Frog Bayou Boys deliver big sounds in little Rudy

story and photo by Marla Cantrell
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When The Frog Bayou Boys sing, “Cause nobody answers when I call your name,” a blond woman, thin as a stick, waves one hand in the air. A man with the heel of his cowboy boot hooked around the rung of a black plastic chair with ‘city of Rudy’ engraved on the back, rubs his wife’s shoulder and whispers something that makes her swat his knee.

They’re here at the Rudy Community Center for the fourth Monday night bluegrass show on April 26. It’s hosted by Mayor Bill Rogers who plays guitar and sings some of his own songs. Starting at 6 p.m., it lasts until the band tires out. Nobody pays a dime to attend and there’s always a potluck.

On this night, the center, which is a converted Craftsman style house, is surrounded by 32 pickups and cars parked in jagged rows, some halfway in ditches, others all the way across the street in the Baptist church’s parking lot. It’s a lot of traffic for the tiny Crawford County town of 72.

“Wasn’t enough room to throw a cat,” a man in overalls says.

The crowd has been growing since the band formed a year-and-a-half ago. The six men  — the youngest 45 and the oldest 75 — are here because Larry Walker, 56, retired from his lawn care business in Alma and decided to take up the fiddle three-and-a-half years ago.

He started playing at the A to Z sporting goods store in Alma, just sitting in one of the recliners near the register, practicing what he’d learned from the book he ordered. One by one, the others caught up with Walker.

“I bought a book, ‘You Can Teach Yourself Fiddling’ and I got out on my front porch and started playing,” Walker said. “What really inspired me to start playing was my wife worked for a doctor in Van Buren, Bob Thompson. She came home one day and said, ‘Guess what Dr. Thompson’s doing?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know.’ She said, ‘He’s starting piano lessons at age 71.’ So, I bought my fiddle that day.”

Upright bass player, Ben Gehab, 75, lives in Barling. He’s retired from Whirlpool and since his wife passed away, it’s been bluegrass that’s kept him going. When he plays, the bass rests against his belly, his thick fingers moving up and down the fingerboard. His overalls are Round House and his ball cap is from the Waldron Turkey Track Festival.

“Good people,” he says. “Never met anybody that likes bluegrass that’s not good people. It’s mountain folk music. It’ll keep you alive.”

Rudy native, Bobby Burkhart, 70, plays the guitar. He retired from Riverside after 43 years as the upholstery supervisor but his life has always been about music.

“I’ve been playing about 65 years,” Burkhart said. “I started with the mandolin. I’ve played with a band almost my whole life. … Bluegrass is a style of its own. That’s what my daddy and them played. That’s what we grew up on.”

Vander Atwell, 76, is the only man without a cap. He wears a felt fedora; he’s not from Arkansas. He spent years in California but no one holds it against him. Now in Alma, he can finally devote his time to the mandolin.

“I took up the mandolin when I was 14 and put it down when I was 18. I took up the guitar. … Are you familiar with the old time Baptists and Pentecosts? Atwell asks. “The Pentecostals used their music to get the mood up and at that time it was more like this. You get the spirit rolling. Bluegrass will do that.”

Mayor Rogers, 45, who learned to play guitar by watching Hee Haw in the 70s, says, “If you don’t play music, I’m not sure I can explain it. But it’s my sanctuary up there. You can work things out, even while you’re playing. Bluegrass is personal.”

Retired dentist Jim Robertson, 60, drives from Ozark to play banjo.

“Bluegrass is musicians’ music. When you hear a structured country song, there might be one opportunity for an improvisation. Here everybody who picks gets a chance to break out, so to speak. … It’s a true American art form even though it has roots in Scotland and Ireland.”

The Frog Bayou Boys, named for the stream that runs through Rudy, ride the tide of sorrow in the small community center. They sing about a man who will never see his wife again, another crying his heart out. They tell you they know your life on earth is trouble. When a “Man of Constant Sorrow” starts, a woman with hair the color of straw raises an arthritic hand and covers her eyes.

But they don’t leave you there. They take you even lower.

“What about that feller in the garden?” someone asks and they start up again. “They say he built a mansion. They planned to be married in the fall.”

Don’t be fooled by his good fortune. This is bluegrass, after all. So, they bring it home for you.

“But the house stood empty after all.”

A man in the crowd tips his hat and says, “If this wasn’t the music you was raised on then I’m sorry for you.”

The music picks up then. They sing “Walking After Midnight” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky” and “Unclouded Day.” Toes tap, the wood floor sounding beneath the rhythm.  There are more boots here than tennis shoes. More Wranglers than slacks.

The mayor says, “If we keep playing like this, I’m going have to go get the BenGay out of my truck.”

So they wind down with “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” The audience stands. The teens on the lawn for most of the night come inside and linger by the door. A woman in a pink Newsboy cap clutches a tissue in her hand. By the time the band delivers “There’s a better home awaiting in the sky, Lord, in the sky,” a few are swaying to the music — there’s not enough room to dance — and everybody is singing along.

While the women gather purses and the men slip into jackets, mostly denim, you hear, “You can’t listen to bluegrass and not be happy.” A man in a pearl buttoned shirt answers, “No sir, it don’t happen. It’s pure music. Nobody feels this way after Rock and Roll.”