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43 Remembering Hiter Colvin, the Fiddle King of Oilfield and Gum Stump —J. Michael Luster Hiter Colvin is a little-known master fiddler from northwestern Louisiana, who made his local reputation dazzling crowds at dances, fiddling contests, and Pentecostal worship services. As Michael Luster explains in this short sketch that draws from the memories of family and friends, Colvin’s recorded legacy is quite small: only a handful of sides recorded for Victor at a  session in Dallas, Texas. Nonetheless, these selections testify to the musical prowess and the flair for showmanship described in this brief piece. The great Hiter Colvin was born in , one of nine children, on Boardtree Creek near the community of Fellowship, northeast of Dubach, Louisiana. His father, Thomas Mayberry Colvin, bought a fiddle at a pawnshop in Monroe and told the children that whichever one of them could play it best would get to keep it. Hiter earned the fiddle, and the fiddle would eventually earn him the only livelihood he would ever know. Hiter used the fiddle to follow the oilfield money, moving first to the country around El Dorado, Arkansas, where in  he married Eloise Torrence, an eighteen-year-old girl from nearby Sandy Bend. The young couple followed the various oil booms and would have three children, including their first, Hyter Colvin, Jr., (so he spells it) born at Smackover in , before the huge oilfield discovered at Kilgore, Texas, drew them there about . J. MICHAEL LUSTER 44 Hiter Colvin had already been to Texas once and come as close to striking it rich as he would. In October of  he and his guitarist friend Herbert Sherrill traveled to Dallas and recorded six sides for Victor records. These tunes, “Indian War Whoop,”“Monroe Stomp,”“Dixie Waltz,”“Old Lady Blues,”“Hiter’s Favorite Waltz,” and “Rabbit Up a Gum Stump,” his evocative showpiece said to be a portrayal of the dogs pursuing rabbits down along Boardtree Creek, reveal him to be a fiddler of extraordinary skill. The records sold well for Victor and the company even ran a two-page display ad in one of its catalogs with Jimmie Rodgers pictured on one page and Hiter Colvin on the other, but Colvin saw little money from them and refused to record again. Beyond his playing, Colvin was also a consummate showman who played the fiddle behind his back, behind his head, on the floor, and he always drew a crowd and sometimes played on the radio out of El Dorado. Jimmie Rodgers himself came to town, trying to convince Colvin to join him on the road, but the fiddler refused, opting instead to keep company with his buddy Sherrill or with a peg-legged guitarist and follow the oilfield money. Before long, Sherrill too headed for Kilgore. In Texas, Colvin continued to play for boomtown dollars and cleaned up at local fiddle contests. His honky-tonk dances were legendary. On one occasion, he played at a highway nightspot while the celebrated Light Crust Doughboys played to a largely empty house at another across the road. At the end of the evening, the Doughboy bus pulled into the yard at the Colvin house trying to get the man they couldn’t lick to join them, but again Colvin chose to stay put to play in the clubs and sometimes even in the Pentecostal church. He remained in Kilgore for seven or eight years during which time his marriage broke up and his family moved back to Sandy Bend. He followed them to Arkansas and there was a reconciliation that lasted a couple of years, but they split for good in . In the years following his divorce, Hiter Colvin returned home to Louisiana, to the area which had earned the nickname “the Pint Country” because of the availability of vernacular whisky, where he continued to play to packed dance floors backed up by his nephew Bill Bagwell or others. Back home, folks called him “Pee Wee,” for his small size, but remember that the fiddle he carried in a flour sack had a sound that would carry an unusual distance . Hunters in the woods would pause to listen to Colvin playing at some far-off dance. E. N. “Nig” Robertson, who used to squirrel hunt with the diminutive fiddler himself, remembers walking the five miles to Bernice to attend a Colvin dance. Times were hard and when Colvin passed the hat he got only nineteen cents. “Alright, I’m going to play you...

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