Premium List & Grandstand Program · Season of 1986Gates open 5 P.M.
Fiddle & Flag

The Fair Board presents

In Person

Fiddle&Flag

Cap Redmond and the band

From Cookeville, Tennessee

Tonight

Grandstand · 8 P.M.

Fireworks at dark, weather permitting

Hand on heart. Bow on string.

Grandstand admission with gate ticket

Fiddle & Flag on a wooden fairground stage at night: a fiddler in a black hat at the microphone, a guitarist, a pianist, a drummer and a bassist, a large flag and bunting behind them, fireworks overhead and a crowd waving small flags
The Fourth of July, county fairgrounds, 1986. Cap Redmond at the microphone. Fireworks on time.
Attraction
Fiddle & Flag
From
Cookeville, Tennessee
Seasons
1979–1991
Records
Falling Water Records
Open the program

Page 3

Order of the Evening

The grandstand program, as printed every summer from 1980 to 1991. The order did not change.

  1. 7:30Presentation of the ColorsBy the honor guard of the local VFW post
  2. 7:35The National AnthemSung by a local singer. All present will please rise.
  3. 7:40Fiddle & FlagOne hour and fifteen minutes. The boogie opens and closes.
  4. DarkFireworksWeather permitting. The band plays until the first shell.
At dusk, the band stands on an outdoor stage with hands over hearts, the bandleader holding his black hat over his heart, facing a flag on a pole; veterans in garrison caps stand in the crowd with hands over hearts
Before the first note. The band and the grandstand face the colors. Cap's hat is over his heart.

Department A

History of the Attraction

Furnished by the band for the program and reprinted each season without change, with a fourth part added in 1991.

Fiddle & Flag formed in Cookeville, Tennessee, in the spring of 1979. Clayton "Cap" Redmond had come home from the Army ten years earlier and gone to work in his father's hardware store on the square. He played fiddle on Saturday nights. Kay Ashworth heard him at a church homecoming in April and wrote him a chart for the following Saturday. He played it as written. She has written every chart since.

The band played its first show on the Fourth of July, 1979, on a flatbed trailer on the courthouse square. It opened with the National Anthem. Every show it played for the next twelve years opened the same way.

“Hats off first. Then we tune.”

— Cap Redmond, to the band, before every show 1979–1991

Part 1

The Square

Clayton Redmond was born in Putnam County in 1947. He was drafted in 1966 and served three years in the Army, including a year in Vietnam with an engineer construction battalion. He left a Specialist Five. He came home to Cookeville in 1969, went to work in his father's hardware store on the square, and played fiddle on Saturday nights wherever there was a floor.

Kay Ashworth taught piano on the north side of town and played for two churches. She heard Cap at a homecoming dinner in April 1979 and wrote him a chart for a fiddle tune he had been playing by ear for twenty years. He played it as written the next Saturday. Eddie Lee Brannon drove over from Livingston for the third Saturday. Marvin Toles came from Crossville with a bass and a pickup truck. The drummer came and went until 1980, when Rusty Gaines, nineteen, walked in from Sparta and stayed.

The first show was the Fourth of July, 1979, on a flatbed trailer on the courthouse square. The VFW post presented the colors. Cap took off his hat. The band played until the fireworks.

Part 2

The Grandstand Years

From 1980 the band played county fairs. A fair board would book a grandstand attraction for one night in late summer, and Fiddle & Flag became the one they booked. Between 1980 and 1990 the band played grandstands in Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas and Missouri, and the VFW post halls in between.

In 1982 the band bought a used silver motor coach from a church in Murfreesboro. Marvin kept it running. Cap mounted a small flag on the door. It was replaced every year on Flag Day, and the worn one was taken to the nearest VFW post to be retired properly.

Cumberland Grandstand came out in 1981 and was sold off a card table beside the grandstand stairs. Seventy North followed in 1985.

The five band members standing in front of a weathered silver motor coach on the shoulder of a two-lane country road at sunset, a small flag on the coach door
The coach, bought in 1982. The door flag was replaced every Flag Day.
Complimentsof aFriend

Part 3

Kay's Pencil

Kay Ashworth wrote every chart the band played. She wrote them in pencil, on manuscript paper, at her kitchen table in Cookeville, and she brought a revised set to every rehearsal. The fiddle boogie that opened every show is hers note for note, including the part everyone assumed Cap was improvising.

