[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 26 (Wednesday, February 12, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2266-S2268]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                         Tribute to Joe Meadows

  Mr. BYRD. Madam President, this past Saturday my longtime, good 
friend, and former staff member, Joe Meadows, passed away.
  Joe Meadows was a dedicated, hard-working, conscientious, sincere, 
and loyal individual. As the mail clerk in my office in the Hart 
Building, he managed the mailroom for me. He did his

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job effectively and efficiently. And everyone else on the staff liked 
him.
  One couldn't help but like Joe Meadows. From time to time, when I 
went into his section of the office, I would find Joe Meadows with a 
handful of papers, letters, correspondence, and files in one hand. And 
with his glasses down over his nose, he would look up over his glasses.

  He was a wonderful man. He rarely talked about it, this quiet, soft-
spoken, hard-working, unassuming man. He was also one of the best 
country fiddle players in the United States. He was a bluegrass 
musician, born in a small coal town in southern West Virginia, on the 
last day of 1934.
  Joe never learned to read a note of music.
  Does the distinguished Senator from New York have memories concerning 
the year 1934?
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I appreciate the Senator yielding. I 
say to the Senator, my memories are those my parents told me.
  Mr. BYRD. Well, the Senator, I take it, was not around in 1934?
  Mr. SCHUMER. I was not.
  Mr. BYRD. OK. Well, I was a high school senior in 1934. I graduated 
that year. And we were hearing talk, in those days, about a gadget that 
would allow one to see a person as that person spoke or would allow one 
to see a person who played the violin as the violin was being played. 
That was a few years right after the invention of the television. 
Television was invented in 1926. And so I am talking about 1934, just 8 
years after television was invented. Eight years after television was 
invented, 1934.
  Oh, we heard about this gadget, as I say. It was coming and would be 
on the market in a few years. My, what a change that made. 1934; well, 
the last day of 1934, Joe Meadows was born. He never learned to read a 
sheet of music, but he could really play it. He could make that fiddle 
cry. He could make it scream. He did have neighbors and a father who 
played the fiddle.
  He had an extraordinary gift for music: Joe Meadows from the hills of 
southern West Virginia. He is one of the finest bluegrass musicians I 
ever heard. Like many lads in southern West Virginia, including myself, 
Joe Meadows grew up listening to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio. The 
Grand Ole Opry, I can remember the times when that was all we had to 
listen to on Saturday night--the Grand Ole Opry.
  Yes, I can remember the Solemn Old Judge and Deford Bailey. Deford 
Bailey played that harmonica. Oh, he could make that harmonica scream. 
He could make that harmonica play ``Freight Train Blues,'' Deford 
Bailey. And there was Sam and Kirk McGee. There was Arthur Smith and 
His Dixieliners: ``Going on down that Dixie line, walking in my 
sleep''--Arthur Smith and His Dixieliners. He played ``The 
Mockingbird.'' He could make that mockingbird sing on that violin.
  But Joe Meadows could do anything that Arthur Smith could do, and 
better.
  The Grand Ole Opry, that is all we had in those days. On Saturday 
nights we would square dance and listen to the Grand Ole Opry. There 
was the Fruit Jar Drinkers. That was kind of a lousy band. I probably 
shouldn't say that. But I did not think as much of the Fruit Jar 
Drinkers as I did the Dixieliners, by any means. And Roy Acuff used to 
sing ``That Great Speckled Bird'' Saturday nights. Saturday nights, 
1934.
  I graduated from high school in 1934. I liked a pretty, pretty girl, 
too. She was not in my class. She was in the next class behind me, and 
she was the daughter of a coal miner. And that coal miner played a 
fiddle. His name was Fred James.
  I took a liking to that daughter of the coal miner. And I tell you, 
you young ladies, and young men as well, who are pages here, I tell you 
how I courted my girl, my sweetheart, how I won her hand in marriage.

