The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show - Prater's Creek Gazette

An Interview With Dr. Ignatius J. Trundell

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Gazette has been trying to interview Grandpa of The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show for quiet a while now. We finally sent our Sports Editor’s brother, Dorris, out to the band’s farm to go fishing with Grandpa on the farm’s pond.

Dorris: Howdy!

Grandpa: Howdy!

Dorris: Let’s get right to business.

Grandpa: Alright.

Dorris: What you using for bait? And why is y’all’s elixir so strong?

Grandpa: I’m using pumpkinseed worms. And it’s because we use twice as much turpentine as any other bluegrass band, and we use three snakeheads instead of two.

Dorris: Can we sample some?

Grandpa: Why sure. (we empty jug)

(Interviewer’s note: My memory is a little foggy from this point on)

Dorris: I saw y’all open for Ricky Skaggs the other night in Greenville. That was a great show.

Grandpa: Yeah boy! We were lucky, and honored, to be able to play with Kentucky Thunder. I thought we played real good. Met a lot of nice folks. Met these two purty blonde-headed ladies, Amber and Keisha.

Dorris: Shoot fire! Everybody in that audience was yelling for y’all to play some more!

Dorris: In that "Roadrunner" song, who do you say is "in the back seat drinking home made wine"?

Grandpa: Three of my musical heroes—Bill Monroe, Joe Strummer, and Muddy Waters. And Winona Ryder is riding shotgun!

Dorris: Y’all always seem to have a baseball themed song on your records, but this time you have a baseball and two football themed songs.

Grandpa: We got a song about Brooks Robinson, and a song about Johnny Unitas. And recorded an instrumental I wrote that I want the listener to close their eyes while they are listening, and imagine Walter Payton running down the field, stiff arming people along the way. His motto was "Never Die Easy" and the name of our song is "Never Die Easy".

Dorris: How did y’all come about recording "Lady of Spain"? Ain’t that usually done on the accordion?

Grandpa: Yeah, well Cousin Ray was playing it one day, and the rest of the band joined in on it. I was doing something else and I heard it. He suggested we start playing it, and I shot down the idea. But all that week I kept hearing in my head. And he was right. It sounds great done bluegrass!

Dorris: In that song "We’re Still the Drovers"; I bet you have a good time singing that song.

Grandpa: Heck, I wrote too many words! I can’t remember ‘em all!

Dorris: You’re poking a little fun at some stuff ain’t you?

Grandpa: Yeah, I’m sick of all this political correctness stuff, people trying to censor "Huckleberry Finn" and other books. But I really had had enough when the guy who does the Snuffy Smith comic strip quit having Snuffy make moonshine!! Oh, he’s still a chicken thief, but making moonshine is not a good influence on the young readers of our newspapers.

Dorris: But, now I’m quoting your song, you is a " Southern boy, a hillbilly cracker/But I ain’t one of them ‘Save the Flag’ backers".

Grandpa: Right.

Dorris: Now I’m gonna read you the last two verses:

"They say we poison the grass of Bill Monroe/by going on stage wearing these rube clothes/Well I’m sorry if we stepped on anybody’s toes.

And some of y’all look at us and "Ughmm!" you grimace/because we perpetuate the hillbilly image/ Well, that’s just part of our lineage.

We just like to have us a little fun/our love of the music runs as deep as anyone’s/But we’d never play Bad Company for song number one."

What’s that all about?

Grandpa: Could I get me a copy of them words? Well, there’s some people who think we’re just a joke because we dress like the early bands on the Opry, that we don’t wear matching pressed suits. You know how some bluegrassers are scared of getting our music pinned to that Hee-Haw/Deliverance/Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? image. I know how Bill Monroe, after he accepted the "Father of Bluegrass" label put upon him by the press in the 1960’s during the folk boom and all, said that comedy had no part in bluegrass shows. But he used to do comedy skits onstage where a band member would be dressed to play a woman. He was out to entertain the audience. Flatt and Scruggs had their little routines they would do with Cousin Jake and Josh Graves doing comedy. Even though we’re much younger than Bill, of course, we’re influenced by the same stuff he was influenced by—Skillet Lickers, Uncle Dave Macon, Fruit Jar Drinkers, Charley Poole—in addition to worshipping at the bluegrass altar of the big three: Bill, Stanley’s, and Flatt & Scruggs.

And the Bad Co. comment, well, I was really disappointed when Alison Krauss, upon being the first bluegrass band to be asked to join the Grand Old Opry in 26 years, plays the Bad Co. song "Oh Atlanta" as their first song!

Dorris: Y’all have played with a wide variety of all kinds of bands over the years. Is there one band y’all haven’t played with yet, that you’d like to, or a particular place you’d like to play?

Grandpa: Oh man, tons of places and people! I’d like to open for Del McCoury anywhere, anytime. And Metallica. ‘Specially since they’re playing mostly songs off the first four albums, the great ones. I’d love to play to a packed coliseum of their fans, and get them moshing to good ol’ Bill Monroe fiddle tune. Carl’s banjo sounding like it’s coming out of a stack of Marshals! And most of all we want to play The Grand Old Opry---the new place and the Ryman. Hey Dorris, you got a bite.

The Dream - John Donne (written in 1590's)

Dear love, for nothing less than thee
Would I have broke this happy dream ;
It was a theme
For reason, much too strong for fantasy.
Therefore thou waked'st me wisely ; yet 
My dream thou brokest not, but continued'st it.
Thou art so true that thoughts of thee suffice
To make dreams truths, and fables histories ;
Enter these arms, for since thou thought'st it best,
Not to dream all my dream, let's act the rest.
As lightning, or a taper's light,
Thine eyes, and not thy noise waked me ;
Yet I thought thee
—For thou lovest truth—an angel, at first sight ;
But when I saw thou saw'st my heart,
And knew'st my thoughts beyond an angel's art,
When thou knew'st what I dreamt, when thou knew'st when
Excess of joy would wake me, and camest then,
I must confess, it could not choose but be
Profane, to think thee any thing but thee.


Coming and staying show'd thee, thee,
But rising makes me doubt, that now
Thou art not thou.
That love is weak where fear's as strong as he ;
'Tis not all spirit, pure and brave,
If mixture it of fear, shame, honour have ;
Perchance as torches, which must ready be,
Men light and put out, so thou deal'st with me ;
Thou camest to kindle, go'st to come ; then I
Will dream that hope again, but else would die

Suggested Listening and Reading List

1. Everything Bill Monroe ever recorded

2. Everything Flatt & Scruggs ever recorded

3. Everything The Stanley Bros. ever recorded

(Music editors note: Every issue the top 3 will be the same!)

4. Tracy Grammer - The Verdant Mile

5. Tracy Grammer - Flower of Avalon

6. The Collective Works of John Donne

7. anything by Hunter S. Thompson

8. both NY Dolls albums, and The Heartbreakers Live At Max's KC

9. In Too Much Too Soon - story of NY Dolls written by Nina Antonia

10. Jimi Hendrix - Band of Gypsys (Machine Gun is as timely now as it was in 1969!)