Johnny Mack Brown

http://robertoreg.blogspot.com/2016_06_26_archive.html

from page 131 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD (the model for the character of Joe Kraft was HYMAN BLUMBERG):

...Joe Kraft's voice came again. "Wait a minute, Buck." He stopped and the little man came closer. His face was twisting as if he didn't know what to say when he caught Buck's arm and drew him into the shadows near his store.

"I sold a whole lot of sheeting today," he whispered.

Buck's eyes grew puzzled.

"Hope to hell we did, too."

Joe Kraft shook his head.

"What I sold was to men."

Unconsciously Buck's voice lowered.

"I reckon I know what you mean," he said, slowly, feeling his way, "but it's the first I've heard of it."

"They won't say anything to me," Kraft said. "You know that. But, somehow, I figured you wouldn't like it, and maybe-''

"God, no," Buck broke in. "I don't like it and never will." He laughed harshly. "Too damned many times when they might a' come after me." He punched Joe Kraft lightly in the ribs.

"Don't let it bother you. Just a bunch o' drunks goin' through Baptist Bottom for some fun."

Kraft didn't smile, but his face took on a look of vast patience.

"Fun!" His voice was soft, but bitterness was in the tone.

"Forget it," Buck said. "Maybe they'll get too drunk to do anything." He watched Kraft's lips twist in a wry smile as the little man turned away and slipped back to lean against his store front.

 Victoria "Big Vic"       Ellen Dawson (a great-great niece of Buck Baker), describing the comments her grandmother made in the margins of her copy of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD, wrote: "PAGE 64

8th paragraph, the whole paragraph is in parenthesis and it begins with "She's a schoolteacher," and beside it in the margin is written 'Music Teacher'
PAGE 73, right above the INTERLUDE is written: ' The teachers name was Ida and Ghastie was named Ida after her and christened later when she was 2 - 3, she was renamed Ghastie."
In the book, Buck is caught having an affair with "Big Vic" or Victoria, the schoolteacher hired to teach the Bannon children after they moved to Aven. One of the Bannon girls was already named Victoria. After "Big Vic" was dismissed, Jane Bannon, Buck's mother, changed her daughter's name from Victoria to Christina. The real teacher being named Ida fits in with this 1898 clipping from the COLUMBIA BREEZE. If Ida also became pregnant, she may have been the mother of James Baker, son of Buck Baker, WWI hero and accused in 1920 of assault with intent to murder in Moultrie, Georgia. So here we may have two characters the book, Big Vic and Ivy Longshore(Buck Bannon's first wife & mother of his only child) who are based upon an individual, Ida Clark. from the July 28, 1898 COLUMBIA BREEZE 

   "Tommy Cogbill produced the basic tracks of “Holly Holy” in Memphis with the super-hot American Sound Studio house band (Reggie Young on guitar, Mike Leech on bass, Bobby Emmons on the Hammond B-3 organ, Bobby Woods on acoustic piano and Gene Chrisman on drums). When co-producer Tom Catalano and I hand carried the boxes of recording tape through the Memphis airport to L.A. the next day, we held them like they were newborn babies because we both felt there was a miracle on those tracks. When we got back to L.A., Tom brought in arranger Lee Holdridge who was inspired enough by the tracks to write the most magnificent string and choral parts. When engineer Armin Steiner played it back all together, we knew we had somehow captured lightning in a bottle. This was a once in a lifetime recording experience for me" ~ NEIL DIAMOND https://www.iaisnd.com/messages/neils-notes-on-the-up-and-coming-cd/

The book is DOTHAN'S MOST SUCCESSFUL NOVEL. It was published in 1948 and written by Dothan's Dougie Bailey. It is pure fiction modeled upon the Baker family of Dothan. The fictional town of Aven is based upon Dothan and could be considered another character in the novel as it grows and develops through each of the 33 chapters and 11 interludes of the novel. (the novel also has two endings) If you understand DEVIL MAKE A THIRD, you will comprehend Dothan's formative years. I'm amazed that I'm explaining this to you. If you have no interest in how Dothan came to be then you should ignore most of my posts, however, I will be glad to answer your questions. The hope is that a new edition of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD will be published soon. https://privatepropertynotrespass.blogspot.com/

