Gid Tanner and The Skillet Lickers Biographies- 1926
"Well folks, here we are again, the Skillet Lickers, red hot and rarin' to go,” said Clayton McMichen, introducing the Skillet Lickers' "Soldier's Joy." “Gonna play you a little tune this morning, want you to grab that gal and shake a foot and moan."
The Skillet Lickers, who epitomized the rollicking good-time string bands of the 1920s, were formed in 1926 when Frank Walker, head of Columbia’s “Country Music” recordings, created a group from the top recording artists and musicians in the Atlanta region. Walker, who traveled to Atlanta regularly with his portable studio, waxed records featuring his first stars Gid Tanner and Riley Puckett there in 1924. After bringing Clayton McMichen and Riley Puckett to the studio for a session in April he decided to add other local talent, fiddler Gid Tanner, banjoist Fate Norris and fiddler Bert Layne, to create Country Music’s first supergroup. Several days later on April 17, 1926 Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers cut their classic first eight sides: “Hand Me Down My Walking Cane,” “Bully Of The Town,” “Pass Around the Bottle,” “Alabama Jubilee,” “Watermelon on the Vine,” “Don’t You Hear Jerusalem Moan,” “Ya Gotta Quit Kickin’ My Dog Around” and “Turkey in The Straw.”
Their first single, released later in 1926, “Bully of the Town” backed by “Pass Around the Bottle,” was a huge hit selling over 200,000 units and eclipsing Charlie Poole and His North Carolina Ramblers as Columbia’s hottest Country artists. Other songs from that session "Soldier's Joy" and “Turkey in the Straw” sold well. Then “Watermelon on the Vine” became another hit. The Skillet Lickers, named by McMichen after his Lick the Skillet Band, were from North Georgia, an extremely fertile area for old time music in the 1920's.
The Skillet Lickers were one of the few groups with three fiddlers, usually two would play the melody and one a lower harmony part. Even though Tanner was an accomplished old-time fiddler, McMichen was more versatile and dynamic. Rounding out the trio was McMichen's brother-in-law Bert Layne, who was later replaced by fiddler Lowe Stokes in 1928. Riley Puckett, Columbia’s first Country star, was the lead singer but also shared the vocals with Tanner. Gid, the clown of the group, added a high falsetto, over Riley’s vocal lead. Other bands, notably Earl Johnson and His Dixie Entertainers, copied this technique. The high vocal (sung by Nettie Stoneman) is also found in the Stoneman Family recording of the 1920s.
According to music historian Charles Wolfe, “The Skillet Lickers exhibited a marvelous sense of comedy, both in vocals and in skits; they preserved rather numerous unique old tunes; and they exemplified a spirit that infected a whole music and our image of it.” The group was first officially listed as Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers with Riley Puckett. Puckett, one of the stars at Columbia at this time, recording with Tanner first in 1924. Later that year the name was changed at McMichen’s insistence so that his name also appeared on their records: Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers with Riley Puckett & Clayton McMichen.
Their up-tempo versions were often filled with verbal ad libs. They'd be ripping away on a three-fiddle version of "Polly Put the Kettle On," and Riley Puckett would turn around and say "How about a cup of tea, Mac?" and Clayton McMichen would say "I'd just as soon have liquor, man," and pretty soon the whole band would be buzzing back and forth at the limits of audibility. The impression they gave was that they were so together that they could carry on a totally irrelevant conversation and still stay in time with each other and the tune.
Various other musicians played in different sessions including Gid’s brother Arthur Tanner (banjo, guitar), Bill Helms (Fiddle), Hoke Rice (guitar), Mike Whitten (guitar), Gus Adams (Guitar), and Ted Hawkins (mandolin, fiddle) and later Gid’s son Gordon. Guest stars in their skits included Tom Dorsey (an alias of vocalist Dan Hornsby), Oscar Ford and Uncle Fuzz.
In 1928, lead fiddler Clayton McMichen's friend, Lowe Stokes, joined the group on lead fiddle and brought with him clean, articulate phrasing and superb tone, the result of the smooth, long-bow style he had perfected (and taught to McMichen years before). Charles Wolfe writes that "Often Stokes used a mute on his bridge to better match McMichen's sound; [Stokes] also said that this idea of McMichen playing a close harmony to the individual notes of the melody which came from his listening to jazz fiddler Joe Venuti, who was then in his heyday." The group's last batch of recordings brought back fiddler Bert Layne and featured "an exciting three-fiddle (McMichen, Stokes, Tanner) sound that would not be duplicated again until Bill Monroe's experiments with it in the mid-1950s."
The Skillet Lickers broke up in 1931 after their October recording session largely due to declining record sales due to the 1929 depression. In 1934 the band regrouped without star fiddler Clayton McMichen for one last session on the Bluebird label, recording their biggest-selling record "Down Yonder/Back Up and Push" with Ted Hawkins on Mandolin and Tanner's son, Gordon, playing the lead fiddle. The record allegedly sold over a million copies until 1950.
The Skillet Lickers made over one hundred records (not all were released) in their short six years together. In addition to traditional folk music, fiddle tunes, and novelty songs, the Skillet Lickers recorded a series of skits in which humorous dialogue, interspersed with snatches of familiar songs and tunes, was the main feature. Called "rural drama records," these skits, as their titles indicate, recounted stories about such topics as "A Corn Licker Still in Georgia," "The Medicine Show," and "Kickapoo Joy Juice."
From 1926 to 1931 the Skillet Lickers were constantly touring, frequently playing at fiddle competitions, fairs and other events. Fiddler Bill Helms recalled: “The conventions would usually last three days in one place and the last night was usually contest night. You fiddled off and they also had prizes for guitar and banjo players. Top man got the prize…We drew huge crowds. They was crazy about fiddlin’ and banjo picking and we’d fill up every place we’d go.”
