Memories of Kentucky fiddler Clyde Davenport

I just got word from Bobby Fulcher today that Clyde is close to death. I want to put down my memories of Clyde to help remember him.

I first encountered Clyde in 1992 at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend, Washington. Clyde was wearing a sort of silver hat, and somebody stole it (he got it back before leaving for home). I recall Clyde walking around and asking, "Have you seen my hat?" He asked lots of people, including me. That year, the folks in his band lab made tin foil Clyde hats and wore them on stage. I think I saw Clyde at Fiddle tunes at least a couple of times after that. I recall asking Judy Hyman where a tune she played ("Old-Time Blackberry Blossom") was from. She said she didn't know. A few minutes later, I saw Clyde in a jam playing that tune. I asked him who it was from. He said that he had learned it from Dick Burnett. Clyde and Burnett were both from Monticello, Kentucky, and Clyde learned a lot from the duo of Burnett and (Enoch) Rutherford. Sure enough, I had a CD of Burnett and Rutherford at home, and it was one of the two tunes that Burnett fiddled.

In 1996, Clyde was in Port Townsend again. On the previous trip, Clyde had played a lovely fiddler that he had built himself. This time, he had a fiddle which had had a big crack on the top. He cut out a big rectangle of wood and replaced it with another kind of wood. I asked him why he had brought that one. He told me that he felt his fiddling wasn't as good as it used to be. I took that as a subtle message from him that he didn't want to keep playing out as much. That was the year that I started fiddling, and I saw Clyde sitting on the grass with another member of my beginning fiddle class with Greg Canote. It looked to me as if they were making a trade, and I tried to hint to her to be careful. She went ahead and traded her $700 fiddle for Clyde's. People tell me that Clyde loved to trade, and people often got great instruments from him that way. However, she came to me in tears that evening and said that she hated Clyde's fiddle. We found Bobby Fulcher, and he persuaded Clyde to trade back.

Bobby always accompanied Clyde to Fiddle Tunes and generally helped him with his workshops. Bob would ask Clyde to play a tune, and Clyde pretended that he didn't know it but eventually played it reluctantly. One day, Bob wasn't there and Candy Goldman filled in. Everything Candy asked Clyde to play he played with no issues. I asked him about it later. He said, "Bobby always gives me a hard time so I give him a hard time." I have to emphasize that it was like a comedy act. When Bob first met Clyde, he was traveling around looking for old fiddlers in Clyde's area. Bob would ask about local fiddlers and people kept sending him to Clyde's basement fiddle shop in downtown Monticello. Clyde would tell Bobby that he didn't fiddle and send him off to someone who could barely fiddle, who would ask whether he had listened to Clyde Davenport. Finally, on his fourth visit, Clyde played for Bobby.

Clyde played banjo on two LPs (I think on CD now) with fiddler W. L. Gregory. In the liner notes of one of the LPs, it says something like this: "Mr. Davenport also fiddles, but in a very modern style." Anybody who has listened to Clyde play would scratch their heads about that. Clyde had mostly stopped playing the banjo when I first saw him, though I did see him play "The Old Cow Died on the Forks of the Branch" once. I asked Clyde why he had stopped, and he said that he couldn't play as well as he used to. He also told me he had been in an industrial accident when he was younger and injured his right wrist. He said he had a much more flexible wrist before that.

I also saw Clyde a few times at Breaking Up Winter in Cedars of Lebanon State Park in Tennessee. Once he fiddled a tune with a name something like "My Old Grey Beard's a Flappin'." My friend Jim Nelson had given me a tape he made at Clyde's home in which Clyde sang the words. I asked Clyde why he hadn't sung the words. He said there were too many. I opined that there weren't that many. So, Clyde proceeded to sing all the words to me.

My friend Buddy Ingram made a one-hour film about Clyde (available on youtube). In the film, Clyde first comments that he doesn't really like to play and is only playing because of his visitors. But 5 minutes later, Clyde finishes a tune, smiles, and says, "Isn't that pretty?" Those are both authentic Clyde.