A Conversation with Vassar Clements   (continued)

PM: You've had such an incredible life and musical journey. Are there things you haven't yet tried musically or otherwise that you'd still like to check out?

VC: I'd like to try some Indian music, and I'd like to do maybe some of the Canadian music. Of course, that's been done real good, so I don't know what would come out if I did that. See, usually the music I play is going to be different because I don't feel it the same way that anybody else does. And about Canadian music, maybe I would feel it different, I don't know. But things like that I want to try. And I want to do another big band thing. I miss that a lot, and I think that would come out good.

PM: And it's a dying art. I mean, the guys who really feel the big band thing should all make a record.

VC: I think so too, because let me tell you, those tunes will never die. You play them for kids nowadays, and they'll go crazy. They thought I wrote "Night Train."

PM: Really?

VC: I did that years ago, and they thought I wrote it. I said, "No, I think Duke Ellington or somebody else played it."

PM: Right.

VC: I said, "That's not my tune." But they won't take no for an answer, they keep saying, "That tune you wrote, play that one." And I says, "I didn't write it." "Well, play it."

[laughter]

VC: And it's like with the Dirt Band, when we played that first Will the Circle Be Unbroken, well, I wasn't the only fiddle player on that. I'd play some dates with them. And it was embarrassing to me, I'd be walking along with John McEuen, and they'd tell me, "Man, I like that album of yours."

PM: [laughs]

VC: And I says, "That isn't my album. This is a Dirt Band album." They said, "No, that was your album." You know how kids are.

PM: Yeah, I mean, as far as I was concerned growing up, that was a Vassar Clements and Doc Watson record.

VC: [laughs] That's what they would say, yeah. What was that tune? Da, da, da, doo, doo--

PM: "Tennessee Stud."

VC: Yeah, they--that's all I heard everywhere I went.

PM: [laughs] Yeah, I still like to sing that song, and it's that version I sing, too. I mean, that was a great one. Are you and Doc old friends?

VC: Yeah. But that was the first time we met, on that Circle thing.

PM: Wow, jeez. And do you talk to him once in a while?

VC: Yeah. I played his festival--well, it's not his, actually. They use Merle's name.

PM: Merlefest.

VC: Uh-huh. And I saw Doc, and we played Cerritos in California in February.

PM: How's he doing?

VC: He's doing good. He's doing real good.

PM: His health is okay?

VC: Yeah. For a while there we was wondering. But he seems to be doing good now.

PM: He's one of my favorites, too.

VC: Oh, he is a good man. continue

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