Interviews with Bert Layne, who had some musical training, show that there was some method to their madness. McMichen wanted the trio of fiddlers to play either identical melody or parallel thirds, with the bows all moving in the same direction at the same time. Bert said that he did much of the "arranging," though based on his broth-in-law McMichen's concepts. In the original fiddle lineup with Bert Layne, Clayton McMichen, and Gid Tanner, McMichen was playing the lead (the basic melody), Layne is playing a baritone harmony and Gid is playing a tenth above the melody (an octave and third), where he often sang in falsetto.
Gid sometimes played clawhammer banjo instead of fiddle when Stokes, McMichen, and Layne were all present (instead of usual banjoist Fate Norris, who mostly was inaudible). After Lowe joined the group he said that he played lead and that sometimes they had elaborate arrangements. Bill Shores also fiddled some as a Skillet Licker, and he recorded with Gennett as Shores Southern Trio (Shores- fiddle; Frank Locklear- mandolin and Melvin Dupree- guitar) in 1929. Later in 1929 Shores and Dupree recorded two songs for Columbia; Wedding Bells and West Texas Breakdown.
Some members of the band, notably McMichen, had a lot of disdain for Gid and his "old-fashioned" ways, though they always credited him with being a good entertainer. The Skillet Lickers could not sell as many without the popular Gid as the front man and the dissenting members often recorded without Gid under a variety of other names, sometimes with Columbia, sometimes on on other labels (see discographies for Pucket, McMichen, Stokes, Layne and Norris).
A Corn Licker Still In Georgia:
This famous ongoing series of 14 skits (14 sides; seven 78's) originally recorded between 1927 & 1930 consisting of rural humor and social commentary at its best and mixed with great fiddling by Clayton McMichen, Bert Layne, Lowe Stokes, and Gid Tanner, the popular crooning of Riley Puckett, and the closet-banjo of Fate Norris.
In 1927 America squirmed restlessly under the iron thumb of Prohibition, which made all selling of alcohol products illegal. The Skillet Lickers wrote a comedic skit about a band of mountaineers trying to make a living from moonshining and music. Under the title "A Corn Licker Still in Georgia," the skit sold well over a million records by the time of its completion in 1930.
As the routine opens, Riley Puckett is leading a few of the Skillet Lickers on in an old alcoholic lament called "Rye Whiskey." A sharp knock at the cabin door brings the music to an abrupt halt. " Hear, hear! We cain't have all that fuss around here," protests fiddler Clayton McMichen. "If we're gonna make this liquor, why, let's make it 'n' git through with it. You go up there on the hill and bring that thumper keg down here and bring that rye paste with you." After the still has been assembled, the distilling begun, a customer satisfied, and a few fiddle tunes played, the inevitable happens. "All right, you boys, stick 'em up, there, we got you covered!" a revenue officer barks. "Who's runnin' this place?" "I'm runnin' it m'self," McMichen answers in a slow, sly drawl. "What kind of a run you got started?" "We got about five hundred gallons done run off." "I'm sorry," says the officer, "we'll have to bust you up and take you down to Gainesville."
But the wily McMichen is ready for him. "Well, looks like there's some way to git outa this,: he drawls, offering the officer a taste. Though he refuses at first, the revenuer is finally obliged to comment, "Well, that is pretty good liquor, I'll admit that! What's all these instruments doin' around here?" "Awright boys, come on play 'im a little tune," McMichen exhorts. "Hoop it on up. It's either play or go to jail." After more product demonstrations and a rousing rendition of "Pass Around the Bottle," the officer is won over. "Tell you what I'm gonna do, Mac," he proposes, "I'm gonna let you off this time if you'll give me about ten of those cans. Can ya do that?" "I'll give ya a hundred if you want," McMichen replies happily. "I want ya to keep quiet from here on," the officer warns. "Good luck to you boys!" Of course, the narrow escape calls for a celebration and the band strikes up the old fiddle tune "Katie Hill."
The next time they come in contact with the law, the moonshiners aren't so lucky, and for awhile they find themselves on the chain gang. Nevertheless, a public letter-writing campaign gets the popular string band paroled. "Now you boys go home," the warden tells them, "and remember, don't make any more corn liquor." "We're through for good," McMichen promises. Back home in the mountains, however, the musical moonshiners distill some potent economic theory. "We got about five, six hundred bushels of corn out yonder in the crib that's goin' to ruin if we don't do somethin' with it, " McMichen observes. "I don't think there's no use to try to farm no-how as long as Prohibition's in effect," banjoist Fate Norris comments. "What's the use to try and sell corn for two dollars a bushel in the ear when you can get $20 for a can?" asks Riley Puckett.
In later interviews McMichen would reveal his disdain for the hillbilly image and for some of his fellow band members, so many of his comments here become more poignant in retrospect: to Tanner, while "in jail," "Now Gid, you got six months to stay in here and I think you ought to catch up with your fiddling in that time; looks like you're a little behind with it all the time." And in an earlier interchange between Gid and Mac, Gid says, "Well, Brown wanted us to play a tune or two, and we got it for him..." to which Mac replies, "Brown - Hell! Brown ain't a-running this place. I'm running it myself. If you're gonna work for me, I want you to work, and put that lousy fiddle up. That's all you've done since we took him in, it's see-saw, see-saw on that lousy fiddle."
Last Skillet Licker Sessions
On October 24, 1931 the original Skillet Lickers (with Clayton McMichen) made their last recording: “Miss McLeod’s Reel;” “Four Cent Cotton;” “Molly put The Kettle On;” “Sleeping Lulu;” “McMichen’s Breakdown” and “Whistlin’ Rufus.”