 INTERLUDE #11 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD, page 346: 

Aven was one of the little miracles of the past thirty years."That's what it is," Bass Wooten muttered to himself, as he slowly rubbed with a damp cloth a circle a cup of coffee had left on the glassy white counter top in the B. and B. Cafe.
"Durned little old chinquapin of a place growed up like a toad-stool after a rainy spell."

(J.A. Peterman was one of my great uncles. He and my great aunt Lula had a very old two story house on the southeast corner of South Alice and West Main directly across from First Baptist. His 112
North Foster store was one of the first commercial buildings in town. ~ clipping from the August 8, 1917 DOTHAN EAGLE)

page 346: Aven was one of the little miracles of the past thirty years."That's what it is," Bass Wooten muttered to himself, as he slowly rubbed with a damp cloth a circle a cup of coffee had left on the glassy white counter top in the B. and B. Cafe.
"Durned little old chinquapin of a place growed up like a toad-stool after a rainy spell."

 from the June 25, 1909 MONTGOMERY ADVERTISER: "Other Alabama communities have grown into proud cities with the help of Northerners and Westerners. Dothan has been built by Wiregrass people."

 

https://privatepropertynotrespass.blogspot.com/2018/08/devil-make-third-was-written-by-douglas.html

 2011 TRIBUTE TO RONNIE HAMMOND BY AL KOOPER

From: Al Kooper

Re: Ronnie Hammond

I knew Ronnie Hammond well.

I befriended the band they were b4 ARS when they played New York as The Candymen. They were Roy Orbison’s back up band and they opened for The Blues Project and Blood Sweat & Tears when I was a member of each and Orbison took time off. They were signed to ABC-Paramount back then.. We became good friends and when I played Atlanta as Al Kooper with my band in 1972, they invited us down to hear their just built studio and jam. I fell in love with that studio and also the other bands I heard in town when I spent that week there.

I bought into the studio and had my roadies pack up my apartment in New York City and I never even went back HOME from that trip. I moved to Atlanta in 1972, started my own label (Sounds Of the South) and signed two of the bands I heard in town that week (Lynyrd Skynyrd & Mose Jones) Robert Nix, ARS drummer played on Skynyrd’s track "Tuesday’s Gone" and Ronnie Hammond and Ronnie Van Zant challenged each other for the same woman on more than one occasion. I played on two ARS albums and they backed me up on one of my solo albums. When I heard he passed away, I hit You Tube to see what he looked and sounded like lately and he had aged pretty well. However only he and the keyboard player remained from the original band and that was sad.

It rang my bell when you quoted "Doraville," cause that’s where Studio One of which I was part owner for awhile was. "Free Bird" "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Saturday Night Special" were all cut by that Jacksonville band…… in Doraville.

I was told Ronnie wasn’t feeling well and went to the doctor’s office and promptly died right there.

Give ‘em hell up there in Heaven, Ronnie.

Al Kooper

 

 DEVIL MAKE A THIRD CHRONOLOGY

 

Chapter 1: Buck Bannon leaves the family farm for the new railroad town of Aven.

This was probably in the spring of the year when land was being plowed for planting.

page 11:  Buck's new furrow was cutting across fresh-plowed dirt, but he didn't notice it.

from the May 12, 1887 MONTGOMERY ADVERTISER

page 11: She was wearing the shapeless dress she always wore when she was going to have another baby. Buck felt a sudden lurch under his ribs as he remembered that he was the first of twelve children. He could call back to mind the births of the last eight.

from the September 2, 1888 EUFAULA DAILY TIMES

from the December 7, 1954 DOTHAN EAGLE (the Dan Baker obituary)

Chapter 2: Buck Bannon wakes up at the Aven depot, walks across the way to the single row of stores and gets his first job.

page 23 (the railroad is still under construction): "Who's boss here?" he said, before he turned around.

