Bishopville, S.C. (AP) — As JD Stevens flips the lights of a shed at his South Carolina home, he feels the presence of His dadHe passed away nearly 10 years ago. He also looks at hundreds of thousands of buttons.
They are sewn into the original button suit of the mannequin that started it all. Nearby is a Chevrolet Chevrolet Chevette, covered in buttons of all colours, large and small. There is a walk-in-out house with a button-covered toilet and a piano with buttons anywhere except the keys. There is a spirit hearse covered with buttons not too far from ffin, where white buttons stand out from everything else, spelling “Button King.”
Dalton Stevens has begun the road Button King One night in 1983, he fought insomnia and after retirement he felt worthless and retreated from the world. He got an inspiration to start sewing buttons into his denim suit.
Thanks to Johnny Carson, the fame of the 1980s
Back in the 1980s, one didn’t top overnight. As Stevens finished his original button suit, a small newspaper from Bishopville wrote the story. The local TV station then did its own package. Stevens continued sewing and glueing buttons, and once he finished covering the entire Chevette, a second local TV story was picked up by its fledgling all-news network CNN.
After he was featured in a magazine, the public attention grew. One day, the phone rang at his Bishopville home. It was “Tonight’s Show starring Johnny Carson.”
Carson tried not to see Stephens in 1987, walking to the stage and wearing a suit covered with 16,333 buttons. Carson laughed at the sight. Afterwards, Stevens sang a bit while playing the 3,005 button guitar.
“If you like the colour of my clothes, would you like to give me buttons instead of roses,” Stevens sang alongside South Carolina Twangue. “The buttons can be square or round. They will keep my pants from falling off.”
Button King on the Talk Show Circuit
Carson gave Stevens the honor of taking a commercial break. Stevens then cried out laughing at the late night king, joking about his three ex-wives.
“Once you arrive at a Johnny Carson show once, it’s big enough to get it if you don’t appear in the movie. It was expensive for an old boy like me,” Stevens said. Educational TV in South Carolina An interview from the early 2000s.
Life was never the same. He appeared in talk shows hosted by David Letterman, Regis Philbin, Kathy Lee Gifford and Gerald Rivera.
Stevens and his button suit traveled to Japan and Canada. The exterior has been rolling for 20 years. Stevens’ fame lasted long enough for the website of the same name to pop up. It has since disappeared.
Button King Museum in South Carolina
In the end Button King needed a place to finish all his folk artworks and store them. With the help of his family, he built a shed on his land, calling it the “SC Button Museum.”
It has been available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year from the beginning. rear Stevens has passed away In 2016, his son kept his promise to keep the museum open.
“It’s my daddy’s, so I feel better,” JD Stevens said, recalling the couple who visited from Pennsylvania and smiled as they looked around the small shed.
Nine years after Button King’s death, people still visit.
JD Stevens greets them if he is at home. If not, they can turn the lights over and look around themselves. The guestbook shows the 12 visitors over the past month.
There’s almost nothing left by Button King. He held the nails all the way to the board and hanged 25 buttons at a time to keep and plan his art projects. The buttons aren’t as lively as they used to be. The Stevens family also added additional buttons to the wall as decorations. But it’s pretty much the same.
However, one item is missing. The second cas made by Stevens.
He is buried near his wife, Ruby. He passed away eight years ago.
“He was an entertainer,” J.D. Stevens said. “He liked to entertain people except during the period he retreated, but he loves to make people laugh, and when he sees someone smile and sees it.”