The Depression had rocked Columbia and record sales were starting to bottom out; a record that had sold 100,000 in 1928 would only sell 7,000 in 1931. McMichen had started his group the Georgia Wildcats and would start a series of radio shows across the country eventually settling in Cincinnati.
The band would record again without McMichen as Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers in 1934 when Bluebird began recording the stars of the 1920s. The band featured Gid Tanner and his son Gordon on fiddle with Ted Hawkins on mandolin and Riley Puckett on guitar. They recorded 12 sides including one of their biggest hits: Down Yonder/Back Up and Push.
Complete Songs recorded by the Skillet Lickers: Alabama Jubilee; Baby Lou; Back Up And Push; Be Kind to a Man When He's Down; Bee Hunt On Hill For Sartin Creek; Big Ball in Town; Billy in the Lowground; Black Eyed Peas and Cornbread; Black-Eyed Susie; Boil 'Em Cabbage Down; Boll Weevil Blues; Bonepart's Retreat; Broken Down Gambler; Buckin' Mule; Buffalo Gals; Bully of the Town; Bully Of The Town No. 2; Cacklin Hen and Rooster Too; Carroll County Blues; Casey Jones; Charming Betsy; Chicken Reel; Cindy; Coon From Tennessee; Corn Licker Still in Georgia (skit; Part I- Part XIV); Cotton Baggin'; Cotton-Eyed Joe; Cotton Patch; Cripple Creek; Cumberland Gap (On A Buckin‘ Mule); Dance All Night with A Bottle In Your Hand; Darktown Strutters Ball; Day At The County Fair; Devilish Mary; Dixie; Dogs on a Coon Hunt; Don't You Cry My Honey; Don't You Hear Jerusalem Moan; Down Yonder; Drink ‚Em Down; Everyday Will Be Sunday, By & By; Fiddlers' Convention In Georgia; Flatwoods; Flop Eared Mule; Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss; Football Rag; Four Cent Cotton; Four Thousand Years Ago; Georgia Man; Georgia Railroad; Georgia Waggoner; Giddap Napoleon; Girl I Left Behind Me; Git Along; Going Down Town; Goodbye Booze; Hand Me Down My Walking Cane; Hawkins’ Rag; Maple Leaf Rag; Hell Broke Loose in Georgia; Hen Cackle; Hinkey-Dinkey-Dee; Hog Killing Day; I Ain’t No Better Now; Ida Red; I Don't Love Nobody; I Got Mine; I Shall Not Be Moved; It Ain't Gonna Rain No Mo'; I'm S-A-V-E-D; I'm Satisfied; It's A Long Way To Tipperary; Jeremiah Hopkins Store At Sand Mountain; John Henry; Johnson's Old Grey Mule; Just Give Me the Leavings; Keep Your Gal At Home; Kickapoo Medicine Show; Leather Breeches; Liberty; Man In The Woodpile; Miss McCleod's Reel; Mississippi Sawyer; Molly Put the Kettle On; Nancy Rollin; Never Seen the Like Since Getting Upstairs; New Arkansas Traveller; Night in Blind Tiger; Old Dan Tucker; Old Grey Mare; Old Joe Clark; Old McDonald (Had a Farm); On Tanner's Farm; Original Arkansas Traveller; Pass Around The Bottle And We'll All Take a Drink; Please Don't Get Offended; Polly Put the Kettle On; Polly Wolly Doodle All The Day; Possum and Taters; Possum Hunt On Stump House Mountain; Practice Night with Skillet Lickers; Prettiest Little Girl in the County; Pretty Little Widow; Prohibition, Yes or No; Prosperity And Politics; Ricketts Hornpipe; Ride Old Buck to the Water; Rocky Pallet; Rock That Cradle Lucy; Roving Gambler; Rufus; Run Jimmie Run; Rye Straw; Sal's Gone (Down) to the Cider Mill; Sal, Let Me Chaw Your Rosin Some; Settin' In The Chimney Jamb; She'll Be Coming Around The Mountain; Shortenin' Bread; Show Me The Way To Go Home; Skip To The Lou My Darling; Sleeping Lulu; Smoke Behind the Clouds; Soldier's Joy; Soldier, Soldier (Won't You Marry Me); Streak O' Lean, Streak O' Fat; Sugar In The Gourd; Sweet Bunch of Daisies; Taking The Census; Tanner's Boarding House; Tanner’s Hornpipe; Tanner's Rag; There'll Be A Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight; They Gotta Quit Kicking my Dog Around; Tra-Le-La-La; Turkey in the Straw; Uncle Bud; Watermelon Hanging On the Vine; Where Did You Get That Hat; Whoa, Mule, Whoa; Wild Horse; Work Don't Bother Me; Wreck Of Old Ninety-Seven; Ya Gotta Quit Kicking My Dog Around
Gid Tanner- Biography
James Gideon "Gid" Tanner was born at Thomas Bridge, near Monroe, Georgia on June 6, 1885 and spent most of his adult life in Gwinnett County, where he made a living as a chicken farmer. His older brother Arthur played banjo and later recorded some with Gid. When he was fourteen his uncle died leaving Gid his fiddle. He soon learned to play the fiddle and became known in local circles for his prowess with the instrument. Tanner would play in front of stores downtown when the ground was too wet to cultivate.
After he married and settled down he moved to Dacula, Georgia in Gwinnett County. His wife, Alice, liked the playing of Earl Johnson, who studied violin and could read music. At one point she tried to get her husband to read music so he could play like Earl but her efforts were not successful. Tanner remained an old-time stylist whose personality made up for his technical shortcomings.
As a young man he was a regular participant at the Georgia Old-Time Fiddlers' Conventions, held annually in Atlanta between 1913 and 1935. His name was registered in the 1913 competition though there is no record of him winning a prize. Tanner was again present when the fiddlers of Georgia convened at the Atlanta City Auditorium in 1915. A reporter at that year’s convention called him “Gwinnett County’s Laughing Rufus,” and when Tanner appeared on stage he used several different voices to advantage in two or three songs he made up himself. It is said that he got frequent requests for encores that displayed his fiddling and was often asked to perform imitations of people.”
