State

Tar Heel History By Billy Arthur Banjo Man Jackson County's Felix Ray Alley gained notice as a lawyer, judge and author, but he was most famous for a song he picked on his banjo about a promising dance gone sour. Felix Eugene Alley rose from a log cabin to distinction as a lawyer Superior Conn judge, author and eloquent orator Not only that, but as a mountain lad lie taught himself to play a banjo with strings of common sewing thread and at age 16 composed the famous "Ballad of Kidder Cole." which now is part of state and national folklore. The youngest of 10 children of Colonel John H. Alley and Sarah Whiteside Norton Alley. Felix was bom July 5. 1873, in the Whiteside Cove area of Jackson County. His father fought in the Mexican and Civil Wars, and his mother was the first white child bom in that heavily populated Indian area. When Felix was about 10 years old. a brother made for him a banjo from a cir¬ cular wooden cheese hoop, over which was stretched a tanned groundhog skin. The neck and keys were hand-carved with a jackknife, and the strings were made of twisted J&P Coats S|m>oI Cotton thread. In a 1933 interview with the Asheville Citizen, Judge Alley explained how he wrote what was once the most popular banjo tune in the land. “I took the instru¬ ment to my heart.” he told the newspa¬ per. “and straightaway learned to pick out tunes and soon could play on it all the ones I knew." One summer a Rood deluged the Cashiers Valley, and a man named Childs and his sister, both of New York, were watcT-tround in the Alley home several days, waiting for the streams to subside so they could c ross the fords. There were no bridges. For them, time passed slowly. One day the man saw the homemade banjo and asked young Felix to play it. I le consented but advised that he would first have to replace a broken string. From his mother's sewing basket, he quickly obtained a spool of J&P Coals thread, made and waxed a string from a rkM»«Hiiirn<4 N C Dm— ш Ы AnhKnmt III— m Felix Ray AlUy length of it and played for the guests everything he knew. Meanwhile, the man “seemed to heartily enjoy" the music, examined the spool of thread and revealed he was an official in the Coals company, en route back to New York after a Southern adver¬ tising trip. He then said jokingly, accord¬ ing to Judge Alley. “I knew the thread was good for many things, but never before that it was good for banjo strings." And he then promised to send young Felix a set of real banjo strings and a box of thread for his mother when he got back to New York. The box of thread came annually almost the remainder of her life. A short while after the man left. Felix received by express at Walhalla, South Carolina, (the nearest post office 35 miles distant) “a very expensive banjo . . . several eel skin heads and enough string to last me from that time on . . . (We) kept up correspondence until his death some years later." To indicate the strength of the thread young Felix had been using, an advertis¬ ing card at the time pictured a barefoot boy on the edge of a stream about to fish Thf StalrOrtobcr 1995 14 with a line made of the thread. In his book. Random Thoughts and Musings of a Mountaineer, ; published in 1941. Judge Alley wrote that he was later advised by Childs that the company was changing the picture to depict a barefoot boy play¬ ing a banjo with cotton thread strings. In 1983. the company, at this writer's request, was unable to locate the revised card in its advertising files of 1875-1900. but that in no way detracts from Judge Alley's original use of the thread for strings or the annual gilt to his mother. In the same year (1983), Betty Gene Alley, a granddaughter, wrote: "I am aware that after his retirement from the bench, he continued to receive his annu¬ al Christmas gift of Coats' and Clarks' newest spools of thread, with which my grandmother made her quilts." Now about the ballad composed by the teenager Alley. “Miss Kidder Cole was the daughter of George M. Cole, a merchant living in the same township." Judge Aliev1 recalled for the Asheville Citizen interview. “She was about my age and conceded by everyone to lx- the beauty of the mountains. The occasion that inspired the little ballad was an all-night dance. I had been going to some of the dances and had danced with Miss Kidder Cole. I had planned that night to dance with her all night long. I lowever, 1 was a little late, and the dance was in full swing. Through the doorway I saw, to my bitter disappoint¬ ment. that my cousin. Charley Wright, had already claimed the lass as a partner — and he danced with her the whole night through." I laving become "quite an artist on the city-bought banjo." Alley began compos¬ ing the ballad that night. At the time he was in demand to furnish music for square dances in Transylvania, Macon and Jackson counties, plus the nearby border counties in Georgia and South Carolina. “‘Kidder Cole’ quickly became popular." Alley said, "for I composed it for a catchy tunc and the words struck a responsive chord in the heart of youth, especially since many knew the girl and her suitors. “Like all banjo songs, it has gone the rounds, and 1 have had men tell me from more than 18 states that for years they have heard the ballad sung and the tune played by banjoists in their states.” Variously revised by musicians and lyri-