Clarence "Tom" Ashley- Biography
Clarence "Tom" Ashley (1895-1967) was a revolving member of the Carolina Tar Heels and started recording with them in 1928. He was lead vocalist (which he shared with Dock Walsh) and guitarist for the Tar Heels and also an accomplished banjo picker, entertainer and comedian. During the 40s Ashley even worked as a blackface comedian in the live shows of Charlie Monroe and The Stanley Brothers. Ashley developed his skills as he traveled in the summers with the same medicine show from 1911 to 1943.
Besides Ashley’s importance as a musician he was also the mentor for two future Country Music Hall-Of-Famer’s; Roy Acuff and Doc Watson. It was during Ashley's medicine show days that he played with Roy Acuff, now known as the King of Country Music. Ashley related the experience to a reporter for the Tennessee paper in the following way: Just before one summer, the Doc told me he had a neighbor boy who could sing a little and play a little and said he'd like to take him along. He asked if I'd train him, and I said I would. That boy stayed with us two summers and I taught him some songs, and after that he went off on his own and did right well. He was Roy Acuff. When Ashley was rediscovered by Ralph Rinzler in the 1960s, Tom introduced him to Doc Watson, who is recognized as one of the greatest Country Music guitarists of all time. Watson and Ashley (along with other musicians) would record two albums entitled “Old-Time Music At Clarence Ashley’s.”
Ashley’s Early Life
From the time of Tom Ashley's birth on September 29, 1895, the old-time music and the ballads that were brought to America from the British Isles surrounded him. The Ashley family came to America from Ireland eventually settling in Ashe County, North Carolina. Shortly after the Civil War, Joe Ashley's son Enoch married Tas Robinson's daughter Martha (Mat). Enoch and "Mat" were a musical pair, both singing the old ballads that they had learned from family and friends. This marriage was blessed with three daughters who, like their parents, developed a love for music. Ary and Daisy played the banjo and sang, and Rosie-Belle sang with a beautifully clear voice [Much of this information in this section, though rewritten in part, comes from Minnie M. Miller, August 1973 masters thesis: Tom Clarence Ashley: An Appalachian Folk Musician]
In 1894, Rosie-Belle, the youngest daughter, married George McCurry, an accomplished fiddler. After Rosie-Belle and George had been married about a year, Enoch Ashley acquired information that George was married to at least one other young lady. George was run out of town and Rosie-Belle returned to her father's home. Later, it was suspected that George had given his name in marriage to at least four or five women. On September 29, 1895, shortly after Rosie-Belle returned to her father's home in Bristol, Tennessee, she gave birth to a son, Clarence Earle McCurry. After moving from Bristol back to Ashe County, North Carolina, Enoch Ashley's family finally settled in Mountain City, Tennessee, in 1899. Enoch found work in the local lumberyard and started a boarding house.
Although Rosie-Belle named her son Clarence Earl McCurry, no one knew him by that name. Young Clarence was full of energy and mischief, and his grandfather nicknamed him "Tommy Tiddy Waddy." As Clarence grew older, the "Tiddy Waddy" was dropped, but the "Tommy" stuck. Since Tom was raised by his grandfather and his mother, he used the Ashley name. By the time he was grown, he had completely dropped the Earle from his name and was known as Thomas Clarence Ashley. Early recordings listed him as Tom Ashley or Clarence Ashley. When Rinzler looked for Ashley in the sixties he looked for Clarence Ashley but no in the county even knew that was his name.
When Ashley was a boy, he was ambitious and quick-witted. He dropped out of school in the fifth grade, but he appeared to be a smart boy and learned things exceptionally fast. The year that Ashley dropped out of school, his mother, Rosie-Belle, married a man by the name of Walsh. His first musical instrument was a "peanut banjo" which his grandfather gave him when Ashley was about eight years old. Aunt Ary and Aunt Daisy taught him to play a little banjo; and at the age of twelve, he learned to play the guitar. Ashley learned many of the songs that he knew when he was quite young.
The Ashley's often had people in to sing and play the old songs, and it was seldom that work in the neighborhood was not accompanied with singing and picking. The entire community was often involved in events such as a "lassy-makin." All of these events were usually accompanied by music; and when there was music to be played or a song to be sung, Ashley was right in the middle of it. Ashley jokingly referred to his oldest songs as "lassy-makin' tunes". He tuned his banjo to what he called "saw-mill key" or "lassy-makin'" tuning: DCGDG (starting with the first string and ending with the shorter fifth string).
