Today’s post was written by Paul.
Corie, Pap, Granny, Katie
I’m thankful to have the video of Pap and Granny singing that I’m sharing today. I hope to find one more that I made prior to this one. I’ll be sure to share it too.
Several Acorns have commented that they wish they had recordings of their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc. With regard to audio recordings, I was born into the practice of making audio recordings.
Pap and his brothers made their first commercial recording in 1973 (Words of Life), but even prior to that, they made reel-to-reel recordings for the radio, to send to family members, and to check how they sounded. They continued to make recordings throughout their lives.
With regard to video recordings, I owe a big thanks to Mr. Derwin Chastain. Derwin married my first cousin, Gail (Uncle Ray’s oldest daughter), and Derwin is the father of Andrew Chastain who appeared in our Original Thursday series a couple of months ago.
In the late 1980’s, Derwin rented an RCA video camera from a store in Murphy. He brought the camera into the holler and recorded everyone he could. Although at the time, most of us acted pretty bashful, we later came to love seeing ourselves on the TV and being able to look back at younger, simpler times.
Not long after that, Derwin made a series of videos that were interviews with my Papaw Wade Wilson (Pap’s father). In those videos, Papaw told about his life and experiences preaching the gospel. Papaw passed in 1992 from lung cancer, and Derwin’s videos of him immediately became precious to our entire, extended family.
Lord willing, I will eventually share those videos on the Wilson Brothers YouTube channel.
In the late 90’s, Derwin also videoed Pap (my father) teaching in the Book of Revelations at New Martins Creek Church. I also hope to upload that content to the Wilson Brothers YouTube channel.
Derwin made two videos of Pap and Uncle Ray singing (one on the couch at Derwin’s home, and one sitting on the front of a car outside Uncle Ray’s house). Both of those videos were shot in the late 1980’s. You can find them on the Blind Pig & the Acorn YouTube channel.
All that to say that Derwin showed me that cherished moments are worth capturing, so when I got my first teaching job, I bought an RCA video camera very similar to the one that Derwin rented. I used it to make this video of Pap and Granny, and I still have it today.
Without Derwin’s influence, I don’t think I would have ever done that.
Pap and Granny learned the song I’m sharing from Walter Bailes. Here is a link to the episode of Country’s Family Reunion where Pap and Granny heard the song that they sang in today’s video.
As evidenced by them looking at a page of handwritten lyrics, you can tell that Pap and Granny were just learning the song at the time of this video in 2000, but if I recall correctly, the earlier video of them singing the song was actually better, and they did the song at a quicker pace. Hopefully, I’ll eventually find it.
I think at the time of that episode, the other Bailes Brothers were passed on. I thought it was neat that Jim and Jesse filled in for them. That video only shows Mr. Bailes sing the song, but in the full episode, he shared personal testimony about how God saved his soul and helped him overcome alcohol addiction. He admitted that he wrote the last verse the morning after having abused alcohol. Suffering from a bad hangover, he truly wrote that verse in a moment of shame and regret.
Most likely, Pap heard the Bailes Brothers sing this song when he was young, but it took the episode of Country’s Family Reunion to cause him and Granny to sing it. Most likely stemming from Walter’s personal battle with alcoholism, the Bailes Brothers had several songs that directly addressed the dangers and evils of drunkenness, such as “Whiskey is the Devil in Liquid Form” and “Drunkard’s Grave,” which Pap and I recorded on a CD called “Lamp Lighting Time.” I think that CD may currently be out of stock in the blindpig Etsy store, but hopefully we’ll make it available again sometime in the future.
Watching these old videos as I transferred them to DVD was bitter sweet. The 90’s and early 2000’s were a truly great time in America, more so than perhaps anyone realized at the time. In addition to family videos, I saw things like music and interviews from the Grand Ole Opry, with people like Charlie Louvin and Del McCoury. I saw Charlotte Church singing Christmas songs. Pap, Granny, and I used to love to hear her sing back then, when she was only 13 or 14 years old. I’m thankful for those days. They’re gone, but we can make the best of today, with God’s help. It’s strange to realize that in this video, Granny is only 8 years older than I am now. This life goes by so quickly. We should always take the time to tell and show our loved ones that we love them.
Paul
Original singles released on Spotify.
Shepherd of My Soul (Album released in 2016).
The Wilson Brothers Words of Life Album released in the 70s.