The Sally Mountain Show

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine

September 1983, Volume 18, Number 3

The Sally Mountain Show’s stage presentation carries a great deal of visual appeal but its real story concerns the group’s refreshingly different sound, loaded with “punch” and vocal force that has to be heard to be appreciated. The raw power is supplied by 20-year-old Rhonda Vincent, whose dynamic and appealing high lead voice gives to their music a cutting edge and to many listeners a good case of “goose pimples.” An all-family group, the Sally Mountain Show, through the goodness of mother nature, escaped the inherent millstone that has hindered some other family groups; namely the problem of having one or two members who are somewhat lacking in natural born talent but nevertheless perform because they are a member of the family. Carolyn and Johnny Vincent’s three children are equally as musically gifted as are their parents.

Johnny Vincent played country lead guitar for a number of years, having started at the age of eleven. He had just ordered his first five-string banjo when he suffered a broken neck and spinal injuries in a 1964 automobile accident that left him temporarily paralyzed for a period of three months. Of his learning banjo during a long period of recuperation, he recalls: “I wore out several of Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs’ albums learnin’. I had a problem with my tuning. There wasn’t no banjo pickers around our area so I tuned mine in ‘A’ and I thought I was right all the time until I got to going to some of the festivals and found out everybody else was tuned on ‘G’. But I still stay in ‘A’. It’s a higher pitch and I stay in it on account of the girls’ singing.” Having played guitar for a number of years and done a good bit of session work for others on the instrument, he had to also overcome the drawback of having no one to instruct him in the use of three fingers to develop the banjo roll. On guitar he had used a flatpick but also had used the third finger independently. He can laugh now about solving the problem by taping the ring finger and little finger together to keep them out of the way until he learned the roll.

The Sally Mountain Show came into being in 1967 following Johnny’s recovery from the auto accident. The band then included Johnny’s late father and several relatives. He explains: “After I got in the accident then we had to figure on makin’ a living some way or another seein’ as I was partly paralyzed. Soon as Rhonda got old enough to pick we started right into it full-time.”

Bluegrass music—like all music — has some weird band names these days, many of which could only have come from thin air, a figment of someone’s imagination. So why not a “Sally Mountain Show?” In this case, however, it turns out that there is a very logical tie-in between the band and their name. The Vincent family home is in Greentop, Missouri, in the northeastern part of the state, near the Iowa line. It seems that around the turn of the century people came from miles around to patronize a goodtime place near Greentop where there was plenty of drink, dancing and “carrying on,” without interference from the local law. Johnny’s grandmother has told him of the rumored goings-on of that period in local history: “… near where we live there’s a big hill and my grandmother used to tell me about an old lady that lived up there on the hill. She (the old lady) was ninety-some years old and her name was Sally Mosely. She kinda run off a little brew and played an old- time fiddle. My grandmother said that Sally always claimed to be the composer of ‘Sally Goodin’. Everybody called that old hill ‘Sally Mountain.’”

Exhibiting the determination of the free spirit that he is, Johnny Vincent did not resort to assistance because of his crippling injury but chose instead to earn his livelihood playing music, even though he walks only with the aid of a cane even today. Seasonal jobs playing amusement parks and theme parks were the mainstay of the newly organized Sally Mountain Show. The hours were long and they stayed on the road but there was food on the table and the growing, close-knit family was together.

The park circuit was rewarding for the Vincents in other ways, however, in getting to know the people they worked with such as the “little Mexican,” Pedro Gonzales Gonzales. Gonzales appeared in many of the John Wayne movies, and was one of the real pros on the park circuit. “A funny man” according to Rhonda. Another, who they worked with, Rex Allen, Sr. was featured on one of the theme productions, the “Farm Progress Show,” sponsored by the Hesston Company, and held near Des Moines, Iowa.

In 1967 the group was working as a country act. Johnny was playing lead guitar, Carolyn, bass, and Rhonda, snare drums. In Marceline, Missouri (Walt Disney’s hometown) however, the park had a full band including drums and the Sally Mountain Show was an added attraction to the “Frontier Jamboree.” Rhonda recalls: “They wouldn’t pay me because I was just a kid and I was just singing.” Johnny then elaborated: “They said ‘she goes along with the act unless she plays an instrument.’ So I told them ‘okay, Rhonda don’t sing this next week then.’ She sat down on the front row and watched and they didn’t like that very much ‘cause she was five years old and drawin’ the people. I said ‘well she can plunk on the mandolin a little bit’ and they said ‘that’s fine’ and they went to payin’ her.” “I knew ‘G’, ‘C’ and ‘D’,” Rhonda added.

