The Roanoke Times | File 1979

Rabbit Muse plays the ukulele, which he took up as a child after watching a minstrel show.

Lewis Anderson Muse

• Born: May 11, 1908, in Franklin County.
• Died: Aug. 27, 1982, in Roanoke.
• Career: He performed for white and black audiences from the 1920s until the '80s. A consummate entertainer, he played, sang and danced at medicine shows and folk festivals. He recorded a pair of albums, "Muse Blues" and "Sixty Minute Man," for Rocky Mount's Outlet Records label in the 1970s.

Hear him

• The Ferrum College archives include plenty of songs and interviews with Rabbit Muse

The Roanoke Times | File 1979

Muse danced at the Boones Mill Apple Festival in 1979. "The dance don't have no name," he said. "I just get into all kinds of shapes."

If you are of a certain age (older than 50, let’s say), and if you grew up watching local TV in Roanoke (such as Channel 10), then you remember the Tide family.

Ebb Tide, Hi Tide, Lo Tide, RipTide ....

This “family” was actually a cast of former radio musicians and TV personalities who formed a bluegrass and comedy troupe that performed on Channel 10 during the early 1960s. One member you might have forgotten, however, was the character occasionally played by Lewis “Rabbit” Muse.

“I told them I was Black Tide,” Muse told a newspaper reporter during an interview 30 years ago.

Muse was black, the rest of the Tides were white. Although he appeared with the Tides only a few times — never on television — Muse was a popular entertainer who sang, played the ukulele, danced and told tall tales for two generations of fans of all colors. His mix of blues, country and pop standards made him a radio and festival favorite for six decades.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of his death, but his voice and music can still be heard on CD and on the Internet.

The Blue Ridge Institute at Ferrum College produced several albums in the 1970s and ’80s that feature Virginia musicians. Muse appeared on the “Western Piedmont Blues” album. He also recorded a couple of albums — “Muse Blues” and “Sixty Minute Man” — for Outlet Records of Rocky Mount that have been out of print for years.

Muse was born May 11, 1908, in Franklin County to a mother who played the accordion and a father who sang and played guitar. Muse took up the ukulele after watching a minstrel show around 1920 in which black performers wore blackface makeup. Muse was so enamored with the performers he boarded a train with them and planned to start his own career.

His father had a different idea.

“My daddy had to come and get me off the train,” he told the Roanoke Times & World-News in 1977. “He sent a policeman in.”

He stayed close to home after that, learning to pick blues and country tunes on the ukulele, with a few jazzy pop numbers rounding out his repertoire.

Saggy-eyed and loose-limbed, he danced a jig that blended a little tap with mountain flatfooting. (“The dance don’t have no name,” he explained 30 years ago. “I just get into all kinds of shapes.”) He played kazoo solos and entertained audiences during the early years of the Blue Ridge Folklife Festival at Ferrum College in the 1970s.

Longtime Roanoke TV producer Curtis Downey used to catch Muse’s act in the early ’50s while hitchhiking his way to Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina. Downey would stop in Rocky Mount to watch Muse perform outside a gas station.

“He played his uke and sang and danced,” Downey remembered. “He had a following every Saturday.”

The Blue Ridge Institute archives are home to several recorded interviews with Muse. In the interviews, he says that he got the nickname “Rabbit” from playing baseball, although he doesn’t explain exactly why. He can be heard singing oldies that include “Blueberry Hill,” “My Blue Heaven,” “Old Folks at Home” and a grungy “Rocking Chair Blues.”

Some of the recordings are online at the Digital Library of Appalachia (www.aca-dla.org). BRI also has Muse’s records in its archives.

He died Aug. 27, 1982, at age 74. His music harmoniously fused European and African styles and brought black and white audiences together, even during times of segregation.

“I fooled around with hillbillies and went into rough joints,” he said. “I never had any trouble because everybody liked me.”