The Devil's Dream Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Part 1 - This World Is Not My Home

  Chapter 1 - Old Man Ira Keen

  Chapter 2 - Ezekiel Bailey

  Chapter 3 - Nonnie and the Melungeon

  Chapter 4 - Nonnie and the Big Talker

  Part 2 - Down by Grassy Branch

  Chapter 1 - R.C. Bailey

  Chapter 2 - Lizzie Bailey

  Chapter 3 - Not the Marrying Kind

  Chapter 4 - Alice Bailey

  Chapter 5 - The Bristol Sessions

  Part 3 - Flowers in the Meadow

  Chapter 1 - Rose Annie Bailey Rush

  Chapter 2 - Tammy Adele Burnette in Her Prime

  Part 4 - Rockabilly: Get Hot or Go Home

  Chapter 1 - Blackjack Johnny Raines and the Pig-Brain Theory

  Chapter 2 - Mrs. Gladys Rush

  Chapter 3 - Blue Christmas, 1959

  Part 5 - Katie Cocker Tells It Like It Is

  Chapter 1 - Mamma Rainette and the Raindrops

  Chapter 2 - I Have a Baby

  Chapter 3 - The Last Barn Dance

  Chapter 4 - I Act Like a Fool

  Chapter 5 - Knocking on Doors

  Chapter 6 - California Is a State of Mind

  Chapter 7 - Full-Tilt Boogie

  Shall We Gather at the River

  Notes

  About the Author

  Praise for

  The Devil’s Dream

  “Combining an unmistakable voice with an infallible sense of story . . . she writes lyric, luminous prose; her craft is so strong it becomes transparent, and, like the best of storytellers, she knows how to get out of the way so that story can tell itself.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “A heartbreaker . . . Judging fiddle music to be the voice of the Devil laughing, preacher’s son Moses Bailey forbade his fiddle-loving wife, Kate Malone, the music she was raised on in the Virginia hills. She bore him three children, tending their lonesome cabin while Moses tramped the countryside searching in vain for God. But Kate’s heritage proved too strong, and she soon began fiddling away for the children behind her husband’s back. . . . This is the stuff of family legend, indeed the very soul of Lee Smith’s beautifully told saga about a Southern singing family down through the ages. . . . Smith proves again in The Devil’s Dream her keen ear for oral history as she pushes her extraordinary gift to new limits, switching deftly and imperceptibly from voice to voice to resounding voice.”

  —Boston Sunday Globe

  “The Devil’s Dream is a family quilt of a novel, stitched together from the patchwork fabric of several generations, each embroidered with its story in a distinctive, intensely personal style. Although it sweeps through 150 years and employs a variety of voices, the candor and warmth of the narrative encourage an intimacy with the characters. And the lure of music, whether simple hymns or Nashville rockabilly, is the thread that unites them all . . . Tragic, joyful, and touching.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  “You don’t have to know country music to fall for Lee Smith’s novel. . . . All you need to bring is a love of people, an ear that delights in the many flavors of language, and a decent sense of irony. Ms. Smith provides the rest, abundantly.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “A storyteller carrying on the tradition of the Scottish and Irish pioneers who settled the Southern mountains, Ms. Smith allows her characters to speak for themselves, delivering long monologues in a conversational style and dialect appropriate to the times and place. . . . Her book begs to be read aloud. Down-home for sure, her characters nonetheless communicate to the reader with intimacy and honesty and hearts full to bursting.”

  —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

  “Smith has mined the culture of rural Appalachians to produce entertaining and satisfying stories. With The Devil’s Dream, she marries meticulous research with her obvious affection for mountain music and mountain people. And, as in Oral History, she employs a number of narrators to create a book that often reads like a ballad. The voices, from that of a digressive old-timer remembering the girl of his dreams to a middle-aged woman taking a pragmatic view of her ex-daughter-in-law’s antics, are distinctive and memorable.”

  —Orlando Sentinel

  “Smith spins a down-home tale of weddings and adulteries, many offspring—legitimate and otherwise—and thunderous ‘signs from God’ in every generation. Each chapter is the equivalent of a country song, combining the tragic, the hokey, the joyous, and the ironically inevitable. . . . Smith’s strong, believable characters, their gossipy, matter-of-fact voices, and their affection for their rustic mountain home make this a rich, inviting multigenerational tale.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “With this book, Smith again shows us that she’s lyrical as any songbird and second only to Fred Chappell when it comes to capturing the mystic sweetness of the Appalachians. . . . She deserves kudos just for her rendering of lunatics, for no Southerner has ever penned them better. Except, maybe, Faulkner.”

