“Master of the Autoharp, Singer/Songwriter/Storyteller”

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The soft murmur of voices began before dawn each morning as the workers came to the shed to pick up their various tools for the day's work. I was a light sleeper then as now and always woke with the clanking of tools and occasional laughter. The beginning of another day of dawn to dusk call and answer singing is thus embedded in my memory.

True, the call and answer singing was only a means of whiling away the long, hot hours while doing the various work on the farm for the workers, but to me as a ten year old, it was much, much more.

The churches had lots of call and answer singing, too, and a Sunday morning drive through country lanes could always be counted on to offer up various gospel songs, most of which had a call and answer format floating out the open windows.

Even the railroads had gangs of men called "Gandy Dancers," who sang call and answer songs as they 'lined track' with their huge sledge hammers. The perfect synchronization of their swings with the heavy sledges as they called back answer lines to the call line was mesmerizing. I'd sit on the railroad bank to watch and sing, and swing my imaginary sledge hammer, as they slowly worked their way down the track. Now, in my kids' shows, I explain to them as well as get them singing such songs. To this day, any song that has a call and answer format on the radio, tape or CD is enough to evoke memories of those days 50 years ago in the tidewater region of Virginia.

In my children's programs, I try to not only play and sing on my instruments, but to give the kids a sense of call and answer singing. I find it to be lots of fun for them once the grasp the concept. Of course, single and double time hand clapping while calling and answering is even more fun, and so I introduce these elements into the program.

The storytelling aspect of my program comes naturally out of the tradition where I was raised in which the finest art was to 'stretch the truth as far as possible without breaking it, but always in good fun.'

All the awards I've won for my autoharp playing in all honesty don't help much with kids. I just try to avoid the 'thousand notes a minute' pitfalls and instead present lots of old time fiddle tunes done simply, with just a bit of historical info thrown in to give the kids some perspective of these old tunes being part of the history of how we as a nation got to be here now.

-----Bryan Bowers