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Article published Jun 15, 2007 It's a community thing: Pistol Creek says 'no stage too small'
By Steve Wildsmith of The Daily Times Staff
When Edward Harper first came to Tennessee, he drove over the mountains from his home in North Carolina in a 1966 Mustang, carrying with him his few sole possessions — a darkroom set, a set of drums, a cooler and a sleeping bag.
Now, 30 years later, Harper is respected for his work with various senior citizen programs at Blount Memorial Hospital. He’s traded his drums for a guitar. And along with his bandmates — Bill Cabage on guitar, fiddle and vocals; Scott Hinds on stand-up bass and vocals; and Carl Gombert on bass and rub-board — he serves up a fresh catch of the day almost every weekend to a growing fan base all over Blount County.
The “catch” would be Pistol Creek Catch of the Day, a group that began almost as a joke, Harper told The Daily Times this week.
“It got started two or three years ago when we played for the April Foolies (a talent show fund-raiser for three local agencies that benefit children). The trouble is, people kept asking us to play, and ‘Catch of the Day’ now means whoever we can get to sit in with us.”
The band has played a number of benefits, fund-raisers and community shows, including this weekend’s “Big BBQ Bash,” taking place today and Saturday at Springbrook Corporate Center in Alcoa. The members don’t claim to be ace musicians, but they do promise a good time — and that’s been the key to the group’s success, as best as they can figure out.
“We have fun on stage, and everything’s a stage,” Harper said. “No stage is too small — we may not be the best musicians in town or the tightest group in town, but we have fun. We don’t just play for people; we play with people. It’s a community thing.”
Given the long-time friendship between Harper and Cabage, it’s no wonder that there’s a light-hearted center to what Pistol Creek Catch of the Day does. Harper, who’s been playing music since he was 10, grew up in a family of musicians — his father was a saxophone player in the 1940s, and his brother is a professional musician; as part of the family band, Harper was a touring musician before he was old enough to drive.
“I learned 1940s tunes before I learned hymns, and that’s saying a lot since I grew up in a Baptist church,” Harper said. “My brother and I had a high school band in the 1970s, and I listened to a lot of rockabilly and 1950s and ‘60s rock ‘n’ roll. I started playing guitar in my 20s, and I’m more of a strummer; I’m not somebody you’d want to say, ‘Take it and lead with it.’”
In 1977, Harper moved to Tennessee; in 1978, he came to Blount County to work in various programs for the mentally handicapped. As soon as he could get his drumkit set up, he started looking for fellow musicians with whom to play.
“The problem was that I lived way out in the country,” he said. “Even though there were stripes on the road, it only went one way; people didn’t come to see you — you had to go see them.”
That same year, Harper met Cabage, a Blount County native who took guitar lessons from local legend Marvin Russell. The two formed a friendship and would play on and off for years; Cabage played at Harper’s wedding, and later on, when Harper and his family moved into the city limits, they started playing together more often.
“I started meeting people when my child was in school,” Harper said. “We started a kindergarten band — basically the parents of kindergarteners — and it had a snowball effect. I’ve played with four or five different sets of parents and friends since then.”
Those groups include Edward Harper and Circle of Friends, a group of interchangeable musicians that eventually became Pistol Creek Catch of the Day. In the meantime, Cabage had taken up playing the fiddle; together with Hinds and, later on, Gombert, they quickly gelled as a cover band with a vast repertoire of material.
“Just about all of our covers are kind of obscure,” said Cabage, who also plays in the local blues outfit Capt. Suck and the Mediocre Band. “We’ll do stuff like Hank Williams, but we’ll do a song a lot of people haven’t heard of, like ‘You’re Gonna Change or I’m Gonna Leave.’ I think people like us because, for one thing, Edward is a good singer. Plus, he’s got curly hair, and I think the ladies dig him.”
The two laugh at the joke, and it’s easy to see the camaraderie that translates well to the stage. Throw in Hinds and his acrobatic tricks on the stand-up bass, and it’s not difficult to understand why Pistol Creek Catch of the Day is so popular among local residents.
“The worst thing musicians can do is take themselves too seriously,” Cabage added. “We just play fun stuuff, and people sense that we’re having fun while we’re doing it.”