  —Greensboro (NC) News & Record

  “You’d have to have a hole in your pea-pickin’ soul not to be enchanted by Lee Smith’s fictional paean to the white man’s blues, The Devil’s Dream. . . . Throughout this sprawling family saga, Smith captures music-making at its purest and show biz at its most disingenuous, offering fascinating glimpses of old-time medicine shows, radio barn dances, sleazy rockabilly joints, primitive recording sessions, the Grand Ole Opry, crass country commercialism—even a phantom backwoods fiddler. . . . Pleasures of all sizes and emotional hues abound in The Devil’s Dream and, country music fan or not, you won’t want this ambitious and rewarding novel to end.”

  —The Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “Simply marvelous . . . One of the best contemporary novels I have ever read . . . In between these stories blooms an intricate knot garden of other tales, vivid with sexual and romantic passion, darkened with religion fevers, and sweetened by a love of, and talent for, music. Each narrator steps forward out of the group to sing his or her special ‘song.’ . . . In The Devil’s Dream Lee Smith has written a classic, one that’s fun to read.”

  —The Raleigh News & Observer

  “If ever a subject found its perfect voice, it is surely in Lee Smith’s new novel, The Devil’s Dream. . . . Here are characters vividly animated by Smith’s keen ear and rich imagination and whose lives assume a reality as solidly grounded as your next-door neighbor. . . . Lee Smith once again shows herself a storyteller of the first rank, and her characters in The Devil’s Dream are among her most memorable.”

  —The Columbia (SC) State

  “Thoroughly entertaining . . . Smith creates a vividly labyrinthine world of family ties in which music is always a part . . . a real treat.”

  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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ion of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 1992 by Lee Smith.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  BERKLEY® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-47888-2

  Smith, Lee, date.

  The devil’s dream / Lee Smith.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-47888-2

  I. Title.

  PS3569.M5376D-1027 CIP

  813’.54—dc20

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  This book is dedicated

  to all the real country artists,

  living and dead, whose music

  I have loved for so long.

  The author is grateful to the Lyndhurst Foundation for its generous support during the writing of this novel; to North Carolina State University for giving me leave of absence; and to the Southern Folklife Collection of the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

  The Family Tree

  Shall We Gather at the River

  It’s Christmastime at the Opryland Hotel, and you never saw anything like it! Strings of the most beautiful little bitty colored lights—miles and miles of lights—are wrapped around and around every single twig on every branch on every tree, hundreds of trees, millions of lights; it must have taken them months to do it. You can’t get over it! Not to mention the hotel itself, all lit up like some fairy-tale city—hell, it’s as big as a city anyway, hundreds of rooms, all those restaurants, ballrooms, pools, you name it.

  There’s special displays, such as those darling life-size elves over there hammering away on little red high-heel shoes, or the animated ballerinas dancing Swan Lake forever and ever on the mirror pond in the middle of the lushly blooming Conservatory. There’s real strolling singers, such as the Merry Gentlemen, the Seven Singing Dwarves, a trio of snowmen, and a mysterious swashbuckling baritone in a cape singing “Silent Night.” You can’t quite place him. But it don’t matter. Maybe he’s some lunatic out here on a day trip. Maybe he’s a real star. This place is full of real stars, you have to keep an eye out. You might see anybody. And if you do, it’s a good bet they’ll give you their autograph or maybe even the shirt off their own back. Country stars are real nice. They love their fans in a deep way. They will give of themselves till they drop. This very afternoon, Minnie Pearl is scheduled to read “The Night Before Christmas” out loud by the giant fireplace. Every child there will get a free gift, not to mention hot chocolate.

  But look—right now, right over here, flash bulbs are popping like crazy on the porch in front of the old-timey Pickin Parlor. You better hope you’ve got some film left, honey. It must be somebody big. . . .

  And sure enough, it’s Katie Cocker! One of the real superstars of country music, looking just as natural—looking just like herself! But you know they all look smaller in person than they do on TV, that’s a fact. And their heads are all a little bit bigger than they ought to be, you have to have a big head to look good on TV. Of course, Katie’s wearing a wig, too; they all wear a wig. Nobody’s hair has got that much body. But hers is naturally blond, that’s a fact, you can look back at old photographs from when she was a Raindrop with Mamma Rainette and the Raindrops, and see for yourself. Thick yellow hair, farm-girl looks—level brown eyes, honest as the day is long; a wide, full mouth; that easy smile. Red lipstick. Katie Cocker don’t put on airs. She don’t have to. She don’t have to take off those twelve extra pounds if she don’t want to, either. She looks okay. She looks fine! She’s made it, and made it her own way.

