Country in the Country
By: Eric Leake
Reprinted by permission of Louisville Magazine
published in June 2008
It's Friday night and Wayne Wardle is onstage at The Barn. Tall, and taller for his cowboy hat, he's been singing Marty Robbins songs when he gets a request to do something he can dance to while he performs. "Now come on," Wardle says. "How many people have seen Marty do the twist?" And next thing he is twisting, the band playing along and women in the audience getting to their feet.
This is not the scene one might expect in rural Burgin, just outside of Harrodsburg on colorfully named Buster Pike, in a squat weathered barn beside pasture and a cemetery. But this isn't a normal barn. Friday nights it's a music hall for old country, a little gospel and a little rock 'n' roll. The only agricultural artifacts are the antique horse collar and similar implements displayed on the rafters as decorations alongside iron skillets and old Polaroid cameras. Much of the wood is bare or hidden by insulating foam panels. The center seats appear to be salvaged from an old theater; those in the wings and at the back are all folding or stackable. Christmas lights strung overhead, tinted floodlights beam down on the stage and a wood sign announces the venue: "Welcome to The Barn."
The night has been turned over to one of the popular "Legends Shows." The place is near capacity with 160 people, mostly older, dressed in jeans and plaids slightly more formal than usually seen in a barn. They've plunked down $10 to hear local and regional talent play the music of Merle Haggard, Jim Reeves, George Jones and others. "I love country. They just don't play this kind of music anymore," says C.L. Bruce, who periodically visits Harrodsburg from Virginia. "Nashville music, that's not country music anymore. Let me be the first to tell you."
The master of ceremonies is 76-year-old Tommy Hurst, The Barn's owner-manager and bass player in the house band, The Kentucky Strangers. He jokes often and punctuates his speech with many a "Yeah, buddy." His wife of nearly 32 years, Joyce, 68, operates the soundboard, saying, "I know just enough to know what not to touch." The Barn needs a good crowd - and has that tonight - to continue its unlikely run as central Kentucky's throwback answer to the Grand Ole Opry.
During an interview the day before the show, Hurst expressed his surprise at what The Barn has become. "All I wanted was a place to play," he said. "We never dreamt it would get as big as this."
In some cosmic sense, Hurst may have started toward proprietorship of The Barn when he first picked up a guitar as a teenager. He would play occasionally, sometimes with friends, nothing serious. He says he always loved music and grew fond of country music as he listened to it, and nothing but, during two decades in the cab of a long-haul truck. After retiring from trucking, Hurst started jamming with friends in his basement. When they needed a bass player, he switched to bass.
The basement jamming came to an end in 1997 when the Hurst's moved from the other side of Harrodsburg to their present home. Tommy Hurst soon noticed The Barn, back when it was just a barn, behind his neighbor's house and thought it'd make a good place to jam. "I wanted this barn, but the man who owned it wouldn't rent it to me and he wouldn't sell it either," Hurst says. So he agreed to buy the whole 2.75-acre lot - barn, house and all. He rents out the house and a trailer on the property to help pay the bills. He and Joyce still live next door.
Once Hurst and his friends started playing, people in the area took interest. "At first it was just a place for them to get together and play," Joyce Hurst says. "People asked if they could come and listen. Then they started bringing their friends." The Hurts began holding free Friday-evening shows at The Barn with friends and musicians from the area. When crowds got to be more than The Barn could accommodate, and when their homeowner's-insurance provider found out, the Hurst's had to go pro. They incorporated The Barn and started charging admission. "It came on gradually," she says. "Then one day all of this is going on, and the way it happens, you don't really have time to think about it."
As the crowds grew, so did The Barn. Originally 1,296 square feet, it has expanded through three remodeling's to its current 2,232 square feet. Hurst replaced some old wood and put on a new roof. Friends of The Barn organized a "white elephant" sale to contribute $3,500 to the largest expansion and renovation. "We just had to make it bigger. People kept coming," Hurst says.
This August The Barn will celebrate its 10th anniversary as a music hall and its seventh charging admission. Through the years the Hurst's have held shows just about every Friday. This past winter they closed because attendance was low. Joyce Hurst's blames the economy. "People around here have lost their jobs. They say gas is too expensive so they can't come," she says. Even with shows on hiatus the Hurst's still had to pay the insurance and keep The Barn maintained. "You'd be surprised, it costs money even not to sing a song," Tommy Hurst says.
