Dave Peyton's Fantasy Girlfriend
#477 / Flood Time Capsule: 1974 (Video Extra)
Dave Peyton had many fantasy flames over the years, from Dolly Parton and The Carter Sisters to Emmylou Harris and Rhiannon Giddens.
Early on, his foremost faux fancy was the incomparable Hedy West, the artist whom the great English folklorist A.L. Lloyd called “far and away the best of the American girl singers in the folk revival.”
West’s first album — 1965’s Old Times & Hard Times: Ballads and Songs from the Appalachians — was on Dave’s shelf when he bought his first Autoharp and began teaching himself tunes while still a student at Marshall University.
One of those songs was the last track on Side 1, Hedy’s “Gambling Man,” which Peyton later would teach to Charlie Bowen on the first night they ever sang together on New Year’s Eve 1973.
After that at each of Charlie and Dave’s jam sessions throughout the winter of ‘74, “Gambling Man” was among the songs they practiced. By the time they came to the May 1974 Bowen Bash, the pair had the song pretty well worked out, complete with harmony on the choruses, as we hear in the video below:
About the Song
“Gambling Man,” which has the same words but a different melody than the “Roving Gambler” known in folk and bluegrass circles these days, was learned by Hedy from her father, who in turn learned it from a colorful neighbor named Etta Mulkey in their native Georgia.
“She was the daughter of a local blockader’ (a person who made illegal liquor from maize),” West wrote in the liner notes for her debut album. “Perhaps it was because Etta’s face had been badly disfigured from a burn that she never married. Whenever my grandmother was giving birth, Etta would come and take care of the kids and the household for a couple of weeks. This kind of work was her established function in the community.
“The kids liked her,” Hedy continued, “because she was easy going (so much so that the meals she prepared had bugs cooked with the vegetables) and because she knew many songs and sang them in a beautiful voice.”
Hedy’s Daddy
Hedy West, who would later be known in the folk community for her preservation of the song “500 Miles Away from Home,” had a once-removed connection to West Virginia, which Dave Peyton also appreciated.
In the same year that Hedy’s first album was released, her father — poet and labor organizer Don West — came to West Virginia along with his wife, Connie, to establish the Appalachian South Folklife Center at Pipestem in Summers County, WV.
Shortly after that, Peyton would seek out Don for an interview for the Huntington newspapers. Over the years, Dave would stay in touch with Don, who lived the rest of his days in the Mountain State, dying in Charleston in 1992.
Incidentally, a few years ago long-time Flood buddy Doug Imbrogno’s wonderful website WestVirginiaVille.com carried a piece by writer Rick Wilson in which he reflected on his own friendship with Don West. Here’s a link; it’s well-worth your time.
More from Brother Dave?
Meanwhile, if all this toolin’ about in the time machine has you hungry for some more Dave Peyton music, just park it at the David Channel in the free Radio Floodango music streaming service.
