Crooked Road CD Series [Back]

Nat Reese:
Save a Seat For Me

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Nathaniel Hawthorne “Nat” Reese was born March 4, 1924 in Salem, Virginia to Thomas Walker Reese and Rosa Sylvester Caroline Wilson Reese. Thomas was originally from Montgomery, Alabama, and Rosa from Bessemer, Alabama. The family had previously lived in Florida and Georgia before coming to Virginia to, as Nat puts it, “get away from the cotton fields.”  In Salem, the Reeses lived on Water Street while his father drove a truck for a coal and ice company by day, and operated a small store, covering the evening shift every night until 8pm.  Rosa kept a cow and sold milk and butter at the family’s store. Both parents were musical, Nat’s father played guitar and his mother the concertina. Nat recalls learning “Life Is Like a Mountain Railroad” at his mother’s knee.

One Sunday after church, a visiting preacher told Nat’s father that there was plenty of money to be made in the coal fields of West Virginia. After an exploratory trip, the family moved to Itman, in Wyoming County, West Virginia when Nat was five.  Thomas took a job at the shop of the Virginian Railroad for $2.64 a day, a position he held for 30 years.  Nat began to show musical talent on his father’s guitar, so, on time payments, Thomas bought him a Martin Tiple – a 12-string instrument of Argentine origin popular at the time -- and Nat quickly developed real proficiency.

Nat began to learn songs from itinerant black musicians who rode the rails throughout the mountain coal camps, company towns that were divided into “colored,” white, and Italian sections.  If a worker was killed in the mines or on the railroad, the company would allow his widow to remain in company housing and operate it as a business to compensate for the loss of the spouse’s income.  Food was served in these places, moonshine could be had, and these traveling musicians entertained there on Friday and Saturday nights.  It was at these rowdy “juke joints” that young Nat was exposed to the blues, and conversely to country music at similar establishments frequented by whites – “honky-tonks” -- since the itinerant musicians played both black and white venues and developed repertoires tailored for both audiences.

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