Soon the competition between Tanner and three time winner Fiddlin’ John Carson was played-up in the local Atlanta press. Tanner was known among musicians and convention audiences as the most outrageous clown of all the fiddlers. Here’s an account of Tanner from Gene Wiggins in his book, Fiddlin’ Gone Crazy: “Looking and sounding funny was his specialty. A big, roan-haired, ruddy-faced oaf, he had a deep bass and a high falsetto. He could throw his head back so far that he looked decapitated. He could turn it around almost completely, like an owl. He could thrust out his lower lip so as to give the impression of some sort of strange fish.”
Gid was a comedian noted for his stereotypical imitations and a singer with legendary range. Tanner allegedly knew the words and music to more than 2,000 songs. The favorite among his audiences was "I'm Satisfied," which he sang in alternating falsetto and bass registers. When Tanner sang the song at the fiddlers' conventions, newspapers reported that he "brought down the house" and would have to sing several encores "before the audience would let him go." His performances stopped the show at the 1914 and 1916 conventions when the capacity crowd of 5,000 kept yelling for more Gid.
Tanner managed to win championship in 1928 more from crowd appeal and his fame as a recording star than the judges’ scorecards. Even though he was taken to task for his fiddling by fellow Skillet Licker McMichen, Gid remained the most popular Skillet Licker and his name is most often associated with the group.
Here’s story from Wiggin’s book that was told by Carson’s grandson and confirmed by Tanner himself. One time Tanner went with Fiddlin’ John Carson to play a show. They left early in the morning and brought along fishing and bait. Arriving early, they went fishing and had a few drinks. After a bit they became hungry and Clyde, Carson’s son, was sent to get a few cans of spaghetti. Gid opened a can of spaghetti and placed it beside his can of worms. He was watching his line and getting bites when he reached down for some spaghetti but grabbed the can of worms instead.
After dumping some worms in his mouth he ate them, still watching his line. John watched him in awe and stuttered, “H-How wa-was the spaghetti G-Gid?”
“Pretty good” replied Tanner, “a little gritty, seemed like.”
Gid Tanner’s Radio And Recording Career
When Atlanta’s WSB radio began broadcasting country music in 1922 Tanner performed on several broadcasts. He performed frequently with guitarist Riley Puckett.
After the success of Fiddlin’ John Carson with Okeh in 1923, Columbia sent a representative to Atlanta looking for other old-time (hillbilly) southern music performers. After hearing about Tanner they invited him to NYC on March 7, 1924 to record. Tanner brought Puckett with him to sing and play guitar. The eleven songs they waxed for Columbia sold well established them as a rising star at Columbia. They were invited back and in September 1924 cut more sides with Riley playing banjo this time.
In later years when Gid had false teeth, he would take them out so he would look funny. The story goes that a lady walked up to him and after looking at his mouth shouted, “You haven’t got any teeth!” Gid replied, “No ma’am, I was born that way.”
Gid’s Later Life
Although Gid stopped recording, he remained active and attended fiddle competitions. As late as 1955 when he was 70 years old, Gid won the Old-Time Fiddler’s Contest in Atlanta. At his death in 1960, just three weeks shy of his seventy-fifth birthday, Tanner left behind a living legacy of his work as a musician. His grandson Phil Tanner and Phil's son, Russell, both fiddlers, are still actively performing in an old-time string band that retains the name Skillet Lickers. Four generations of Tanners have kept Georgia's old-time music alive for more than a hundred years. Tanner was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1988.
Gid Tanner Discography
Gid Tanner Solo: If You Want To Go A-Courtin’; You’ve Got To Stop Drinking Shine;
Gid Tanner and Riley Puckett (March 7, 1924): Alabama Gal- Give the Fiddler A Dram (medley); Arkansas Traveler; Be Kind To A Man When He’s Down; Black Eyed Susie; Boll Weevil Blues; Buckin’ Mule; Chickens Don’t Roost Too High For Me; Cumberland Gap; Don’t Grieve your Mother; Fox Chase; Georgia Railroad (Peter Went Fishing); Hen Cackle; I Don’t Love Nobody; I’m Satisfied; John Henry; On Tanner’s Farm; Sourwood Mountain; Tanner’s Boarding House; Three Night Drunk; Turkey In The Straw;
Gid Tanner and Fate Norris (Gid Tanner And His Georgia Boys) (Oct. 3, 1925): Baby Lou; Everyday Will Be Sunday Bye and Bye; Football Rag; Goodbye Booze; Just Gimme The Leavings; Old Time Tunes; Please Do Not Get Offended; S-A-V-E-D; Where Did You Get That Hat?;
Riley Puckett (See Riley Puckett Biography-1924 p. ) had been blind since he was a child. His soulful and resonant singing sold many records for the band and he additionally was one of the first guitarists to employ walking bass runs and frantic bass string solos. Puckett made many solo recordings and was one of country music’s early stars from 1924 until the mid-30’s. See Riley Puckett Discography p. for a list of recordings.
Clayton McMichen- Biography
“Back in the early days,” said Bill Monroe, “he was the best.”
Clayton (nicknamed “Mac” and later called “Pappy”) McMichen was born on January 26, 1900 in Altoona, Georgia. He learned to play the fiddle at age eleven from his uncles and from his father, a trained musician who played the fiddle at square dances in the neighborhood and also played Viennese waltzes at the uptown hotel “crinoline” dances. His Scots-Irish ancestors came to the United States around 1800 and became farmers. McMichen learned his first fiddle pieces from his father, including “Pretty Little Widow,” “Billy in the Low Ground,” “Nancy Rollin’,” “Arkansas Traveler,” and “Durang’s Hornpipe.”
