TRANSCRIPT

JL - 'Big' John 'T-Bone' Little, interviewee / LR - Lyn Royce, interviewer

JL: We got our... I'll never forget the 1st day when I had to go to school!

LR: Unhunh.

JL: My Dad is walking me down to school and he's telling me... I says, 'Dad, I don't want to go.' 'Yeah, but' he says 'it's going to be a new experience, you know - you're gonna... you're gonna like it.' I says, 'Yeah, but I don't know anybody there.' Yeah, but you'll [indecipherable].' He was right - 15 minutes after I was there, kids start talking and you forget... He says 'I'm going; I'm going back. I'll see you tonight.' 'Yeah, okay Dad!' ...you know and this... but it was a real shock when you 1st went for the 1st time. But, we had some good teachers there. Ah, I remember we had... My first teacher was Miss Piercey [sp] she was the, uh, the Grade 1/2 teacher. And then we went to... we had 1/2... quite a while... I went to grade... she [had] 1/2... I went to Mrs, Mrs Cameron; she taught 3 and 4. And then, uh, where'd we go? Another; another 1... We went downstairs, somewhere... oh yeah! 7 and 8. There was another... I forget her name. And then we had to go down to class 8. That was Mr Court. He was the principle. He was quite strict. [laughs] Oh Boy! I remember 1 time he gave me the strap and I screamed so loud I upset the whole school! I just kept screaming! And everybody... all the teachers, they'd come out 'What's he doin'?! What's he doin?!' And he... They give you a slap, [with the] strap, you know, and you'd say 'Oh, that's nothing;' he hits and that's nothin' but that time, before it goes and cools off he's back here again, you know. You know what it is. But I says... I decided to have a go at this, so I started... and that time I had a voice so shrill, I mean, I could almost break glass. [laughs] And I just screamed, you know how, like a real tantrum. And the teachers all come down 'What's going on? What's going on?' I said 'I can't stop... I can't get him to stop... get him to stop.' They were talking 'bout that, you know, I just kept screaming 'cause I knew, long as I screamed he wasn't going to hit me. [laughs] But I got away with it! [laughs] Oh, that was great. And then we had had a good, good school. A good public school. We played a lot of soccer and baseball, stuff like that back in those days. I played some... I went to Stamford Collegiate and we played football there for a while. And that was... that was a good time; we had some good teachers there. I remember Mr Overn [sp?] he was... Mrs Forth, she was the History teacher, and Mr Tiplin, and there was, um... ah, god, Johnny, Johnny Long - he was the phys... physical... physic... phys-ed teacher, you know, and this, uh... let's see... Oh, there was so many of them... Mr Ainsley [sp?] was the, was the principal there, and now I see his sons, sons are pretty good around the town there. And then I... My 1st job I got was working for, uh, Niagara Dry Beverages down on, on, uh, on Lundy's Lane there - er, Lundy's Lane / Ferry there - and my Uncle Cy [sp?], which is Aunt Norval's husband, he was the head syrup-er.

LR: Okay.

JL: And then, uh, Aunt Norval used to ru... she was running the Sun, Sunday, Sunday school classes here at the church here. And we used to come in every Sunday and, and, and the whole... of course back in those days, everybody come to church on Sunday. Grandma, she'd be... she'd have the kids, she'd have them between her legs, she'd be combing their hair and we'd say [feigns whining] '...'t hurts...' and she'd say 'Yer getting,' yer getting' your hair combed!' [Indecipherable] She was, she was... I remember her just like it was yesterday. And she'd get all those kids, [chuckles] hair combed, and off again we'd go to church, [sniffles for dramatic effect] you know... and we all come to church. And then, uh, we'd have the Sunday class, Sunday school class and, uh, Aunt Norval'd be playing the piano and that kind of stuff. And, uh... It was really... it was nice. I mean, I thank God today for that, because of that, that religious background, all my aunts and uncles n' that, that's just, that's what, the things taught us, you know. No matter how tough it gets, you can always depend on God. And that stuck with me right to this day and I'm almost 80. So, (excuse me) and I find out that the... that really takes you through a lot... a lot of stuff... strife. But then after that, I started... then I started playin'... Let's see... Yeah, and then... one day I was... my father was playing guitar and he showed me a chord, like a simple chord, it was a G like that, just had to hold two strings like that, one on the bottom, one on the top, and I picked it up and I hit the strings first time. 'N then I picked it up a couple of days later, it wasn't right. So I fool... I saw him fool around with the thing [tuning knob], so I fool around with the thing, and I managed to tune it.

LR: Okay...

JL: And after tuning it, that's just like I opened a door and I stepped... I couldn't see... learn enough. And then my Uncle Dick used to live right across the street here, on Peer Street [Niagara Falls], he used to come down every night. He used to work in Hooker Electrical plant, him and my Uncle Jim, in Niagara Falls, New York. But he always come after... the guys had supper and everything else, he'd come... He had his sooped up... he used to drive a big Packard, the thing must have been 40 feet long, one of those 12 cylinders... you remember those? ...with the, with the 3 foot high wheels? ...and, uh, with the glass in the middle, you know... looked like a real touring car. And used to come out, we'd see him chugging it through... 'choop, choop, choop, choop,' [laughs] We would all run down and he come out and... and he'd, uh, come over with his guitar and he'd sit down and... I used to play the guitar in my lap, like a steel guitar...

LR: Okay.

JL: ...and that's how I first started. And I liked that.