In the Nashville studio she ran the sessions. She stood at the piano and conducted with a No. 2 pencil. The engineers learned to wait for the pencil to come down before they rolled tape.

Morning Colors was recorded over five days in the spring of 1990. It was the most carefully arranged record the band made. It ends with "Benediction", Kay alone at the piano, singing the only lead vocal she ever recorded.

Part 4

The Last Fourth

Late in 1990 Cap's father fell ill, and the store on the square needed Cap full time. He told the band in January 1991, at Kay's kitchen table. They agreed to play one more season and to end it where they had started.

The last show was the Fourth of July, 1991, on the courthouse square in Cookeville. The VFW post presented the colors. Cap took off his hat. The band played the boogie, the three records and the boogie again, and stopped when the fireworks started.

Afterward the five of them folded the stage flag in the regulation triangle, thirteen folds, stars outward, and gave it to the post. The coach was sold to a gospel quartet in Kentucky. The door flag went with Cap.

This space donated bythe Post Auxiliary

Department B

Exhibitors

Five entries, one class. Entry tags are reproduced as filed. Each tag is wired to the exhibit.

Cap Redmond, bearded, in a black felt hat, playing fiddle into a microphone under a spotlight, a flag glowing behind him
Cap Redmond. Fiddle and lead vocals.

Exhibitor's Tag

Entry No.
101
Class
Fiddle, lead vocals, bandleader
Exhibitor
Clayton “Cap” Redmond
Address
Cookeville, Tenn.
Shown
1979–1991

U.S. Army, 1966–1969

“Hats off first. Then we tune.”

Takes the black hat off for the anthem and holds it over his heart with his right hand. Puts it back on after the last note, never before. Then counts in the boogie without looking at anybody.

Now: Ran the hardware store on the square until 2012. Lives outside Cookeville. Plays fiddle at the VFW post on Memorial Day and Veterans Day, and nowhere else.

Kay Ashworth in a denim jacket at an upright piano in an empty hall with tall arched windows, writing on manuscript paper with a pencil
Kay Ashworth. Every chart, in pencil.

Exhibitor's Tag

Entry No.
103
Class
Piano, harmony vocals, arranger
Exhibitor
Kay Ashworth
Address
Cookeville, Tenn.
Shown
1979–1991

Arranger. Wrote every chart, 1979–1991.

“If it isn't on the chart, it isn't in the song.”

Wrote every chart the band played, 1979–1991. Conducted the studio sessions with a No. 2 pencil. Kept three sharpened ones in her jacket pocket on stage.

Now: Played and arranged sessions in Nashville through 2004. Music director at her church in Cookeville since 2005. Still writes every chart in pencil.

Exhibitor's Tag

Entry No.
102
Class
Lead guitar
Exhibitor
Eddie Lee Brannon
Address
Livingston, Tenn.
Shown
1979–1991

“Trade eight with Cap and you'd better have eight.”

Now: Lives in Livingston, Tennessee. Teaches guitar on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Still owns the red plaid shirt.

Exhibitor's Tag

Entry No.
104
Class
Bass
Exhibitor
Marvin Toles
Address
Crossville, Tenn.
Shown
1979–1991

“The coach ran. I saw to it.”

Now: Farms soybeans and hay outside Crossville, Tennessee. Kept the coach running for twelve years and says so.

Exhibitor's Tag

Entry No.
105
Class
Drums
Exhibitor
Rusty Gaines
Address
Sparta, Tenn.
Shown
1980–1991

“Ma'am, I'll carry that pie to the coach myself.”

Now: Lives in Sparta, Tennessee. Drives a school bus. Plays drums at his church on Sunday.

Department C

Recorded Exhibits

Three records on Falling Water Records, Cookeville. Each is listed as a class, with its lots and their running times in place of premiums.

Class 301

Cumberland Grandstand

1981 · Falling Water Records

The first record. Cut in two days in Nashville and sold off a card table at the grandstand. Opens with the boogie.