  God knows she’s paid her dues, too. Some of the events of her life are just tragic, but she’s weathered them. She’s still here. She’s still singing her heart out. It does seem like more things happen to country artists than to anybody else, have you ever noticed? It’s like they have more events in their lives. God knows she’s lived through some events. Katie Cocker is well over forty now and looks it. There’s something about her that says, “Hello, honey, this is who I am, and I don’t give a damn what you think about me. Take it or leave it!” she says. This sassy attitude, coupled with her down-home warmth, has made Katie a big favorite with men and women both. She wouldn’t let anybody walk all over her, but she likes men, you can tell. You can always tell.

  Of course, she’s gotten real religious in recent years, all the big stars get religion at a certain point. In fact, that’s Billy Jack Reems sitting up there at the table with her, he’s the little one wearing the robe, they call him the spiritual leader of the stars.

  It must be some kind of a press conference. Katie sits up on a stool, surrounded by regular reporters plus one prim, snippy virgin from the BBC, holding a microphone.

  “What’s the name of the album?” somebody asks.

  “Shall We Gather at the River,” Katie says. “That’s the name of an old hymn we used to sing in church up on Grassy Branch.”

  “Is it going to be all religious songs?” somebody wants to know.

  “Oh no, not at all,” Katie says. “It’s going to have lots of different kinds of songs on it as a matter of fact, all of them associated with my family—that’s the Bailey family—down over the years.

  “Well, ‘Down by Grassy Branch’ will be on it for sure”—Katie answers another question—“and ‘Livin’ on Love’ and ‘Melungeon Man.’ R.C. Bailey wrote both of those, and they were big hits for the Grassy Branch Girls. We’ll do ‘White Linen,’ which has always been one of my favorites. It’s an old ballad that came into the family when my Grandaddy Durwood Bailey married Tampa Rainette in 1910.

  “Yes, Tampa is coming! She really is! My cousin Little Virginia is bringing her and R.C., too. RCA is flying them all over here in a private plane.—Lord, I don’t even know! About a hundred, I reckon. They’re both bound to be pushing a hundred.

  “And ‘The Cuckoo Song,’ it’s another old ballad that goes way back—

  “Yes, she is. Rose Annie is definitely coming too. They’re releasing her from Brushy Mountain State Prison just to cut this album, that’s one reason we’re going to cut it live.—I don’t know. I just don’t know. I’d sure like to have ‘Subdivision Wife’ on here if she wants to sing it—

  “No, I’m producing this one myself. Yes, that’s right. I’ve formed my own company. This is Carole Bliss, my associate.”

  Heads turn toward Carole Bliss, a trim, dark-haired woman in a red business suit, but no flash bulbs pop.

  Katie keeps answering questions. She’s real patient with the reporters, she acts like she’s got all the time in the world, but Carole Bliss keeps looking at her watch and rolling her eyes, like she’s saying, “Oh, brother!” in her mind. Young RCA employees circle the scene, facilitating things. They are good at communicating and facilitating. You can tell them by their sculptured haircuts. Christmas carols float through the air. There are so many people crowded up to the porch to watch this interview that strolling hotel guests can hardly push past. A lot of them just stay, in fact, swelling the crowd.

  “Any minute now,” Katie says. “We’re expecting them any minute.”

  When Ka
tie Cocker answers a question she leans forward on her stool and speaks right to the one who asked it. She looks you dead in the eye. “That’s a pretty complicated question for me to answer,” she says now, slowly, to the woman from the BBC. “I have to admit, there was a time when all I wanted to do was get out of that valley. I was just dying to get away from home. What I didn’t understand, all those years when I was waiting for my life to start, was that it had already started. I was already living it! Those were the most important years, and I didn’t even know it. But I was real young then, and foolish, like we all are. I wanted to be somebody different, I wanted to be me, and I thought that the way to do this was to put as much distance as possible between me and Grassy Branch. So I did that. And I took some chances, and I got knocked down flat a couple of times—I guess I’m Phi Beta Kappa at the School of Hard Knocks!—but I’d get right back up, and keep on going. I made a lot of mistakes. I thought I had to do it all by myself, see. It took me a long time to understand that not a one of us lives alone, outside of our family or our time, and that who we are depends on who we were, and who our people were. There’s a lot of folks in this business that don’t believe that, of course. They think you can just make yourself up as you go along. The trick is to keep on moving. But I can’t do this. I come from a singing family, we go way back. I know where we’re from. I know who we are. The hard part has been figuring out who I am, because I’m not like any of them, and yet they are bone of my bone. . . .”