HELLO! My name is Susie and I’m a tunehead…
My childhood was typical of many musicians, I suppose; you could often find singing around the kitchen table in three part harmony. Born in 1951, I was raised in Northern Ohio in a tiny historical town called Tallmadge about 40 miles south of Cleveland. My father, Wayne Coleman, was an appliance salesman at Sears & Roebuck in Akron. He could also play the accordion. We were the neighborhood Oom-Pah Gang — Daddy would haul out that big keyboard and we’d polka all over the backyard. I’d grab my sister and we’d ‘Roll Out the Barrel’ til we fell down dizzy. I’ve loved music ever since.
The other side of the family hailed from Cumberland County in East Tennessee. My grandma, Rintha “Addie” Hale, and grandpa, Ralph Smith, had moved to the Akron area during the Depression to look for work in the rubber factories. Both were devoted members of their church and sang in a Gospel quartet — and yes, my granddaddy sang bass. From the time they were young, my mother, Opal Smith (Coleman), and her sisters Virginia (Good) and Shirley Mae (Hubbard Frey) played guitars and sang what they simply called “hillbilly music” along with old gospel numbers they learned from my grandparents. Even as a small child, I loved the feel of these old songs and easily memorized the melodies, harmonies and lyrics. Now that I’ve been around skilled musicians as an adult, I realize what incredible harmony singers we had in the family. I give them full credit for whatever good ear I may have.
I jumped headfirst into my mother’s old Silvertone when I was ten. A Beatles songbook and a transistor radio became my best friends. I soaked up the music of Joan Baez, Peter, Paul & Mary, Simon & Garfunkle, Ian & Sylvia, John Denver, The Mamas & Papas, and Gordon Lightfoot, just as the Folk era began to wane in the late-60s. In 1969, at 18, my attention was drawn to current popular music and I got my first job performing in a local nightspot singing Top 40 hits.
A dozen years of working in clubs followed — rock, disco, pop, swing, each type of music seemed to give added strength and adaptability to my voice. I moved around a lot, to Kentucky and Florida, playing in clubs and lounges, as a single act and with small combos. I would study and learn different styles of music to keep working — I even sang awhile for ballroom dancers with a little combo in Lexington — but at parties, I’d bring out my guitar and render some old folk tunes, and everybody sang along. I found those moments much more rewarding than the spotlight.
A romance with Country Music brought me to Nashville in 1978. Here I played more clubs, including World Famous Printers Alley, had the honor of sharing the stage with Merle Haggard, Marty Robbins, the Gatlin Brothers and other headliners, recorded songwriter demos, and made occasional TV and radio appearances. I started to get a feel for what being a professional in the music industry was about. It involved a total commitment to living on the road, having excellent diplomacy and people-handling chops, and access to plenty of money. None of which I had. About that time, I began to notice that the music was changing, too. Country Music began to replace its organic rhythms with electric styling, and the acoustic stuff began to sit on the sidelines. I had years before established that Rock was just not for me and it was definitely not what I came to Nashville to do. I tried to adapt, but I didn’t care much for the “new” sound of Country. I longed for fiddles and banjos.
A summer-long bus tour as a sideman in 1983 finally cured me altogether of longing for the big time. As much as I loved singing my heart out, the reality of living in such cramped quarters really got to me. Even though I liked the folks I was traveling with, I never felt so anxious in my life. Days seemed to have no end, and the endless waiting around drove me crazy. I have a mild case of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) so it was next to impossible for me to be calm under these circumstances. My gut told me there was no way I could emotionally survive out there.
It wasn’t long before I decided to lay down my microphone. Fortunately, I had gained enough office experience between singing jobs to create a humble but useful skill set. In 1984, I was asked to join the Nashville Sales & Marketing Executives Association as their executive assistant and later executive director, where I remained for 14 years; it was here I starting using a word processor and began to produce desktop published newsletters and do digital design. I subsequently worked as office manager/art director for a small advertising agency; during that time, I attended Nashville State Community College to learn HTML and web design. That position ended at the start of the recession and I became self-employed.
However, though I thought I was finished with music in 1984, apparently music was not finished with me. I found the “amateur” scene in Nashville — a community of pickers who play just for the fun of it — to be much more my style than the professional scene.