When Clayton was thirteen the family moved to Atlanta where he found work as an auto mechanic. He won third place in his first contest while still in his teens. The young McMichen attended the Georgia Old-Time Fiddler’s Convention but there is no record of him performing until 1922. Alabama fiddler Joe Lee was a mentor to both Lowe Stokes and Clayton McMichen and Lowe said that Joe was the best old time fiddler he ever heard! Although McMichen was adept at playing the old time style, he became one of the first Country fiddlers to master a jazzy Swing style.
Clayton McMichen’s Early Bands
Clayton’s Lick the Skillet Band was formed around 1918, which became Old Home Town Boys, and consisted of McMichen and Lowe Stokes on fiddles, Riley Puckett and Mike Whitten on guitars, and Ted Hawkins on mandolin. McMichen’s broadcasting career began even before Station WSB started broadcasting in March 1922. In the very early twenties the Georgia Railroad had a small radio station that broadcast privately to passengers on the train for their enjoyment, and McMichen has said that his band began its professional career then.
On September 18, 1922 McMichen and his string band the Home Town Boys started playing regular radio shows for Atlanta's first radio station WSB. The station received numerous telephone calls and letters praising the group and requesting “special numbers.” By now members included Clayton McMichen fiddle; Mike Whitten guitar; Charlie Whitten fiddle; Boss Hawkins guitar; Ted Hawkins banjo/mandolin; Riley Puckett vocal, guitar and banjo; Robert Stephens saxophone; K. D. Malone clarinet; and Lowe Stokes fiddle. The songs broadcast on WSB included “St. Louis Blues,” “Wabash Blues,” “Three O’Clock,” “Lonesome Mama” and “Dixie.”
The Atlanta Journal wrote that the Home Town Boys “introduced America to the famous breakdown tune of North Georgia mountaineers as well as putting a new twist on jazz numbers of the day.” One of the innovative features of the band was McMichen’s featuring a clarinet in the band. Kasper "Stranger" Malone (1909-2005), who lived in later life near Rome, Georgia and played recently in the LEAF festival in Black Mountain, NC. Malone was born in 1909 on a farm in Lovelaceville, Ky. His given name was Kanoy, but he wasn't too pleased with that so he changed it to Kasper. He played swing with the Jack Teagarden All Stars and in silent film orchestras and radio bands. The Home Town Boys band could lay the claim to being the first Country Music swing band!
In August 1923 members of the Home Town Boys “descended on a fiddler’s convention in Macon …and literally stampeded the assemblage.” Clayton won first place in the fiddle contest, Puckett took first and Whitten second in the guitar competition and Ted Hawkins first in banjo. McMichen “carried away a new nickname, “The North Georgia Wildcat” bestowed on him by Macon listeners.”
On July 7, 1925 McMichen’s Home Town Boys recorded their first sides at Columbia’s Atlanta studio. The songs were “Alabama Jubilee,” “Bully Of The Town,” “Silver Bell,” and the song that vaunted McMichen to fame in 1927 and he would become identified- “Sweet Bunch Of Daisies.” Coincidentally McMichen married Daisy, who was the sister of Bert’s Layne’s wife.
McMichen and the Skillet Lickers
On April 22, 1926 when and Puckett and McMichen went into the Columbia’s Atlanta studio and recorded as Riley Puckett and Bob Nichols (McMichen’s alias). Frank Walker, Columbia’s A & R man, came up with the idea to get the best Atlanta musicians together to record as a group and four days later Gid Tanner, Bert Layne and Fate Norris joined McMichen and Puckett in the studio to make their first records. McMichen came up with the name The Skillet Lickers, a variation on the name of his earlier Lick the Skillet Band (based on the local Lick Skillet Orchestra name).
Bill Monroe recognized that McMichen, outspoken and brash, was the driving force behind the Skillet Lickers, “If it hadn’t have been for Clayton,” he said, “the Skillet Lickers would have suffered for a leader in the way of fiddle music.” McMichen, for his part, was not happy that the group was billed Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers with Riley Puckett because he believed that he was the leader and best fiddler in the group. It was also apparent to McMichen that Riley Puckett’s vocals carried the group and that the record buying public was more oriented to songs rather than string band instrumentals. At McMichen’s insistence the group was finally named Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers With Riley Puckett & Clayton McMichen.
Although McMichen participated in the Skillet Lickers’ cornpone humor, the progressive minded fiddler was never happy with the hillbilly label bestowed by Peer on the fledgling Country industry. He once remarked, “That Hillbilly, we fought it tooth and nail.”
What McMichen didn’t fully appreciate was that the success of the Skillet Lickers was Gid Tanner’s penchant for unabashed humor and absurdity. From 1926 until 1931 while Clayton played fiddle with the Skillet Lickers he was busy recording with other combinations of musicians that were more to his suiting. Although he tried his hand at sentimental ballads, recording under the pseudonym Bob Nichols, only one recording, "My Carolina Home," with Riley Puckett became a hit. Mac's first big hit came with a fiddle tune arrangement of a pop standard, "Sweet Bunch of Daisies" listed under McMichen’s Melody Men. Released in 1927, the song sold more than 100,000 copies.
The Melody Men began recording for Columbia on Nov. 4, 1926. The original line-up featured McMichen on fiddle, K.D. Malone on clarinet and Riley Puckett on guitar. Later sessions included Lowe Stokes on fiddle, Dan Hornsby singing vocals and Perry Bechel on guitar. The Melody Men also broadcast of WSB until around Jan. 13, 1931 (believed to be McMichen’s last radio appearance in Atlanta) and recorded six different sessions until Oct. 30, 1929.
