Published: April 05, 2008 10:46 pm      

Bluegrass musicians pack hall for jam session

On Thursday nights, the Sophia City Fire Department’s bingo hall doesn’t have a single bingo card on the table and the light-up board for called numbers is dark.

But it’s far from dead.

Guitar, banjo, dobro, dulcimer and mandolin cases cover every part of every table. About 40 bluegrass musicians — with about 70 years’ age difference between some of them — are together, sharing their common true love, music.

The bingo hall for about five years has been the site of an informal but large bluegrass jam session every Thursday night, according to 84-year-old Arley Johnson Jr. of Tams. The sessions, which begin at 6 p.m., have never been advertised more than by word-of-mouth, yet they attract as many as 50 people of different genders, generations and states.

“We’re one, big family,” Johnson said as a man tapped his feet and about 30 players jammed at once. “Come on in. If you can’t play, we’ll teach you.”

Johnson said the jam sessions began about 10 years ago at a man’s house on Stanaford Road. For about five years, “a whole bunch of people” would come together just to play music. Then the host’s daughter died and the sessions ended.

Later, Johnson would meet people on the street who asked if there could be another place to play. He met with the Sophia Area Fire Department chief, then the bingo hall’s caretaker, who agreed to rent the hall to Johnson. Subsequent property owners and caretakers have allowed him and the other bluegrass jammers to use it. Those who attend contribute whatever they can spare to help with the rent, with funds collected in a white cup Johnson keeps beside him.

The sessions have attracted visiting musicians from New York, Maryland, Tennessee, North Carolina and Texas, Johnson said.

Fellow musicians consider the sessions a literal lifesaver.

“We’re having a bluegrass jam here!” Bob Wills of MacArthur declared as he strummed his dobro last Thursday night.

Wills, 66, said his musical background consisted only of his playing guitar “a little bit” until he had his first of three open-heart surgeries about four years ago. While recovering, he had serious down time with hardly anything to do. Divine intervention soon changed that.

“I asked God to give me a talent, and this is what He gave me,” Wills said.

He said he realized what God had intended when, after asking The Almighty for that talent, he saw someone playing a dobro on TV.

“I saw it on TV, and I said, ‘Lord, that’s what I want to play,’” he said. “I love it. I dearly love it.

“It kept me from going crazy.”

Wills said the Sophia sessions are the best places for anyone wanting to learn because several musicians are accomplished and willing to help out beginners.

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Johnson noted several players are young. The older musicians mainly keep the sessions going for the younger ones — and to keep their music alive in an age when bass-thumping music like pop, techno and rap dominate the airwaves.

“We want them to carry on the tradition, keep it going,” he said. “We play country, bluegrass and gospel. So many of the kids these days are just into the ‘bangdy, bangdy, bang,’ you know? This gets them off the streets and they learn how to play music.”

Forty to 50 years ago, Johnson said, he regularly played music with a man whose son is now a regular at the sessions.

Fifteen-year-old Jordan Young of Sophia, playing a mandolin last Thursday, said he began coming to the sessions with his grandfather when he was 13. He played alongside Hunter Walker, 14, of Beckley, who was attending his first session. Walker’s dulcimer instructor recommended he attend.

“I’m going to come back whenever I can, as much as I can,” Walker said. “It’s just people coming together to play music.

“Honestly, I thought I was going to be the only kid here.”

Both Young and Walker, who both play multiple instruments, said they preferred bluegrass over the music to which other young people often listen. This style of music, they said, involves actual instruments and not computerized beats or drum machines.

Salena Wickline, a 14-year-old Beckley resident, strummed a mandolin Thursday as she coached her boyfriend, 16-year-old Kenneth Wilson of Sophia, on the right chords to play on his guitar. Wickline has come to the sessions about two years, and she eventually brought Wilson.

“There’s amazing players here, every week,” Wickline said.

Wickline said she is more of a bluegrass fan, but Wilson said his girlfriend’s style of playing is new to him and somewhat challenging. Chords, he said, are harder for him to play than guitar tablature he originally used to play songs like Metallica’s “One.”

“She’s going to make a country star out of him,” Johnson remarked as he looked in Wickline and Wilson’s direction.

Salena’s parents, William and Deborah Wickline, sat across the bingo hall from their daughter. William Wickline said a local chiropractor recommended he bring Salena to the sessions when he mentioned Salena was beginning to play.

Since then, they believe they have found a place where Salena can have a good time, do something constructive and do so safely. They noted the other musicians are extremely talented — and respectful. It is also an experience parents like them enjoy, and they also have the chance to socialize with others.

“There’s decades of talent in here,” Deborah Wickline said. “One of them used to play in the Opry.

“It’s not the same as being in church, but it’s uplifting. You can socialize with good, honorable, hard-working, musically talented people and see people you don’t see anywhere else during the week. It’s fun for us, too.

“Our best friends are down here. We appreciate the social gathering. Everyone looks out for one another. We pray for each other’s loved ones. It’s a good, clean family place.”

“We look forward to it as much as she does,” William Wickline said.

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Walker and Young have recorded CDs, and Johnson said he has been a contributing musician on about 15. His love of music began when he was even younger than last Thursday’s youngest players.

At age 10, Johnson picked up a guitar for the first time.

“I was raised in Mercer County on a 100-acre farm. The nearest neighbor was about a mile away,” he said. “This man came and played ‘Wildwood Flower.’ I said, ‘I’ve got to have a guitar.’”

Johnson’s playing continued through his time in the Army during World War II. Whenever he and his buddies would have the chance, they would jam on guitars and banjos.

“It eased everything — settled a whole lot of nerves,” he said.

When he retired in 1982, Johnson “really hit it.” But he never did it for money or fame. As long as the players continue to flock to the jam sessions, Johnson will make sure the doors are open.

“It was never about money or making it in Nashville,” he said.

“I’ll keep it going as long as they want to play.”

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