The Johnson Family Band Of Sand Mountain: Albertville Museum Exhibit, Part 3 of 3

This video showcases much of the Johnson Family exhibit held at the Albertville Museum on August 4, 2012.

It was such a great honor to be a part of this exhibit, and also to learn new facets of my family's musical heritage. As you can see in the third part of this installment towards the end where I performed a selection of gospel songs, I began getting quite emotional telling family stories. It really wasn't until after this exhibit that I realized the full magnitude of history that generated from my great grandparents homestead. Since then, I have went to great lengths to preserve and document its history in any way possible. I went to the extent to create several copies of handmade books profusely crammed with family photos I accumulated and copied from several generous family members

Program Schedule:

0:37 Flying Jenny Performs
9:36 Douglas "D.R." Storm Performs, and tells family stories.
28:10 Closing

...a short historical bio of the Johnson Family follows below...

The Johnson Family were pioneers of Sand Mountain settling in the Hustleville area of Albertville Alabama in 1854. They provided music around Sand Mountain from the 1880's until about the mid to late 1960's starting with two sons playing fiddles and brooms straws, and growing into a full band consisting of all the sons of George and Elizabeth Johnson, and any of their wives and children who were musically gifted. They played a parties, land auctions, square dances, and fiddler's conventions. They were the first string band to play on the first radio station in Alabama in 1922, and played on television in Birmingham. Two of the brothers, Adas and Ras, made 200 fiddles, including guitars, mandolins, basses etc, before retiring in their nineties, and Adas' son, Guy Johnson made 24 finely crafted during his retirement.

"Adas Johnson began making fiddles in 1925. He first repaired the old family fiddle that had been damaged in the Johnson's move to Alabama in 1854. Before gluing it together, he studied the instruments internal construction with the idea of making another.

Wood from a maple tree behind the Johnson home became his first handmade fiddle, shaped by a pocketknife and thinned with a curved piece of window glass...over the years, Adas acquired more precise measuring and cutting tools and began to order find German woods after he had depleted the maple tree population on the Johnson land...he was able to acquire the blueprints to a Stradivarius from professor T.M. Thomason.

In due time, as requests for violins became more frequent, Adas pressed his brother into service, and the two continued to make instruments until Adas was ninety years old, and completed two hundred fiddles.

'We had the dream, that maybe by making these fiddles that our name would live after we were dead and gone, and people would remember the Johnson fiddle.'

-Ras Johnson"

-From the book, "With Fiddle And Well Rosined Bow" By Joyce Cauthen.

Видео The Johnson Family Band Of Sand Mountain: Albertville Museum Exhibit, Part 3 of 3 канала D.R. Storm