Music with roots

April 21, 2006

By JOEL DAVIDSON

Frontiersman

MAT-SU - Doc's aging fingers danced up and down a trusty mandolin earlier this week, as he reached back into a memory bank of more than 400 songs to resurrect a childhood ballad.

These days, sitting in a cramped living room, surrounded by piles of dusty classical literature, Doc burns daylight playing old-time songs that lift his spirit and quiet the memories that sometimes come back to haunt him.

Now 78 years old and losing his health, Howard &#8220Doc” South lives alone off the Palmer-Wasilla Highway. His family disbanded years ago, and he doesn't have much contact with his two grown sons. Tragedy's been part and parcel of his life.

&#8220I've had my fair share, maybe more than most,” he admitted, sitting back in a well-worn easy chair. &#8220Music has always been there, though - it's never done me any harm.”

With a tan overcoat and a leather cowboy hat crowning his silver head of hair, Doc might have walked straight out of the Old West. In many ways, his attitude and passions echo an older era, when men herded cattle, worked farm fields and relaxed with fiddle music and bluegrass tunes drifting through the night.

Despite his troubles, Doc still is quick to laugh or spin a comic tale.

His eyes are full of curiosity, and he keeps his mind sharp with poetry, literature and his beloved music. He's spent a lifetime with what he calls old-time, bluegrass, western and hillbilly songs.

It started when he was a teen, playing the fiddle for roadhouses, community square dances and church pie suppers in the farm country of southern Indiana. He picked up the banjo and mandolin through watching others and self-education.

&#8220I've never had a lesson in my life,” Doc said. &#8220Generally people didn't teach music then.”

If you learned an instrument back then, it was through watching others and singing with your family for entertainment, Doc explained. It helped, too, that his family didn't have a T.V. or radio when he was growing up.

&#8220There wasn't much canned music then,” he said. &#8220We had to make up our entertainment.”

Doc hasn't strayed much from that philosophy since.

In the process of getting his college education and starting a medical career in psychology, Doc's music faded into the background, still hanging around but not as prominent as it once was.

In the spring of 1970, he moved to Fairbanks to practice psychology for the Alaska Department of Mental Health. It was in this former gold-mining town where folk music became one of the most defining and enduring aspects of his life.

It started when a young hippie band found out he could play the fiddle, and asked him to join them for weekend gigs at a local bar outside Fairbanks. Doc accepted the offer and it's a decision that has lead to more musical connections and intertwined friendships than he ever expected.

Over the last quarter century, musicians from all over the state have felt Doc's influence on Alaska's folk scene as he helped organize Irish and bluegrass jam sessions in Anchorage and the Mat-Su, played in countless folk festivals, and generally helped preserve music the way he believe it's best suited - for and by the people.

&#8220Folk music is just something people do with their life,” he said. &#8220I'm not really a musician; I never had music lessons. I just picked it up and tried to teach myself - that's a folk musician.”

Doc's music was derailed over the last couple years due to a heart attack and surgery for an aneurysm. Health troubles forced him to set aside music.

Last summer, however, he began regularly attending a Wednesday Irish jam session at Snow City Café in Anchorage, a session he claims to have helped start nearly 25 years ago.

Doc also started playing a few public gigs again with local bands. Most recently, he played on St. Patrick's Day at Vagabond Blues in Palmer. He doesn't take up the banjo or fiddle much anymore, though, due to arthritis in his shoulders. Instead he focuses on the mandolin.

&#8220As I get older, I have to give up more and more things in life,” he said from his living room chair, before reaching back for his mandolin.

He started in on another afternoon tune.

Like most Irish ballads, it was a song that spoke of the hardship and redemption that life always seems to intertwine.

&#8220This music has a connection,” Doc said. &#8220Every song I play has a set of connections in my life. It goes way back - it has roots.”

As long as he's able, Doc plans to keep playing his music. On the last Sunday of this month, he's planning to accompany a few players for his first folk gig at Schwabenhof in Wasilla.

&#8220I've always loved this music,” he said. &#8220But as I get older, it becomes more important.”

Contact Joel Davidson at 352-2266 or joel.davidson@ frontiersman.com.