One day, Keith asked his lovely wife, Ruth, to take up the guitar because he wanted to play this music spontaneously, not having to track down a fiddler or another musician. Now Ruth is a classically trained musician on flute so playing the guitar was as foreign to her as speaking Martian. In 2005 she began to experiment with chords a bit and then, Scott (again) introduced her to playing Old-time guitar. Then friends McLean and Derek(also friends of Scott) helped and encouraged her even more. And then they started adding words to the tunes that have lyrics (aka songs). Does pat your head while rubbing your stomach and hopping on one foot ring a bell? Now she plays guitar and sings old mountain songs and ballads as the other half of Boogertown Gap. Looking back, Ruth learned a lot of the Old-time songs when she was a child, but she wasn't made aware of their roots or significance. The first song her Daddy taught her to sing when she was a wee lass was about an out house. This old traditional music lives deep in her soul, and she is grateful to now be able to express it freely and share it with whomever wants to play along or sit and listen.

Ruth has not set aside her flute, nor does Keith ignore the guitar since becoming involved in Old-Time music. They perform Celtic Music as "Mountain Minstrels" at churches, weddings and receptions with Keith on the guitar and Ruth on Flute and Recorder.

Austin Stovall, originally from Scottsville, Ky, comes from a musical family.  His great grandfather played the "tater bug" mandolin, harmonica, and jaw harp.  His dad had an old guitar tuned in open G and a mandolin which Austin began experimenting early on.  He was given an open back banjo for Christmas on his 14th birthday and has been playing clawhammer banjo since.  Austin also plays fiddle, mandolin, and guitar.  Gillian Welch is one of his main influences on clawhammer banjo.  Austin has learned Old-Time music through personal research, playing with old and new recordings, and playing with other musicians in East Tennessee.  Austin now lives in Clinton, TN and joins Boogertown Gap in many of their engagements where he primarily fiddles.

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Boogertown Gap – In case you not from around these parts, Sevier County, TN, or if you are and haven't heard of it, YES, Boogertown Gap is a real place. It’s a gap, or low spot, on a high  ridge that separates the rural communities of Boogertown and King’s Branch. Keith used to pass over that gap many times as a kid riding in his parents car, and later as a bigger kid in his own car. But he never knew it had a name, he just knew that was where his cousin Alana Watson fell out of the back of her dad’s moving Model T pickup truck and tumbled through the briars. She’s well and thriving. Later in life, as education crept into his years, Keith saw on a United States Geological Survey map this gap was given the name Boogertown Gap. We wonder why those mapmakers, or whoever picks map place names didn’t call it King’s Branch Gap or why the other three gaps you have to cross to get into Boogertown didn’t have the clout to capture the mapmakers attention. In fact none of the other gaps have map names, but I’ll bet you the locals have one, or many for each.  Boogertown Gap was a place my father as a child spent many summer nights with his dad and brothers around a campfire listening to the hounds on a fox chase, telling stories, and maybe eating a June Apple. 

Boogertown is real too, and like so many other places, it too, has another name, much more palatable to the upstanding citizenry, but not as affectionate or evoking as Boogertown. It’s other name is Oldham or Oldham’s Creek, named for James Oldham who moved there from Old Man’s Island (corrupted to Oldham) off the coast of England. John only lived there for a few years, but the area kept his name. Origins of the name Boogertown are many, so here for your continued reading pleasure are two of the most prominent stories of how Boogertown got its name. During the Civil War, an "unknown" soldier, perhaps and outlier or deserter, saw some eyes in the bush which frightened him. It turned out to be a cow, but for that his "booger" in the bush became the namesake for Boogertown. Another is that a man wanted to move his family out to this area to raise a bunch of "boogers" (kids), and for that the area received its name. Whatever the true origin of the name be, in some areas Boogertown is still timeless from my early years and full of local tradition and lore. The house pictured above is the house where Keith's father was born back in 1928 and where Keith spent many summers with the Watson family.   Imagine a a couple of miles distant through the background of this photo, is Boogertown Gap.  At right Keith (1972) is pickin his Uncle Boyd's Regal f-hole arch top guitar on which he heard Boyd pick Wildwood Flower many times.  You guessed it, the barn is in Boogertown and the house in the background is where Keith's dad was born.  At left is Boyd (on the right) in his playing days with Benny Sims, according to Boyd's daughter.