Today Rhonda is one of the more talented and inventive mandolin and fiddle players in professional bluegrass music. She gives credit to Gene Hayes of Bill Box’s band and to Buck White for helping her along the way with the mandolin. As to her preference of the two instruments, she says, “I take splurges with everything.”

Before oldest son Darrin started playing guitar, Don Shelton was hired temporarily for that job. The focus now is on the rapidly developing talents of Darrin (13) and Brian (9). Carolyn once told an interviewer “we take ’em off the bottle and put ’em on bluegrass.” To which Johnny joked: “if they don’t pick they don’t eat.” Darrin is a good example of the expression ‘he just picks up an instrument and starts playing it.’ “I’ve never seen him practice a day in his life,” relates Rhonda. “He just seems to sorta pick up things. When he started he just said ‘dad I want to play guitar with you’ and he started. It was the same way with the fiddle. Little Brian seems to be the opposite. He has to get everything down to a fine line before he does anything.”

Rhonda’s assessment of Darrin’s casual attitude toward practicing on the guitar seemed to be borne out by an “interview” with him. This consisted of interrupting a game of catch between he and Brian in Opryland’s parking lot to ask who his favorite guitar picker might be. He replied simply “Tony” [Rice].

Favorite places to work? “Wherever it’s warm of the winter and cool of the summer,” laughs Johnny but quickly adds: “We enjoyed a tour in Florida in the winter of ’81-’82 but we adapt to wherever we’re at. Just so our family’s together and we’re eatin’, we’re happy. Audiences have been good everywhere we’ve played; fairs, colleges, churches and of course festivals, all were good for bluegrass. Only thing seems to be the high school students. At that age they tend to want rock. We’ve played some state fairs and colleges where they want ‘Rocky Top’ and all that but the festival audiences seem to be more serious and want to hear something else. They’re tired of hearing the hits done over and over.”

Johnny continues: “You take people like John and Ramah Priepot, who we first met back in the winter of 1974. They come from down in the Quincy, Illinois area and they’ve followed us to Georgia, Florida, Nashville and other places and they’re real fans. John was a schoolteacher and he just retired. They’re the kind of folks we like to play for because they appreciate your music.”

Of the five-member Vincent family, no one is more essential than Carolyn. Besides doing her full share of stage work by playing upright bass and singing harmony parts, she drives the motorhome and is a model mother to the kids. “She drives a lot, gets us from here to there,” deadpans Johnny. To which Rhonda shrugs and adds: “cooks our meals and washes our clothes.” The motorhome is well set up for long periods of living on the road when necessary.

The interaction among the immensely talented family members is most interesting to observe. They routinely swap instruments and there seems to be no pattern as to who sings what part. Even at his young age, Darrin has a remarkable ear for harmony parts and excels on guitar and bass. Each new song calls for a rehearsal to work it out. “We’ll try everybody on the lead,” says Rhonda, “and somebody grabs the harmony until it works out.” Johnny adds: “Whatever fits; that’s the way we’ll use it but no doubt Rhonda’s is the best lead voice that we’ve got so anything we can push her on we do it.”

Rhonda first recorded at age five, when she had out a single, “Muleskinner Blues” b/w “Satisfied.” She also recorded on the family’s first album at that time and sang on a TV show they did regularly for over a year during that period. Of the total of six LPs that the group has recorded, two remain in print, these being their latest, “The Sun’s Coming Up” and “Bluegrass Gospel,” which —as the title implies —consists entirely of religious songs.

The potential of the Sally Mountain Show is growing steadily with the maturing of the two youngest talents. Darrin is now able to make effective vocal as well as instrumental contributions while Brian’s uninhibited way of doing just exactly as he pleases on stage can result in situations that are uproariously funny.