FIRST PLACE AWARDS
- 2013 Bluegrass Along The Harpeth
Old Time Singing
(duet with Anna Pennesi) - 2007 Smithville Fiddlers Jamboree
Old Time Appalachian Folksinging - 2006 Murray State University, Western KY Regional Fiddle Festival
Old Time Singing - 2005 Smithville Fiddlers Jamboree
Old Time Appalachian Folksinging - 2004 Indiana State Picking & Fiddling Championship
Female Old Time Singing - 2004 Smithville Fiddlers Jamboree
Old Time Appalachian Folksinging - 2003 Indiana State Picking & Fiddling Championship
Female Old Time Singing - 2002 Smithville Fiddlers Jamboree
Old Time Appalachian Folksinging - 2000 Smithville Fiddlers Jamboree
Old Time Appalachian Folksinging - 2000 Uncle Dave Macon Days
Old Time Singing
(duet with Jack Horner) - 1998 Smithville Fiddlers Jamboree
Old Time Appalachian Folksinging - 1997 Smithville Fiddlers Jamboree
Gospel Singing - 1997 Smithville Fiddlers Jamboree
Folksinging
In the mid-90’s I befriended Jack Horner, lead singer with The Road to Ruin Ramblers, a local, long-standing traditional Bluegrass band well known in the Nashville area. Our voices blended beautifully — and he also played with a folksy style. I accepted an invitation to join the group, drawn by a sense of connection as I realized that in the Bluegrass framework, I could perform some of those great old tunes my mother sang when I was a little girl. It’s been a great friendship and Jack and I have enjoyed many years of jamming and performing together. And I fell in love with Bluegrass, particularly the fiddle tunes.
Jack invited me to my first old time singing contest in 1996 at the Smithville Fiddlers Jamboree in Smithville, Tennessee. I enjoyed competing, loved the festival atmosphere, and began to enter a couple contests each year just for fun. I’ve been pretty lucky. To date, my winning contest repertoire has included O The Wind and The Rain, Sweet Betsy From Pike, Black Jack Davy, Darcy Farrow, Little Rosewood Casket, Shady Grove, Pretty Saro, Give My Love to Nellie Jack, The Storms Are On The Ocean, and maybe a couple other goodies I can’t remember. I don’t compete much anymore, just every few years or so.
In 2004, I became interested in Old Time Music when I met fiddler Kirk Pickering, who for years held a popular weekly jam at his home in Pegram, Tennessee, just west of Nashville. I fell for both Old Time music and Kirk, and eventually moved in. Now bitten by the fiddle tune bug, I study clawhammer banjo and the ukulele, hoping to someday play in the rollicking style of Uncle Earl and San Francisco’s Stairwell Sisters. (By the way, if you like Old Time instrumental music, Kirk and I have compiled a book of chord charts for 450 Old Time/Bluegrass/Celtic tunes that you’re welcome to download for free and use as a reference; it’s currently available on our PegramJam website.)
These days I work from home as a web and graphic designer — and a music teacher, of course. I teach beginner rhythm guitar by ear, Old Time beginner alternating bass for guitar, how to understand the Nashville Number System as it applies to chord movements, and have developed a course on how to warm up your voice efficiently and effectively. I give lessons in my home or over Skype; sign up online for a series of six beginner lessons. I also teach once or twice a year at the Alabama Folk School located in Nauvoo, Alabama. And every now and then, I’m honored to serve as a judge at local old timey music competitions, such as the contest in Lafayette, Tennessee (“Hillbilly Days” and the annual Tennessee Valley Fiddlers Convention in Athens, Alabama.
My song list is now made up mostly of old songs but I sing a few modern tunes that just sound old. I don’t specifically sing in an Old Timey style; I believe a contemporary expression breathes new life to the oldies but goodies. For shows and house concerts, I like to weave together songs from the Appalachians, folk songs I heard in the 1960s and 70s, and a little traditional Gospel. People have been singing variations of some of these songs for hundreds of years. I just marvel at how long these melodies have been carrying their stories. It’s absolutely my favorite music in the world.
I rarely perform anymore but when I do, it’s usually with bassist Tami Roth in The Saggy Bottom Girls, or with my favorite duet partner Jack Horner. I’m also a member of the Rude Dogs Blewgrass Band (don’t ask, you really don’t want to know) and the Small Time String Band, a mostly instrumental Old Time ensemble that currently features Kirk Pickering on fiddle and mandolin, Ron Ault on fiddle, mandolin, and clawhammer hanjo, and Alan O’Bryant (Grammy-winning singer and banjo player with the Nashville Bluegrass Band) on mandolin and banjo. I’ve appeared at various events at The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee, several times over the last few years with friend Marilyn Harris in a little group we call Folksisters, plus I lead quarterly singalongs there. And Kirk and I often play with our favorite songwriter Michael Laidley.
I also appear in harmonies and a duet on a really cool tribute album produced by Tim May in 2007, The Bluegrass Tribute to Neil Young. None of the players are listed online, but credits are in the CD liner notes; I’m there on 8 of the 12 cuts.
I started teaching in 1999 at the encouragement of friends. Over the years, using my desktop publishing skills, I developed my own lyric sheets to document simple yet memorable songs for newbie guitar players. One day I realized I had more than enough of these song profiles for a book so I assembled them into three collections, which are now for sale on this website. I think they really ARE fabulous folksongs every girl should know!
Simply stated, my mission is simply to help other women and girls learn to play guitar and sing for fun. I could bake y’all cookies instead, but I think music makes a much sweeter gift.
— Susie Q
