Crooked Road CD Series [Back]

Frank Newsome :
Gone Away With a Friend

Co-Produced by Grammy Winning Bluegrass artist Jim Lauderdale

Page [1] [2] [3] [4]

Frank Newsome was born to Harvey and Katie Newsome on November 15, 1942, in Pike County, Kentucky, where Harvey worked as a coal miner.  Frank began attending Old Regular services with his mother as a child, as he recalls, "We used to walk over four miles just on Saturday and Sunday going to church.  I just been going to it all my life, practically, from a little boy on up."
One of 22 children, Frank moved around a good bit before settling down in Virginia, including a stint in Ohio with his brother Johnny in 1961.  There the brothers found work in a sawmill, and also performed on a radio station, with Frank playing guitar and singing with his brother to songs from early country music stalwarts such as the Stanley Brothers and Hank Williams.  By the time he was about 20 years old, Frank moved to Virginia to work in the coal mines.  Soon after he met his future wife Geraldine.  As he put it, "I got a job and met a pretty young blonde-headed woman and I married her and I been here ever since.  She's still a pretty blonde headed woman." 

The demanding physical labor of the coalmines had its rewards, as Frank remembers:

Back then I got a dollar a car, loading coal with a # 4 shovel.  The cars would hold about two tons.  If you loaded 15 of 'em, that was big money back in the late '50s and early 60s.  I'd load 15 to 20 a day like that.  That was some hard work.  A lot of times it was dark when I went in and dark when I came out.

Frank had his experience of Grace while mining in 1963:

I was working in the coal mines and I just began to study over my life.  When you're between two rocks, when you go under the mountain you don't know whether you're going to see daylight again or not.  I just began to look up and talk to the Good Lord to have mercy upon me and bless me to get out and see my family again.  Every day I'd do that and I just kept begging Him and begging Him, and asking Him to forgive me for the wrongs that I've done.  When I felt that in 1963, when He forgive me and when He set my soul free, I told the brethren, “I give my hand to join the church,” and I've been a member ever since of this Old Regular Baptist family.

Frank put in 17 and a half years "under the mountain," before he contracted the dreaded black lung disease, an all too common affliction for those who toiled underground.  February 12, 1976 was his last day:
I got mashed up twice in the mines, in rock falls, and it totally disabled me, and I ain't worked none at a public job since then.  Every day or every week you'd hear of somebody, a rock falling on 'em and taking their life, one or two getting killed like that.  About all of the male members of our congregation worked in the coal mines.

In the midst of a life of hard labor and frequent tragedy, it is easy to see how the plaintive and sad sounding hymns of these churches would strike a chord with congregants, as they seek comfort with promises of the better world to come.  After leaving the mines, Frank was drawn to the church, and eventually felt compelled to preach.

I prayed for the Good Lord to forgive me the wrongs that I done.  When I felt that, when I joined the church, then I thought everything was all right.  Then I felt another burden come up on me that I felt was the calling of the Lord to warn the people of the danger of living and dying in sin, to tell 'em to do right, get right with the Lord, talk to Him.  Ever since 1972, I've been a minister.

Page [1] [2] [3] [4]