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I was born in the Southern Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. My uncle Gene fashioned banjos, or as we called them „banjers“ out of wood and used groundhog hides for the head. By the time I was eight years old I was strumming the guitar as my Uncle Gene played banjo, my father Harvey Harmon played harmonica, and my grandpa Ben played the jug once he got it empty.


Some of my favourite childhood memories are of listening to the ‚Grand Ol‘ Opry‘ with my grandparents in their small wood home in the Beech Mountain area of North Carolina, just across the state line in Tennessee. I remember fondly the cracking of the old tube radio, and sometimes if it was storming and the wind blowing was so loud in the old house we could barely hear the radio. I remember sitting with my grandparents, Uncle Gene, Aunt Pearl and my parents listening to Ray Price, Johnny Cash, and other great ones. I also remember listening to the „voice box“ as my grandmother Cindy called it. There were albums of Uncle Dave Macon, and The Carter Family and I would listen and dream of one day playing music on the stage. I was seven or eight years old.


My great-great grandfather Council Harmon is credited by


American


historians as the original teller of the Jack Tales in America.


The Harmon


family of Western North Carolina produced many storytellers,


musicians,


singers, and songwriters, and maybe I was destined to follow their lead.


I spent many nights sitting by my grandfather Ben Harmon’s fireplace listening to him telling my sisters and me the Jack Tales. It is one of my most cherished childhood


memories. I also remember listening to my late second cousin Ray Hicks who was married to Rosa Harmon and was a great storyteller who was recognized as a National Treasure. I asked Ray just before he passed if he thought I could keep the tales going as they had been in the Harmon family for two hundred years, and his response was ‘’Gawwwd son, just give’em hell!’’ So I did.


Even as a little boy I wrote songs, but only in my head. I always loved the guitar, and always knew I wanted to play one. I remember as a child my family was big on church, and we were there three times every week. There was a gentleman who sometimes would bring his guitar to church and sing. The only time I ever sat on the front pew was when I saw him bring his guitar to church. I was a huge fan of Doc Watson, Maybelle Carter, Merle Travis and other great guitarists of that era. I started playing when I was ten. My late brother purchased a true tone guitar from Sears & Roebuck and gave it to me. I saved fifty cents and purchased a book by Arthur Smith that showed the chords and started practicing. I never took a lesson and know nothing about reading music. I practiced various methods that I enjoyed listening to such as cross picking, flat picking and finger picking.


I started playing bars and honky tonks in the mid-seventies, anywhere I could and every chance I got. I was in a few garage bands that went nowhere.


About that same time my drinking spun out of control, and I spent what seemed a lifetime in the mental gutter as a chronic alcoholic. I had one after another encounter with the law, and only by the grace of God and luck it was never serious. I drank out of control and it took me down many roads that I never want to travel again.


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