The South End String Band didn\u2019t start out planning to be a band — they were mostly a back porch drinking society with music as a viable excuse to offer their wives for staying out til after midnight. What most of them didn\u2019t know was how grateful the mizzus was to have a peaceful evening to herself. Well, at least until Shelly joined the band.<\/p>\n
For years the boys hauled out their guitars and banjos, pulled their fiddles off the wall and strung up all those mandolin strings, met up down at the South End Grange Hall where Tommy the fiddler was Master. In the beginning they were all much more proficient on the jug than on their own instruments, but as often happens with practice, they got better. And as they got more proficient, they drank a little less and began to talk playing in public. When the South End Historical Society asked them to perform for their annual salmon bake fundraiser, they jumped on the opportunity. \u201cCan\u2019t pay you anything,\u201d Edith Wonkszeski told the boys, \u201cbut we\u2019ll feed you. And the beers are on us.\u201d That sounded more than fair, Tommy told her and warned her to stock up on those beers, you might lose money on this band.<\/p>\n
And so the newly named South End String Band went public. If they liked drinking and strumming, they loved live performances for an appreciative audience twice as much as both put together. Trouble was, they soon found out, none of the boys could sing outside a shower worth a hoot or a holler. Billy on the banjo tried, but he sort of talked his way through, not really sang. And then Shelly came up to them after a gig at the Mabana Sunset Villa Nursing Home and said, \u201cYou ought to give me a listen.\u201d
\nWhich they did. She came to the next practice wearing a low cut cowgirl dress and even if she\u2019d sung out of tune, the boys knew she\u2019d be their new vocalist. It didn\u2019t hurt either she could outdrink every manjack of them.<\/p>\n
The South End String Band still performs, but after a couple of divorces, the personnel have shifted frequently. Shelly fronts the band now and she\u2019s pretty much the last remaining original member. You can always find a banjo picker in the backwash here, but not another Shelly. The Band practices at her cabin these days and when the night winds down past midnight, Shelly shows the boys the door and always says, \u201cJug\u2019s empty, boys, time to face the music.\u201d It would be funnier if it wasn\u2019t so godawful true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The South End String Band didn\u2019t start out planning to be a band — they were mostly a back porch drinking society with music as a viable excuse to offer their wives for staying out til after midnight. What most of them didn\u2019t know was how grateful the mizzus was to have a peaceful evening […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[6947,1490],"class_list":["post-18463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings","tag-how-the-south-end-string-band-found-their-mojo","tag-the-softer-side-of-the-south-end-string-band"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18463"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18464,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18463\/revisions\/18464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}