products. A quilt, a chair, a song
becomes the identifying product characterizing the culture from
which it came.In today's product-oriented
world, many people simplify the study of culture by focusing upon
its products. A quilt, a chair, a song
becomes the identifying product characterizing the culture from
which it came.
In fact, it is the act of making the quilt, the chair, the song which more closely reveals the culture and its social environment.
Simply, culture is the action of daily life repeated a million times over so that the making and the product become so integrated that the maker is not even aware of everything that goes into the making. The actions of daily life become so integrated that they become who we are. Culture is the living of our lives, the unconscious actions and responses that govern us. It is the way we do things. As my Daddy says, "How you look at a thang depends entirely upon how you look at a thang."
Of all the products of Appalachian culture, the music of this region has undergone the greatest examination and has suffered from the greatest exploitation both from inside and outside the culture. And while it may appear that the "products" of recordings, academic studies and publications, and pop culture have wrested ownership of the music away from its true owners, quietly and surely the music of Appalachian daily cultural life is still being created, played, and sung.
This is music that is made
for the sake of the maker's own sense of well being and health,
music that serves the social, cultural and emotional needs of
the community. This is music that saves, heals, makes rocks cry,
and women love men, music that can make you believe you have a
soul! This is our music 
that helps us see that without it,
we would not be who we are. In 1996 Appalshop's Roadside Theater
began a collaboration with one of the region's premiere singing
families. The Mullins Family, from Dickenson County, Virginia,
have served their community as singers/musicians for well over
150 years.
There is no way of knowing how many funerals they have sung at; how many benefits they have participated in; how many church services they have enriched; how many lives they have changed; how many people have been "saved" after hearing them sing.
In a project funded by Appalshop's Art Endowment Fund, Scott Mullins, an eighth-generation member of the Dickenson County family, began an examination of the family's music and an oral- history collection of the family's singing history.
Though the project is not finished, the following interviews of family members reveal an inside view of the family's sense of music in their lives and its importance to their personal identities.
We began to see singing revealed not as a "product" but as part of the daily act of living within a "culture." The family traces its orgins to "Revolutionary" John Mullins, who gained his name from fighting in the "Battle of Kings Mountain" in 1780. He died in present-day Dickenson County in 1849 and today his descendants make up a large part of the southwestern Virginia/eastern Kentucky population.
The family starts most of their recollections with Dock Mullins (1890 - 1962) and his wife, Pearlie Cumbo Mullins (1898 - 1973), but all acknowledge that the singing began long before that and was "passed down."
The speakers are Dock's children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and other family relations. (For the purpose of this article, the separate interviews have ben edited together to held create context.)
Reverend Hie A. Mullins:
I was born on July 18, 1915, near the Flannagan Dam on 
the
Pound River side of what they called the Tandy Post Office. I
was the oldest child of Dock Patton Mullins and Pearlie Cumbo
Mullins. The Cumbo set was originally from somewhere near the
Tennessee border. Bill Mullins was my great-grandad. His ancestors
came from North Carolina and he was a direct descendant of Revolutionary
John, one of the first settlers of Dickenson County. My dad was
a farmer and a laborer. I was eight years old when I started singin'.
I soon learned the notes, and after that I sang with my dad in
the family all through my younger days.
Ella Faye Mullins Puckett
(Dock & Pearlie's daughter):
As far back as I can remember, Dad was singing, and we kids, as
we grew up and learned to read and write, we learned our notes.
Dad would draw the shapes and you
had to learn it! And he'd make us sit there and learn our note
till we memorized it. We'd sing about an hour every night. I remember
money was very scarce but whenever he'd find a new songbook that
was published, he'd take the last dime he had and order at least
two songbooks.
We grew up with singing and music. We'd start singing on the porch on Sunday evening back in the old house. No music, but singing. The neighbors would join in. Then after Hie got married and lived nearby, and he had a guitar and Frances played autoharp, we'd all go up to their house every Sunday evening and twenty-five, thirty neighbors would come in around the porch and sing on the porch in the summertime.
Greta Mullins Rank (Dock
& Pearlie's daughter):
Usually, there was singing in the house just about all the time.
Someone was singing or the radio was on and we sang to that.
Ella Faye Mullins Puckett:
I mean, what would it be like for us if we couldn't sing? That's
sad to think about.
