Rufus & Rita Elliott

To the regulars of the Mountain Opry in Chattanooga , the faces in the Down Yonder old time string band are as familiar as the fiddle tune from which their band name comes. One of the faces in the band has been there from the first night of the Mountain Opry, that of Rufus Elliott, singer, guitarist, harmonica player, and classic cut-up, who tells jokes with a straight face, then breaks into an impish, wrinkly smile. Down Yonder is the “house band” that plays each Friday night at the Opry -- for a scant 15 minutes or for three hours straight, depending on the number of additional bands that show up to entertain. Rufus has been there for 24 years and counting.

Rufus, originally from the city of Dallas , Texas -- before it became the Metroplex of DallasFortWorth-- is a self-taught guitarist and vocalist. In his early years, he listened avidly to the recordings of Roy Acuff, Bill Monroe, Hank Williams, and Hank Snow, and the less well known regional artists Bill Boyd and His Cowboy Ramblers, who performed on a local Dallas radio station.

His musical talents and ability to entertain emerged after World War II, when he got out of the Coast Guard, and went to college at Southern Methodist University on the GI bill. Upon graduation from SMU in 1950, he went to work with Westinghouse in Pittsburgh , PA where he met Rita at a YWCA dance. She was attending advertising art school at the time, and she continued to be an artist in her later years. In 1951, they were married in Pittsburgh . He was then transferred to San Antonio , TX , then to Beaumont , TX and then back to Pittsburgh , in 1955.  In 1961, the couple decided to relocate to Chattanooga , where Rita had family ties. They settled in on Signal Mountain , living in a wonderful log house and raising a family.

“In about 1974, we met up with people and formed the band, Side Porch Picking Agency.” This newly formed band, included Wesley Jackson on harmonica, Ray Fox on bass, Raymond Adams on guitar, Bill Doyle on banjo, and Rufus Elliott on guitar. Since many were members of the First Baptist church, they played for church gatherings, picnics, and other informal gatherings, Rita and Rufus both singing and playing the guitar.

“Ray Fox, got the idea for the Mountain Opry from having seen the one in Memphis , called the “Lucy Opry.” He thought ‘Gosh, maybe we could have one here in Chattanooga .' So he got a few people together, rented this hall, bought some sound equipment, and the rest is history.” The establishment of the Mountain Opry by a core group of about 8 people generated another formation, that of the bluegrass - country band known as Lock, Stock, and Barrel, which featured both Rufus on guitar, Rita joining on bass, Raymond Adams on guitar, Joe Smith on fiddle, Isaac Maxwell on banjo. This group played frequently at the Mountain Opry, becoming one of its mainstays in the Opry’s early years.

Rufus and Rita then joined Don Sarrell’s new band, Down Yonder, in the late 1980s, joining Don on banjo, Larry Rogers on fiddle, Justine and John Childress on guitar and vocals, John Coniglio on guitar, and Randy Minor on bones, spoons, and jaw harp. At first, the band performed in the back room of the Opry, then was a regularly featured band on stage.

When Larry Rogers left the band, Tom Adkins was added on fiddle. The band whittled down to Don Sarrell on banjo, Tom Adkins on fiddle, Randy Minor bones, spoons, and jaw harp, Rita Elliott on bass, and Rufus Elliott on guitar for a few years. The band was asked in about 1997 by the Mountain Opry Board of Directors to be the house band.

Rita Elliott began to show the first signs of Alzheimer’s disease when she was playing upright bass on stage with Down Yonder. At first, she would simply request the song they had just finished playing, or she would abruptly put the bass down, and leave the practice room, apparently suddenly unaware that the band was, at that very moment, warming up. Subtly at first, then more obviously to her band mates, this once vivacious woman --whom her husband described as a “natural performer and inveterate ham --” was engulfed by the disease that robs the mind of short term memory, then erases the rest one’s memory and destroys the ability to think and function day-to-day.

Rufus moved with Rita to Alexian Brother’s Inn at Signal Mountain , and when the disease progressed she was cared for at the Alzheimer’s unit at Alexian Brothers. I met Rita for the first time at the Alzheimer’s unit, where she had a big guitar pick on her bedroom door. I asked her if she played music, and she answered, “I play the bass.”  Although her memories of playing music were strong and survived the longest of all her memories, she does not now remember the many years she and her husband spent performing together.

Although Rita had taken voice training when she was in school, Rufus first encouraged her to perform, and taught her to strum and chord the guitar. When they started singing together, and playing regularly with others, she soon realized that they did not need another guitar player, so taught herself how to play the upright bass and kept a steady beat for the band. She bought a “blonde” Kay bass, emblazoned it with a Dixie flag, and managed to stuff it in her little car to carry it to gigs. Rufus remembers, “She’s a pretty lady, and she did good, she looked young, and people thought she was my daughter.”