Now they're back on their weekly schedule during the warm-weather months. Running The Barn is very much a labor of love for the Hurst's. Tommy Hurst compares it to a full time job. He's proud of the place as he points out memorabilia and the foam panels lining the ceiling. "We insulated everything for the wintertime and got lucky with the sound," he says. "People are surprised by how good the acoustics are." Family and friends help keep The Barn going. Joyce Hurst's contributions run the gamut from coordinating talent to mowing the lawn. Some nights she offers for raffle one of her coveted rum cakes. (The secret, she says, is to let the cake sit a couple days after baking.) Tommy Hurst's aunt, Mary Rose Blacketer, an incredibly spry 92-year-old, takes tickets and manages the door.
We're not here to make money," Hurst says. "I want a place to play music and have fun. Everything we make goes right back in." The Barn had only $100 left to end last year, he says, and that was spent this year on a new compressor for the soda machine.
Things may pick up now that warm weather has returned. Audience members mostly find The Barn on their own; there is no website and the proprietors advertise only in the local weekly newspaper and on local radio. After The Barn appeared in a New York Times travel piece last year - a piece that also brought national attention to the heft of Tommy Hurst's belly, since diminished - the Hurst's received calls from tour operators about busing in groups of fans. He just lowered standard ticket prices from $8.50 to $7 (the Legends Shows cost more) in hopes of increasing attendance. It's a tricky balance, he says. Too expensive and nobody comes too cheap and he can't cover expenses. He's aiming for 100 people a week.
Back at the Friday-night show, Louisville singer James "Mac" McDaniel has taken the stage. He sings mostly Charlie Pride songs and takes a request for "Kiss an Angel Good Morning." McDaniel has been coming to The Barn for four years. "I play a lot of places, but The Barn is one of the most distinct," he says. "They have one of the hottest shows in the region."
Katherine Clay sings and plays tambourine with the Kentucky Strangers. Although she likes just about all music, Patsy Cline is her favorite to cover. "This is a funny crowd," she says. "We do a lot of Hank Williams. It's more of a Hank Senior than a Hank Junior place. I don't know what people would do if we busted out some Hank Junior."
For his Legends Shows, such as on this night, Hurst schedules seven or eight paid performers to play in the style of a specific country-music great. They alternate turns onstage, performing a half-dozen or so songs in a set. Legends are the most popular shows, lasting as long as four hours from start to finish. On typical Friday nights, one or two paid performers join the band for a show that runs about two and a half hours.
Many of the performers come from the jamboree circuit and local church halls. They have day jobs as truck drivers or schoolteachers or in any number of pursuits. Some have played in national tours. Adding to the talent is the audience. Hurst occasionally calls up friends and honors the wishes of others wanting to perform. The Barn at times has the feel of a local variety show, with the excitement of the unexpected matched by the competence of the band, which never draws a blank or misses a beat. So it was that Charles Neal, 76, found himself onstage dancing and singing for a cheering crowd. "I've danced all my life, never sang before coming here," Neal says. "These guys are professionals. I told them, it's an honor to be on the stage with them, a farm boy like me."
As hot as the shows may be it is the people that keep folks coming back. The Barn is the kind of place where attendees greet one another by name and sometimes with baked goods. (On this particular night, one woman shares a box of homemade fried apple pies.) On two occasions, people have been married onstage. Says Joe Burke, who visits every week from nearby Danville and is brave enough to take the stage and sing some songs himself, "This is the friendliest place you'll ever find. The people who come here regularly, you'd have to pick an all-star team to find friendlier folk."
Hurst likes to tell stories on and off stage about his friend Hank Thompson, the Texas-born country legend whom Hurst met at a New Mexico state fair in 1954. One story involves Joyce Hurst's irresistible rum cakes. "Hank Thompson didn't eat sweets, but Joyce made a cake and some cookies for him." he says. "I called him on the phone, and his wife says he loves that rum cake. And he says, yes, that's the best cookie I've ever had in my mouth."
Another story is of the show that could've been. "To me, he's the greatest country music singer there ever was. And he was a good friend," Hurst says of Thompson. "I was working on a deal to get him here for a show. He would've come. He likes places like this." Thompson never did play The Barn. He died last year.
Hurst brings the show toward a close by playing Thompson' best-known song, "The Wild Side of Life." Thompson's autographed photo hangs prominently on one of the barn posts. "I didn't know God made honky-tonk angels," Hurst sings.
By keeping alive the spirit of his friend and the music he loves, Hurst may qualify for some wings of his own.