Ashley Joins the Medicine Show
When Ashley was sixteen, a medicine show came to Mountain City, and before the show left town, Ashley had joined the show as a banjo picker and singer. He first traveled with Doc White Cloud, supposedly a full-blooded Indian. The medicine show had a great deal of influence on Ashley. It was there where he first performed professionally and from that time on he made his living mainly with his music. The medicine show was a seasonal occupation operating during the summer months. It toured small towns in the rural areas, stopping at each place for about one to two weeks. The length of time was determined by how long the people continued to buy medicine. Some of the towns included on the circuit were Hampton, Mountain City, and Greenville, all in Tennessee, and Abingdon, Virginia. If there was a fair going on, the medicine show usually set up outside the fair to sell the medicine. The medicine show started with the entertainers, usually two, on stage doing songs, jokes, and comedy routines. It was with the medicine show that Ashley learned his black-faced comedy act, Rastus. People began to gather as the entertainment got underway on the stage, a platform attached to a wagon. Since there were no seats for people, everyone stood to watch the show. There were usually two entertainers and a Doc. The Doc was always the head of the show. It was his secret formula that prepared the cure-all medicine.
Ashley traveled in the summers with the same medicine show from 1911 to 1943. The ownership of the show changed several times, but the only two Docs that the people of Johnson County can remember were Doc Whitecloud and Doc Hauer. Ashley was never the owner of the show; he was one of the entertainers. Apparently, some class distinction existed in the group because the Doc traveled in a smart horse-drawn carriage, while Ashley and the other entertainer rode in a prairie-schooner covered wagon along with the platform, lanterns, and rigging for the stage. In addition to Ashley's duties as singer, comedian, banjoist, and guitarist, he was responsible for hauling water and feeding the horses.
The medicine shows did not afford the opportunity to become wealthy, but Ashley managed to make a living during the summers by traveling with the shows. During the remainder of the year, Ashley would organize a local band and play wherever they could make a few dollars. When Ashley was in his early teens, he and some other Johnson Countians organized a brass band. They gave shows to earn enough money to pay their instructor to come to Shouns School to teach them. They earned enough money from these shows to pay for their uniforms, instruments, and lessons, with a few dollars left over occasionally.
Ashley Get Married
When Ashley could not earn enough money playing music, he took a job at anything he could find. He was working for the J. Walter Wright Lumber Company at Shouns, Tennessee, when he became friends with a man named Osborne from Ashe County, North Carolina. It was through Osborne that he met his future wife, Hettie. Hettie was Osborne's sister, and about a year after Ashley met her, he married her. Ashley was seventeen, and Hettie was fourteen. They bought a small tract of land from Denver Miller at Shouns and settled there. Ashley continued to make their living by traveling with the medicine shows in the summers and playing with local bands. Hettie stayed home and raised a garden. They had plenty of fresh vegetables in the summer, and she canned and preserved food for the winter. They kept a cow for milk, and they kept chickens for eggs and meat. The responsibility of caring for the garden, milking the cow, gathering the eggs, and killing a chicken now and then usually fell to Hettie since Ashley was "on the road" much of the time.
Ashley Plays with GB Grayson, Others
When there was not enough demand for music to make a living in Johnson County, Ashley set out on a career of what he called 'busting' (commonly called 'busking' in the British Isles). He would sing in the streets, on the edge of carnivals, outside of the main building of mines on pay days for nickels and dimes. During the 1920s, he played a great deal with G.B. Grayson, an accomplished fiddler from Laurel Bloomery, Tennessee. Also, he played with the Cook Sisters from Boone, North Carolina, and with the Greer Sisters. In these trios, Ashley played guitar while the sisters played mandolin and fiddle. Ashley formed a band with Dwight and Dewey Bell known as "The West Virginia Hotfoots." Hobart Smith was another old-time musician Ashely met.
Ashley Recordings
Besides the Carolina Tar Heels sessions Tom Ashley made his fist recordings under his own name for Gennet in Richmond Indiana on Feb 2, 1928. Accompanied by Dwight Bell on banjo, Tom sang and played guitar on the old-time standards “You’re A Little Too Small” and a version of the humorous Our Goodman named “Four Night’s Experience.”
When Frank Walker of Columbia Records conducted the famous Johnson City Sessions on October 23, 1929 Ashely was there, recording with Byrd Moore and his Hot Shots. The group consisted of Byrd Moore, finger style banjo or lead guitar; Clarence Greene, fiddle or guitar; and Clarence T. Ashley, guitar or banjo.
