The Goins Brothers TV show

Channel 57 Hazard Kentucky....

at the time it was NBC's worlds smallest affiliate.
After working with Bill Monroe in 1971 I got to know Melvin and Ray Goins.
They were true "Old School Entertainers"

This week's show Tony Testerman who I had worked with for years with was in the area and he played bass which allowed me to play mandolin....Tommy Boyd was on the Dobro, Ray Goins the banjo, Doug Hutchens on the Mandolin and Melvin Goins the guitar.

Sometime in the fall of 1978 after I moved to Knott County Kentucky, Melvin called and asked if I could help them with their TV shows over on WKYH TV in Hazard, Kentucky. Their regular bass player lived up in Ohio and it wasn't monetarily worth it for him to drive down just for the TV shows. They taped two shows every other Tuesday afternoon and the shows were played back on Friday nights.

Ray Goins on banjo, Doug Hutchens on Mandolin

Glen Duncan Fiddle, Doug Hutchens Bass

For the next several years,I would find some excuse to leave work every other Tuesday afternoon and run to town for "something". We would tape two shows and then I would head back to work to be sure to be back about quitting time. It only took an hour to do two 30 minute shows.
No stopping once we started the theme. Melvin did his commercials live. These guys were a pleasure to work with. They had been in the business since before it was a business and they knew how to make things happen.

Curly Lambert mandolin, Doug Hutchens bass, Buddy Griffith banjo

I usually played bass, but over the period of 10 years that I lived in Eastern Kentucky I played bass, banjo, guitar and mandolin....It just depended on who was with Melvin that week.

Glen Duncan Fiddle, Doug Hutchens bass, Tommy Boyd banjo, Melvin Goins Guitar

Melvin Goins shares a "funny" and Doug Hutchens chuckles

It was usually Melvin and Ray accompanied by various entertainers. Sometimes Kentucky Slim, Curly Lambert, Buddy Griffith, Glen Duncan, Dan Jones, Tommy Boyd or Art Stamper.....

Doug Hutchens mandolin, Ray Goins Banjo

We would drive up this treacherous mountain lane called Gorman Ridge WAY UP above Hazard Kentucky...It was literally a dangerous place to go if the weather was wet or especially if there was any ice. I remember one time we had to walk the last segment of the lane to the TV station and on the way down Curly Lambert slipped and fell with his mandolin case going one way and he going the other. Luckily he wasn't hurt just a bruise or two and his feelings hurt from us laughing so hard...it wasn't funny...... until we found that he wasn't hurt, but it was seeing him sliding down the roadway in the snow, we couldn't help laughing.


Tommy Boyd who was playing with Larry Sparks at the time on the dobro,,,Tony Testerman hidden on bass and Doug Hutchens on Mandolin

I will have to say again my admiration of the "First Generation of Blue Grass Entertainers". Melvin and Ray treated me as an equal...They had been at it for years, here I was a total new comer yet, they treated me as if I had played with them for decades.....Joe Stuart and Kenny Baker treated me the same way during the time that I worked with Bill Monroe.... I don't know if I would have welcomed new faces as they did.
I also worked many schools with Melvin and Ray....They probably introduced more school kids to Blue Grass Music than any other group, Eastern Kentucky, Southwest Virginia and Southern West Virginia..The Goins Brothers worked many a school and I've seen countless individuals that have told me that thier introduction to Blue Grass Music was the school shows that Melvin and Ray did. During the time I worked with them, once we worked 5 elementary and high schools in one day.....More on that later.....

Glen Duncan fiddle, Doug Hutchens bass, Tommy Boyd banjo, Melvin Goins guitar

Feb 3, 1950---July 7, 1958 - February 3, 1959 Lillian Lee Amos, James Aubrey Hutchens, Edd Mayfield, Buddy Holly

62 years ago, my mom, Lillian Lee Amos, married my dad, James Aubrey Hutchens.........

53 years ago today, Buddy Holly died in a plane crash en route to Moorhead, Minnesota, for a show.
This was only 7 months, and 27 days after the passing of Edd Mayfield, a fellow Texas entertainer from Dimmitt, Texas, who Holly probably listened to on the radio.

The world remains small and life fragile, even after all these years.

courtesy: Herb Mayfield

Herman Smiths's Festival and Crossing the Mississippi at Cairo, Illinois

After returning from Ponderosa Park on July 11th, Kenny Baker took me over to the airport so I could fly home for a few days. A festival up in New England that we were supposed to work on the 16th, 17th, and 18th had been cancelled.

Bill and the Blue Grass Boys worked the Opry Friday and Saturday nights. I remember, as we rode to the airport, seeing a construction site and Kenny saying that they were going to build some sort of amusement park there. (That was the construction of Opryland; it opened in 1972 and the Opry was moved there in March 16th, 1974.)

I flew back to Nashville on the 21st. Kenny met me at the airport. On July 22nd we were getting ready to go to Herman Smith's First Blue Grass Festival….in Knob Noster Missouri.

