Dennis Pollock

When & How did you get started in oldtime music?

All my life ever since I've heard the first Grand Ole Opry - I liked it. Anytime I heard about anyone playing music nearby, I wanted to be around it.

Ever since I can remember I've always wanted to be around the music. Our family would be in the field and someone would start a song and the rest of us would join in.

That sounds a lot like the old "field-holler" from back in the plantation days?

Yea, I thought of that when I was writing down some notes, and that was about like us. We would sing every day just like on the old plantations. Someone would start a song and depending on the mood some were in - some would join in and sing along - others might not. You know how kids are.

I remember way back a man by the name of Vestal. He was from the music-playing Vestal family. He had an old Gibson guitar. He would play with us part of the time and another family part of the time. He helped my Dad work in timber. Every night he would play that guitar. Picked with his thumb. We would all join in, and before I ever got a mandolin we all knew how to carry a tune.

Would you call his style of picking Bluegrass? Well he just played all the old tunes like "Rubber Dolly" and "Blue Moon Turns To Gold" - all those old tunes. Just all kinds of songs like that that I've already forgotten.

You mentioned he picked with his thumb - did he pick with his thumb and index finger? He would just use his thumb sort of like Lester Flatt did, but he didn't actually use a pick. His old hands were callaused and rough and he didn't really need a pick. He worked hard all his life. He could really play that guitar. He just drove me crazy wanting to play like that.

Do you remember how old you were at that time? Aw lord, from as way back as I can remember. I was probably around 8 years old then. I was 7 or 8 years old and he was playing and we were singing with him. He would come and see us real often. He was one of the Vestal pickin' bunch. You know that whole bunch could play.

One of the family actually came to IHOP one night. I can't recall his name, but he could still play - a little shaky with age, but could still play.

I guess what really set me on fire - we moved to the Lizard Lick area not far from where Mr. Ellis Truett lives. Boss Wadley (some of you may remember), his daddy owned some land in the Lizard Lick area. We were less than a 1/2 mile from where Ellis lives now. We lived over in an old L-shaped house - I won't never forget it - Daddy made the boards to cover it with. That was quite an art back then. Anyway that's how I got started - Boss had an old mandolin that Mr. Franke got for him from Sears and he'd learned to make some chords on it, and every time we'd go over there I'd grab it up and I'd pick on it and knock around on it. He finally showed me G,C, and D chords. Then he showed me kinda' how to pick out "Rubber Dolly". Anyway, that's how I started in with the mandolin. I like to wore it out playin' "Rubber Dolly"

Mr. Frank brought a couple loads of pine seedlings over there and put them back in the shed. One day he asked me, "would you like to have that mandolin of Boss's"? I said, "Yeahhhhhh"! He said, "if you'll set them pines out over there in the barn, I'll give you that mandolin." I said, "will you"? Not knowing back then - work didn't mean nothing - everybody worked. When I got done he told me their was 7500 of them. I know I set out pines for a year - as many as I could. It was something else - those gullies were full of pines, and their's still some of them standing. They cut them a few years back. I was told they sold $50,000 worth of pines. So I set out all those pines to get that old mandolin - course it was just as good to me as a Gibson back then.

You mentioned your family all sang - did anyone else in your family play a musical instrument? My oldest brother was in the army - after he came home from the World War II he bought me this Gibson mandolin that I have now. The one that I play now - he bought that for me in 1947. He played guitar, but he didn't play much. Me and Harold were the only ones that took it serious. Harold played guitar and I played a little rythum guitar and of course the mandolin. I've actually got a Martin guitar.

How old would you say that Gibson mandolin of yours is? Got it the first week of 1947. It was brand new then. I got it at Hardeman's in Jackson. Their was a big music store back then in Jackson - Hardeman Music. Towater was the man at the store and that was the only new mandolin they had at the store. He wrapped it and put it up in the back room. He said this will be right here when you come back. I sent him a letter and just as. He sent me a money order for $149.00. That was a lot of money back then. $149.00 was a lot of money, but that's what it cost.

Can you think of some of the different places that you played back then? After we got a little older - early teens - Daddy thought we were playing just for dances at homes, but we were playing all over the country and even in some honky-tonks where we shouldn't have been. I wasn't old enough - they shouldn't have even let me in there. We played and I hung onto that mandolin just like it was gold, which it was to me. We played places like the VFW I guess a year to two years and every Saturday night, and we played at schools. We traveled down 104 Hwy. back when it was just a gravel road. We later started playing on the Hayloft Frolic back during that time. I don't recall the year. We played from the time the Hayloft Frolic started until it ceased - just about every Saturday night.

That's something I've always found interesting the "Hayloft Frolic" - what was that like? Their were a lot of good musicians on that. They held it in the Armory Building. People would dance. A lot of different bands entered it. It was actually a contest. They'd eliminate a band about every week. I just liked to play - I never dreamed we would win it. Their would be a lot of us different groups that would compete for the honor of playing on the radio. They'd have a competition and then the winner got to play on the radio that night. That was a real big thing to get to play on the radio back then. I was the comedian in our bunch at that time. Who would've ever thought that somebody with red-clay mud on their shoes would ever win anything.

Who were some of the people you played with or competed with? I played in a few little contests against Curt McPeake - course not on the banjo. I played with R.T. Lunsford - that was the man that taught Curt how to play the banjo. Me and him use to double date - he was a lot older than me. He was a World War II Veteran. He'd bring his banjo and I'd bring my mandolin and we'd sing and pick for the girls, and finally after I married - I married his neice. When I married I quit playing that stuff and going to all those places, and me and my wifes brother started playing Churches. We had kind of a Louvin Brothers style. Later on my wife and I started singing in Church together, but we didn't travel like before. We have two boys and the oldest one plays piano and organ and he's a minister. The youngest boy was some kind of saxaphone player. He played some with the Happy Goodman's.

In closing what would you say drew you to this music ? It's just about the only kind of music I ever heard. I like a little bit of all of it, except Hard Rock. I don't care for that. I love all kinds of Gospel music. I guess what really drew me to the oldtime music was Snoops Vestal and Boss Wadley and that mandolin of his. I guess if it hadn't been for those two I would never have played. The thing I'm most proud of is that this music drew me to Church. That'salso where I met my wife, and we've been married now for 61 1/2 years.