Mr. Ellis Truett

I had been contemplating and mulling over and over in my mind - who in the world to highlight this month as our "Picker of the Month", and then it hit me. My goodness, why haven't I thought of this sooner? Who better deserves the honor more than a member who has for years promoted oldtime music in our area, organized a major festival for years, collected antiquities of oldtime music, designed and built countless dulcimers, and pickin' sticks, taught multitudes of novice musicians how to play the dulcimer and even a few how to build one, has been the subject of articles published in major publications like Southern Living, and even had videos produced and distributed by a major university, and to top it all off - he's celebrating his 90th birthday this month and still going strong. Yea, you know who I'm talking about - Mr. Ellis Truett, although he would be the first to tell you - "don't call me Mr., just call me Ellis." My dear old friend - we salute you and honor you as our most outstanding "Picker of the Month."

1. How did you first become interested in Oldtime Music?

I'm a most fortunate man. Both sides of my family were musicians. I had a great great grandfather who had a family string band in the Glendale Community before the Civil War. His two sons played button accordians and one of the girls played the fiddle and another of the girls played a Martin guitar - an old OO Martin Guitar. Allen Kincade Jones was his name. Part of his home is still standing down in the Glendale community. I've been through it several times. It's located in Chester County not very far from Henderson. My mother's family was named Benson and they were musicians also. Levin Benson Sr. was in the colony of Deleware before the Revolutionary War. His son, Levin Benson Jr. is buried down there near Reagan, and my grandaddy Benson could play anything - fiddle, anything. My mother picked the guitar and sang. You'd of forgotten Loretta Lynn if you'd heard my mother sing.

2. When did you first start playing?

I grew up listening to my Grandaddy Truett singing old songs like "Hawk Shot the Buzzard", etc. My daddy's mother's family had a man named Singin' Russell. I've got his old 1835 Army Songbook. He started the annual singing at Mt. Pleasant up around Sand Ridge. I grew up also listening to the Vestal Family. Tom Vestal had an old Gibson lute, and Robert Vestal, his brother played fiddle. Annie Vestal played a mandolin. I've been to a lot of Ice Cream Suppers and stuff like that when I was a small kid back in the 30's. Their's been string music in my family back way back before the Civil War. I got started playing horns. I played the trumpet - started when I was 12. When I was 14 I was playing first chair trumpet in 3 bands - The 4-H Club Band, The Union University Band, and The American Legion Band.

3. When did you first start playing a string instrument?

Well, I've got small hands and I couldn't chord a guitar, but I saw one time in the paper, back in the 1970's where in Mt. View Ar. they were gonna' have a Dulcimer Festival, and I went over there, carried my first wife (she died in 1984), and I met Jean Simmons, and a bunch of other oldtime musicians over there.

4. I know you and Marion played a lot of places together. She was a very special lady. Where were some of the places that you played music?

Unfortunately, Marion and I were only married about 3 1/2 years before she died. We played at Reelfoot Lake at the Festival there. Played with Wendell Cruz and Lucille Parker and Boss Wadley, Marion and myself, but mostly just local places. We played at the Carnigie in Jackson, and played at the Folk Center at Mt. View. Marion and Boss and I couldn't go to all the places we were invited. We played a lot of church groups - played a lot of old songs like Ragtime Annie and stuff like that.

5. We've talked about playing music, but I know besides playing the music, you also built a lot of instruments. How did you get started in that?

Well, I went over to Mt. View, AR, and I went to a workshop - the first one they ever had over there and got started building the dulcimer from there.

6. Do you have any hobbies outside of music?

Well, I like to build things. I can build anything out of wood from a dulcimer to a house. One of my biggest disappointments - I had a lot and all the materials and all over in Mt. View AR. and was gonna' construct a building, and suddenly I got too old to try to do it. I've still got 17 stacks of old lumber there at my house, and already made arrangements to carry it over there.

7. You built an old replica one-room schoolhouse down there behind your home. Tell us how that came about?

Well, in 1892 my granddaddy James Macintosh Truett was gonna be elected squire. He said, "I want you to know I ain't a runnin'". They elected him anyway, and they re-elected him 4 years later, and he wouldn't take it after that, but they built a one-room school on his property - called it The Truett School. The first building later burned. One year they didn't have enough students to have school, and 8 men and 4 women lived in it for that year. I built a replica of it - started in 1991.

8. A lot of your materials for the replica came from the old school didn't it?

Yea, a good bit of the weatherboard, and some of the wood I put on the walls. The slate/blackboard in there came from the old Tiptonville High School when they tore that down. I've got a lot of old furniture in there. I've got an old organ in there. I can't find anybody to play it.

9. Why would you say you chose to play this kind of music?

Well, it's what I grew up with. I tried to play a guitar, but my fingers were to small to chord it. My Daddy bought a fiddle out of a pawn shop in Jackson for $10 one time and nobody ever showed me a thing in the world about it. Only thing I ever learned to do was make it go like a fire engine, and he took it back and they gave him $8 for it back, That was my first experience with a string instrument. I later played one string melodies on tenor guitar, tenor banjo, and mandolin, played harmonicas and dulcimers, played Tennessee Music Boxes. Did you know those had their origin right here in our area. The area around Wayne, Lewis, and Lawrence County was where they originated - changed the whole history of the dulcimer. I have 5 old ones myself, and I've made 4 or 5.

10. I want to wrap it up here and I have one more question - what do you like best about this kind of music - our oldtime music?

Well, to me it's the only kind of music. This stuff we got now - most all this stuff is just noise, but most all those old songs had a moral to them. It was about something that questioned morality. It had a theme. Most of this stuff now is just racket - gonna' produce an awful lot of deaf old people.

I truly appreciate Mr. Ellis, not only for his wonderful story, but his steadfast devotion to the preservation of our oldtime music, and more importantly the friendship we've had over the years - I truly hold dear. He has been my musical father for almost 30 years and I will always treasure that.