One of the quietly impressive aspects of the show, especially to musicians, is the banjo lead and backup work of Johnny Vincent on the slow tempo contemporary trios. This is a difficult type of backup to do well on the five-string banjo. The fact that he seems to handle it flawlessly and effortlessly is attributed by Rhonda to his years of playing lead guitar in country music. “Gosh,” she says with a great deal of pride, “I’d as soon have him behind me on guitar as anybody! You ought to hear him!” Playing any instrument in a bluegrass or country band, such as fiddle, steel, Dobro, drums or bass, he rarely gets around to playing anything these days except banjo. “I own two or three Dobros a year,” he laughs. “I’ll buy one and after a few months I’ll realize I haven’t played it in a long while and I’ll say ‘why am I carrying this thing down the road?’ So I’ll sell it.”

Observing Rhonda’s performances and talking to her is enough to very quickly convince the listener that at the young age of twenty here is indeed a seasoned professional vocalist and musician with entertainment savvy far beyond her years. The quality, range and control of her voice makes deep impressions wherever it is heard. Standing in the wings just prior to a performance at the 1982 Grand Ole Opry Birthday Celebration, Rhonda cleared her throat and remarked to Opry announcer Hairl Hensley that her bad cold (diagnosed as bronchitis a few days later) made it very difficult for her to sing, especially the high notes. A short time later as she filed past the announcer’s podium following a dynamic set that left the audience of DJ’s and music industry executives rocking and roaring for more, Hensley leaned over, smiled and said meaningfully, “you’d better keep that cold!” Rhonda’s voice had reached out and touched someone else.

One of the young vocalist’s many facets that delights fans to no end is the deft touch she has for playing really nice bluegrass mandolin and fiddle. Far removed from some of the ‘crossover music’ prima donnas who stroll around crooning into a hand-held microphone, our Rhonda also does some rhythm guitar runs that would be the envy of a legion of good pickers. As thoroughly a bluegrass person as she is, however, she lists her favorite singers as including James Taylor, Ricky Skaggs and Karla Bonoff, the latter a former backup singer for Linda Ronstadt who also wrote a number of songs for the rock star. If any doubt exists as to Rhonda’s versatility, it is dispelled by the fact of her several recent 10 day engagements as a single act in Las Vegas’ plush Frontier Hotel with its white-tie clientele and big bucks cover charges. Here, as on the festival circuit, she makes impressions and consequently new fans.

Undoubtedly one of the biggest stumbling blocks for almost any artist is the difficulty in finding really outstanding original song compositions. Without them even the most talented entertainer is something akin to an imitator of the song’s original recording. Rhonda is therefore excited about their as yet unreleased album which will contain several of her own compositions as well as those of two other fine writers, Irl Hees and Frank Ray.

A common band problem of perhaps equal magnitude to the one just named is that of booking of personal appearance dates. During the fall of 1982, this function was given over exclusively to the Lancer Agency of Hendersonville, Tennessee. Having heard the group for the first time at a festival near Miami, Florida, the agency’s owner, Lance LeRoy —not one easily impressed —felt the Sally Mountain Show had something that more people needed to hear and he approached them with the idea of trying to help bring it about. “They’re one of those rare families who seem to have been born to be in show business,” he says. “Each one of them has what it takes to make a real pro and I equate the Vincents’ with the level of the original Stoneman Family that included Scott Stoneman and the great Lewis Family, both of whom in their own way stand out in my mind as pure legends who’ll be remembered for as many years as there is real country and bluegrass gospel music. Sally Mountain has just a little different and a very pleasing concept of some songs from what you normally hear. The best way I know to describe Rhonda’s voice is that of a ‘bluegrass (Linda) Ronstadt.’ She’s a superb song interpreter who can venture out into an ‘off beat’ vocal arrangement and come out ‘smellin’ like a rose’ every time. She has that much control of her voice. Their trios are built around it and they’re fine.”

On stage the Vincent family is equally at ease with the rollicking, driving “When My Time Comes To Go” as with the Nashville-contemporary “Too Far Gone” or “Temporarily Yours” to the powerful Hemphill-authored “I Came On Business For The King.” Bluegrass festival audiences seem to like whatever they do and the tingling high harmony trios on the pretty contemporary ballads rate at least equal applause with the “festival favorites” or the fiddle and banjo breakdowns featuring Johnny and Rhonda and sometimes Darrin on a strong acoustic guitar break.

The Sally Mountain Show is appearing on more and more festivals all over the eastern and southern states, great distances from their midwestern base. With some of the most innovative and invigorating bluegrass variety music anywhere on the circuit; a personal charisma and radiance that will make them welcome wherever they visit and an informal, uninhibited style of showmanship, the Vincent clan is truly one of America’s outstanding musical entertainment families.