A Florida Fiddler--The Life and Times of Richard Seaman, by Gregory Hansen
(University of Alabama Press, Hardcover, 254 pp., $45.00)
Reviewed by Leejay Kline

            In the mid 1950s, after performing across north Florida for three decades, old time fiddler Richard Seaman put his fiddle up.

Keith (Richard’s son) was the last guitar player I had, and when he died, why I didn’t have anybody to play with.  The fiddle sat right up there on that mantelpiece for thirty years, and I didn’t have any feelings for it at all.

Additionally, the young crowds who had always come to dance to Richard Seaman’s traditional songs were discovering a newer music more to their liking.  The Rock‘n Roll revolution was in full swing with Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, the Everly Brothers and other southerners leading the vanguard.

When he was in his early eighties, Richard began to perform in public again. This time he played in schools, at folk music festivals and folk life symposia. In his absence, old time fiddling had gained a new audience hungry for authenticity. Although not as well known as fellow fiddlers Chubby Wise, Vassar Clements and Erwin T. Rouse, Richard Seaman’s performances, peppered with anecdotes and jokes about the old days in Florida, charmed fans of old-time music wherever he played.

He was born in 1904 on a central Florida farm in deeply rural, turn-of-the-century Kissimmee Park, before radio, before movies, before electricity came to that part of the state.  Aside from church socials, the common entertainment in Richard’s early years was house parties where families rode in on wagons or walked from miles around to hear a fiddler play for square dances.  The men rolled up the rugs and carried the furniture out to the side yard and the mothers put the babies in one room to sleep until the party broke up either from exhaustion or a fight.  Richard Seaman picked up his first fiddle when he was 12 and performed at house parties until he moved to Jacksonville in 1926, where he worked as a machinist for the Seaboard railroad until his retirement.

In his introduction to A Florida Fiddler - The Life of Richard Seaman, Gregory Hansen lets us know that his book is neither a biography nor an ethnomusicological analysis of Florida fiddling, but rather, a look into the way one man considered his life experiences in relation to his music.  We are fortunate that Hansen, who loves and plays traditional music, was lucky enough to cross paths with Richard Seaman.

Over the years, Seaman played fiddle with Jimmy Rodgers, Clyde Kirkland, Vassar Clements, Chubby Wise, and Erwin T. Rouse as well as led his own band, the South Land Trail Riders.  He was blessed with a good memory of his times and life and had humorous stories and tall tales to fit any reminiscence.  When the author lets him speak, which is the heart of the book, the result is happy, engaging and thoughtful.

Although rewarding, the book is not an easy one—there are more than 50 pages of acknowledgements, preface, introduction, footnotes and bibliography.  Nor is it a straight-on chronological tale of a life that spanned and witnessed racial segregation, the fast urbanization of Florida when many abandoned farm life for what seemed a better one in the cities, the technology and communications explosion, and the loss of common rural customs.

            The author moves us back and forth in time through interviews, music, stories, recollections and anecdotes to capture his subject’s life in and out of music.  Great portions of the book seem to be direct transcriptions of interviews and performances.  The chapter titled “Workshop” records Richard Seamen, Chubby Wise and George Custer in performance at a folk life workshop in Jacksonville in 1993.  Whether it was the fault of the moderator who led the workshop or simply the overwhelming personality of Chubby Wise, one thing is certain: Richard Seaman is close to invisible for a great part of the chapter.  When the moderator finally realizes he has pretty much left Richard out of things, he allows the fiddler to talk at length about his life and music.

This chapter could have benefited from some judicious pruning and rearranging.  One does not need to know 15 times that the audience applauded.  Is it peckish to notice such repetitions?  Perhaps, but serious readers count everything, do they not? They count the number of times a word is repeated in close proximity to itself and wait to see if it is style or carelessness.  They count adverbs and adjectives and puzzle why a biographer would use the personal pronoun to the point where it becomes not simply noticeable, but annoying.  Still, the author is obviously a fan of Richard Seaman’s music and has great compassion and admiration for his subject’s life of sorrows and triumphs.

When he speaks, Richard Seaman gives us insights into the musical and working life of his times on nearly every page. Perhaps the most valuable portion of the book in terms of getting to the heart of Richard Seaman is Chapter Four: “Your Word Was Your Bond.”  It is an anthology of tall tales Richard told to students and fans of old time music to contrast the way of doing things in a large, modern city against how they were done a long time ago down in rural central Florida.

The book is rich in detail and research and would be a valuable addition to any library of one interested in old time American music.  As a tribute to Richard and an aid to musicians, the author transcribed and placed in the back of the book eight of Seaman’s favorite tunes, including “The Annie Seaman Waltz,” written for his wife.  There is a slight irony about the inclusion of these songs.  Richard Seaman, who died in 2001 at the age of 97, could neither read nor write music. 