Mabel Dutton Short (Frances
Dutton Mullins' sister; granddaughter of Jack Dutton, long time
spiritual leaded of Dunkard Church, today known as Church of the
Brethren):
Grandpa and Granny, when they first came int to this part of the
country, they
just built what they could. A log house and board doors. She once
said when they killed hogs, the wolves would come in and smell
that blood meat. The would come in gangs and stick their noses
under the old door and lick. She would boil water on the fire,
get it real hot, and pour on their noses! They couldn't even put
their meat outside the door or nothin' where they could get to
it.
I've been singin' as long as
I can remember. I sung just about ever'where in church. They used
to come to Pap's. He'd have me up in his lap and I'd sing with
him. I sang on alto, and I was that little! We sang "Life's
Evening Sun." Hampton Mullins was another preacher in that
church. We all sang, maybe not all of us didn't, but all us children
did. It was as natural as eatin', breathin', or whatever. The
first I ever sung with somebody was with your Grandpa Hie. Me
and him would go to funerals and walk over on the ridge where
Hiram Bartley lived. They would call for us, and Foy Meade, he
was another singin' leader, did shapes notes and sang with the
Meade singers. He heard me and come by and was havin' a singing
school down at Splashdam. Wanted me to go and help him down there.
As far as I was concerned that was just my whole life. I wouldn't
have knowed what to done without having' to sing when I wanted
to. I remember one time, I come in the door a singin' "Wild
Bill Jones." Mommy said, "Stop that!" But, I've
not got no conscience about that. Your conscience will tell you
exactly what's right.
Reverend L. Myers Mullins
(Church of the Brethren)
Back in the early days the sisters wore their white aprons and
their black bonnets and long dresses. Brother Dock and my daddy,
they sung together and they'd have singin' schools. Brother Dock
was a 
wonderful singer. A spiritual man.
I've seen him sang and tears'd go down his cheeks. Wonderful!
My Daddy, he preached and they all worshipped together. They'd
have the communion, the Lord's supper, as the Lord has it with
his disciples. Gather ‘round the table and wash each other's
feet. They'd take of the cup and the broken body, which is the
bread, and they would eat as Christ eat with the disciples. So,
they was a church that was very close communion. I mean, they
had fellowship with everybody. They loved each other and served
the Lord together, and worshipped together. I can remember my
daddy carryin' me. We lived down under the hill. I can remember
him carryin' me across his neck, over his neck, carryin' me up
the hill to church.
They would have the Dunkard supper. Hundred's of people would come from Kentucky. They would be many, big crowds come just to se and hear and not take part of the communion itself, but they would come to see and observe, and see just how the Brethren Church did. We still carried on just like we did then. Today we go and we set the supper, and have the beef and the sop, and call it the supper as the Lord took it.
Reverend Hie A. Mullins
He (Dock) was a deacon in the Cumberland Church of the Brethren.
The preachers, as usual rule, grew long beards. They had an organ
to start with, but they ruled that out finally. I was too small
to stand 
almost, to stand up with the congregation,
and they placed me up on the roster to sing from there. My first
wife, Frances, she was some younger than me, she'd sit on the
side of the roster and I was on the other and we dang together
then. She was only four years old when we first begin sangin'.
After I had grown and we married, our family began sangin' as
early as one (the children) could sang.
We began sangin' on the radio on April 6, 1946. The first broadcast didn't have any signal light to show when you was on the air so we just to take for granted when we was there. I think we made a pretty bad mess of the first broadcast. Anyhow, the station called me and apologized for the mix-up and told us to come on back. Our program caught a lot of attention. There wasn't many radio stations in this part of the country then. Everybody that had a radio set almost was tuned in to that Norton radio station. In one week's time, I remember, we pulled eighty-nine cards and letters in the mail.
We had the privilege to sing with the Carter family and with Buster Pack, Lulu Bell and Scottie, and other early groups. We went down to the Carter Fold, to the old-time store. The steps were made up level to the porch with railroad ties. I asked, "Mister, I'm lookin' for Mister A. P. Carter." And he says, "I'm A. P. Carter." He later invited us to be on the program that evening. We was treated awful nice.
Billy Gene Mullins (Hie's
son):
As far back as I can remember, there was always some kind of music
in the household. Dad had an old spring wind-up type record player
and somehow we'd manage to get hold of a few of the old 78 records
which was mostly the Carter Family.
Wade Mainer and the Mountaineers, and Uncle Dave Macon. Wehad
a radio before there was much electricity. It was a battery-operated
thing. We used it mostly to hear the news and, occasionally, the
Grand Ole Opry on Saturday night.
Dad, he would play a five-string. First one he had was an old homemade thing made out of a five- gallon container of some kind. It was cut down and made a banjer head. He played the banjer well and e always like to play the guitar.
