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34 The Nashville Musician April-June 2007
George Chestnut at his desk.
By WALT TROTT
The George Henry Chestnut we interviewed
15 months ago was far from the chipper
instrument repairman, who welcomed us
on the day after his 75th birthday.
Chestnut was quick to point out how
thankful he was for the treatment rendered by
a new physician: “I didn’t think there were any
more like him out there. He’s a fellow in his
mid-50s, a really good doctor, who’s very thorough
and he cares.”
After suffering an aneurysm, the ongoing
pain of an inoperable hernia, and problems encountered
with a new pace-maker, Chestnut’s
made significant gains under this physician.
At one point, he grew so exasperated at
the care or lack of it he was receiving that he
removed the tubes from his arms, got dressed,
and walked out of the hospital.
“Some people told me they thought I was
dead, I guess after reading stories in The Tennessean
and in your newspaper,” mused Chestnut,
“Now we’ll let ’em know I’m back on the
job.”
Chestnut’s specialty is restoration and repairing
of violins, fiddles, violas, cellos, basses
and restoration, repairing and rehairing of
bows, as well.
“I also work on fretted instruments, fret
work, repair bridges, setting intonation and
work on dobros . . .”
George even hopes to recruit his wife, fellow
Local 257 guitarist Jennie Jo Chestnut, to
work with him in his Donelson instrument repair
shop.
“I want to get her back in the business. If
she don’t learn this, when I die, it will all go
to the grave with me. I’ve tried five or six apprentices
before, but Lord, they’d lie to you,
steal from you and everything else. I can’t
stand that, so no more.”
George’s grown children are musically
talented, but not here to carry on their dad’s
business: “My daughter plays piano, and my
son plays guitar and dobro. He’s a preacher.”
As a youngster himself, recalls George,
“my granddaddy raised me. I asked him once
about playing (an instrument), but he knocked
that in the head . . . Come to find out, however,
in his younger days he played fiddle, fivestring
banjo and called for square dances. So
he was very much involved in music, but he
didn’t want me to be no musician.”
While living in Lakeland, Fla., George
was intent on playing music. How did he decide
on playing bass guitar?
“Well, it’s a long story, but we got together
- and that’s when they had them ol’ electric
guitars and the amplifier was built into the
case. You’d prop ’em at a 90 degrees (angle)
Here’s his wife’s shot of a young George Chestnut.
George Chestnut takes a bow
and plug ’em in - and had a bunch over to the
house, about 10 of us, and there were 10 electric
guitars! None of them was in tune, and loud! I
said, ‘Lord o’ mercy! It looks to me like somebody
would bring in something else to play besides
guitar. They’re about to drive me nuts.’
“Well, I was on the job and this ol’ boy says
to me, ‘I got something at the house I think you
would like.’ What’s that?, I asked. ‘I got an upright
bass. It’s in the wife’s laundry room and
she says if I don’t get it out of there this evening,
she’s gonna take it out in the yard and burn it.’
So I went by, looked at that thing and it was
painted black enamel . . . So I asked, ‘How much
you want for it?’ He said $10, and I told him, ‘I
ain’t got $10 on me, but I’ll have it payday.’ He
told me, ‘Don’t worry about it, just take it on
home and if you can’t use it, throw it away.’
“So I took it home, stripped it down and it
had some of the prettiest maple on it you ever
seen. It took wood bleach to get all that black out
of the wood. I hung it up in a tree and took the
spray gun to it and colored it.
“I took that bass over to a buddy of mine and
said, ‘Show me where the G chord, C chord and
E chord are and don’t show me no more.’ Well, I
practiced and played with the radio. Then we
started up a band - a six-piece band - with a female
singer who sounded just like Loretta Lynn.”
Chestnut had linked up with his elder brother,
and were known as Dallas Chestnut & The Country
Ramblers: “We fronted for Nashville musicians
like Pete Drake, his brother Jack Drake,
Dale Sellers and a whole lot of those guys. We
played regularly at a big dude ranch. My brother
played guitar and sang. He was amazing. I sang
some and played electric bass and guitar. We did
that about 12 years.
“One night, Jack Drake came down and he
played like 24 or 25 years with Ernest Tubb(’s
Texas Troubadours). So I pulled up a chair there
and stole every lick he had on the bass. Jack was
my hero.”
So does he still have that vintage bass?
“I brought that bass to Nashville and I sold it
to Lightning Chance, when he was playing at
WLAC with Stan Hitchcock. Lightning played
on it for years. Finally, Johnny Cash bought it
off Lightning, but somebody had painted it again.
I told someone that bass used to be beautiful, and
they told Cash. So he said, ‘Tell George to scrape
that thing down and fix it like it used to be when
he had it.’ So I put that bass back in order, and it
was hanging in Johnny’s museum last I knew.
Don’t know what’s happened to it now”
While still in Florida, George got into instrument
repair, putting his carpenter skills to profitable
use. He also made good contacts with national
musicians, especially bluegrassers.
“We were all over the state. Jim & Jesse, The
Osbornes, Bill Monroe, all those Nashville acts
used to come down for the bluegrass festivals.
We’d go there, carry a barbecue grill, go to the
store, buy some T-bone steaks, find us a little
hideout and we’d have a big dinner for them with
plenty of cold beer, until Bill showed up, then
the beer disappeared,” he laughs.
