((PKG)) FOLK MUSIC MAN
((Banner: Sounds of the Ozarks))
((Reporter/Camera: Gabrielle Weiss))
((Map: Ava, Missouri))
((NATS))
((Alvie Dooms, Retired Truck Driver, Musician))
When I was a kid growing up, we had no money. So, whatever we had, we made. If it was music instruments, toys or whatever you had, you made it. That’s why I repair instruments, I guess. I can, I can about fix anything that needs to be, that’s fixable, you know, and most anything are, you know, if you can set your head to it.
((NATS))
((Alvie Dooms, Retired Truck Driver, Musician))
My name’s Alvie Dooms. In a few days, I’ll be 89 years old and this is my wife over here on the end, Dovie Dooms, very fine lady.
((Dovie Dooms, Wife of Alvie Dooms))
That’s enough.
((Alvie Dooms, Retired Truck Driver, Musician))
Takes good care of me. No joke, she’s a nice person and I’m doing pretty good for my age, I think so. I play rhythm guitar mainly but I can play about any kind of an instrument to a certain extent and I’ve repaired them, collected them for the last forty, fifty years. Well, I own several instruments. Now it would be approximately 250 guitars, fiddles and banjos, you know. And up until a couple years ago, I never even considered selling one, you know. I just wanted to keep them all but I found out that ain’t going to work. Got more instruments than I’ve got time, so I’m going to have to downsize.
((NATS))
((Alvie Dooms, Retired Truck Driver, Musician))
Well, you can come back and see all the plunder. This is a little more upgrade Roth, you see. This one is in the teens I’d say, older than me, and that’s old. I’m a collector. I need to be a seller. That’s what I’m needing to do now. Once in a while, I’ll sell off one or two, you know, and we can live pretty high on the hog then for a few days. Then we have to go back to bread and water again. Do you want to go see them in the basement now? Okay. Watch an old man go down the stairs.
((NATS))
((Alvie Dooms, Retired Truck Driver, Musician))
I’ll spend six, eight hours a day down here some days. A guy gave it to me and he brought it in in a trash bag, you know. It was just all pieces, just trash, actually, but I spent, gosh, I bet I got a hundred hours in that thing. Just you know, turned out pretty good. We can go out to the garage.
((NATS))
((Alvie Dooms, Retired Truck Driver, Musician))
There’s ten fiddles, at least ten fiddles in each box and there’s one, two, three, four, five boxes and there’s one, two, three, four fiddles on top. What am I going to do with them? Well, that’s what my kids ask me every day or two, you know? I’m not going to be here forever, I know that.
((NATS))
((Alvie Dooms, Retired Truck Driver, Musician))
Hey, you going to McClurg tonight? Oh, okay. Okay then. See you in a little bit. Okey-dokey. Bye.
((NATS))
((Alvie Dooms, Retired Truck Driver, Musician))
This is Monday. We’re going to have a jam session. It’s old-time music. About the only place left that you’ll hear it is in Southwest Missouri and Northwest Arkansas. You go north a hundred miles and it’s different. Go south a hundred miles and it’s different. East or west and it’s a little different music. You just don’t hear this anymore. And there’ll be, my wife, cooking for a potluck and.....
((Dovie Dooms, Wife of Alvie Dooms))
We usually have for potluck, fried chicken, two, three different kinds of meat and about ten desserts.
((Alvie Dooms, Retired Truck Driver, Musician))
You might hear better music someplace, but you won’t find any better eating than you’ll find at McClurg.
((NATS))
((Dovie Dooms, Wife of Alvie Dooms))
Alvie, we’re ready for you to carry it out.
((Alvie Dooms, Retired Truck Driver, Musician))
May sample a little before we get there. Different world, this part of the Ozarks, and it’s different music because they’re different people. We’re going down 76 Highway. From my house to McClurg, it’s fifty-two, three miles roundtrip. We’re pretty much right in the heart of the Ozarks now.
((NATS))
((Alvie Dooms, Retired Truck Driver, Musician))
Dovie is jumping the gun on the eating. Oh yeah, just seeing if you added sugar, salt. I want to get some coffee.
((NATS))
We’re new people.
How are you?
Not quite.
((Woman))
I’ve been coming about twenty-five years. My son plays fiddle. So, that’s the main reason we started coming.
((Man))
I like everything about coming here. Best thing to do on Monday night.
((NATS))
((Alvie Dooms, Retired Truck Driver, Musician))
It’s noisy. They’ll calm down a little when they start eating or playing.
((David Scrivner, Fiddle Player))
I brought that Bergonzi fiddle tonight.
((Alvie Dooms, Retired Truck Driver, Musician))
Oh. Where’d you get it?
((David Scrivner, Fiddle Player))
He loaned it to me for like ten or fifteen years to make me get used to it and then he let me pay for it.
((NATS))
Musicians, fill your plates.
((Jeremy Myers, Banjo Maker))
You don’t find this blend of traditional music and traditional, you know, people, and their food, yeah. We’ve had, we’ve had groundhog one time you know, actually more than one time. So, yeah, it’s very traditional here.
((NATS))
((David Scrivner, Fiddle Player))
How’s the food?
((Alvie Dooms, Retired Truck Driver, Musician))
What you think? Good. Can’t you tell the way I’m eating it’s good?
((NATS))
((David Scrivner, Fiddle Player))
I’m going to do ‘Going Across the Sea’.
((NATS))
((Kaitlyn McConnell, Founder, OzarksAlive.com))
So, people generally look for something that’s authentic and what they feel is real. McClurg is both of those things. There’s just no way that you can find anything like this anywhere else.
((NATS))
((Kaitlyn McConnell, Founder, OzarksAlive.com))
You know, there are a lot of places that strive to keep history and tradition alive and that’s cool, I love those things. But this, it isn’t that. It’s that you’ve got people like Alvie, who is in his upper 80’s and this is what he did every Saturday when he was a kid right here in the rural Ozarks. He just does it because he’s always done it. You can’t get more authentic than that. It’s not just trying to keep something alive. It’s just trying to keep something that’s part of your life, part of life.
((NATS))
((Woman))
Last call for coffee.
((Man))
Good to the last drop, little bit of coffee here.
((Alvie Dooms, Retired Truck Driver, Musician))
I’m about wore out. My old shoulder is about to quit me.
((David Scrivner, Fiddle Player))
That’s why I thought I’d play for you.
((Alvie Dooms, Retired Truck Driver, Musician))
I appreciate it.
((Man))
My arms are hurting now. Let’s do one of my favorite tunes and let’s do ‘Granny Will Your Dog Bite’.
((NATS))
((David Scrivner, Fiddle Player))
I’ve been playing here with these same musicians for like twenty, twenty-five years and it’s really, kind of, like a family. I learned to play the fiddle sitting next to people who aren’t’ here anymore, who were the masters.
((NATS))
((David Scrivner, Fiddle Player))
Alvie and I have been playing together long enough that we can just look at each other and smile when we know things aren’t going well or if he misses a chord or I miss a note, we’ll smile at each other and I’ve learned not just a lot about music from Alvie but I think, a lot about life as well. Alvie has a great attitude about dealing with life and accepting things as they come. He’s really just a great person.
((NATS))
((Steve))
Goodnight Alvie. You take care.
((Alvie Dooms, Retired Truck Driver, Musician))
Good night Steve. You guys be careful now.
((Man))
We will.
((NATS))
((David Scrivner, Fiddle Player))
It also gives me, sort of, a sense of who I am as somebody who is from the Ozarks and whose family is from the Ozarks for generations, and it just feels like it’s supposed to be.
((NATS))
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