Sizemore, James E. and his "Stony Creek" Band. Negative

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Prof. Sizemore plays dobro .at a Wake Forest bluegrass festival.

Sizerrwre to Be Honored

Plucking Professor By Charles Mathis

Journal Corre-nd9nl

will be guest of honor at the Civitan Fiddlers' Convention here Saturday night probably could have been as well known in bluegrass circles as Doc Watson or Conway Twitty. But what could have been

was forfeited. at least for a time, when he was a young guitar picker in eastern Tennessee about 30 years ago. He turned down flat an in­

vitation to join a professional country music band. Then 21 and just out of the

Navy. he decided his best op­ portunity to make a good living for himself and a name to be remembered was not in music but in law.

.. I enjoyed arguing and I told myself that lawyers do a lot of arguing. so law ought to be my field," Or. Sizemore said. ''I enjoyed music, too. but,

you know, there is just one musician in a thousand that ever makes it to the top; even good musicians don't always, make it, but good lawyers oo."

GRANITE QUARRY Prof. James E. Sizemore, who

Sizemore earned degrees from East Tennessee, Wake Forest and New York univer­ sities, practiced law in Ruther­ fordton for a year and then came to Wake Forest to teach in the law school in 1953. Three years later. when

Wake Forest moved its cam­ pus from Wake County to Winston-Salem. he suddenly got the urge to do some guitar picking again.

By and by, .he went over to the Old-Time Fiddlers' Convention.

.. I'd never been to a fiddlers' convention before;" he says. ''I was just amazed. There in Union Grove was country music by the acre, and it seem· ed like every 16-year-old freckled-faced kid could play the guitar better than I could. So I said, 'There must be something I can play that everybody and his brother can' can't.' "

""t n{\.\0 ,\1\ w .,,, See Fiddling, Page 22

_.- ; l Fiddling Professor Will Be Honored

Continued From Page 15 13 children," he sa~s, "and all ' · . . · of them played an instrument. In 1968, Sizemore was m- When I was very small, we

troduced to an instrument that used to get into his T-Model few musicians have mastered, Ford on Sunday and to go to my but. one that completely grandmother's house. in fascinated him: . Greeneville, Tenn., 30 miles The dobro, a fancy-sounding away. Nearly all of his

guitar with a cone. brothers and sisters would "Boy, that sure makes pret- come, too, and bring their in-

ty music," he says. . struments. In not much more th~ six "They played guitars and

months of dobro study, entire~y banjos and fiddles and basses. self-taught, he developed his With 13 children, you could techniques enough to join a have an orchestra. That's how bluegrass band. . · I got interested. It was really When Union Grove time roll- what you called 'country'

ed around again, he was ready music." to compete. . In 1972, and again in 1973, he

came away with the world championship in dobro playing. On Saturday night, in the

Granite Quarry Elementary School auditorium, Sizemore will be cited for the con­ tributions he has made to bluegrass music and for the attention he has helped to bring to the dobro as a bluegrass lead instrument. Accompanying him will be

his band, The High Countrymen, including Roger Hester on the five-string ban­ jo; Lee Metcalf, bass; ~ary Vernon, mandolin; John Kinzer, fiddle; and Earl Severt, guitar. All are from Winston-Salem, except Kinzer, who is from Pinnacle.

A native of Erwin, -enn., Sizemore was introduced to the guitar by his father when in the fourth grade. By the time he was in the seventh, he·was already a member of a cou~t~y music band called The Prairie Cowboys and performing regularly over WJHL in Nashville, Tenn. "My father was the oldest of

WFU Prof Recalls Days p

With Band A TWO - PART article by

Dr. James Sizemore, professor of law at Wake Forest University, appears in the March and April issues of P i c k i n ' , a magazine of bluegrass and old time country music. Sizemore is an award­

winning dobro guitar player and is a member and manager of the Stony Creek Boys, bluegrass band. In the article, "Early County and Bluegrass Music in East Tennessee," he writes about musicians during 1936-46, particularly those who played regularly on a program called "A Barrel of Fun," broadcast live each week by an Elizabethton, Tenn., radio station. Sizemore and a classmate

in Irwin, Tenn., b e g a n playing together in the fifth grade when they organized a band called Speedy Clark and the Prairie Cowboys. The band later had a regular half-hour radio show and performed within a 60- mile radius of Erwin. In 1942 Sizemore and. Clark organ­ ized separate bands which usually appeared together. With east T e n n e s s e e ,

Sizemore includes southeast Kentucky, s o u t h w e s t Virginia and western North Carolina, an area which has developed an unusual num­ ber of well-known country and bluegrass musicians.

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Lawyer. Teacher To Be Speakers During Seminar Fred Crumpler, a lawyer,

and James Sizemore, a Wake Forest University law school professor, will speak on ex­ amination and cross examina­ tion of the expert medical witness. at 8 p.m. Monday in the Reynolds Memorial Hospital dining room. This is the first in a series of

seminars on mental health and related topics planned under the sponsorship of Mandala

.. center. Inc. The seminars are free and

open to professionals working in mental health and related fields and to students. Persons interested in attending should call Hettie Timm at Mandala Center, Inc. for further infor­ mation.

~ Mandala Center is a private psychiatric clime and hospital located at 741 Highland Avenue.