When Bert Layne played fiddle Mac the Melody Men name was changed to McMichen-Lane String Orchestra. They recorded two sessions for Columbia as well. McMichen using the alias of Bob Nichols recorded multiple sessions with Riley Puckett from April 22, 1926 until October 30, 1931. Many of these sessions were done while the Skillet Lickers were recording in Atlanta. Later in the early 1930s McMichen (sometimes as Nichols) recorded several sessions with Hugh Cross.
He never really understood the public clamor for the Skillet Lickers and later commented, “Two or three in there couldn’t play” and that he didn’t like playing with Gid Tanner and Fate Norris because “they was just thirty years behind us in the music business.”
McMichen was equally adept at playing jazz, tin-pan Alley and pop songs. Fellow Georgian Lowe Stokes more than once related the story about a Skillet Licker 1928 recording session in New York in which A & R man Frank Walker rebuffed McMichen’s attempts to play jazz & pop ditties. Walker claimed that he could “open the window and whistle and get a dozen bands” that could do tin pan alley music, while nobody could play the authentic old-time tunes better than Tanner, McMichen, Norris, Stokes and Puckett.
McMichen and Slim Bryant- Georgia Wildcats
In 1930 he began recording with Hugh “Slim Bryant” and the next year started the Georgia Wildcats, a band whose hip, swinging style, was totally different from the Western Swing music of Texas and reflected McMichen's and Bryant's love of jazz.
Slim Byrant, the first of six sons, born in Atlanta on Dec. 7, 1908 was one of Wildcat’s first guitarists. Byrant spent sixteen months studying with renowned Atlanta jazz banjoist-guitarist Perry Bechtel who gave him a broad musical palette and a jazzman's soul. His heroes were jazz pioneer Eddie Lang and pop singer Nick Lucas. Of Lucas, he says, "I never heard anybody who could sing and then play a chorus. I copied his accompaniment because he was better than Country Music. I helped introduce this into Country Music."
In May 1931, Bryant abandoned electrical work to join Clayton McMichen's band, the Melody Men. He spent the next six years with McMichen and his renamed Georgia Wildcats at radio stations in Kentucky, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh (a brief 1931 stint at KDKA), Chicago, Cleveland and New York. During their 1933 residency at Chicago's WLS "National Barn Dance" show, a teen-age Les Paul faithfully attended to hear Bryant's guitar playing. In 1934, younger brother Raymond "Loppy" Bryant became the Wildcats' bassist.
McMichen and Jimmie Rodgers
In 1932 when Jimmie Rodgers wrote McMichen to offer him session work Clayton offered to come and bring Bryant. Jimmie wrote back: “Mr. Peer says he wonts [sic] me to do at least 10 numbers so if you have anything be sure to bring it along.” Regarding Bryant, Rodgers wrote: “I will pay his expenses if he cares to come along with you and takes a chance on working with us.” In August Clayton brought Byrant with him and they met Jimmie in Washington DC. After being chauffeured to Victor studios in Camden, NJ the men rehearsed with Oddie McWinders (banjo) Dave Kanui (steel guitar) and George Howell (string bass). After the first session produced no suitable takes, Peer dismissed Kanui and Howell.
During the sessions Rogers was sick and McMichen had to give him morphine shots for the pain. One song they collaborated on was McMichen’s already recorded “Prohibition Blues.” The song was recorded as “Prohibition Has Done Me Wrong” but not issued probably because it was copyrighted by Columbia. It may have been similar to “Prohibition Is A Failure” which McMichen knew through Lowe Stokes. The master was accidentally destroyed in 1944. They recorded one of Bryant’s songs “Mother Queen of my Heart” and then one of McMichen’s the popular “Peach Pickin’ Time Down In Georgia.” They were asked to stay in NY to record another session with Rodgers two weeks later. Because of Byrant’s innate ability to follow Rodgers, who played his own rhythm, Peer said of “he’s our regular guitar player.” Jimmie was planning to take the group to London for a tour but his deteriorating health prevented it from coming to fruition.
While in New York McMichen Byrant and McWinders played a few vaudeville gigs and contacted Bob Miller, author of “Twenty-One Years” and sometime recording director with Columbia. Through Miller they were signed to record some twenty-four sides for Crown, an independent cut-rate label (see McMichen Discography) for Victor owned by Peer’s competitor, A & R man Eli Oberstein.
McMichen’s Georgia Wildcats- Louisville
McMichen and Bryant moved to Louisville around 1932-33, where Clayton reorganized the Georgia Wildcats who began broadcasting regularly over radio station WHAS. The different line-ups of McMichen’s Georgia Wildcats had some of the best guitarists in country music including Slim Bryant, Riley Puckett, Merle Travis in 1937 and Lester Flatt. “McMichen had a fine band,” said Country legend PeeWee King about the Georgia Wildcats. “They were the Glenn Miller of the Country Music field.”
Clayton was based in Louisville for the remainder of his musical career and the rest of his life. In 1932 he won his first National Fiddling Championship and from 1934 he won the National Fiddling Champion each year for fifteen straight years! When the Skillet Lickers regrouped in 1934 at the request of the Bluebird label who were trying to record all the Country stars of the 1920s, McMichen did not participate. At that time he was busy with the Georgia Wildcats; the 1934 line-up of Georgia Wildcats included McMichen and Slim Bryant, Jack Dunnigan guitar and singer, Pat Berryman on banjo, violin, and mandolin.
To supplement his income as a musician, he promoted fiddle contests and, in 1936, operated a medicine show. McMichen made many radio appearances in the next several years on KDKA Pittsburgh, WSM and The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, WWVA Wheeling West Virginia, KMOX St. Louis, WLW's Boone County Jamboree and WCKY in Cincinnati and WLS, the National Barn Dance, in Chicago.
