PBS Specials

Hamper McBee: Raw Mash (1978x1)

Air date: Feb 05, 1978

A candid portrait of the Tennesse ballad singer, story-teller, and part-time moonshiner Hamper McBee. Hamper learned much lf his music from his father and friends around Monteagle Mountain and had established a reputation at folk festivals in the 1970s as an accomplished and expressive ballad singer. The film follows Hamper as he works, socializes, and talks about his music. He sings "Black Jack Davy," "Nine Hundred Miles," Wayfaring Stranger," "Rye Whiskey," and a song he wrote himself "Bill Malone," about the local constable who routinely arrested Hamper when he had too much to drink. Hamper McBee is also a moonshiner, and Raw Mash shows him plying his trade at this nearly lost art.