singing and wanted the song done a certain way, we would try to do what that person wanted. Nobody was ever arrogant or on anybody’s case or anything. The Per The Performing Stonemans 62 / pressing on We were careful about the setlist and on that subject we always listened to Scott. To this day I go by his advice. You start off with a fast song to get the audience’s attention. Then Scott would say, “And now, ladies and gentlemen, we’re gonna play you a half-fast song” (and everybody would laugh), and he’d continue, “not too fast, not too slow, just half fast.” Then we’d do a slow song, then a fast one again. And I’d dance around or do some comedy so the audience didn’t get bored. After a few more songs, we’d end on a very fast song to rouse everybody up. We were also real careful about how it all looked to an audience. We didn’t use the word choreography, but we were always moving around. At first we’d be all lined up. But then if Scott went forward to take a solo break, I would step in and cover up the spot he left. Or Donna’d move over sometimes. And while Donna would take her break, I’d move to where Donna had been. And Scott would move back to where I had been. We were careful not to leave a hole. Now when we were little, we had a chance to go to the Juilliard School. I can see it clearly in my mind. We were at home sitting at the table eating when four people came in, all dressed up. They were school authorities, intimidating. My parents were nervous, and my mother stood up because there wasn’t room for everybody at the table. “Mr. Stoneman,” said one of the school authorities, “we’ve noticed that your boys aren’t doing real well in school” (the understatement of the year!) “and that instead of playing ball, they sit around making up songs in recess. And we had them tested and know that they are musically talented.” (“Tested”?—they’d been performing for years.) “The school district of D.C. is willing to pay for Scott and five of the other children to go up to New York and study music at the Juilliard School.” Daddy was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Well, that’s real nice. I heard that that’s a mighty fine school.” He turned to us. “Kids, that’s a mighty fine school. The decision is up to you. Do you want to go?” Nobody said anything. Then we all looked at Scott. He leaned his chair back so it was teetering on two legs. “No, Pop,” he said, “we want to stay here and play music with you and help you support us.” pressing on / 63 And that was the end of that. We sometimes would play shows for wealthy people around the Washington area. And it was surprising to me that many of them didn’t have any manners. They didn’t regard other people’s feelings. For instance, when I was very young, maybe about nine, we performed at the Virginia Hunt Club for a debutantes’ ball. (We didn’t know what in the cat’s hair a debutantes’ ball was.) Donna and I were wearing little cotton dresses Momma had made for us in a calico-like material, and the boys had on shirts, bibbed overalls, straw hats, and red handkerchiefs around their necks. I remember me and Jimmy getting off the stage. We were not supposed to mix with these people, but we didn’t know that. So we went down to where they had the food. And Jimmy said, “Roni, there’s some Jell-O on this table.” It was a long table and there was this big thing of Jell-O-looking stuff. Jimmy said, “Get you a bowl, Roni.” So I got a great big bowl, and we thought, Ah, now we’re gonna have Jell-O. We only had Jell-O at school. We didn’t have it at home because, well, God, was my mother going to make a barrelful? So we dug into it—and it was horrible tasting. We’re spitting it out—pfft, pfft. “That is superb caviar,” I heard a lady say. Then Daddy came looking for us. When we got back up on the stage and were playing, it was clear the boys in the audience were flirting with Donna. They were staring at her and going, “Mmmm, ain’t she cute?Ain’t she cute?” Momma had made a bow to go with Donna’s dress, for her to wear on the back of her head. Long beautiful blond hair and a big wide bow that stuck out on each side of her head. She was so dainty and talented and so just Godawful beautiful! The boys were crazy about her. Well this made the clodhopper debutantes jealous, and they started nudging each other and making fun of Donna. Donna wasn’t noticing them, she was busy playing her instrument, but I saw them. Daddy backed off from the mike for a moment and I walked right up to it. “I saw you girls makin’ fun of my sister Donna,” I said. “Well, we all die and doo doo!” The girls gasped. The boys were laughing their heads off. There was another time a few years later that sticks in my mind. We were performing in a place in Virginia where they had steeplechases and fox hunts and such, and the audience was all dressed in those puffy leg 64 / pressing on things. The room was beautiful wood and had windows with stained glass in them. We were over in the corner playing, playing music for the people to drink by. And they were drinking. A guy with one of them outfits on was jumping around, and all of a sudden he fell into us, right into Daddy and all of us kids. The man’s friends helped him up, laughing . But they didn’t say anything to us. They had no manners about us. They treated us like we were nothing. This kind of thing often happens to musicians. There’s a story told to me by one of the boys who played with Brenda Lee. She was playing at a country club in Ohio. They were going to take Brenda Lee, the star, in the front door but her band around the back. Brenda Lee said, “No, I’m going with the band.” She just lifted her dress and splashed through a big old mudhole and went right with the band. Her band loved her. So there were problems with some of the fancy places my father took us to. But for the most part we were playing in honky-tonks, beer joints, and those were a lot worse. My father did not drink. My mother did not drink. But I heard her say to my dad many times, doing what I called Momma’s “statement-making,” she’d say, “Ernest Stoneman, every one of your boys is going to turn out to be drunks. ’Cause you’re dragging them in such horrible places.” And my daddy’d say, “Well, dadblame it, Hattie, I’m trying to keep them out of trouble! If they stay here, they’ll get in trouble!” “Well, you got a point there, Ernest. But you gotta find a better place to play.” And she’d point her finger right at him. I know Daddy went to his grave thinking about that, feeling guilty about taking us to those places. Daddy couldn’t shelter us. But he would try to teach us. He would say things like, “Remember, Roni, don’t ever start drinking. Now, if you start off just having a beer a night, that’s not a bad thing, one beer. But if you play every single night, you’re gonna end up drinking more and soon it’ll be a case a week.” I knew he was right. No matter what kind of place we were playing at, we tried to play the best we could. And that was Daddy’s advice too. He said, “No matter how awful the honky-tonk is, you gotta pretend it’s the most finest place in the world. Put it in your mind that you’re playing a beautiful theater and people are there to listen. ’Cause you never know who’s gonna be in there. Always play like somebody’s coming in that can get you a TV show or a job with a recording company.” And that’s what we did. ...