Before we left, there were some festivities being held near the Hall of Fame, off 16th Avenue, beginning about noon, and Bill had been asked to perform. We went down and parked the bus and it seemed no one was in charge or really knew what was happening. Finally it was clear that the program wasn’t going to start anywhere close to being on time and we left and headed for Missouri.
I remember Joe Stuart and Kenny Baker talking about the route we were going to take ….I remember something about a ferry. I didn’t think much about it as that was the usual conversation between the two of them as we left each week.
We left about 2 p.m. that day, then later that day we were on the ferry near Cairo, Illinois. We all thought they were kidding until the highway stopped at the waters edge.

You could tell Bill was a little nervous about putting the bus on the ferry, but...

We made it.

January 26, 2012

In the words of a great friend Herb Mayfield: My Gosh, My Golly.

In just a few minutes, at a little after 8:AM this morning I will become 60 years old.



Never thought of myself saying that....

I call my students, my experts, they see the world in a way that those of us have been around for a while have forgotten. I rely on their wisdom on a regular basis...



A few weeks ago somehow the subject of age came up in a class discussion. One little girl asked "Mr. Hutchens how old are you?" and I said I'm 59...to which she immediately replied."You know what my grandpa said about 59". To which I said no, what?

She replied "The only reason to be 59 is to give you a year to be prepared to become 60?.



My experts are correct again, it has made it easier to say 60.



I guess I feel 60, as I've never been it before, but I know that I've had a great run, met so many wonderful individuals all over the country and across the globe taking a little of each of our experiences that we have shared and made it in my own way mine.

Sonny Osborne's answering machine

Never take the words you say or the words you hear for granted........

In the late 80's I was living the "Life of Riley"....working for The Gibson Guitar Company that appreciated what I did {at least I thought so}and being allowed to do some things for people who had deserved them for a long time, but never been given credit...

I called Sonny Osborne's number one day and of course got his answering machine....and at the end...Sonny in his warm baritone voice....said "be sure to be careful out on those highways, look out for the other fellow and by all means wear your seat belt".
I thought this was pretty neat....soon I got a new answering machine at home and it had a 25 second space for my message that needed to be filled....otherwise I'd get in and get the message......something like " 532 give me a call when you come in".... with me not knowing who in the heck called...I decided that I needed to completely fill the 25 seconds welcome time so folks who called couldn't start leaving their message too soon.....

So from that point on and until this day my answering machine message says "Hi friends, This is
Doug, I hope things are well in your world today. I'm not by the phone right now, but if you'd like to leave your name, your number and a message and I'll be more than happy to get back with you when I come in.....In the mean time, be sure to be careful out on those highways, look out for the other fellow and by all means wear those seat belts."........

Well, here is the rest of the story.....In the late 80's I did a syndicated radio program called Blue Grass Today and from time to time I would call the record company's for various reasons....I had called Turquoise Records in Whitesburg, Ky for something one day and later Pat Martin its owner returned my call.....With me not being at home she got my answering machine and thinking the message was cute she redialed the number and let her daughter Crystal listen to it.......They laughed and went on about their business....

Later in the day....They were going to take a lawnmower over to Norton Va (I think they were driving a Blazer, or some sort of vehicle where the lawnmower was inside with them) to have some work done on it and when they got in the vehicle Crystal said to Pat....Mom, You know what Doug said "Be sure to wear your seat belt....." So she put it on, they laughed and went on to Norton, got the mower fixed and headed back home.....Again Crystal reminded Mom what Doug had said......
Well for those who do not know: there is a mountain where Virginia and Ky meet on Highway 23 just above Jenkins Ky.....At this point in time it was a winding two lane road.....and on the way back and going down grade toward Jenkins Pat's right front wheel went off the pavement and caused the vehicle flip and to plummet over the guard rail and down the mountain side......

Some of the first rescue workers at the scene were Pat's neighbors....Knowing that Pat....excuse my language but "drove like a bat out of hell sometimes and never wore a seat belt"...thought that things were not going to be good.....The vehicle flipped several times and finally caught on a small tree....Pat and Crystal were pulled from the wreckage.......

They were banged up and bruised...but both were OK.....

Sonny Osborne's message that I took and used possibly and probably saved the lives of these two great ladies.....or at least caused their injuries to be much less severe.

I don't think I have even told Sonny about this.....

The Long and the Short of this.....say what you mean, mean what you say and love the people you say it too......

My Association with The Gibson Guitar Company

In 1984 I was in Nashville doing some things for Bill Monroe's birthday and I asked around to find where the Gibson was located. I knew they had moved to Nashville but I'd never had any contact with the company. I'd know some of the workers at Kalamazoo, Jim Durlu and J.P.Moats, but I'd never made any contact with anyone in Nashville.

I went down on Massman Drive and went into the receptionist area and asked if they did factory tours to which I found that they didn't. I spoke to the nice receptionist and told her of my interest in the banjo and she said "Wait a minute" and got on the phone. Shortly a pleasant sandy headed gentleman came out and they spoke for a second. He was Nick Kimmons, he came over to me and said that " said you are interested in banjos" and continued while they didn't have a tour as such, he could give me a 10 or 15 minute quick look inside.

