The Democrat
“There’s trouble on the hill”
By Kathleen Boswell
The Nace Brothers
have been performing together for nearly 20 years. For much of that time, brothers Dave and
Jimmy Nace have played their own music.
They have just released their newest CD, which contains 10 original
songs by Jimmy Nace. One of the songs,
and the one the CD theme is based on, is an old family story the boys recently
learned about.
“Trouble on the Hill”
had its origins in a 1907 murder near Burtville, a
small community southwest of Knob Noster. The Nace brothers’ great-aunt Alta Heard, who
had been a Nace, was accused of murdering her sister-in-law, Lizzie Heard.
When the boys’ mother
began writing the stories of her late husband’s family, she included what she
had heard about the murder. She asked
Jimmy to read through what she had written and give her some feeback.
As he read through
the standard family history, he was shocked to see this little detail he had
never heard mentioned. That discovery
led him to do more research and find out more aobut
Alta and Lizzie.
According to
newspaper accounts of the day, the sisters-in-law didn’t get along well to
begin with and adding a jug of whiskey to the mix was a deadly
combination. The jusry
found Alta had acted in self-defense when she used an old case knife to slash
at her attacker, so she was acquitted.
Jimmy Nace’s lines “Ever since this world’s been turning, there’s
been trouble on the hill. You’d think by
now, we’d be learning to tear down the walls we build” are accompanied by a
traditional country fiddle for “The Ballad of Lizzie Heard.” The other songs in the collection show the
band’s ability to create a variety of sounds.