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Charlie Blacklock

Charlie Blacklock, master sawyer and founder of this saw association passed away April 17th after being admitted to Alameda Hospital earlier in the day. He'd been in a care facility for a few years and while his strength was low his spirits were always high. He leaves three sons, many granchildren and great grandchildren, and joins his wife Viola. If your computer's not blocking it, you should be hearing Hajime Sakita playing his composition for Viola Blacklock.

Viola

When asked about how he started playing the musical saw Charlie’d tell the story of how he'd heard the saw on the radio as a young man, played by a group called "The Crosscut Boys", and that he'd never heard anything so beautiful before and knew then and there that he wanted to play the saw. He had a musical background, having played the clarinet in high school (on an old "Albert System" clarinet) and also played the harmonica. He'd tell how, as a young boy, he'd made a harmonica holder so he could play music while running the tractor on their small farm in Hollister, California, so, naturally, he used his harmonica rack and harmonica to help with finding the melody as well as playing backup to his endeavors on the saw. Charlie eventually became an internationally known sawyer, designing his own line of musical saws available through Elderly Music and Lark In The Morning Music (www.sawplayers.org/links.html); his cd "Old Favorites" and his musical saw instruction video are also available through these outlets. He also founded the Sawplayers Association (www.sawplayers.org).

Charlie's grandfather came to California after the civil war, eventually establishing the farm in Hollister. Their main crop when Charlie was growing up was prunes, but they also had a vegetable garden, some turkeys, chickens, ducks and sometimes a cow. Charlie used to tell how his dad had him go out and, basically, sleep with the turkeys during thunderstorms to keep them from injuring themselves. His pet peeve had to do with prunes when manufacturers, for advertising purposes, started calling prunes "dried plums". Ya see, prunes have more sugar in them than plums so a dried prune is good, but a dried plum... well, it just doesn't work. So Charlie'd tell the story, ending with, "a prune's a prune and a plum's a plum."

The depression made things tough for the Blacklock family and so young Charlie started working as a picker 'n pruner 'n whatever else he could find and eventually joined the "Fruit Picker's Union" and became involved in union organizing, which at one point landed Charlie in front of a government committee with Harry Bridges at his side. The tough times eventually took the farm from Charlie's family so Charlie studied and took the test for the Electrician's Union and made a career as an electrician. He and his wife Viola, moved to Alameda and raised three boys, Kenneth, Rodney and Paul.

For a stretch Charlie worked for Henry Kaiser. He remembered how once Henry's son asked him if he could put in a switch and a light for the swimming pool area that would look like a moon for dark nights. No problem for Charlie, but he sure got a kick out of telling that story. He also told one where they had ordered this special ceiling lamp for Henry's bedroom which took a while to arrive and Charlie could tell Henry was getting impatient. Rather than simply telling Henry when it did arrive Charlie positioned his men with the lamp around a corner, with lookouts to check for Charlie's signal. When Henry asked about the lamp, Charlie raised his hands (the signal) and said, "Well... I don't know, I hope it arrives soon." Turning and glancing out the window, Charlie then exclaimed, "why, I think it's coming right now."

Always his own man, and with Viola's support, Charlie led a full life. He was always tinkering with some project in his "workshop" under their modest home and, through the years, working on his motorcycle and cars. The motorcycle had a side-car so once he actually traveled to Yosemite with Viola and his two sons at the time, all loaded onto that motorcycle and side-car. At one stretch, in that little workshop, he helped me make a loft bed; that bed is currently a guest bed in a paraplegic friend's apartment. Charlie eventually started making saw mallets and cutting out vinyl for Viola to make cases for his line of musical saws - the "C. Blacklock Special."

While during the last few years he was unable to play the saw anymore, he always had his full range of diatonic harmonicas with him; he had a deep love of family, people and music and will be fondly remembered and missed.

- Art Peterson