Louise Carroll: Talking country brings back memories

Country music was the first music I heard as a child. I remember sitting with my grandma on the porch swing in Clarion County with evening coming on. My Uncle Arlie strummed the guitar and sang. I don't remember the words or the tunes, but I remember the feeling of everything was right in my world as I sat there with my grandma.

When I was growing up in Ellwood City, we went to the CIO Hall to hear country music by local groups and some from the Wheeling West Virginia Jamboree. When I got older my friends and I would pool our money for enough for gasoline to go to the Jamboree. Gasoline was 26 cents a gallon, but quarters were hard to come by.

I'm always glad to talk country music so I was pleased when Bob Viccari dropped in and we sat at my dining room table and talked country music.

When Bob mentioned Johnny Bush I did not recognize the name and I thought I was fairly country-savvy. I took Bob's suggestion and listened to Johnny Bush's "Undo the Right" and enjoyed his clear distinctive voice. Bush also wrote and sang "Whiskey River'" and I enjoyed his original version and yes, I liked Willie Nelson's version, too.

Bob grew up with the music as his father, Bobby, played bass and sang with Dave Mac and the Country Swingers, a very popular group, that also played every Friday night at the Victory Café in Wampum.

Beginning when he was about 10 years old, Viccari's father took him to Ponderosa Park in Salem, Ohio, where Dave Mac's group played regularly. Ponderosa did not have a band and most stars traveled without their bands so Mac's group was known as the Staff Band playing for or opening for Ray Price, Porter Wagner and Dolly Parton and many others. Jeanne Pruett Liked their music so much that she offered to hire them as her band and each would get $1,000 a month, which was a lot of money back then. The men, who had young children, declined the offer because they didn't want to be on the road.

A 1972 newspaper ad included Conway Twitty and the Twitty Birds, Dave Mac and the Country Swingers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Hank Williams, Jr. with Bocephus Country Music.

From 1965 until it closed in 2010, Ponderosa Park was the hot spot to see the stars, including Roy Acuff, Kitty Wells and Johnny and June Carter Cash, Willie Nelson, Roy Clark, Tammy Wynette and so many others.

Bob recalled his father opening for Ray Price, Billy 'Crash' Craddock, Emmylou Harris and others.

"As a child, I watched my father on stage playing with Dave Mac and the Country Swingers, a group that was ahead of their time. Twenty years later, my father was watching me on the same stage with my band Mason Dixon," Viccari said.

Bob and his father both opened for Conway Twitty, singer and songwriter, who was part of the 1950s rockabilly scene.

Thanks to the internet much of the music is preserved. You can google "Dave Mac Country Swingers Bobby V singing "Room Full of Roses" and enjoy the memory.

"My parents died two days apart in December 2021. My dad used to sing 'Room full of Roses' to my mom and we played it at their funeral so he could sing it and she could hear it one last time," Viccari said.

Currently, Viccari is the leader of the First Baptist Missionary Church Band in Chewton that plays on Sundays and backs up the choir.

Viccari, who plays the guitar and sings, has a mellow voice with the Elvis sound.

Talking country music with Bob brought back lots of memories. Every summer my husband, Don, and I went to a Bluegrass Festival at Bradys Run Park, where we saw all the greats including Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley. I like to tell people that I sang with Bill Monroe. I did. I really did but so did a thousand other people when Bill invited the audience to join him in "I Saw the Light."

I realize everybody doesn’t enjoy country music. A friend who doesn't like it told me, "It's all about somebody did somebody wrong." Some of it is, but in real life that's what happens, somebody does somebody wrong.

When I listen I hear and feel the emotions that we all share; longing, love and loss. Often the song connects me to a time or place and memories that might be lost.

For me, bluegrass, country and folk music are the music I feel in my heart and I love to sit down and talk about it.

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Carroll: Talking country brings back memories