The Wildcats recorded extensively for Decca (as Clayton McMichen’s Wildcats; see discography below for a list of songs) throughout the late thirties and into the early forties. This material included arrangements of jazz and popular standards as well as hillbilly material and some original songs. Around 1939 McMichen recorded an album of fiddle tunes for Decca--three or four records with medleys of three tunes to a side.
McMichen’s Later Life
McMichen’s band became a Dixieland orchestra shortly before Bryant spilt from McMichen to form his own band. McMichen’s Georgia Wildcat Modern Dance Orchestra is listed as follows: Orville Furrow,sax and clarinet; Eddie Reinhart, Piano; Jimmie Pearson, Drums; Paul Swain, sax, clarinet and flute; Bill Swain, bass; Gene Edwards, sax , clarinet and shouter Dave Durham, trumpet and hot fiddle. They made regular daily broadcasts on WAVE in Louisville and played dance halls all over south-central Kentucky and southern Indiana until 1955 when McMichen retired from the music business.
When McMichen formed his 12-piece dance band in Louisville, Slim Bryant, guitarist Jack Dunigan and several others amicably parted ways. "I liked the music," Bryant said. "But I also liked to make money, and I didn't see any money to be made. McMichen was a wonderful man. You see him, you like him. I hate to say this because I owe him a lot -- he wasn't that good a businessman."
McMichen remained busy with his music after he retired. Here’s an account of his activities from a recent obituary: “Alene Wilson-Russ started with local bands singing country music, and performed with Clayton "Pappy" McMichen who sponsored her into Local 11-637 in 1957. On the local radio circuit they played on WAVE and WHAS, and also on live broadcasts from Howell’s Furniture Store.” Although he was sought out during the folk revival of the 1960s, he was frustrated by the folklorists' reverence for the Skillet Lickers. While he maintained a low profile for the rest of his life, he agreed to perform at the Bean Blossom festival in 1964 and 1966 and the Newport Folk Festival in 1964. McMichen continued to dazzle audiences with his virtuosic fiddling.
Bob Pinson, who was one folklorist that interviewed McMichen, remembered: “And I think he also felt, and rightly so, that he was a better fiddle player than Bob Wills and he couldn't understand why Bob Wills was such a big artist and why he had not made it in that realm of music. Of course, located where he was geographically didn't help any. Louisville is not a hotbed of Western Swing.”
Pinson added: “He worked at a used-car lot at the time-I don't know if he was doing any kind of personal appearances or not, probably he was, but he was making a living at least as a used-car salesman. We went to the used-car lot to find him, we told him we'd be interested in interviewing him and he said, "Yeah, we'll go on out to the house if you want to, we can do it out there." He wanted to stop at a bar along the way and get a drink before he got home, so we made that stop. When we got to the house, he was more interested, at least in the beginning, in showing us his workshop where he did a lot of wood work. So we had to go through that whole routine before we finally got him sitting down with the tape recorder on, then after that it seems he was more interested in talking about the Decca McMichen recordings rather than the Skillet Licker recordings.”
At the age of 68, he placed first in the senior division of the Kentucky State Championship. Clayton McMichen died Jan 3, 1970 in Battletown, KY. Merle Travis and Mac Wiseman celebrated McMichen's legacy with an album, The Clayton McMichen Story, released by CMH Productions in 1988. McMichen’s scrapbook is in the Country Music Hall-of-Fame.
McMichen Bands And Recordings
McMichen’s first band was Lick the Skillet Band formed in 1918. Mac then put together McMichen’s Home Town Boys (also known as Hometown Boys String Band) and performed on WSB radio in 1922. The band recorded for Columbia in 1925. In 1926 he recorded with the Skillet Lickers and also as McMichen’s Melody Men (with Lowe Stokes, Riley Puckett and KD Malone). He recorded several sessions with Lowe Stokes and His North Georgians (See: Lowe stokes discography). Mac recorded duets with Riley Puckett and also Hugh Cross until the early 1930s. In 1929 he formed The Georgia Organ Grinders for a session for Columbia with Bert Layne, Lowe Stokes on organ, Fate Norris, Melvin Dupree and Dan Hornsby. Following the McMichen-Layne String Orchestra with K. D. Malone and Riley Puckett, was McMichen's Harmony Boys, consisting of McMichen and Layne, fiddles and Hoyt "Slim" Bryant, guitar. Then McMichen formed his famed Georgia Wildcats and they recorded first for Columbia in Oct. 1931. In August 1932 McMichen’s Georgia Wildcats band members Slim Bryant and Clayton McMichen did a series of recordings with Jimmie Rodgers. During this time McMichen wrote and recorded with Rodgers “Peach Pickin’ Time In Georgia.” While they were working for Rodgers in the NY area, they recorded 24 sides for Crown and indy label. The Georgia Wildcats recorded their last sides for Decca from 1937 to 1939.
