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Billy Edd Wheeler is a West Virginia-born American troubadour, an important part of the Appalachian storytelling tradition. He’s written songs made famous by Johnny Cash, Kenny Rogers and Richie Havens, but songwriting is only part of the man’s impressive body of work. The latest from the pen of the prolific Wheeler \u2013 a pillar of the Western N.C. arts community and a longtime Swannanoa resident \u2013 is his memoir, Hotter Than a Pepper Sprout<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The book’s title is taken from one of many memorable lines in Wheeler’s best-known tune, \u201cJackson.\u201d That song won a 1967 Grammy Award for Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. \u201cJohnny learned it from a folk album that I put out,\u201d Wheeler says, referring to 1963’s A New Bag of Songs<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Even though four years passed between Wheeler’s original and the hit cover, the composer says he had Johnny and June in mind when he wrote it. \u201cAnd I was lucky that that song landed in their hands,\u201d he says, \u201cbecause nobody could do it any better than they did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wheeler has recorded more than 15 albums himself, but is better known as a composer than as a performer. \u201cI always thought I would be known as a songwriter,\u201d he says. But that label is insufficient to describe Wheeler and his work. He has painted extensively, written books of poetry, composed the story and music for eight plays and musicals, and authored several outdoor dramas including Hatfields & McCoys<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Wheeler recalls being contacted in 1968 by Ewell Cornett, director at Theatre West Virginia, with a request to write a play about the famous feuding clans. \u201cI told him, ‘I’m not sure I want to write about the Hatfields and McCoys. Too many times West Virginians are looked upon as inbred and ignorant, and I don\u2019t want to promote that stereotype.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cornett encouraged Wheeler to research the real story of the feud. Once he did, Wheeler discovered that a love story lay at the heart of the oft-told tale. \u201cI instantly thought of Romeo and Juliet<\/i>,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I called Ewell and said, ‘Yeah, I want to write that drama, and I want you to help me. And I get an advance, don’t I?’\u201d <\/p>\n
Wheeler received an advance payment of $10,000. \u201cThat was a lot of money back then,\u201d he says with a laugh. He and Cornett did additional research, and wrote the musical drama. The play premiered in 1970 and ran for 45 years in Beckley, W.V.<\/p>\n
That achievement would be but one in a long list. Wheeler moved around a lot in his younger years, attending Warren Wilson College in his teens while spending summers variously in Detroit and his rural West Virginia mining hometown. And once he made it as a songwriter, he traveled extensively. But by the 1980s he settled in Swannanoa. <\/p>\n
\u201cI had a little bit of stardom, but not much,\u201d he explains with genuine humility. \u201cI started getting tapes in the mail from people wanting me to criticize their songs.\u201d But those budding songwriters expected Wheeler to critique for free, and even pay the return postage. \u201cI thought, ‘This ain’t working,’\u201d he says. So Wheeler established the Great Smokies Song Chase, hosted at his alma mater, Warren Wilson College.<\/p>\n
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\nAfter a successful four-year run, Wheeler was ready to end the Song Chase. But WWC president Doug Orr wanted a good thing to continue, and so Wheeler stayed on one more year while the Great Smokies Song Chase evolved into a new event, the Swannanoa Gathering.<\/p>\n
Wheeler truly believes that the creative technique of songwriting can be taught. \u201cNow, you have to have a kernel of talent to begin with,\u201d he cautions, \u201cbut I don\u2019t know anybody who didn\u2019t benefit from good criticism.\u201d He says that the schooling he got early on from Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller (composers of \u201cHound Dog,\u201d \u201cKansas City, \u201cYoung Blood,\u201d Searchin’\u201d \u201cJailhouse Rock\u201d and nearly 70 other hits) was a key to his own success.<\/p>\n
He also got some early advice from Thornton Wilder, author of Our Town<\/i>. \u201cHe said, ‘Billy, if you\u2019re going to write, take time to ponder. It\u2019s important. And by the way, if you ever decide to study play writing, I suggest Yale.’\u201d Wheeler recalls looking at the famed playwright in astonishment. \u201cHe knew what I was thinking,\u201d Wheeler says. \u201c’Oh. They give scholarships, Billy.’ He knew I couldn\u2019t afford Yale.\u201d Wheeler would go on to earn a scholarship and study there.<\/p>\n
Today at age 85, Wheeler shows little sign of slowing down. Hotter Than a Pepper Sprout<\/i> is a highly enjoyable chronicle, following a young boy in Boone County, West Virginia through a fascinating lifetime, rubbing elbows with Elvis, Chet Atkins and countless other musical peers. And he’s not done yet. With co-writer Randy Poe, Wheeler is working on a sprawling Western novel. \u201cI stole the plot from Captains Courageous<\/i>,\u201d he says with a chuckle, but then he goes on to describe a wonderfully original variation on Kipling’s 1897 work.<\/p>\n
Wheeler knows that he’s part of a long Scots-Irish Appalachian oral tradition, but admits he didn’t always<\/i> know. \u201cI really didn\u2019t have any idea where I came from,\u201d he says. But when, as a young boy, he was told that the folk songs he loved had come from England and Scotland, his eyes were opened. \u201cI thought, ‘Wow. There’s a big part of the world out there that I don’t know anything about.’\u201d He would spend the rest of his life learning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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