Razorcake Issue #19

Hasil: I been working over here at theOpry. I want you to hear some of this what Ibeen working on. Playing everythingmyself. I ain’t gonna but try to play twelveto twenty instruments all by myself at thesame time.Bradley: Twelve to twenty?Hasil: Doing pretty good with it. I ain’t got‘em all in here. Got a big rack. Got to put‘em on where I can get to ‘em and blow ‘emand all this and that and everything. I run atest on ‘em and see what they sound like.Pretty good.Bradley: That’s pretty hard. I’ve seen aguy, he sat down with a guitar and he had abass below it. He played bass with his feet,but all he had was strings.Hasil: I play a piano, organ, and stuff withyour elbows. Get it in the right place.Bradley: What got you started doing theone man band?Hasil: Couldn’t find nobody to play withme. That’s why I started.Bradley: You just couldn’t find nobody?There wasn’t nobody around?Hasil: Oh yeah, there was good dancin’bands. Crazy one-two-three-four beat, sixbeat, and twelve beat and all that – I can dothat – that didn’t do anything for me. I didn’tlike to play thataway – the way theyplayed. They all in a time beat an’ all that.Bradley: You can play about twenty instrumentsat once?Hasil: I’m going to. Twelve to twenty.That’s a lot of instruments. I mean, they’redifferent things – they’re not the same, youknow, instrument. Ah, it’ll come out prettygood. I’m rigging this up were I can play itall.Bradley: I’ve seen some photos of you withsome different names.Hasil: Do what now?Bradley: Sometimes you have a differentname on the front of your drum. It’s alwaysbeen “Hasil Adkins,” but sometimes it’sbeen, “Hasil Adkins and His One ManBand,” or “Hasil Adkins and His HappyGuitar.” What all names have you gone byin the past?Hasil: Same thing, my name, but I had“The Lone One” on my drums. We’re tryingto get a western out of that – The LoneOne. I traveled by myself for years andyears. You know, just me all by myself,puttin’ on shows and stuff. It’s always beena one man band. Just writings on the drumand stuff like that, different wordings.Bradley: So, when you were touring likethat with yourself, would you just pack upthe car and go?Hasil: I used to. I don’t do that no more. Isang all over the place, home to home,house to house, and joint to joint. Youknow, just any place you can get to sing.Bradley: Where all have you been? Allover the US? Europe?Hasil: Oh, you name it. Any place you canthink of. All over Canada and the UnitedStates. I used to play here in the ‘50s and‘60s, all these clubs up and down theserivers in and around the territories.Wyoming County, Boone County, RaleighCounty, Logan County, day and night,about fifteen, twenty years of that. This wasa long time ago. It went over good. We hadsome good times.Bradley: How long you been playing as aone man band?Hasil: When I started at six years old, I wasplaying on a milk can. You didn’t see noguitars back in here then. One old fella hadone. He wouldn’t let nobody fool with it.He had a Gibson D-45. I’d like to have thatGibson. Hell, man, you can sell that and geta lot of money off it.Bradley: You started playing on a milkcan?Hasil: Yeah, well, a baking powder can.You know what that is? It’s got a brasswhisk up in there. They used to have itwhere you had to put it in. Now they mix itall up. Milk can and a baking powder can,four or five lard buckets, a ten-quart waterbucket, and a washtub. It just keep comingup till I got a hold of a guitar. ‘Cause youdidn’t see no guitars on this whole big territoryhere.Bradley: Did you make instruments out ofthem cans or were you beating on them likedrums?Hasil: I made them. I made a lot of things.All kinds of contraptions and things to beaton and play on, and pick on. Turned outpretty good.Bradley: Did you everplay the washtub bass?Hasil: You like them?Bradley: Yeah, they’llwear you out.Hasil: Them jugs is prettygood where you go [actinglike he’s blowing intoa jug] doot doot doot, youknow, play the bass onthem jugs, like they putmoonshine in? They donea lot of that back in here,too. I made that guitar.See that bottom picture,that lower picture, rightthere? [points to a pictureon the wall]Bradley: I’ve seen thatphoto before. I thought itlooked homemade. Youstill got it?Hasil: No.Bradley: What happenedto it?Hasil: I traded it off yearsago. I don’t even knowwho I traded it to now.Bradley: Got any morearound that you made?Hasil: Nuh uh. I justmade that one and quit.Don’t make ‘em. I’ve gota lot I broke up and everything,trying to put onshows.Bradley: How manysongs you think you’ve written so far?Hasil: I’ve got over 7,000 already, and I’mgetting ready to start up again. Once I getmy horn up, I’m gonna try to put downanother 2,000 more. [Hasil laughs to himself.]Bradley: How many records have you putout now? You’ve been putting them out forthe past – what would you say – fifty years?Hasil: First one come out in 1961. A 45.“She’s Mine” b/w “Chicken Walk,” and Ihad about sixteen 45s. I don’t know howmany it is now. I lost count of it.Bradley: Did you ever play with MerleHaggard or Waylon, any of them?Hasil: No, no. I’ve played with KentuckySlim. You ever heard of him? He was realbig. I played with him some, and a lot ofothers. Pretty big bands, some of them.Bradley: What was the first song youlearned to play?Hasil: “Mule Skinner Blues,” BillMonroe’s songs, Roy Acuff, old JimmyRodgers, “T for Texas.” They used to havea lot of blues singers, but you didn’t heartoo much blues in this part of the country. Ifyou had the radio you could get ‘em comingout of Nashville, WLAC. They was on thatfor years. Way up in the ‘50s, then ChuckWey come along and they went out. There’sstations and all, but they don’t play no morerock or nothing. It’s all religious music.