Fortunately for the many fans who loved to hear her sing, many of Rita’s songs are preserved in the recordings that were made live from the stage of the Mountain Opry. Don Sarrell -- a whiz at anything electronic and master of the latest recording equipment -- produced a CD in tribute to Rita, titled ‘Rita Elliott with Down Yonder; Recordings Live from the Stage, 1994-1998.’ On the recording, Rita gives classic country and folk tunes a unique spin.

Her rendition of the folk song, House of the Rising Sun, she uniquely sang in a major key. Her version reaches back behind the popularized version sung by male vocalists, to the original source of the song in the regret and resignation of a woman stuck in a life of prostitution:

            There is a House in New Orleans 
            They call the Rising Sun
            It’s been the ruin of many a poor girl 
            And me, Oh Lord, was one
            My father was a gambling man
            Mother died when I was young
            And me, a life to pleasure the men
            In the House of the Rising Sun
            Go tell my baby sister
            Not to do as I have done
            Not to spend her life in pain and misery
            In the House of the Rising Sun
            I’m going back to New Orleans
            My race is nearly run
            I’m going back to spend my days
            In the House of the Rising Sun.

Rita’s version of Suppertime is touching and gentle, without the cloying sweetness and overacting of other, popular versions: “Come home, come home/ it’s Suppertime/ the shadows lengthen fast./ Come home, come home/ it’s Suppertime/ we’re going home at last.”

The standout tune on the recording is The Long Black Limousine, which Rita and Down Yonder perform with both dignity and emotion. “My heart and all my dreams/ride with you in that Long Black Limousine.”

As for Rufus...“You’ve heard my voice. It’s not suitable for love songs. I realized, though, that I could do some comedy.” He follows the traditional role of comedian in old time string bands, specializing in “Alabama Jokes,” delivered in a deadpan manner, but with a hearty laugh and a smile at the end. Sometimes he doffs a cap, and the audience sees a large, yellow Happy Face hidden in the crown.

For example: a Rufus joke: “Two Alabama boys were walking down the dirt road and one of them says, ‘Hey, look! a dead bird.’ The other one...” (he looks up)  “says, ‘Where?’”

Rufus has sought out novelty songs that keep the audience laughing, and recites goofy cowboy poetry that provoke groans and guffaws. Rufus enjoys performing music that the listener likes to hear, so does not restrict himself to old time songs. His signature tunes, such as Butter Beans which tells of the fates of several people who eat more butter beans than is, perhaps, wise, and Reincarnation, which fantasizes about what really happens after death, were collected from "here and there." He collects ragtime piano tunes, minstrel and vaudeville singers, and Homer and Jethro spoofs. “I’m not a good guitar player. I just know some chords, but Music Keeps me Young.”

“I can remember back to when I first started playing music. I just thoroughly enjoyed it. It has been a blessing to me.”

Rufus gets out to other musical gatherings on occasion. Here is Rufus at the Fredonia Mountain Jamboree, above the Sequatchie Valley town of Whitwell , doing one of his favorite novelty tunes.

“Thank you Music Lovers...You’ve now heard everything I know.. I'm Rufus, and I’m done...” [Walks off stage.]

The stage at the Mountain Opry makes room for both professional and semi-professional level performers, both seasoned, polished bands and newer, less experienced musicians, good singers who “just sing,” and “just okay” singers who can entertain an audience and be completely themselves on stage.  In the same way that talking leaves room for conversations -- with natural pauses, uhs and ahs, as well as polished speeches with every inflection of the voice and every word planned out in and rehearsed in advance -- the Opry allows room and time for inspired improvisation in back room and on-stage jams, note-for-note perfection, and musical surprises. It allows musicians to try out new things and explore new musical ideas on stage in front of an appreciative audience.

Rufus Elliot would like to see the Mountain Opry, and the down home music it presents, continue well into the future. “We need young folks coming to the Opry. That’s the only way it will continue.” Luckily, the seasoned veterans serve as inspiration, and as teachers, to the young musicians that come in, hang out in the practice rooms, and venture out, when they are ready to take a turn on stage.

It is thanks to down home musicians like Rufus and Rita Elliott, and the other talented semi-professional performers who perform weekly -- without pay -- at the Mountain Opry, that the Opry has become a traditional music mainstay of the Chattanooga and Tennessee Valley area.

The Opry has encouraged and supported numerous young musicians who have gone on to professional careers, notably Brian Blaylock, who first played three-finger style banjo on the Opry stage at age 9, and banjo player/bassist, Stacy Wilcox , board member of the Mountain Opry for several years,  who was a longstanding member of Sequatchie Valley’s Valley Grass Express, and who most recently ‘drove the banjo’ in the Larry Stevenson Band in Nashville.

At the same time, the Mountain Opry has left time and room on stage for those who seek only to entertain the crowd and -- in that way -- give back to their community, and have a lot of fun in the process.  Rufus Elliott is one of the best examples of that tradition on stage at the Opry.

As one Alabama boy in the audience recommends “Rufus Elliott for President.”

**This interview and summary was prepared with the support of the South Cumberland Cultural Society and the Tennessee Arts Commission.
**Merielle Flood, interviewer