Got a nephew of Fiddling Bob Taylor in our
Association and by next summer we aim to hold a Singing Gathering down
in his country--the Watauga country in Tennessee. Folsom Taylor, that's
his name and he's living now in the far end of the Blue Ridge in
Maryland. He helped us with the Singing Gathering we held in the
Cumberlands in Maryland this past summer. We've got another helper down
in Tennessee. His name is Grady Snead. He was in the World War and about
lost his singing voice but he's not lost any of his spirit for mountain
music and old-time ways. Why, every summer ever since Grady got back
from the war he's gathered his people around him in Snead's Grove--he
owns quite a few acres down in Tennessee--and they have an old-time
picnic and they have hymn singing and ballad singing and fiddle music.
This past summer our Association joined in with them at the Snead picnic
and you never saw the like that day in Snead's Grove. People thick as
bees and pleased as could be. We started off a-singing a good
old-fashioned hymn all together and that put everybody in good heart.
Never saw such a picnic in all my born days. There's nothing like a good
old-fashioned all-day picnic to make friends among people and then mix
in a lot of good old-time music. That's what Americans were brought up
on and that's what they're going to live on more and more through these
troubled hours and as time goes on."

That day at Snead's Grove, Sid Hatfield told them about the Association
and how already different organizations had united with it. He told of a
preacher over in Maryland who had joined in whole-heartedly. "He's
adopted the great out-of-doors for his temple in which to worship with
song and prayer. Robinson is his name. Reverend Felix Robinson, as fine
a singer and as fine a preacher as you'd ever want to sit under."

Then Sid put down his fiddle and his mouth harp and drawing from his
coat pocket a crumpled paper, he began again. "My friends, I want to
read you this piece in the _Chicago Daily News_. This is the place to
read it. We ought to be warned about what can happen in this country to
our music, by what has happened to some of our people. Though maybe
sometime it's been for the best. This piece was writ by a mighty knowing
man. His name is Robert J. Casey and he flew from Chicago for his paper
the _Chicago Daily News_ to hear with his own ears the music of the
mountains from the lips of mountain singers at Traipsin' Woman cabin