VALDOSTA —

HAHIRA — Rugh Boggs’ life hangs from the photos and memorabilia lining the walls of Boggs Music Hall.

There’s the small 1930s photo taken about the time he was a 9-year-old growing up the ninth of 10 children in Kentucky. The same age he entered a singing contest, winning the top prize for performing a Carter Family song.

Several guitars are mounted to a wall behind the stage. The Gibson Epiphone is his first guitar, which he reclaimed 50 years after using it to pay a musician who had quit the band. Decades of persistence and dealing led to the guitar’s return to Boggs’ possession. Though the neck had been broken, Boggs can still make the guitar sing.

Another item recalls Boggs’ Army service during the Korean War. While serving his country, Boggs learned to play guitar. He and some other soldiers developed a band that regularly played officers clubs for $5 a night and all the beer they could hold. Though he didn’t learn the guitar until his 20s, he’s made it a lifelong passion.

Along the way, a visitor may learn the story of how Rugh acquired his rather unique name. An older Boggs brother fell for a missionary lady with the last name of Rugh. The family did not approve of the romance but they must have liked her last name. They made it the middle name of their ninth child. Rugh’s first name is Hezekiah but most friends and music hall regulars call him Boggs.

Other photos reveal some of the musicians and friends he made while playing nights and weekends as he worked until his late 40s for General Motors in Dayton, Ohio.  

While these photos and items are informative, a visitor does not need to study them to understand the life of Hezekiah Rugh Boggs. One only needs see and hear him with his guitar slung across his shoulder. Wife Karen Boggs playing the keyboard. Both performing Jim Reeves’ country classic, “Put Your Sweet Lips,” with its           famed opening lines, “Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone / Let’s pretend that we’re together all alone ...”

Or the give-and-take the couple brings to Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues,” joined by the train whistles of Billy Garrett. As Rugh Boggs rounds the corner of the famed Cash line, “But I shot a man in Reno / Just to watch him die,” Karen Boggs ad libs, “Shame on you,” before Rugh continues, “When I hear that whistle blowin’”  —  a pause for Garrett’s train whistle — ... “I hang my head and cry.”

Three weekends per month, Rugh and Karen Boggs open the Boggs Music Hall behind their house on Hahira’s Lawson Street. They take the stage in the building where he worked on cars until converting it into the music hall about nine years ago.

This weekend, Boggs Music Hall celebrates Rugh’s 84th birthday.

On stage, Rugh and Karen perform a set of any of the 3,000 country songs Rugh has memorized during his music career. Decades ago, he would mount lyrics at his post on the GM assembly line and memorize the words during the week to perform on stage during the weekends.

On stage at the music hall, there is never a planned playlist. Rugh does not rehearse. He plays whatever comes to mind, while Karen follows along, whether it’s a song she has played in the past or one she’s hearing for the first time.

A classically trained pianist, playing by ear was something Karen never considered before meeting Rugh.

Growing up in Olena, Ohio, Karen studied piano through a conservatory of music. She learned to read music, performing Frederic Chopin instead of Patsy Cline. She and her first husband moved to Atlanta then Valdosta. Her first husband was on dialysis which led to her making friends with other dialysis patients and their families. Even after her husband died, when not working one of three jobs, Karen continued visiting the dialysis center to see her friends.

In 1980, she met Rugh Boggs, who was at the dialysis center with his third wife. She brought Rugh a pillow to use at the dialysis center. A short time after they met, Rugh’s third wife died.

He appreciated Karen’s kindness and wanted to thank her. He visited her at one of her jobs. Karen also sold items to make ends meet; Rugh purchased a chair.

He also learned she could play piano and he needed a pianist for his band. She played by reading music. Rugh and his band played by ear. They gave it a shot.

“These guys would be playing and they would look at me and say, OK, it’s your turn to play,” Karen says. “I thought, What do you mean it’s my turn? ... I had to teach myself to play without music and he doesn’t know a stitch of music on a piece of paper.”

But she picked it up.

The band played “Wildwood Flower.” When it came to her turn, she played the old country tune with a classical air on the piano. The other musicians stopped and stared. She then played it in a jaunty country style. Karen won her spot in the band, and she won a place in Rugh’s heart.

They married Aug. 23, 1980, six weeks after meeting.

“I didn’t even know how he liked his coffee when I married him,” Karen says. “But the Lord brought us together and we’re still together.”

On their 25th anniversary, Rugh bought her a wedding dress as a present because she did not have one for either of her weddings.

In conversation, Karen leads the dialogue with the vibrant style of a storyteller. Rugh says few words but delivers remarks with a dry sense of humor.

Discussing the transition from reading classical music to playing country by ear, Karen says, “I had to work hard at it and, one day, it clicked.”

“I was a little help,” Rugh says, “but not much.”

On stage, he bristles with energy. Rugh flings his guitar strap across his shoulder with the flair of an Old West gunslinger. He belts out a yodel, or drops his voice to a low growl of county-music remorse.

His wide-ranging voice led to the couple’s stage name of The Versatiles, a name they use on their 10 gospel and country CDs, all recorded in the past decade.

The CDs offer the coda to a musical life, symbolically placed in Boggs Music Hall. Entering the door, the story of Rugh Boggs begins with the photos to the left and stretch along the walls, circling to where the CDs are available to the right of the door. But you’ll want to let your attention linger on the stage, especially if Rugh and Karen Boggs are playing.



Boggs Music Hall, 104 W. Lawson St., celebrates Rugh Boggs’ 84th birthday, 6-7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 14. Admission: Free, though a hat will be passed for any donations.