November 2, 2001

Race souvenir seller writes song about 'Disaster 9-11'

Through A Glass Darkly, by John Myers, Internet Photojournalist

Stroll through the race souvenir trailers at North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham, NC, during the NASCAR Winston Cup race events this week and you might hear a raspy voice singing a song you haven't heard as he picks out a new tune on his Martin guitar.

Ronnie Pegram playing 'Disaster 911' on his Martin guitar in his Green Flag Souvenirs trailer at N.C. Motor Speedway during the NASCAR Winston Cup events there on Nov. 2.

Ronnie Pegram, 58, from Bassett, Va., is a retired woodworking teacher in the Henry County schools who has been following the Winston Cup circuit with his Green Flag Souvenirs trailer since 1983.

He's also been playing gospel and Bluegrass music with his own band, Pine Ridge, for many years, and even had a television show with his band for four years on a Martinsville, Va., TV station.

But one thing Pegram always wanted to do and never could before was write songs. "I often wondered what moved a song writer to put pen to paper. I never could. I tried, and nothing would come to me. I couldn't get three words to rhyme," Pegram said.

But all that changed on Sept. 11. After the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., Pegram said "certain words and lyrics started coming to me, when I was riding down the road, or just setting. I was setting in Dover, Delaware when I put it all together" and wrote his first song. He calls it "Disaster 9-11."

Pegram was in Dover for the Winston Cup race there when he penned his song on Oct. 21. The final scene that put the song together for him was seeing the U.S. Air Force C-130 cargo planes coming in and going out of the Air Force base near the Dover track.

"I knew the ones coming in were bringing bodies from the Pentagon. And the ones going out were taking out troops and materiel off to war. That's what finally put it all together for me."

His song has five verses, and includes the story of each of the four planes hijacked by the terrorists, starting with the two in New York, then the one that hit the Pentagon, then the fourth that passengers managed to crash in a rural area in Pennsylvania.

And the fifth and final verse ends on an ominous note:

"To the people who planned it,

"They should be aware,

"They're about to live their worst nightmare."

When performed by his Pine Ridge band, Pegram said the song concludes with "Taps" played like chimes by the Dobro player.

His band's recording of the song is being played on local radio stations in Virginia and elsewhere, and Pegram said when the band has played the song in live performances, crowds have liked it.

"We've had a real good response wherever we've played it. But that and 50 cents will get you a cup of coffee in most cafes."

Pegram has copyrighted his song and is in the process of becoming a registered songwriter so he can offer "Disaster 9-11" for recording by one of the country musicians in Nashville.

And since writing his first song, Pegram said he has penned two other songs, both in the traditional Bluegrass style his band plays.

"I'm just a hill billy," says Pegram, whose musical hero is Ralph Stanley, another Virginian who is one of the founders of Bluegrass.

"That's the amazing thing about this," Pegram said of his newfound songwriting skill. "It amazing how easy this comes to me. A song has to tell a story or be about some spiritual event or about something somebody wrote in the Bible.

"The other songs I've wrote are sort of like flashbacks of events in my life or in others I am familiar with. It's amazing that I'm able to do this and fit it together in a song," Pegram said.

He wrote "Never Say Goodbye" about a friend's husband who was killed in a wreck. "She never got to say goodbye," Pegram said.

He wrote his third song Thursday night after he was unable to sleep. "I was rolling around in bed and finally got up and wrote it."

"Back to the Mountains" tells the story of a beautiful young woman Pegram knew "back when I was 17 or 18 years old." He said he stopped by to visit the family on a recent trip to the mountains and found the beautiful young girl he remembered now has white hair, inspiring the chorus, "beautiful hair now white as snow."

Pegram's father was a Baptist preacher, and he said he "often wondered how a preacher could preach. Now I know. It ain't him that's speaking."

Pegram said he recognizes that his newfound talent for writing is not of his own creation. "It either comes to me or it don't. I can't pick out a subject. The subject has to be picked out for me. All I am is a pencil. Somebody else will have to sing it," Pegram concludes.