  There was another boy in my class at Mark Twain High School in 1934. 
His name was Julius Takach. His father had a grocery store at Ury, what 
we called Cooktown, about 3 miles south of Stotesbury where I lived. 
And Julius Takach would, every morning, come to school with his pockets 
filled with that candy and chewing gum, bubble gum, and so on, from his 
father's store.
  Now, I tell you, I made it my business to be the first to greet 
Julius at the schoolhouse door upon his arrival every day because he 
would give me some of that candy and chewing gum.
  I tell you, it was something to be able to present your girl, your 
sweetheart, a piece of bubble gum. And I never let her know that I did 
not buy that, I did not purchase that gum or candy. I did not let her 
know it was given to me, but it was given to me by Julius Takach.
  I would meet her when the classes changed, and I would give her that 
candy and chewing gum. Boy, what a hit I thought I was, giving that 
pretty girl that candy and chewing gum.
  Well, now, 65 years and almost 9 months after I married that pretty 
girl, I am here to tell these young men who are pages, that is the way 
you court your girl, with another boy's bubble gum.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Will my friend and leader from West Virginia yield?
  Mr. BYRD. Yes.
  Will the Congressional Record please note that there was laughter.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
  Mr. BYRD. Would the reporter kindly note there was laughter again in 
the Congressional Record. We have to make that Congressional Record 
come alive.
  Mr. SCHUMER. My colleague from West Virginia, if he might yield----
  Mr. BYRD. Yes.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Is making everything come alive in this Chamber. We have 
not had a happier moment in a long time. And I very much appreciate the 
stories he is telling. I was going to say, I guess we all ought to take 
this up, because 65 years of marriage to Erma--and we all hope and pray 
she is in good health again; and I hope she is--is something we should 
all pay very good attention to.
  Now, I don't know, these days, if the young ladies will just accept 
bubble gum. You might have to do a little more than that, maybe a whole 
basket of candy or something. But it is good for us to know.
  I did not want to interrupt my colleague. I just, in terms of the 
scheduling, ask if it might be all right to ask unanimous consent that 
after the Senator from West Virginia is finished I be recognized for 
the time that I might need.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, if I may continue, I try to remember 
great speeches. One of the best speeches I ever heard was made by our 
colleague from West Virginia when he came to the floor, it must have 
been about a year and a half ago, and talked, with as much love as he 
has for his employee who has passed and almost as much love as for his 
wife, about the beauties of coming to West Virginia on a vacation. It 
was one of the finest, nicest speeches I ever heard. I will never 
forget it, and I think this one is going to be just as memorable. I 
look forward to hearing my friend continue. I thank him for his 
courtesy.
  Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I thank the distinguished senior Senator 
from New York for his observations. I am very grateful to him.
  Like many lads in southern West Virginia, including myself, Joe 
Meadows grew up listening to the Grand Ole Opry on radio--that was back 
in the days of the Great Depression--as well as ``Farm and Fun Time'' 
and other radio programs that featured country and bluegrass music. And 
Joe Meadows absorbed it all. His ear was fixed on and naturally attuned 
to the fiddle playing. Joe listened. Joe learned. And later, Joe 
performed what he had heard. At the age of 16, Joe Meadows began 
performing with Melvin and Ray, the Goins Brothers, and from there he 
went on to tour with and recorded with the greatest names in country 
and bluegrass music including Jim and Jesse, the Stanley Brothers, and 
the legendary Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys.
  Joe Meadows' musical career included 25 years on the road as a 
professional fiddle player and a 7-year run at the Grand Ole Opry. He 
had toured Europe four times and Japan once where he was incredibly 
well received. Before I stopped playing the fiddle, Joe Meadows and I 
would sometimes sit down on weekends and play our fiddles together. We 
usually taped our sessions, and then we listened to our recordings 
together to see how we could improve our

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playing. Well, he couldn't improve his playing much, but I had plenty 
of room to improve my own. I always hoped to be as smooth in handling 
that bow, that fiddle bow as Joe was. He had complete control of that 
fiddle bow. I don't think I ever got there, but he never stopped trying 
to help me.
  Joe Meadows was not only naturally endowed with a strong and supple 
bow arm, the good Lord blessed him with a great pair of fiddler hands.
  I never have had the pleasure to observe anyone whom I liked to 
listen to better than I liked Joe Meadows. He had nimble, quick 
fingers, and he used them beautifully.
  The bluegrass and mountain music and old-time fiddling world has lost 
a great musician. I have lost a good friend. West Virginia has lost a 
good and gracious son.
  My wife Erma and I extend our deepest condolences to Joe Meadows' 
family and to his many friends.

     Let fate do her worst.
     There are relics of joy,
     Bright dreams of the past
     That she cannot destroy.

     They come in the nighttime
     Of sorrow and care,
     And bring back the features
     That joy used to wear.

     Long, long be my heart
     With such memories filled,
     Like the vase in which roses
     Have once been distilled.

     You may break, you may shatter
     The vase, if you will,
     But the scent of the roses
     Will hang, 'round it still.