Copyright © 1999-2020 Charles L. McPherson
|
My musical journey I was born in New Port, Rhode Island in a Navy hospital and lived there until I was six months old. When Daddy finished his tour of service, we moved back home to Macon, Georgia. I was surrounded by a pool of musical talent among the members of my family as far back as I can remember. My Grandpa McPherson had an uncanny ability to compose poetry right off the top of his head while patting his foot. His verse and meter had a timing just like bluegrass. My Grandpa Gordon loved Bill Monroe and would listen to WSM every Saturday night for his segment on the Grand Ole Opry. This gave me exposure to the music. My Daddy had a tremendous since of timing and played the guitar a little. He is one of those types who could get a tune out of a barbed wire fence, and he kept me interested in music.
At the age of ten, we got our first stereo record player. Mama won it at work for her success in sales at the dress shop where she worked. She joined an RCA record club and received an album by Flatt and Scruggs as one of the offerings for that month. That's where I heard Foggy Mt. Breakdown for the first time. I played it over and over and over again. I really got excited the day I saw Lester and Earl on the Beverly Hillbillies. It would be almost two years before I tried to progress musically. When I was twelve years old, two major things happened in my life. One, I received Christ as my Saviour at a Baptist youth camp that Mama sent me to, and second, my uncle Donald Gordon left an old Stella Harmony guitar at our house. These two events have impacted my life more than anything else, and eventually, I gave my music over to my Saviour. Well, the guitar was partially in tune. I started tinkering around with it. My Uncle Benny Gordon was living in Macon at the time, and he stopped by one evening and heard me back in my room picking at it. He came back and tuned it up for me. He showed me some chords and started teaching me Wild Wood Flower. Daddy saw I was making progress and bought me a nicer Aria guitar. The action was much better making it easier to play. Daddy said that he heard that Roy Shores had a picking over at his house every Saturday night and that I should go over. Roy's house was just across the woods on the next road. The next Saturday I cut across the woods with my guitar. I watched in amazement as the others played. They let me take a ride on Wild Wood Flower. Roy Shores was blind, but he was a great flat-picker and he told me to come over any time and he would teach me. That's where I really learned to play. I'll never forget those Saturday night picking sessions and all the friends that encouraged me in my playing. It was at Roy's that I met Ed Gaines. Ed had played guitar on the Louisiana Hayride for several years. It was an old barn dance and radio show. I still play Down Yonder on the guitar pretty much the same way he taught it to me. Ed taught me to play Mandolin. I played guitar a lot in church at Lake View Baptist and came to love gospel music. I got away from Bluegrass and started playing in a country music group when I was fourteen. This is where I made my first money playing music. I got to be well known around town. At sixteen, I joined one of the top country bands in Macon, Wanda Gail and the Wanderers, as lead guitarist. The group was managed with an iron hand by Wanda's Dad, Jake Stancil. It was from this group that I had opportunity to work with Nashville talent such as Stella Parton, Nat Stucky, Mike Lumsford, Billy Crash Craddock, and Harold Morrison. I started fooling around with the banjo when I was seventeen after working a show with Harold Morrison. He played Foggy Mt. Breakdown that night as well as a whole lot of other bluegrass tunes and it made me realize where my heart was musically. Harold encouraged me to go back to bluegrass and get out of the country scene. I took his advice. I sold my Telecaster and concentrated on banjo.
In 1979 my Grandpa McPherson, Mama and Daddy bought me my first real nice banjo, a Stelling Staghorn. Geoff was still out in California then. I called him up on the phone and my Mama wired him the money. It was a great day when the UPS truck brought it to my door. Bluegrass has brought me into contact with many wonderful people
down through the years. It is a clean family oriented music. The
greatest joy I have these days is playing
I'm devoted to the preservation of traditional bluegrass music, and I encourage everyone out there who feels the same way to do all they can to get young people interested in the music, its heritage and preservation. But my commitment as an artist is to Bluegrass gospel, and I have given my musical talent and ability over to my Lord and Saviour who first gifted me. For Ute and me, our music is our ministry to the Church.
Black & White photo of Chuck and Ute Copyright 2012 by Jackie Blakeney
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I was first challenged musically when my Aunt Connie McPherson
bought a couple of flat top guitars for her children at Christmas
when I was about nine years old. I spent a lot of time trying to
pick out melodies on these guitars (neither of which was tuned), so
I could teach them to my cousins. Eventually, all the strings broke.
I decided to tackle playing the drums, and Mama and Dad got me a set
the next Christmas. I learned a lot about timing with the drums, and
I impressed my peers in elementary school with my ability to play
"Wipe Out" on anything that had some resonance to it including the
desk, table, mop bucket, etc. The next year I got an electric organ.
I think the brand name was Magnus. It was a play by number type of
setup and I learned how to play melodies. I learned all the songs
out of the book that came with it and composed several of my own.
It was at Georgia Southern College in Statesboro that I met Dan
Dixon. He was living across the hall from me in the dorm. We hit it
off because he was a great guitar picker and I was coming along well
on the banjo. We became good friends and grew together in bluegrass.
We started our own group and called it Georgia Southern Grass. Alan
Kaye, a top notch bluegrass musician and coach for the rest of us,
played mandolin and Emmett Young played acoustic bass. We got to be
real good over the next couple of years and played several festivals
as well as several times there at Georgia Southern.
It was great
playing on the same festival line-up with talent like Earl Scruggs,
Doug Dillard, Jim and Jesse, Don Reno, Mac Wiseman, The Lewis
Family, Little Roy Lewis, The Boys from Indiana, the Osborne
Brothers, and Bill Monroe. 
bluegrass gospel music.
That is our primary focus and it is our ministry. Everybody needs a
ministry. Many times I have seen tears of joy in the eyes of people
as they listen to the old hymns set to bluegrass timing with the
banjo , mandolin and fiddle. There is a joy that it brings out in
the soul that goes along with thoughts of what Christ did for us,
thoughts of heaven, and running down
streets of gold. It is a blessing to me to have a wife that plays
and who encourages me in my music. 