"I ain't," the red-faced man said quickly, "but if you're any kind o' hand with a pick, we'll take you." 

Buck shook his head and hefted the box under his arms.

"Much obliged," he said, slowly, "but I ain't aimin' to dig in no more dirt."

Railroad arrives in Dothan in spring of 1887. (from the February 23, 1887 EUFAULA DAILY TIMES)

 

page 23: "Like bees in a hive," he muttered, and his eyes strayed on, following the careless streets that branched off from the row of stores. It seemed to Buck that the streets ran of their own free will in any direction wandering aside sometimes, but always leading to richer homes that wore paint. Some streets were shorter than others.

"Them short ones," Buck thought, "look like they just can't make it past them painted houses."

page 24: "It ain't much," he said to himself, "but God knows it ain't no older'n little Coke. It'll grow, but right now it looks like somebody just flung it out there because they didn't have no use for it."

from the August 15, 1929 DOTHAN EAGLE

page 24: Buck was so busy thinking he nearly walked into a small tow-headed boy holding the tie rope to a heifer in front of a good-sized general store. Buck scuffled his palm over the boy's head and cocked his eye to the side so he could spell out the name of the store.

"Green's General Mdse," he said, slowly, then looked down at the boy. "Looks like I'll eat counter vittles, boy. Shore ain't no other place."

from the January 10, 1913 DOTHAN EAGLE

 

 1900: The Birth of Downtown Dothan ( originally slated to cross West Main near South Alice,  the story goes that Buck Baker got inside information on the Central of Georgia change of route through Dothan with the rails crossing East Main near present-day College/South Appletree, bought up the right-of-way and made a fortune sellin' it back to the Central of Georgia) 

from page 86 and 87 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD

"Naturally they'll hid Aven, Me and Ed figured everything and there ain't but one way for him to come."

He stopped and wiped his forehead, breathing deeply, and pushed his hair back.

"He'll cross Basin Street within two blocks of the store I wanted to buy. He'll build a depot, and a freight yard, and that section of town'll grow up crazy as a plum thicket."

Buck stopped and straightened up then with a half-smiling triumph in his eyes. Joe Bannon pulled his beard carefully out to the longest strand and looked at it curiously for a moment. He looked up and nodded.

'Buy it. I got the money."

"No, sir," Buck said quickly. "Let's go whole hog. I'll throw in my old store and the new one as collateral so I can buy it without help." He watched silently as his father nodded. "Then," he said, "you get out this afternoon and tomorrow morning and buy, quiet-like, all the ridge land you can northeast of town. They'll hunt ridges. Don't buy anything but poor land with a good stand of timber on it. We'll sell the timber first thing, then, by God, we'll have 'em hooked. They'll condemn at a price that'll give us a profit on the land deal, then we'll have the timber sale on top of it. Buy it right into Aven long as the price is right, they we'll sit tight and let 'em come to us."

 THE STUDIO ONE DOCUMENTARY promises to be SWEET! I mean SUPER SWEET as in sharing an important story which has been overlooked, ignored and dismissed for too damn long. If any of the guys workin' on THE STUDIO ONE DOCUMENTARY ask for your help, please assist them any way you can!