  1. Lot 1.Grandstand Boogie3:12
  2. Lot 2.Upper Cumberland3:48
  3. Lot 3.Hand on Heart4:05
  4. Lot 4.Falling Water3:30
  5. Lot 5.Daddy's Bean Field3:41
  6. Lot 6.Red Clay, White Steeple3:55
  7. Lot 7.Ferris Wheel Waltz3:20
  8. Lot 8.Cap's Breakdown2:48
  9. Lot 9.Saturday in Sparta3:26
  10. Lot 10.Under the Bunting4:22
View the full exhibit →

Class 302

Seventy North

1985 · Falling Water Records

Named for the highway out of Cookeville. Written on the coach, arranged at Kay's kitchen table, recorded in four days.

  1. Lot 1.Seventy North3:34
  2. Lot 2.Silver Coach3:50
  3. Lot 3.Two-Lane Country3:29
  4. Lot 4.The New Post Home4:18
  5. Lot 5.Kay's Chart3:05
  6. Lot 6.Mile Marker Prayer3:58
  7. Lot 7.The Pie Table3:12
  8. Lot 8.Rain on the Fourth4:01
  9. Lot 9.Mama Kept the Porch Light3:44
  10. Lot 10.Fiddle Fire2:56
View the full exhibit →

Class 303

Morning Colors

1990 · Falling Water Records

The last record. Named for the flag raised at first light on every Army post. Ends with Kay alone at the piano.

  1. Lot 1.Morning Colors4:12
  2. Lot 2.Folded Thirteen Times4:30
  3. Lot 3.Hometown Colors3:38
  4. Lot 4.County Line Boogie3:15
  5. Lot 5.Short-Timer's Calendar3:50
  6. Lot 6.Eddie's Bend3:02
  7. Lot 7.The Ones Who Came Home4:24
  8. Lot 8.Last Night at the Fairgrounds4:08
  9. Lot 9.Every Porch a Flagpole3:33
  10. Lot 10.Benediction2:40
View the full exhibit →
A woman at an upright piano in a wood-paneled recording studio conducts the band with a raised pencil while the fiddler, guitarist, bassist and drummer watch her
Nashville, spring 1990. The Morning Colors sessions. Tape rolled when the pencil came down.

Department D

Grandstand Attractions

Ten Saturdays, summer of 1986. The season opened on the Fourth on the courthouse square in Cookeville and closed in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Fiddle & Flag

Grandstand Season · 1986

DateTownGrounds
July 4Cookeville, TNCourthouse square
July 12Lebanon, TNVFW post hall
July 19Glasgow, KYCounty fairgrounds, grandstand
July 26Cullman, ALCounty fairgrounds, grandstand
August 2Dalton, GAVFW post hall
August 9Sparta, TNCounty fairgrounds, grandstand
August 16Shelby, NCCounty fairgrounds, grandstand
August 23Gaffney, SCVFW post hall
August 30Sikeston, MOCounty fairgrounds, grandstand
September 6Bowling Green, KYCounty fairgrounds, grandstand

Tennessee · Kentucky · Alabama · Georgia · North Carolina · South Carolina · Missouri

Older couples dancing in front of the band in a VFW post hall with wood paneling, string lights and framed photographs of servicemen
Dalton, Georgia, 1986. Kay moved the waltzes to where the dancers wanted them.

Department E

Post Bulletin

Incidents of record, as reported in the bulletins of the posts the band played. Typed, run off on the post's duplicator, and mailed to members.

The Post Bulletin

News of the Post, the Auxiliary and the band

THE RAINED-OUT FOURTH

County fairgrounds, Sparta, Tennessee · 1983

The storm came over the Cumberland Plateau at seven-thirty on July 4, 1983. The fair board closed the grandstand at 7:40 and cancelled the fireworks. About two hundred people did not go home.

Cap asked the board for the show barn. Marvin and Rusty carried the drums across the midway. Kay played a borrowed upright that the fair used for its talent show. There was no sound system. The post's honor guard presented the colors in the sawdust ring, and the band played the full hour and fifteen minutes.

The fair board booked them for the following year before the barn was swept.

THE COACH AT MONTEREY

U.S. 70, near Monterey, Tennessee · 1986

The fan belt went fifteen miles east of Cookeville on a Saturday afternoon in August 1986. Marvin had a spare. He did not have the tool to fit it.

A farmer named in the archive only as Mr. Lowe stopped his tractor, chained the coach and pulled it into his yard. His wife brought out tea. Marvin borrowed a wrench from the barn and made the repair in an hour and ten minutes. The band played on the porch the whole time, Rusty on a snare and Eddie Lee on an acoustic. Mr. Lowe asked for the boogie twice.