About this time, George got burned-out playing
gigs: “For four or five years, I wouldn’t touch
a bass to play. I’d work on ’em though. I thought,
you make more money working on instruments
than playing on them.”
Word-of-mouth regarding his repair expertise
reached the ears of notables like Monroe, Roy
Acuff, Tommy Jackson, Jerry Rivers and Skeeter
Willis (of the Willis Brothers).
“When I first started coming up to Nashville,
there were shops doing guitar repair, so I thought
I would cater to the fiddle players.”
Indeed, Chestnut made regular visits to Music
City, where he would pick up fiddles in need
of repair or restoration, take them home to work
on and then return to make the deliveries.
“I’d leave on Friday afternoon and be back
Sunday night because then I worked in
constuction. Had 35 or 40 men there, and so I
had to be back on the job Monday morning.”
- ‘For four or five years, I wouldn’t
touch a bass to play. I’d work on ’em
though . . . You make more money working
on instruments than playing on them.’ -
Kathy Shepard took this random shot of Chestnut’s workplace in Donelson.
How did George meet wife Jennie?
“I was doing some fiddle work for her
brother (Loie Fraine) for about three years.
I had lived with the devil’s sister 25 years,
and it was three or four years before I finally
got out of Dodge. But he kept telling
me he had a sister . . . When I got to know
her, I knew she was my true soul mate.”
According to Jennie: “On May 6, we’ve
been married 28 years . . . I’m also from a
music family, but we just played around at
square dances and such. My mom’s selftaught,
my father and my oldest brother
played guitar, then he wanted to play fiddle.
So, I was elected to play guitar.”
“Don’t be so modest,” interrupts
George. “She went over to Raymond
Fairchild’s (Florida) theater and played with
Roni Stoneman. I been knowin’ Raymond
since I was 16 or 17 years old, and played
at dances with him. He praised her high,
saying she played the greatest (rhythm)
guitar, and when she sang a Ray Price song
there, she got three standing ovations!”
(Fairchild himself was a superb banjo
player, a five times national champion.)
Chestnut added to his instumental
knowledge, working briefly with the
Dopyera brothers (John and Rudy) in California,
“as the only factory rep they ever
had.”
(Of course, the siblings had perfected
the resophonic guitar, dubbed “Dobro,” a
combination of the Slavik word good and
their surname.)
After relocating to Nashville, George’s
client list grew, including such luminaries
as Vassar Clements, Merle Haggard, Henry
Strzelecki, Johnny Gimble, Tom Rutledge,
Randy Howard, Bob Babbitt, Stella Parton,
Dave Pomeroy, Glen Duncan, Rufus
Thibodeaux, Louise Mandrell, Roland
White, Marty Raybon, James Monroe,
Mike Bub, Billy Grammer, Rick Morton,
Roy Huskey, Jr. and Kenny Baker.
Regarding Baker, Chestnut remembers
them making extended stays at Bill
Monroe’s Beanblossom festivals: “Used to
go to Beanblossom all the time, me and
Kenny Baker. I had him selling fiddles and
I’d take all my work tools up and work off
the tailgate of my truck . . . I’d give Kenny
his sales commission and he said he was
making more selling fiddles than he was
performing.”
George also has fond memories of the
late Junior Huskey: “I never met big Junior
(his dad), but young Junior used to come
out to the house and jam. He was a good
picker. Actually, me and him played just
alike. I mean if you were in another room
and we were in here pickin’ the bass, you’d
have to come in to see which of us were
playin’ because I picked just like he did.”
Huskey wasn’t the only one to visit
Chestnut’s basement workshop on occasion
to jam with the Florida native, among others
were Monroe, Acuff, Earl Scruggs, Mac
Wiseman and Bashful Brother Oswald.
Perhaps the maddest gathering occurred
one year from Christmas eve until New Year’s
eve, notes Chestnut: “We held it out in the
garage. There were like 270 people there.”
Jennie Jo remembers the time they had a
Cajun feast: “Jimmy C. Newman said, ‘Jennie,
this is the best rice I’ve ever eaten. How do
you do it?’ I told him, ‘boil the hell out of it!’”
At one time, Chestnut also repaired instruments
for the Nashville Metro School System.
“But they always seemed to run out of money
for stringed instruments.”
Does Chestnut build instruments?
“I never built instruments. But I have converted
them for years and years. For Larry
Franklin (top session player), I converted a
four-string into a five-string . . .”
In fact, Chestnut created something special
for Franklin, which was trademarked as a
Chin-Cello.
“I own the first five-string Chin-Cello
made by George Chestnut,” recommended
Franklin. “And I used the Chestnut Strings, as
well. I am very happy with this set-up and I
highly recommend the Chestnut Strings for
your baritone violin.”
George adds, “Here’s a history of the baritone
violin. John Berry was a violinist. You
know (Itzhak) Perelman and all those highfalutin’
classical players, they learned from
him. Well, he didn’t like the tone of the high
tinny strings on a violin, so he came out in
1960, with the baritone violin and then he
dropped it in the 1970s. I came out with it from
there (using Super Sensitive Strings) - and
Rick Campbell, a good friend of mine who
lives over in Knoxville, is the one who named
it the Chin-Cello. (Incidentally, Berry and partner
Les Barcus introduced the first electric violin.)
“I was the one built the first five-string
baritone Larry’s still playing. He was the first
(Continued on page 35)
Jennie and George Chestnut.
- Photos (4) by Kathy Shepard
UN