Floyd Lee

Genres of music seem to inspire similar types of storytelling. For example, some country blues singers will tell sagas of getting released from jail because they happened to play guitar so well for the warden or a VIP visitor. Jazz players tend to come up with pathetic stories of building up the courage to go sit in with such a such a giant of jazz, then playing so horribly that they get thrown offstage. As for the giants of the "hollerin'" genre, they like to boast about how their great talents saved the day more than once. One might be surprised to find out how much trouble there is to get into in rural Sampson County, one of the hotbeds of hollerin' in North Carolina and the locale of the annual Hollerin' Contest held in Spivey's Corner. One of the biggest predicaments a youngster can get into is getting lost in the huckleberry woods. This happened to the 1970 hollerin' champion, H.H. Oliver, and it also was the dire fate of Floyd Lee, the 1973 winner. That's when a "distress holler" comes in handy, in both cases happily bringing someone who both recognized the holler, was savvy enough to follow it to it source, and knew the way back out of the woods as well. Some followers of the hollerin' phenomenon will insist that absolutely nobody can do this holler like Lee, and that his "Distress Holler" featured on the mid-'70s Rounder compilation entitled Hollerin' represents an absolute pinnacle in this art form, which is not to be confused with simply yelling for help. Of course, this performer doesn't have to get lost or into some other kind of mess in order to demonstrate his chops. Lee, like many of the county's hollerin' masters, was a repository of old-time hollers and songs. He also bragged of his skill at being able to summon geese with a holler, and recorded the ear-shattering track "Hollering in an Automobile," a favorite cut of underground-radio programmers who are only a step or two away from the loony hatch. As flattering as this type of attention might be, the ability to control livestock with properly executed hollers has always been of much more importance to this man than cracking into the weird cult-music scene. A complex code of animal summations dates back to an era when grazing and animal stock laws were much looser, if existent at all. Animals wandered the countryside, awaiting the sound of their master's voice to call them home at the end of a long day of chomping and grazing. "They knew, they'd come," Lee says with great assurance. His wife had her own personalized pig call which she had learned from her father, as well as an extremely loud dinner call, eliminating the need for any kind of dinner bell to bring the men in from the fields. Yet those who would fence hollerin' into an area removed from other forms of musical expressions based on its practical usage need to be reminded that these performers also hollered just for the fun of it, too; just like someone picking a guitar for their own amusement. Lee practices hollerin' and is his own radio when he is out driving around. He first began doing this type of vocal music at the age of eight, after hearing the hollerin' of a neighbor named Charlie Parsons. He developed such an interest that he practiced almost constantly -- "Started practicing. Learned how to change it and all," is the wonderful way he has described the process of becoming a hollerer in interviews -- but was taught not to holler on Sundays. Lee appeared several times on the Johnny Carson Show. This was not an across-the-board rule among families in this region, as some hollerin' champions can recall relatives hooting and hollerin' all the way home from church. Lee is not related to the blues artist of the same name who has released a CD on the Bluescd.com label. ~ Eugene Chadbourne