           Leejay Kline is a writer and teacher who lives among the alligators, wading birds, bears and snowbirds in Lake County, Florida and is happy to report that early one morning last week he spotted a coyote walking down his street.

Down in Orburndale: A Songwriter’s Youth in Old Florida by Bobby Braddock

(Louisiana State Univ. Press, Hardcover, 271 pp., $24.95)

Reviewed by Gene Hull

Bobby Braddock has had a successful career as Country Music songwriter and producer.  This memoir of his early years—up to age 24, before he relocated from central  Florida to Nashville—is his first venture into book writing.

          He was “born and raised” in Auburndale Florida, colloquially known by folks in “those parts” of central Florida as Orburndale.  Hence the title.

Most county music fans remember “D I V O R C E,” recorded by Tammy Wynette, a number one hit on the Country Charts in 1968.  In 1980 George Jones recorded “He Stopped Loving Her Today” which was chosen Country Music Song of the Year in 1981 and 1982, and voted best country song of all time by Country America readers and BBC listeners. Braddock co-wrote both of these huge hits with his friend and mentor, Curly Putnum.

He also co-wrote the George Jones-Tammy Wynette duet, “Golden Ring”.  His solo-writer hits include, “Time Marches On,”  “Texas Tornado” and Toby Keith's #1 hit, the country-rap song “I Wanna Talk About Me”.  These and many more songs and arrangements have added to Braddock’s reputation as one of best known songwriters in the history of Nashville Music Row.  So how did he get there?

Down in Orburndale reveals the early roots of a career, rather than progressive steps taken on the way to it.    Braddock sculpts deft descriptions of his roots in his reminiscences with obvious affection.  He recalls many minute details of the lay-of-the-land, who lived-where, who-did-what and who-said-what with candid humor, which, however, sometimes seem to have little bearing on who he was to become.

These were days the days before the Disney invasion, theme park developments, and colossal growth of Central Florida.  Auburndale was a typical cracker Old Florida town of less than 2000 people. In this environment of orange groves, small lakes, rural values, boyhood high jinks and teenage obsessions with girls, Braddock does not hold back in describing his exploits, even those which got  him into trouble.

Fans of Braddock may find his honest account of his young years and coming of age interesting when searching for the answer to the logical question:  What influenced a young boy from a sleepy little central Florida town to eventually become a successful country music songwriter? Good question.  However, you will not find a seminal event or fire-stoking career impetus in this memoir.  Rather, what’s here is the life of an average coming-of-age kid who loved music, who came from a good family with caring parents, had an average country-boy up-bringing, had piano lessons for a while, enjoyed singing, radio-listening  and girls—certainly an adequate beginning for a career in country music. He writes:

      “For several years, it had been Orburndale after-school ritual to turn on the radio in the afternoon and listen to The Polk County Express over WSIR in Winter Haven… Blow that whistle, ring that bell, listen to that engine yell,’ went the theme song of this weekday show that played country music three days a week and pop music the other two. One thinks of a vacuum being created after something disappears, but there was a music vacuum before rock’n roll came along. We didn’t know it then, but we were waiting for it to be born…”

    “…I was raised on radio. Radio was a huge playground for a child’s imagination, and was almost as if it were a picture, because I saw all those people in my mind. Pre-television radio was a little like 1970s TV without a picture…”

According to his account he stumbled, blundered, practiced, drank, fell in love, screwed up, and screwed his way through his late high-school-age years and for a few years after that, playing with any band he could.

            “When I think about this time in my life, I think of the girls (that I longed for), friends (that I had a lot of fun with), and music (that I loved). All these factors came into play when I went with my buddies to see Elvis’s first movie, Love Me Tender at the Polk Theater in Lakeland.  We were gratified vicariously as the girls screamed and moaned over Elvis. When he sand ‘Let Me’, one girl sitting behind us gasped “I’ll let you, Elvis,’  This was the Eisenhower era of innocence—it was the time of the Cleavers and the Cunninghams. Yeah, right.”

Braddock worked in his father’s orange groves when he had no music work in Rock and Roll bands.  He married, moved, moved again, but pressed on toward a goal, which only became clearer as he grew up.  His target was Nashville, where he eventually relocated and one year later joined the Marty Robbins band.

Braddock’s fond memories of his youth in Auburndale, and the obvious love he has for a patient and supportive father and mother, live in the pages of  Down in  Orburndale.  He pulls no punches and tells his story just like he writes music: with joy, sadness, humor, irony and confidence.  He plans a sequel memoir about his professional life.

Gene Hull is a freelance writer and author of Hooked On A Horn, Memoirs of a Recovered Musician. His website is www.genehull.com