William "Dub" Curtis Simmons

I am not nor have I ever been a professional singer. My father met my mother in Dodge Co. Ga. when she was playing an old pedal organ in a small Methodist Church. They were married in 1917 and raised three girls and two boys. We lived on farms in Dodge and Bleckley Co. until 1940 when my father came to Macon and went to work in a cotton mill. We were glad to get out of those cotton fields.

My first memory of singing was when my father would stand me in a chair so I could be seen singing with the family in church.

My mother had two brothers that played string instruments, guitars, mandolins, and fiddles. My brother and I would set and watch them and learned to play those three instruments. In 1938 my brother saved enough money from picking cotton to buy a silvertone guitar from a Sears catalog. It cost $8.00 and we both used it to learn more about playing by ear.

When we moved to Macon there was no houses available on the mill village and we moved into a house that Daddy's sister owned until one came open in 1942. This mill had an auditorium and playground, including a swimming pool for the children who lived on the village. Some young men who lived on village would get together and pick and sing at the house of the guy who would later become the Mgr. of The Southern Ramblers. l started at that mill auditorium when one of the Managers of the auditorium ask us to play there a couple of nights a week. He would invite any and all to come and hear us. This went on to become The Southern Ramblers country band. My Brother was drafted into the army in early 1942 so he did not get to play with us except for a short time. I did not have to go in service until April of 1944. Curly Wynne who was the Mgr. of the band was a little shy and ask me to be the M C for the band. I was glad to do this since I like to talk, as you can see by this letter. I played Rhythm Guitar and sang solo most of the time. I did have one young man (that I taught the guitar) that would sing harmony with me and he and I also put together a comedy act that was The Shuck Brothers, Corn and Cob. We had a lot of fun with this act. I was Corn and he was Cob. Cob joined the army in 1948 and went on to have one of the largest Western Swing Bands in Texas. He had met his wife in Texas so that’s where they settled. He was put into the Texas Music Hall Of Fame in 2005. He retired in 2006 and moved back to Ga.

I came out of the Navy in 1946 and picked up where I left off. I met my wife in 1943 while playing with this band. One of the members was dating her girlfriend and they introduced me to her. We kept in touch while I was away and picked up where we left off and married in Feb. 1948. We married on Ground Hogs day, Feb 2nd. I did that so I could remember our Anniversary. I joined the Church that she was a member of and we remained there until 1956 when a Methodist Minister came one day and ask me to lead the singing in a tent that they were putting up near our home. I told him that I would, so I went down and helped put the tent up and became the music director until it closed in 2007, 51 years.

To back up a little, my brother and I formed a Gospel Quartet in 1953 and sang all over Ga. and a few times in north Fla. The name of that was The Peach State Quartet. We only sang on the weekends since all of us had jobs. We had a radio program on Sunday afternoons at 230 pm. for a half hour. We had an all-male group from 1953 until 1970 when we lost our lead singer (he went into the Ministry) and we reorganized when my sister came in and I switched to the lead and gave her my tenor part. We also lost our piano player and our base singer's wife started playing for us. My sister had a 14-year-old son who played drums and wanted to play with the quartet. Of course we said yes and that’s when my brother and I pulled out our guitars and we added a bass player as well as a harmonica player and 'before you knew it we had so many people and instruments along with the sound system that we had to have something bigger than cars to travel in. My brother found a bus for sale that had been used by another singing group and fitted our needs, so he purchased it. We made a few changes and painted it a beautiful gold color. All the big-time groups were driving Big Silver Eagle bus's and like to brag about the Silver Eagles they were driving so ours, being painted gold, we called ours The Golden Buzzard. We enjoyed being able to carry all or any of the family's that wanted to go on our trips with us. We enjoyed doing this and I feel that each one of us looked at this as a ministry since we never expected to make money from this. Most of the time the love offerings that were taken up for us would maybe cover the fuel for the bus but if it didn’t we still went and paid out of our pockets whatever it took. We enjoyed this until Dec. 1978 when my brother had a heart attack and died on the way to the hospital. This was more than we could comprehend, and we knew that we could not go on so we disbanded and sold all the equipment.

From that I purchased a karaoke machine and started entertaining senior groups at Churches and other gatherings with soundtracks for background. I did this until a couple of years ago when my wife began having problems with the chemicals in her system getting unbalanced and she has had three stays in the hospital since that time plus having to be taken to the emergency room four times at night from some pretty bad falls.

I also sang at a lot of funerals and weddings. I wrote one song for a couple that were raised in our church when the bride could not decide what she wanted sung. The title of this one was "Life’s Narrow Path". I wrote one that I sang for my wife on our 50th anniversary at church. The name of this one was "Love and Marriage". I have had the pleasure of singing both of these on several occasions for weddings and anniversaries. I later wrote a poem while I was Christmas shopping one day and it dawned on me that this was the occasion when we should be thinking more about the greatest gift of all was when God gave us His Son and all I was thinking about was the ones that I could see and feel. This poem I named " My Gift to My Lord".

The only recording that we did when we had the quartet was at the radio station, so they had some songs to play when it was impossible to get there due to having an engagement for home comings at church's. They were made on old 78 rpm's and the radio station closed and moved out of town and we never got them. We did have one old reel to reel recording of one of our first rehearsals when we reorganized in 1970. The quality of this recording is not very good but I did put it on an 8 track tape and later on a cassette and then on a CD after I got a little gadget to put them on the computer and download them to a CD.

I recorded some songs, both Gospel and country on my karaoke to cassette tapes and have now made one country and two Gospel CD's. These were made using soundtracks for background music. You can tell that they are not professionally made but if you would like to have copies of them, I will be glad to give them to you.

I don’t know if I'll ever be able to get back into music like I was before but I will always hope that through my music that someone found Christ and perhaps made a differance in someone's life.

W.C.(DUB) Simmons

Hart’s on Cherry Street, Hart's Mortuary and Cremation Center, 765 Cherry Street, Macon, GA 31201 has charge of the arrangements.