Sunday, April 23, 2006

Hambone

Do you know what the Hambone is? It is a form of music making. Your body is the musical instrument and you rapidly slap at various parts of your body with your opened hands in a rhythm beat.

It is a probably considered a form a of jazz or blues. It is thought of little black shoe shiners playing hambone music back in the early 40s.

BUT!!! It is not limited to poor blacks that cannot afford a musical instrument. Poor white people that cannot afford a musical instrument play the hambone too.

Yesterday in Dahlonega we were tempted to go to the music hall to see a person we have known since he was a child to play with a group called the Gold Rush. We were reluctant because admission was $15 per person, and just walking around the area there were all kinds of people playing free. So, we decided, what the heck, shelled out thirty bucks and went in.

And glad we did.

The music hall is an old ex-church building. There were four different musical groups – actually three groups and one solo performer. The music was very good. One of the group’s main man did the hambone.

That reminded me in 1960 when we went to Daytona right after graduation from high school.

All of us were partying heavy. A homeless person, about our age, materialized. He was right in the middle of all our action, and drinking our beer and eating our to-go food. He was witty and quiet a story teller of his adventures. He also was an excellent hambone player.

We called him Charley Hambone. He was from Chattanooga.

Monty was very impressed with Charley Hambone’s ability to play Hambone and I forgot the details, but Charley ended up living in Marietta for a week or so to teach Monty how to do the Hambone. Then, he just sort of faded away.

In Daytona, that year, our bunch made Huntley and Brinkley News on NBC News.

I might tell about that someday, after I go over the fine print of the law about the Statue of Limitations.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you ever see the hambone players on HeeHaw? Thats where i first heard of it...

kenju said...

My dad used to do that when I was little and it made me laugh.

The statute of limitations is 7 years, I think, for most things - so fess up!!

Eddie said...

Steve,
No, I only saw Hee-Haw a couple of times.
Judy,
Welcome back to this Magic Kingdom. So the Statue of Limitations has expired I need to figure out how to make our little adventure sound more political correct than it really was, and be truthful at the same time.

Eddie said...

This is a test.
Not a hard test, or multi-choice.
I am testing the system. As I type this under the main body of my spill it says 2 comments, where there are plainly 3 comments.
So, when this is enters the system will it say 3 or 4, or still say 2?
You know the answer already, as you read this. But I don't, as I type it, does that make sense?

Carolyn said...

You're right. Hambone is a form of Jazz/Blues. Like Steve, I remember it done on Hee-Haw too, the old "eef-iiif", lol!

Another statute of limitations? You bad boy!

Yes, my blog won't let me publish anything new today, and says less comments than what I have on my Saturday post too.

Eddie said...

So here we are just kind of floating around in cyberspace with no gravity, no nothing, and we can't even post an entry to fuss and moan.

Anonymous said...

Blogger has been doing stuff all day i think....