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THE MUSIC OF RUBY ALLMOND by Jerry B. Lincecum  Like all good stories, the one of Fannin County musician Ruby Allmond ’s career has three distinct parts. First was the struggle to gain recognition as a performer. Then came three decades as a songwriter , with several Nashville hits, including one top-ten single. Part three, defining a legacy, continues through an annual Ruby Allmond songwriting contest (with $600 in prize money) administered by Texas A&M University–Commerce, which also has an extensive archive of her life’s work, with a biography planned. Ruby Nell Allmond was born in 1923 on a farm in southeast Fannin County, near the Bailey community. Her parents were Arthur M. Allmond and Lou Cole Allmond. Arthur Allmond, who came from Missouri, grew cotton and corn on a blackland farm. Lou Cole came from Tennessee, and she had blue eyes and sparkling humor that Ruby inherited. Ruby was the youngest of four children, with a sister, Delia Mae, and two brothers, James Roy and Charlie Raymond. Many of her friends called her “Chub,” which was a nickname given her by an older brother when she was a toddler. Ruby passed away on January 23, 2006, at the age of eighty-two.1 Ruby was born into a musical family, with members who played the fiddle, guitar, banjo, and mandolin. As a small child, she learned to play the guitar while sitting on the lap of her father, who also held the instrument for her. At the age of four she first performed on the guitar at a nearby school, and the enthusiastic response to this event spurred her on. Soon, she was learning to play her brother Raymond’s fiddle. In an effort to keep his fiddle out of her reach, Raymond placed it high up on the wall, but she always managed to get it. One day as he and Roy were coming home from work in the field, they heard the fiddle being played by Ruby. Roy said, “Listen to that, Raymond, she can already play better than you can.” So Ruby was then allowed to practice on the fiddle. As her playing in public drew more praise, Ruby became 107 determined to disprove the common idea that “no woman could play the fiddle well.” After high school she practiced as much as eight hours a day in order to master the instrument. Ruby was highly intelligent and schoolwork was easy for her. In high school she excelled in essay writing, and was eligible to go to state-level competition one year. But these were hard times, and the basketball team was also eligible to go to state. The school district decided there was not enough money to go around, so Ruby stayed home. But her skill in composing songs was certainly foreshadowed by the verbal ability she demonstrated in school. After completing high school, Ruby continued to live at home with her parents. She farmed in partnership with her dad and also worked on her fiddle playing and her stage personality, taking part in local performances in homes, schools, and community centers. She developed a style of play that involved making a rhythm with the fiddle bow as she played and also emphasized harmonies and double notes. She also began traveling as far as Abilene, Texas, and Durant, Oklahoma, to perform with other musicians and play in shows. Two top-notch fiddle players who regularly performed with her for a trio fiddle show in the late 1940s were Georgia “Slim” Rutland and Howard “Howdy” Forrester. There was no telephone on the Allmond farm, and Rutland and Forrester had an interesting way to inform Ruby about where to meet them for the next show. They appeared regularly on the “Cornbread Matinee” show daily at noon on KRLD radio in Dallas, hosted by Hal Horton. During the course of the show they would announce where they would be performing that weekend. Ruby made sure she listened to the show, and her brothers Raymond and Roy, who played with her, would then pick her up and drive to the show. Harold Carder also played stand-up bass with them. Greenville Municipal Auditorium was their favorite venue, and there Ruby was billed as the National Champion Woman Fiddler. Ruby then put together her own band, called “The Texas Jamboree ,” which was advertised as a “Top-notch Fiddle Band.” In addition to her, it included Guy Bryant and his son and daughter, Gene and Joyce, on mandolin and acoustic...

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