UNCLE JOSH

Josh Graves is the father of bluegrass Dobro, he passed away September 30, 2006. To find out more about him, visit his website. Back in January of 2002 Josh had just lost his second leg. His friends & fans wanted to do something to help him out. Dobroist Leroy Mack contacted the Resoguit email list and let us list members know that he had been in touch with Josh's wife, Evelyn. She told him the biggest problem was that a wheelchair could not fit through the bathroom door, and even then the bath wasn't properly equipped for his needs! Some major remodelling had to happen at Josh's house. To raise money, Paul Beard generously decided to raffle off one of his Standard R Mahogany Beard resophonic guitars. Leroy, Dobroist Phil Leadbetter, Howard Parker (yet another player & grand poobah of the Resoguit list), and a pile of other folks helped in promoting sales, making calls, and coordinating the oncoming project. Over $10,000.00 was raised! I volunteered to go down and donate what ever time was needed to do the job. On April 11, 2002 I packed up my tools & headed my van out of New Hampshire toward Nashville. The pictures below feature some of the other people on the job. Missing is Bruce Bowman, who lived a few towns away, and was able to help with some carpentry & transporting the shower unit. With most of the labor being donated, we got the job done with thousands left over. This went right to Josh to help with medical bills. The whole project was done in 18 days.

I drove down from New Hampshire, made it to Luray, VA. that night and slept in the back of my van at a state park. I was getting psyched, I could pick up the Opry on the radio there. The next night I got near Knoxville and tuned in WDVX. I heard they were broadcasting from a camper in a campground. I had to see that for myself! And here it is. I stopped in for a while & visited. I hear that they've since moved to a regular studio.

My new friend, Rick Kelly, opened up his home to anyone working on the project who needed a bed. He lives about 15 minutes from Josh's house. Rick is also a fine musician. Here's a picture of us in front of Nashville's Parthenon, and I always thought it was in Greece :).

Here's Jim Stevens, painting the wheel chair ramp we built. The existing ramp didn't go out to the driveway. We widened it and extended it out. Jim is an ex duputy sheriff from Mississippi. I'll just say that the cash for our project was well protected. Josh's daughter planted that magnolia to the right a long time ago. He had warned her about planting it so close. I got up on the roof and trimmed it back, cleaned the gutters, fixed a leak, etc. etc......

Here I am working on the ramp in the front yard, boy it's hot down there in April! Josh would wheel out to the top of the ramp and toss peanuts to the squirrels. They'd almost come into the house.

Here's our plumber, Don Lepley, hard at work. Don was recruited by Frank, and was a key part of the job. Not only did he hook up the bath fixtures, but also replaced the old galvanized water supply pipes. One Sunday I found him down in the crawlspace. He found that ALL the pipes were clogged with rust and replaced them that day.

Tim Scheerhorn stopped by with electrician Butch Hunsucker, here doing some work. He ended up replacing their electrical entry panel, too.

Frank Young is a picker and a construction project manager around the Nashville area. He was able to get permits, call the right people, & help me out with any roadblocks I ran into. He also took over following up on any loose ends once I left.

Here's part of the finished bath. I had started with a bedroom that had belonged to the boys. I installed a door into the neighboring bedroom & enlarged the existing doorway. The old door latch had been shimmed with guitar flatpicks! Also, the window fell apart, so I replaced that, too. Later, Josh liked to spend time in the room watching the birds at the feeder outside the window.

A shot of my Guernsey reso (left) & Josh's Dobro. I was hoping it might pick up a few ideas from his if they sat together long enough.

In 2003 I brought my family down for a visit. My wife Diane on the left and daughter Adrien on the right.