Country Connections by James and Ellen Perry
It was late October, the best I remember 1957 or 1958. Our neighbor’s wife, who was also my father’s sister, invited our family to join her family and others for our first Halloween party.
By James and Ellen Perry
As an acorn sprouts and grows into a sapling, then matures into a large oak tree, so did the growth of Paul Roark’s family.
This story begins in the coal mining town of Coxton, Kentucky, which is in Harlan County. Paul was born into a family that had mined coal for generations, as did most boys and men in the region. Paul’s father, after seeing an accident where a miner was killed, decided to move his family north where jobs were more plentiful and safer.
In 1933, the northeast corner of Union County, Tennessee, saw a new business open in Luttrell. A short fifteen years later, after surviving the Great Depression, and World War II with most of the young men serving in the armed forces, the property that consisted of a general merchandise store and a small brick home was sold to Bethel Reed Stowers and he moved his family there.
Country Connections By James and Ellen Perry
Carl Smith’s talent and good looks took his career in country music into a four-year, 190-episode TV show called “Carl Smith’s Country Music Hall” for Canadian Television, and was also syndicated in the USA. The show ran from 1964 until 1969.
Carl’s television show was appreciated by men and women of all ages. Ladies especially liked Carl because he was tall and handsome with wavy black hair and blue eyes. Carl was very courteous and had easy going mannerisms and a smooth voice. Carl had it all, as Mrs. Ruth White said.
Country Connections
by James and Ellen Perry
As March 15, 1923, came, the Doc and Ina Smith family had no notion of what was to transpire in a short 23 years, and how their family would be impacted by the birth this day of their only son after bearing and raising five girls. The name given to this baby boy born on this day, just a short walk north of Maynardville, Tennessee, was Carl Milton Smith.
Country Connections by James and Ellen Perry
I first met Chubby Beeler during my freshman year 1959/1960 at Horace Maynard High School in Maynardville, Tennessee, the county seat of Union County. Chubby was a phenomenon at school as he was a very good guitar picker and had an easygoing personality, as we called it back then. He hasn’t changed over the years even after all his success as a guitar picker displaying his great talent from Union County to the Grand Ole Opry and many places in between.
From small acorns, large oak trees grow, and so did a Union County gospel group. This group started jamming about 1978, so said one of the founding members to me. They included Jerry Cole, Sr., Bill Turner, Neal Walker, and Dannie Peters.
Then they became known as Union Grass, a bluegrass and bluegrass gospel band. Union Grass started entertaining at bluegrass festivals, local churches and pie suppers. They always closed with a bluegrass gospel song or a gospel song by Hank Williams.
It was 1954. My brothers and I were sitting on the front porch of our home with our Dad, Jesse Perry, when a 1950 Dodge pickup came into the yard. It was Lath Wyrick.
He got out and walked up to the porch. Daddy said, “Get a chair and set a spell, Lath.”
“I believe I will, Jess,” Lath said.