 

http://reclaimalabama.blogspot.com/2019/11/i-have-identified-5-demolished.html?m=0

http://reclaimalabama.blogspot.com/2020/08/had-dream-come-true-yesterday-and-it.html

 The things about Buck's mother which draw his attention show he was fully aware at a young age of what a toll a lifetime of grueling farm labor took upon a person entering middle-age. Buck continued to exhibit this keen sense of future-time orientation with the introduction of his father, Joe Bannon, in the second scene of the chapter. In the simple act of standing up from his bench beside the family table, Joe's authority fills the room as Buck's mother grabs his arm anticipating that the head of the household is about to show his oldest son and that he's not too old for the belt since Buck had decided that his anticipated emancipation from the Bannon household entitled him to suddenly forget "you ain't to use the Lord's name while you're in the house...". It was a false alarm but it lets the reader know that these parents have high expectations of righteousness from their offspring. It was a desire that Buck did not necessarily aspire to after he was introduced to Aven. The rural ideals of his Christian parents and the reality of cutting corners so you could get rich quick in Aven create a conflict which will drive all the action for the rest of the novel.

On the second page of the novel a foreshadowing of the coming moral conflict between Buck and his parents comes when the author describes the "sense of power" Buck experiences as he plows up his mother's meticulously swept yard that has him "swingy in the hips like a dirt-road sport." The use of the term "dirt road sport" tells the reader that even though Buck's parents may have wanted Buck to follow the moral compass they provided for him in their home, the realities of winning the daily commercial battle on Aven's dusty streets would require some bending of "the Golden Rule." As Buck would ask his brother, Jeff, later in the novel, "Don't you know a man is bound to stir up some mud when he kicks off from bottom?"

The things about Buck's mother which draw his attention show he was fully aware at a young age of what a toll a life-time of grueling farm labor took upon a person entering middle-age. Buck continued to exhibit this keen sense of future-time orientation with the introduction of his father, Joe Bannon, in the second scene of the chapter. In the simple act of standing up from his bench beside the family table, Joe's authority fills the room as Buck's mother grabs his arm anticipating that the head of the household is about to show his oldest son and that he's not too old for the belt since Buck had decided that his anticipated emancipation from the Bannon household entitled him to suddenly forget "you ain't to use the Lord's name while you're in the house...". It was a false alarm but it lets the reader know that these parents have high expectations of righteousness from their offspring. It was a desire that Buck did not necessarily aspire to after he was introduced to Aven. The rural ideals of his Christian parents and the reality of cutting corners so you could get rich quick in Aven create a conflict which will drive all the action for the rest of the novel. 

On the second page of the novel a foreshadowing of the coming moral conflict between Buck and his parents comes when the author describes the "sense of power" Buck experiences as he plows up his mother's meticulously swept yard that has him "swingy in the hips like a dirt-road sport." The use of the term "dirt road sport" tells the reader that even though Buck's parents may have wanted Buck to follow the moral compass they provided for him in their home, the realities of winning the daily commercial battle on Aven's dusty streets would require some bending of "the Golden Rule." As Buck would ask his brother, Jeff, later in the novel, "Don't you know a man is bound to stir up some mud when he kicks off from bottom?"

In the first chapter, eighteen year-old Buck takes every opportunity to speak dismissively about life on the family farm. When his father remarks about how much Buck resembles members of his mother's family, Buck jokes that his nose has a hump in it because "that comes o' rootin' for vittles in his here sorry clay." At that smart remark, both Bannon parents defend their agrarian lifestyle. Buck's father responds, "We made vittles out o' that clay, Buck. And you et 'em. Don't run the land down." 

The toll that a life behind the plow takes on a man is described with Joe Bannon's manner of walking, "His shamble was a little stiff now, bringing the hunch back to his shoulders, as if he were still thrusting hard against a plow stock." Buck's excitement about his move to Aven comes from his commitment that life away from the farm will be easier for him as well as for his entire family. Buck firmly believes the Bannons might not live longer in Aven but they'll sure want to live longer than they would growing cotton year in and year out. No matter how much he or his parents enjoy the love, companionship or other rewards of their family farm or how much Buck might miss it during his lonely hours alone in Aven, the promise of a new life outside the farm fills Buck with excitement from the first page of Chapter 1 to the last, "Buck didn't know what it was, but he knew he was too full to hold it."