We went into the plant and I was immediately amazed. Work stations were laid out around the plant, neck shaping, sanding, binding......... Then I looked up at a long serpentine moving line about 14 or 15 feet in the air that traveled thru out the plant. It reminded me of the moving rack that some Dry Cleaners have to call up your order, except it was a continuously moving with guitar necks and bodies....every now and then you'd see a banjo neck, a rim or a resonator on the line. The parts once they were "prepped" were put on the line which went thru the "paint booth" where the stain and finish were applied. After each application they were put back on the line in order to dry before the next coat of finish.

We went to the back of the building where the wood came into the plant then to the huge CNC carving machines creating Les Paul bodies.

I asked about the banjo department and he kind of chuckled as we walked, soon we got to this possibly 8 or 10 foot cubicle with a rack of tubes where finished banjo necks awaited assembly and a shelving unit that had some pot assemblies and resonators on it...this along with his work bench was pretty much the banjo department.

He explained that the wooden parts went thru the same neck shaping stations where the guitar necks were shaped, the rims and resonators were prepared (sanded and bound) by the same people that did the work on all the other instruments then they were put on the "line" for stain and finish.
I was amazed.
As we sat and talked he said he had been assembling banjos for a few years now and asked me since I knew something about banjos, "Were these nuts put on right?. He pulled a RB 250 pot assembly off the shelf and handed it to me. He said that some there at the factory said they went one way and others said they went the other way. They were all upside down from the way the Pre War Gibson's were done. Nick explained that they seemed to grab the threads faster the way he was doing them but if they were wrong he'd change them.

That 10 or 15 minute tour turned into 2 hours, talking about different aspect of banjo building and assembly.

I asked him about what they did when they had 2nd parts. I had for some time been buying Martin 2nd guitar parts thru the 1833 shop at Martin and 2nd banjo parts from Stewart MacDonald in Athens Ohio. I'd even purchased some 2nd Gibson parts from Dave Kennedy who would get them from the factory in Kalamazoo. He said that any thing with much of a flaw was scrapped and sent to the dumpster. I kidded him "now just where is this dumpster"...to which he said "As you go back out the door its to your left at the end of the building"...and from time to time you would see people going thru the dumpster. As I left, I thought what the heck and walked down to the dumpster....most of it was boxes but I could see some bandsawn parts of electric guitars...fully finished mind you but cut to where they were unusable. I didn't go diving, but I did manage to find the scroll from a F5 Mandolin and a couple of Earl Scruggs banjo peg heads that had been cut off....
I was so glad that I had went by and met Nick, little did either of us know that a few years later we would work together.

Recently I asked Nick about how he became the lead man in the banjo department.  

I had been working in the machining dept for about 2 years,starting employment in Oct.1978,  

A job posting came up for final assembly,I told my supervisor I wanted to put in for that position.  He told me the next step after that would be out the door.  I wanted to try anyway. Little did he know after 38 years I still work for them engraving.

The harder and longer the guitars took to assembled the better I  liked it.  I started working for the R & D department with Bruce Bowling and Jim Huchinson assembling;  L5's ,Super 400 , , Johnny Smith and the other carved top guitars,  I also started assembling Charlie Derrington's production mandolins. 

Kalamazoo was all gone except the banjos and orders started piling up in the R and D dept and no one was interested in them.  At about that time the Union tried to get in the plant and the company changed there job placement program, so when the banjos were offered as a position, they offered it to the senior person in final assembly which was Mary St.John. She wanted it and they flew Roger Siminoff in to train her for 1 week.  She lasted about 2 to 3 weeks and kept wanting me to help her with repairs and so on and I finally ask her why she didn't let somebody who wanted that job to have it. She ask who and I replied myself, little did I know that a tube and plate with a black rim ,3 piece neck would start my adventure with those banjos.  

I started with one model and in Oct.2002 and had 22 models going.when I left to start my own business ...  I started engraving in 1993 and continue today(12/2015) I've been engraving for them now for 23 years.  

Nick Kimmons and Earl Scruggs with an early Earl Scruggs Model Gibson Banjo...

My association with Gibson Guitar Part 2

The 1986 at the first International Bluegrass Music Trade Show and Fan Fest was held outside in English Park in Owensboro Kentucky.





I had started a radio program that I hoped to syndicate to stations across the country. Tony Testerman helped me and we participated in the Trade Show. Just up the tent from where we were set up, Gibson had a display of instruments. It was the typical line of acoustic guitars, F5 mandolins and banjos of the day with the exception of a prototype "Granada" which after looking at it from afar I was disgusted with it...


Charlie Deerington was in charge  mandolin building at Gibson at the time and were making reasonable mandolins and a run of the mill RB 250 and two years earlier issued a Earl Scruggs Model.


Charlie asked what I thought of the "Granada" and I wouldn't even pick it up. Its looks were, to the trained eye, nothing like a Granada of the 1930's which this was supposed to be a recreation of. Charlie just thought I was a snob I guess until he asked Pete Kuykendall "Who does this guy think he is." Pete told him that I had been studying and working on pre-war instruments for several years.


Fast forward a few months.... (Remainder Under Construction)