Scott Graham Videos

Ruth Cagle sat at the Baldwin piano in her warm apartment on a recent winter day. The  fingers that have played the keys countless times took control. And the music came. 

The two songs she played are unfamiliar, except to  her family. After all, "The Greatest Treasure on  Earth," a gospel song, and "Rhythm­A­Jig," described as ragtime, are original songs she created  almost 50 years ago.

 She kept the songs in her head until her grandson, Scott Graham, a professional pianist who plays fulltime at various venues around his home in Houston, Texas, offered to help put them on paper. Last year, Graham flew to Athens and arranged the songs, which she now would like to see published.

"I watched her fingers and notated it out," Graham  explained as his way of determining each note. "As she played it, I'd write down as much as I could. I'd  have her play it again. It took a while, but it was so  much fun. It was cool to have a common interest  with your grandmother." 

While Cagle played the songs from memory, the  songs are now on paper for posterity, and Graham  said he has incorporated his grandmother's songs into the compositions he plays. "I love  the ragtime because it's fun to play," he said. "The other one with the vocals, that's just  beautiful. I probably like 'The Greatest Treasure on Earth' the best, but just for fun, to  goof off and have some good music, the 'Rhym­A­Jig' is just cool."

 Cagle, a native of Hall County, grew up outside Gainesville where her parents lived on a  farm and were members of Whitehall Baptist Church in Lula. Cagle's father farmed the  land and rented out acreage to sharecroppers. She was one of three girls and three boys. Now she is the only one of her siblings left alive. Cagle lived on her father's farm until  she married and moved to Doraville with her husband, Ralph, then to Athens, where  Ralph worked at the U.S. Navy School. 

Cagle and her husband have five daughters; three live nearby, while another lives in  Ellijay and another in Galveston, Texas. Her love of music goes back a long time in her  80 plus years. 

"The best recollection I have in working with music, which I didn't know a thing about, we had this organ you pedaled. I remember sitting on the stool and not knowing what I was playing or singing. I guess I drove everybody crazy," she said with a laugh. 

Later, she took lessons from a piano teacher who visited churches in those days and again  after moving to Athens. "I took piano for about four years when I was around 70," she  said. And although she couldn't write music, she created her melodies and lyrics for her  original songs.

"The Greatest Treasure on Earth" was the first song her grandson arranged.

 "I was thrilled to death when he did that. I couldn't hardly hold myself back," she said.

 "This is what I believe," she said about her inspiration for the song. "It's what I've learned  from the Bible. It's what this song is all about. Nothing is as great as being saved by the  grace of God ­ knowing that you've got a home when you leave this world." 

"I thought about where did it come from. It just came from above," she said. The  inspiration for a song can come at any point, she said. "Once, while riding in the back  seat of a car, a thought came to me," she said. "If no one ever said a prayer, God couldn't  answer it because there would be no prayers prayed. Have you ever had such a thought as that? I kept rolling it around in my mind and I sat down to the piano and the melody came  to me. And then I worked on the words. And the name of it is 'Prayers Are Answered."' 

 "It took a little bit of thought to get this together. It's kind of hard to get those words like  you want them," she said. It's another song she wants her grandson to arrange.

Cagle now plays for a group of senior citizens at Green Acres Baptist Church. They  travel to nursing homes and play for the residents as an outreach program. "I love music.  I love gospel music, and I also enjoy some of this new praise music that they're doing," she said. 

Cagle's grandson also loves music ­ so much so, he has made it his life's work. Graham  said earning a living as a musician took time.  "I had another job and I slowly did a  changeover. I didn't just jump in the water and sink or swim," he said. "I started doing a  little bit more and I had less time to do the other job. It's a home­based business in a  sense, and I created it like that." 

Graham said he enjoys his visits to Georgia.  "Georgia is a beautiful state. I've gone there  almost every year my whole life," he said. And he enjoyed arranging his grandmother's songs. "We both love it ­ so it's not really work," he said. 

Published in the Athens Banner­Herald on Saturday, February 12, 2005

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