I hadn't seen Brother Oswald in a long time and he appears quite different from the way I remembered him. Can you believe Os had been performing on the Opry for 60 years when this video was made. John Hartford had invited me to come down to Nashville & join him in a "Smokey Mountain Band" reunion. He told me that he had to fly to California for a project but when he got back to Nashville we could go to this reunion. I later realized the California project was the "Oh Brother" movie. After getting back from that trip he became too ill and we never made it to the reunion. I had been day dreaming about how potential of hearing the stories that would come out of Oz and the rest of the group. I can only imagine what it would have been like to sit around listening to that group with John jamming.

The story Oz tells near the end of this clip, about going to the liquor store to get his voice fixed for a singing session reminded me of my own story. I have a very vivid memory of a time when I was back stage at the Opry back in the mid 50s. When I wasn't in the jam rooms backstage watchin' bands and musicians get warmed up, I would sometime stand alongside the curtain and watch some of the performers performing out on stage. This one time I was standing there watchin', Oz comes walkin' (almost stumbling') by to go out on the stage and I noticed a pint stickin' up out of his trousers hip pocket. I never have lost that vision. I guess it was more impressionable since I was just a high school kid at the time.

This clip is from an 8 Volume set that can be purchased on line from Gabriel Communications - Country's Family Reunion line of products.

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