We had a little group together, my uncle Tony, Dad and Mom. Mom played the autoharp. Dad played the guitar and I played the mandolin. Tony played guitar. We'd go on the weekends down in Kentucky and other places. We played gospel and country music. Tony, he was a comedian without even tryin'. He would put on his rig, and he had these different skits he would do. People really enjoyed it. Me and Tony Lee, we loved to listen to Lonzo and Oscar and Homer and Jethro back in the early days. One of the songs we did together was "She Made Toothpicks of the Timbers of My Heart." You could tell that these was heart-rendering love songs!
We had a radio broadcast over at WNVA in Norton on Sunday morning. It was pretty rough gettin' out on a slick road and travelin' that far ‘cause it wasn't like it is now. We met a lot of good Christian people and we got invited to a lot of revival meetings and places of worship in churches. My Dad, nor my mother neither one, nor myself was Christian people at that time. Mack Fisher, a precious soul who passed away about five years ago, was a preacher from out of Wise County, an evangelist. And also, he had a program at WNVA. We got to attending his revival services. Mom was later converted at Clinchco while he was holding revival. Our whole family changed from that moment on. We started off with Brother Cline Sluss, with a broadcast that continued on after that on WNVA, then at WLSI, Pikeville, and other stations. Cline was on the first 78 record we made at WOPI in Bristol for the Rich-R-Tone label.
(Talks about meeting his wife, Myrtle Ann Rose Mullins.) Gobel (Myrtle Ann's father) was an evangelist and a pastor. He preached all over the county here, and I think at one time pastored three churches. They had monthly services back then, and in the fall they preached revivals. We got acquainted through a revival meeting that was being held house-to-house at Fremont. She was a super good singer and she fit right in place Myrtle sung tenor first and Mom sung alto. I sung bass and Daddy sung soprano/lead. That's the way it was for years.
Myrtle Ann Rose Mullins:
Well, I guess I was probably about eight or nine years old (when
she started singing). I always followed my Daddy to church. I
never knew anything else to do but go to church. I never knew
anything else to do but go to church and follow him. He was the
song leader at our church at that point in time. I think the first
song that I ever sang with Daddy was "I Feel Like Traveling
On." And that was a song that we kinda sung each Sunday because
we didn't know too many. A little bit later on my sister started
helping me sing and one of my cousins. We kinda formed us a little
group and went around to a lot of places with the ministers. Brother
Jack Kiser, he's been gone a long, many years, but he was a fine
old preacher. He'd ask us to go and help him in revivals. Most
of my life that's where I sang was in church. That's my life.
I wouldn't know anything else.
Anna Bell Mullins Puckett
(Hie's daughter; Billy Gene's sister):
My Aunt Mabel tells me I started singin' when I was about two
years old. ‘Bout the time I started talkin'. The little song
I sung was:
I don't remember singin' that, but I remember when we'd be at Grandma Pearlie's and Grandpa Dock's on a winter day. Winter days was the days that they got more rest than any other time. We sat in a semicircle around the fireplace. And we'd have the one songbook. Grandpa would make you gather around and he'd show us how to sing this line and this is the way you're goin' to sing. And if you was around the fire, you sung! It didn't make any difference. So the first song I ever remember, he said, "Annie-Bell, you're gonna lead this." And the name of the song was "Will You Meet Me Over Yonder."
He told me I was gonna sing
that lead part. Well, to this day I sing lead. I can't harmonize,
I can't put 
my voice in no other thing but lead.
I was about or six at the time.
We always had music. That was just part of us. Daddy had a banjo and after he' come back from the army, he got a guitar and autoharp. He ordered the autoharp for Mamaw out of the Sears and Roebuck catalog.
Whenever Dad come back, he built a radio. The Grand Ole Opry, that was the most important part of the week ‘cause we'd listen to the Grand Ole Opry. Uncle Dave Macon played the banjo and the Carter Family would play. When he heard that, he ordered the autoharp for Mamaw and we found out that we could harmonize and sing together as a family.
In fifty years there's not many rocks that we haven't walked over or many roads that we haven't been down.
There's never been a week, I don't guess a week in my whole life, that singin' of some sort wasn't there. I guess that's what made our family close. Even as the children came along and the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren, it's still handed down.
The singin' is the basis of
our life. I can't imagine not bein' able to sing. That would be
horrible. I believe that would be a terrible punishment if I couldn't
sing. It is so much a part of me.
(Editor's note: Anna Bell Mullins Puckett passed away in March
1999. She left behind a void where her strong, clear voice once
sang and in the hearts of those who loved her.)