John "Buckwheat" Green

John “Buckwheat” Green

I am a songwriter, singer, and musician born on June 20 th , 1953 in Danville WV. At 6 years old my dad gave me a guitar and taught me some chords, but I always sang. I used to stand up in the crib and sing with the television commercials and show themes. I liked the “Little Rascals” show so much that he started calling me “Buckwheat.”

When I was in the sixth grade our family moved to Hurricane, WV, and I quickly became friends with Chipper Adams, who also played guitar. Chipper’s mother took us to play at the Nitro (WV) Moose Lodge for a Christmas Show when we were 13 years old, my earliest recollection of playing in public. I still remember getting paid $4 apiece for the show, but that was all it took for me to realize what I wanted to do. I played in a rock and roll band with Chipper and other local musicians until I was 19 years old. We played local clubs, school functions, and pretty much any where we could.

I also started writing songs about the time I met Chipper. I guess it was in my blood; the late Merle Kilgore was my cousin. Besides being a major artist manager, his 300 songs included “Wolverton Mountain” and co-writing “Ring of Fire” with June Carter Cash. The inspiration for “Wolverton Mountain” was his Uncle Clifton Clowers. That is my Grandfather, so I was thought my mom was the girl from Wolverton Mountain.

I could have used Merle’s help with my first song. It concerned my mother not wanting the new washing machine that my dad had bought for her for Christmas because it was not a Maytag. My dad took it back and bought her a Maytag.

I bought a washing machine
The darn thing wouldn’t clean
And the old hag
wanted a Maytag

I believe I was thinking more about the rhyming pattern than my mother’s feelings. Around this time I also met Bill Browning who owned a recording studio near my house. The writer of BMI-award winning song “Dark Hollow,” recorded by everybody from Jimmie Skinner to the Grateful Dead, Bill took a liking to me. He would let me come to the studio and record anytime I wanted and helped me develop my songwriting skills.

My father passed away when he was only 49 years old, and I was 18. That was a year of lots of change for me. I graduated from high school, and then I heard The Country Gentlemen for the first time. The bluegrass bug bit me then and there. My dad and I had watched Flatt and Scruggs and the “Porter Wagoner Show” on TV every week, but when I heard the Country Gentlemen live my eyes opened to a whole different world of music.

In 1972 I formed a band with high school friends Tim Johnson and Jerry Vance, along with Jerry’s older brother Joe. We called ourselves The West Virginia Gentleman. We released our first 45 rpm record on Browning’s Alta label. I wrote the songs on both sides. The A was “The West Virginia Coal,” a song about the coal miner life in WV, and B was “Doing Fine,” about how I was doing after the death of my father. “The West Virginia Coal” played extensively on local radio stations and juke boxes throughout WV.

The West Virginia Gentlemen traveled on weekends to various bluegrass festivals and shows in PA, WV, KY, and VA. The group performed once a month at the Mountaineer Opry House in Milton WV, where we got to open shows for bands including The Country Gentlemen, Jim and Jesse, The Osborne Brothers, Jimmy Martin, and Ralph Stanley. The West Virginia Gentlemen also recorded an LP on Browning’s Marbone Label featuring all original gospel songs. Fellow West Virginian George Noyes wrote the lyrics, and we composed the music. The West Virginia Gentlemen disbanded in 1975 when Tim Johnson was tragically killed in a head on car crash with a loaded coal truck while returning home from work as an operator for my uncle’s coal company.

In 1976 or 1977 I joined The Laurel Mountain Boys from Charleston, WV. This band included Don Sowards, his son Mark, myself, and ex Larry Sparks bassman Mike Smith. Don had led this fairly traditional band for many years. When Mike and I joined with young Mark’s emerging banjo style, the band changed to a more progressive sound. We recorded the album “Long Black Beauty” on Old Homestead Records that included original songs by both myself and Don. This album was well received and played on many stations. We traveled to many states playing festivals and clubs.

In1979 to 1985 I cofounded an ensemble called the High Time Picken Band with fellow former West Virginia Gentleman Jerry Vance. along with Rob Ward, Richard Bird, Scottie Myers, and Fiddling Tommy Cordell who was taught by legendary West Virginia fiddler Clark Kessinger. We recorded a LP on Old Homestead called High Time Picken’. I played in this band until 1985. During this time I wrote what might be my best known song, “The Old Man in the Shanty.”

See, I was fortunate to grow up in Hurricane where many bluegrass artists played at a local night spot called The Rose Garden Inn that featured bluegrass every weekend. I met Tim Austin there when he was selling merchandise for the Bluegrass Cardinals. Tim was listening when I pitched “The Old Man in the Shanty” to Cardinals lead singer David Parmely. David liked it, but for some reason I never sent the song to him.

Tim called me up later and said he was cutting an album with a new group, the Lonesome River Band. He remembered “The Old Man in the Shanty,” but because they weren’t on a label yet, I didn’t send it to him. After a while Tim called again to say they were on Rebel Records. He still wanted the song, so I sent it to him. Lonesome River Band cut it on their Rebel debut. It quickly became one of their most requested and played songs at shows and on radio. Years later the Chapman Family would record their own version.

During this time I played in a band called Groundspeed with Rob Ward and Richard Bird along with three-time WV State Banjo Champion Kevin Coll. Groundspeed recorded a cassette-only album at Austin’s Doobie Shea Studios that got a good review from Bluegrass Unlimited. I was still writing songs, including four of the songs you can hear here on MySpace page. One is “Curve in Boone County,” written about the death of Tim Johnson.

The Lonesome River Band (LRB) first recorded the two other songs. “It Won’t be like Cheatin’” appeared on their Saturday Night Sunday Morning CD, while “If I Could only Have your Love” came out on Looking For Yourself with Dan Tyminksi, today a longtime member of Alison Krauss & Union Station and now The Dan Tyminski Band. The latter song is a collaboration with my wife Sandy Littlejohn Green and long time friend Richard Bird. The Special Consensus also recorded it.

About the time of the Groundspeed release I joined the LRB, I replaced original member Jerry McMillan, playing bass and singing lead and harmony vocals. This band included Tim, Dan, and Dale Perry, who was playing banjo. My very first show was at the Birchmere, a famous listening room in the DC area! On top of that, my LRB debut was a show with Bill Harrell recorded by WAMU-FM for National Public Radio. I am in the process of getting a couple of songs from the live recording on MySpace. I have “The Old Man in the Shanty” from this show up on MySpace now.

Unfortunately I did not stay in the LRB long enough to appear on a CD. I was on Tim Austin’s all-star The Stanley Tradition album, singing baritone on “The Only Way to Say Goodbye.” I also appeared on one of The Stanley Tradition live dates after the CD became a hit.

After leaving LRB I didn’t play much until 2000 when I joined Virginia Sonrize a VA based bluegrass gospel group that featured Ray Jones, Sandra Baucomb, Randy Graham, and myself. my wife Sandy and I wrote three gospel tunes during this time. One was recorded for a radio release at the new Doobie Shea studio -- “When God Gave Us His Son.” I have not been playing in a band since, but Sandy and I are still writing songs and enjoying life as it comes.

I would like to thank Art Menius for his invaluable help with this bio