RC: Lee and Elaine, what are some of the earliest memories you have of wanting to play music as kids?

LR (Lee Roy): For me, I was probably about five.

I remember my grandmother playing fiddle, and my grandfather doing the old time Acadian dances. Uncles and aunts would all play guitar, piano, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, and sing.

I remember going to church, then going over to my grandmother’s for dinner afterward. It was a “gimme.” As sure as there was going to be food on the table there was going to be music that afternoon. I couldn’t wait to get there to hear them start playin’ the fiddle and start singin’.

This post was submitted by Lee and Elaine Roy.

Annie

We lived on four acres. Not large by country standards but a whole universe to a child and her dog.

My Brother Making a Fort

My father worked in the city but wanted his children to have the country experience that he had growing up in a small town in east Texas.  So, braving the commute, he moved us out into the “boonies” where we would have the opportunity to build forts, create mud pools, maintain an aviary, and know what it feels like to run bare foot through the field that you, a child by others standards, mowed with your John Deere tractor that morning.

My siblings and I loved tramping through the woods claiming forts and tree houses that the other gender was not allowed to cross.  The girls made homes with rolls of toilet paper and transplanted cacti.  The boys made watch towers with tire swings and snake skins.  A paradise of wood and mud – and we loved it.
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This post was submitted by Beverley Strong.

Ira and Charlie Louvin, Approx. 1958

Childhood

RC) We’re looking forward to getting your reflections on your career in country music and any experiences you can share of growing up in the country.

Mr. Louvin:

Well, I’m sorta livin’ in the country now.   I’m out here on 48 acres.  We love it in the country.  I live 75 miles from Nashville.

I tell people constantly, don’t tell me “You live so far out.”  We live out here by choice.  I wouldn’t want to live in town where I couldn’t stand on the front porch to pee, if I wanted to.

RC) Can you tell me one of your earliest memories.

Mr. Louvin:

Ira was born in April, 1924, and I was born in July of 1927.

Musically, I started singing when I was 8 and Ira was 11.
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This post was submitted by Charlie Louvin.