Byrd Moore and his Hot Shots: Careless Love; Frankie Silvers; Hills Of Tennessee; Three Men Went A Hunting
At the session Ashley volunteered some "lassy-makin' tunes" and after demonstrating a song was asked to record solo, accompanied on his five string banjo with a strange "sawmill" tuning. One of the songs produced from this session was his famous recording of "The Coo-Coo Bird." There’s also a video of him made years later of him playing and singing the haunting Appalachian melody.
According to Minnie Miller’s article on Ashley: “The recording company was most impressed with Tom and later wired him to come to New York to make further recordings. They offered him a contract but his friends were not included. Ashley rejected the offer because he felt that they should take all of them or none of them. Tom's son J.D. thinks that his dad might have become a famous recording star if he had accepted the offer of that contract.” The facts are that the Great Depression would negatively effect the recording industry for the next ten years. On April 14, 1930 Ashley went to Atlanta and recorded songs including “The House Carpenter” a song Walsh had already recorded for Columbia by a different title and “Old John Hardy.” Since Ashley did go record more solo recordings for Walker at Columbia, it seems that more likely that prevailing economic climate of the country prevented him from succeeding.
Ashley Solo Recordings Feb 2, 1928- April 14, 1930 Gennett and Columbia: Coo-Coo Bird; Dark Holler Blues; Four Night’s Experience; House Carpenter; (Old) John Hardy; Little Sadie; Naomie Wise; You’re A Little Too Small;
From Nov. 30, 1931 to Dec 2, 1931 Ashley recorded with his friends from the gathering at Lackey’s Hardware Store. The called themselves The Blue Ridge Mountain Entertainers and featured Tom Ashley- guitar banjo vocals, Clarence Greene- fiddle; Gwen Foster- guitar harmonica; Walter Davis-guitar and Will Abernathy- autoharp and harmonica.
Blue Ridge Entertainers (Nov. 30, 1931 to Dec 2 1931) Tom Ashley; Clarence Greene; Gwen Foster; Walter Davis) Baby All Night Long; Bring Me A Leaf From The Sea; Drunk Man Blues; Cincinnati Breakdown; Corrina Corrina; Crooked Creek Blues; Far Across the Deep Blue Sea (Uniss); Goodnight Waltz; I Have No Loving Mother Now; Ham and Eggs (Uniss); Haunted Road Blues; Honeysuckle Rag; My Sweet Farm Girl; Nine Pound Hammer (Unissued); Penitentiary Bound; Short Life Of Trouble; There Will Come a Time (uniss); Washington and Lee Swing
The last recording sessions Ashley made until the 1960s were in NYC for Vocalion on Sept. 6-8, 1933, long after the Depression had forced cutbacks and layoffs.
Ashley & Foster; Vocalion Sept. 6-8, 1933: Ain’t No use To High Hat Me; Bay Rum Blues; Down At The Old Man’s House; East Virginia Blues; Faded Roses; Frankie Silvers; Go Way And Let Me Sleep; Greenback Dollar; Let Him Go God Bless Him; My North Carolina Home; Old Arm Chair; On Dark And Stormy Night; Rising Sun Blues; Sadie Ray; Sideline Blues; Time Ain’t Like They Used To Be;
A off-color blues, “My Sweet Farm Girl,” was also recorded at the 1931 Ashley and Foster session with the Blue Ridge Mountain Entertainers. When asked about the origin (it had already been recorded by the Ashley earlier-Carolina Tar Heels in 1930) Guthrie Meade said, “Tom Ashley heard this sung by a work gang around 1900.” In fact Clarence Williams, the black jazzman and bandleader issued this song for Columbia, 7/20/1928, as "Farm Hand Papa," and this is where Ashley got it. Williams accompanies himself on a very rockin' piano and throws in an occasional yodel. This illustrates the length Ashley and other pioneers of the recording industry would go to disguise the source of their songs; thus avoiding copyright infringement.
Ashley After The Depression
Although music was Ashley's life, he had many other occupations. He raised tobacco, raised cattle, hauled furniture, coal, and beans, and worked at sawmills. He was one of the best at ricking lumber for air-drying. The degree of perfection with which he ricked lumber often earned him a job when twenty others were waiting in line ahead of him. In 1943 Ashley gave up the medicine show circuit, bought a truck and worked with his son J.D. hauling furniture, coal and lumber.
