Norton Festival Salutes Legacy of Musician Dock Boggs

Dock Boggs was a graveyard singer. He sang with a voice as if from beyond the grave – raw and otherworldly.
“That’s scary stuff,” said Buddy Woodward of the Dixie Bee-Liners. “It’s hellhound-on-my-trail kind of stuff.”
All together now, “Dock Boggs, who?” Here’s who. Attend the 39th Annual Dock Boggs Festival in Norton, Va. on Sept. 12-13, and you will come away with an idea of who Dock Boggs was. Read on, and perhaps learn some more.
Born Moran Lee Boggs in Norton in 1898, he was the youngest of 10 children. Coal was king, and Boggs followed king coal into the mines at the ripe age of 12 for 7 cents an hour. Boggs worked most of the rest of his life as a coal miner, but there was a time when he made hay with music.
Folk music legend Mike Seeger, who will appear at the festival, first heard Boggs as a child.
“I was 7 or 8 when I first heard him sing ‘Danville Girl’ or ‘Pretty Polly,’ ” Seeger said by phone from his home in Lexington, Va. “The whole emotion of his singing on ‘Country Blues’ was just so raw and gripping. He means every ounce of it.”
Boggs died at age 73 in 1971. Yet, the old-time singer and banjo player lives on thanks to music he recorded in the 1920s and then in the 1960s. Seeger knew Boggs. Frankly, he rediscovered him and bridged a way for him to experience success with music.
“I made three recordings with him, and they’re on a two-CD set from Smithsonian Folkways,” Seeger said. “We went up to his sister’s house and recorded up there mostly. We recorded some in a coffeehouse in Ann Arbor, Mich. in the 1960s.”
Boggs first recorded in 1927. Brunswick Records officials came down from New York City to audition local talents at the Norton Hotel for potential record contracts. Boggs recorded eight songs, including the aforementioned “Country Blues” and “Pretty Polly.”
“He was just singing his heart out,” Seeger said. “Otherworldly is a good way to put it. He was so unusual.”
On the strength of those songs, Boggs quit the mines and hit the road as a singer. He formed his own band, the Cumberland Mountain Entertainers, and set out to entertain folks throughout the region. Boggs’ last session from the era was in 1929, a four-song session in Chicago for the Lonesome Ace label.
So few songs, yet an enormous impact was made.
“He was one of those guys who could make the hair stand up on your neck,” Woodward said. “That’s Dock Boggs for you.”
He pressed on for a few years, but quit music and returned to the mines in the early 1930s. Then, Seeger located Boggs.
“I found him in Norton in 1963,” Seeger said. “I couldn’t believe it on the day that I met him for the first time. Here was this person who had made those gripping sounds. Then, I arranged for him to appear at folk festivals and to make recordings.”
Three months later, Boggs was again on stage.
“A month later, he was on stage in front of 10,000 people in Newport [the prestigious Newport Folk Festival],” Seeger said.
Boggs never sold a million records. Never made a music video. Most folks have neither heard nor heard of the man.
But Seeger recalls a moment in time when Boggs sang at Newport that encapsulates the power of the man with the hellhound-on-my-trail voice.
“It was an amazing experience to see him on stage singing ‘O Death’ as the fog was rolling across the darkened stage in red and blue light,” Seeger said.
He paused for a few seconds as the mists of the fog drifted through time. “It was wonderful to hear him.”

IF YOU GO
What: 40th Annual Dock Boggs Festival
When: Sept. 12-13
Where: Appalachian Traditions Village, 6034 Kent Junction Road, Norton, Va.
Admission: $10 per day
Info: (276) 431-3338 or (276) 679-0961
Web: http://www.dockboggsfestival.com

SCHEDULE
Sept. 12
8 p.m. – Matt and Beverly Jones McGee

Sept. 13
11 a.m. – Mountain Empire Community College School Students
11:40 a.m. – Ken Childress and Jimmy Mullins
12:40 p.m. – The Dixie Bee-Liners
1:40 p.m. – Rich and The Poor Folk
2:40 p.m. – Ron Short
3:40 p.m. – Dock Boggs and Kate Peters Sturgill musical tribute featuring Jack Wright, Ron Short, Mike Seeger, Papa Joe Smiddy and others
4:40 p.m. – Clack Mountain String Band
5:40 p.m. – Mike Seeger
6:40 p.m. – The Grascals
8:05 p.m. – Breaking Tradition

TOM NETHERLAND is a freelance writer. He can be reached at .