The band made the evening show with nineteen minutes to spare. Mr. Lowe received two records by mail and a Christmas card every year until 1991.

THE NEW POST HOME

VFW post hall, Lebanon, Tennessee · 1987

The post had met for thirty years in a rented room over a feed store. In October 1987 it moved into a building of its own, and it asked Fiddle & Flag to play the dedication.

The post commander raised the flag on the new pole at five. The band played from seven until eleven. Kay rewrote the set that afternoon so the waltzes fell where the older couples would want them.

The auxiliary had asked each family to bring one pie. Forty-one pies were received. At eleven o'clock the auxiliary president counted out eleven of them for the band, and would not hear otherwise. Rusty carried them to the coach himself. The band wrote "The New Post Home" on the drive back.

The five band members playing acoustic instruments on and around a white farmhouse porch at sunset, a flag on the porch post and green fields behind
A porch near Monterey, Tennessee, August 1986, while the coach was repaired. Mr. Lowe asked for the boogie twice.

Post Notes

The Door Flag

A small flag rode on the door of the coach from 1982 to 1991. It was replaced every year on June 14, Flag Day. The worn one was taken to the nearest VFW post and retired properly. Ten were retired this way. The eleventh is in Cap's front hall.

Hats Off First

No instrument was tuned, and no note was played, until the anthem was over. Cap held his hat over his heart. The band stood with the crowd. Where a local singer was available, the local singer sang it.

Kay's Pencils

Kay Ashworth carried three sharpened No. 2 pencils in her jacket pocket at every show and every session. The archive holds one, about two inches long.

The Pie Ledger

From 1984 Rusty Gaines kept a ledger of pies given to the band at VFW post halls: date, post, kind of pie. The final entry is July 4, 1991. The total is 312. Chess pie leads.

Placard Weekly · September 1985

Fiddle & Flag mean every word

A Cookeville five-piece fills a grandstand in Bowling Green

From our Kentucky correspondent

The grandstand at the county fairgrounds holds about three thousand people. On Saturday night it held about three thousand people.

Fiddle & Flag, a five-piece from Cookeville, Tennessee, opened with the National Anthem, sung by a high-school senior from Scottsville, and the band stood for it with the crowd. Then bandleader Cap Redmond put his hat back on and played a fiddle boogie so fast that the front row stood up again.

The songs are about the towns the band drives through, the people it plays for, and the flag. Redmond, an Army veteran, says so from the stage without apology. The crowd agreed with him.

The arrangements are the work of pianist Kay Ashworth, who also sings harmony and who appears to be the person in charge. The new record is Seventy North.

The band playing on a low stage in a paneled VFW post hall hung with framed unit photographs and flags; veterans in caps sit at folding tables and an older couple dances
Dedication night of a new post home, Lebanon, Tennessee, October 1987. Forty-one pies received.

Department F

Judges' Remarks

Remarks received from the grandstand and entered on the judges' cards as written.

Judge's Card No. 1

I was an Army medic in 1968. When the anthem started, Cap Redmond took his hat off and put it over his heart, and so did every man in that grandstand who hadn't already. Then he played the boogie. I bought both records off the card table that night and I still have them.

— W. H., Army veteran, Gallatin, TN★★★★★
Judge's Card No. 2

We came for the fiddle and stayed for Kay Ashworth. She played that piano like she was keeping time for all five of them, which she was. My husband says the boogie is the best part. I say it's the waltz. We have danced to both at every fair since 1982.

— Mrs. J. Pruitt, Glasgow, KY★★★★★
Judge's Card No. 3

Booked them four seasons running. They were on the grounds by noon, they played the full hour and fifteen, and they left the grandstand cleaner than they found it. Attendance was up every year. The board voted to have them back before they had finished loading the coach.

— R. L. Haney, fair board, Cullman, AL★★★★★

Department G

Entry Blank

Garments and printed matter for Fiddle & Flag are issued through the Sideband Label store. No entry fee. No premiums paid.

Official Entry Blank · Season of 1986

Exhibitor
You
Department
Garments
Class
Fiddle & Flag
Colors
Red, white and blue

SignedHand on heart.

Go to the store

Entries close when the fireworks start.