In the early forties, times were better, and musicians began to return to their professions. Charlie Monroe hired Ashley as a black-faced comedian for the group known as "The Kentucky Pardners." It was with this group that Ashley met Tex Isley with whom he played again in the 1960's. In the late forties, Ashley injured the index finger of his right hand, and the finger became stiff. Thinking he could no longer play, he laid up his banjo and guitar although he still sang occasionally. He started teaching his songs to Clint Howard, who played guitar, and Fred Price, who played fiddle. He continued to attend fiddlers' conventions where he could once again see his "old cronies" and talk about music.
Ashley Is Rediscovered
Had it not been for a chance meeting with Ralph Rinzler at The Old Time Fiddlers' Convention at Union Grove, North Carolina, in 1960, perhaps thousands of people, who later thrilled to his banjo picking, singing and witticisms, would not have had that opportunity. Rinzler, a man devoted to traditional folk music, struck up a conversation with Ashley. Learning only that Tom was an Ashley, Rinzler asked if he knew a Clarence Ashley. Ashley said that he thought he had heard of him but was not quite sure. Rinzler talked about how much he liked the early recording of "The Coo-Coo Bird." He told about writing letters and sending telegrams to Clarence Ashley at Mountain City only to have them returned saying there was no such person. Ashley admitted his true identity, but he would not play an instrument at all and would sing only one song, "Put My Little Shoes Away."
After writing to Ashley and calling him many times, Rinzler and Eugene Earle came to Shouns in September of that year to record him. Ashley would not play, but he sang many songs, which were released on Folkways Records. Rinzler was able to convince Ashley of a sincere interest by the people in the cities in his kind of music. Ashley picked up his banjo once more, and a very active career followed in the next few years. Ashley and his friends appeared before large audiences in cities such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and they recorded two albums for Folkways.
The group that performed in the sixties included now world-famous Doc Watson of Deep Gap, North Carolina. Ashley's arrangement of "The Coo-Coo Bird," with Doc Watson on guitar and Ashley on the banjo, often left huge audiences completely hushed. In May of 1966, the highlights of Ashley's career came when he and Tex Isley, a talented guitarist from Reidsville, North Carolina, made a musical tour through England with eighteen engagements on the itinerary.
Ashley had been invited to go back to England the following summer and was planning to go, but he became sick and found that he had cancer. On June 2, 1967, four days before he was to go to England for the second tour, Ashley died. The life and career of one of the best traditional musicians was part of the past. Ashley was buried on his little hillside near his home, the place he requested to be buried and the subject of a song he wrote entitled "Little Hillside."
Ashley's songs brought together the mountain combination of the struggle for life and the romantic. He delivered his songs and "ballets" with the magic ingredient of personal involvement that the best singers own. Ashley preferred music that had feeling, and he named as his favorite performers Bill Monroe, Jimmy Rodgers, and Mahalia Jackson. Ashley said, "A lot of people in the city are playing old-time music these days. But country people play their feelings and feel their playing. That's the big difference."
Old Time Music At Clarence Ashley’s (Vol. 1- 1961 and Vol. 2-1963) with Tom Ashley, Doc Watson, Tommy Moore Clint Howard, Fred Price, Jack Johnson, Eva Ashley Moore, Jack Burchette, and one cut with Garley Foster: A Short Life Of Trouble; Amazing Grace; Banks Of The Ohio; Brown's Dream; Carroll County Blues; Chilly Winds (Lonesome Road Blues); Claude Allen; Cluck Old Hen; Coo-Coo Bird; Corrina, Corrina; Crawdad Song; Cumberland Gap; Daniel Prayed; East Tennessee Blues; Fire On The Mountain; Footprints In The Snow; Free Little Bird; God's Gonna Ease My Troublin' Mind; Handsome Molly; Haunted Woods; Humpbacked Mule; Honey Babe Blues; I Saw A Man At The Close Of Day; I'm Going Back To Jericho; John Henry; Lee Highway Blues; Little Sadie; Looking T'ward Heaven; Louisiana Earthquake; Maggie Walker Blues; My Homes Across The Blue Ridge Mountains; Old Man At The Mill; Old Ruben; Poor Omie (Omie Wise); Pretty Little Pink; Rambling Hobo; Richmond Blues; Rising Sun Blues; Run, Jimmie, Run; Sally Ann; Shady Grove; Shout Lulu; Sitting On Top Of The World; Skillet Good And Greasy; Sweet Heaven When I Die; Tough Luck; True Lovers; Walking Boss; Way Downtown; Wayfaring Pilgrim; Will The Circle Be Unbroken; Willie Moore