McMichen Discography:
McMichen’s Home Town Boys (Clayton McMichen; Robert “Punk” Stephens; Lowe Stokes): Alabama Jubilee; Bully Of The Town; Silver Bell; Sweet Bunch Of Daisies
Clayton McMichen (also as Bob Nichols) Solo: Fiddlin’ Melody; Grave In The Pines; Killing Of Tom Slaughter; Original Arkansas Traveler (dialogue by Dan Hornsby); Prohibition Blues; St. Louis Blues
Riley Puckett and Clayton McMichen (Bob Nichols) (April 22, 1926): Arkansas Shiek; Bill Johnson; Cindy; Cumberland Valley Waltz; Done Gone; Don’t You Remember The Time; Farmer’s Daughter; I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles; Let the Rest Of the World Pass Me By; Little Brown Jug; McMichen’s Reel; My Blue Ridge Mountain Queen; My Carolina Home; My Isle Of Golden Dreams; ‘Neath The Old Apple Tree; Old Molly Hare; Paddy Won’t You Drink Some Cider; Ring Waltz; Rye Straw; Slim Gal; Till We Meet Again; Trail Of The Lonesome Pine; Underneath The Mellow Moon;
Claude Davis and Bob Nichols (Clayton McMichen) April 1929 Columbia: Down in A Southern Town; Meet Me Tonight In Dreamland; Underneath The Southern Moon; We Were Pals Together;
Georgia Organ Grinders (1929 featuring McMichen- Fiddle; Bert Layne- Fiddle Lowe Stokes- Organ; Fate Norris Banjo Melvin Dupree- Guitar; Dan Hornsby- vocals): Back Up and Push; Charming Betsy; Four Thousand Year Ago; Georgia Man; Skip To My Lou; Smoke Behind The Clouds;
Bob Nichols (Clayton McMichen) and Hugh Cross: Corinne, Corrina; I left My Gal in The Mountains; In The Hills Of Old Virginia; Smoky Mountain Home; When I Lived In Arkansas; When It’s Peach Pickin’ Time In Georgia;
McMichen’s Melody Men (Usually a trio with Riley Puckett; sometimes Bert Layne as McMichen- Layne String Orchestra or Lowe Stokes): Ain’t She Sweet; Back In Tennessee; Blind Child’s Prayer; Daisies Won’t Tell; Down The Ozark Trail; Down Yonder; Dying Hobo; Home Sweet Home; Honolulu Moon; House of David Blues; Let Me Call You Sweetheart; Little Blue Ridge Girl; Lonesome Mama Blues; Sailing On The Bay Of Tripoli; Silver Threads Among The Gold; Sweet Bunch Of Daisies; Wabash Blues; When Clouds Have Vanished; When You And I Were Young Maggie; When You’re Far From The Ones Who Love You; Where The River Shannon Flows;
Oscar Ford (McMichen, Bert Layne, Riley Puckett) Columbia 1930: Georgia is my Home; Girl I Love In Tennessee; Little Nan; Race Between a Ford and Chevrolet;
McMichen's Harmony Boys (McMichen and Layne, fiddles; Hoyt "Slim" Bryant, guitar): Ain’t She Sweet; Sweetheart Days;
Jimmie Rodgers with Clayton McMichen, Slim Bryant, Oddie McWinders- banjo (August 1932): Gambling Bar Room Blues; I’ve only Love Three Woman; In The Hills of Tennessee; Miss The Mississippi And You; Mother Queen Of My Heart; Peach Pickin’ Time Down In Georgia; Prairie Lullaby; Rock All our Babies To Sleep; Sweet Mama Hurry Home; Whippin’ That Old T.B.;
Clayton McMichen’s Georgia Wildcats (includes duets with Slim Bryant from 1931; includes Merle Travis in 1937; Lester Flatt): Alexander’s Ragtime Band; All I’ve Got Is Gone; All Through The Night; Anna From Indiana; Arkansas Traveler; Back In Tennessee; Bile Dem Cabbage Down; Blue Hills Of Virginia; Bummin’ On The I.C. Line; Chicken Don’t Roost Too High; Counting Cross Ties; Devil’s Dream; Don’t Trouble Me; Down In Old Kentucky; Down The Ozark Trail; Downhearted Blues; Dream Trail; Farewell Blues; Fiddler’s Dram; Fire In The Mountain; Fisher’s Hornpipe; Frankie and Johnny; Georgia Wildcat Breakdown; Georgiana Moon; Give The Fiddler A Dram; Hog-Trough Reel; I Cannot Tell A Lie; I Could Tell By The Look On His Face; I Don’t Love Nobody; I Want My Rib; I Gotta Ketch Up With My Settin’; I Wonder Whose Kissing Her Now; I’m Free A Little Bird As I Can Be; I’m Gonna Learn To Swing; I’m Riding The Trail Back Home; Ida Red; In The Pines; Is There Still Room For Me; Jesse James; Just An Old Chimney Stack; Just Tell Them You Saw Me; Little Darling I’ll Be Yours; Log Cabin in The Lane; Old Fashioned Locket; Old Joe Clark; Old Hen Cackled; Only A Faded Rose; Lily That Bloomed For Me; Mary Lou; Misery On My Mind; Mississippi Sawyer; My Gal’s A Lulu; Peter Went Fishin’; Please Don’t sell My Pappy Any More Rum; Pretty Little Widder; Put on Your Old Grey Bonnet; Put Your Arms Around Me Honey; Red Wing; Rose Of Shenandoah Valley; Rickett’s Hornpipe; Sally Goodin; Shortenin’ Bread; Singing an Old Hymn; Smoky Mountain Home; Soldier’s Joy; Sourwood Mountain; St. Louis Woman; Sugar In The Gourd; Sweet Bunch Of Daisies; Sweet Florine; Trail of The Lonesome Pine; Turkey in The Straw; Under The Old Kentucky Moon; Wang Wang Blues; Way Down In Carolina; What Good Will It Do; When The Bloom Is On the Sage; Where The Skies Are Always Blue; Whispering; Wild Cat Rag; Wreck of the Old 97; Yum Yum Blues;
Marcus Lowell Stokes- Biography
Although Lowe Stokes (Born May 28, 1898 in Elijay Gilmer County, Ga. - Died June, 1983) joined the Skillet Lickers in 1928 and played third fiddle in the shadow of Gid Tanner and Clayton McMichen, he has earned his own revered place in the annals of music lore. In 1924 the upstart Stokes defeated the savvy veteran Fiddlin’ John Carson at the Georgia Old-Time Fiddlers' Convention to win the coveted state championship. Many credit Lowe with inspiring the Charlie Daniels’ song “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” which is reportedly based on the famous competition.
After Poet Stephen Vincent Benet read a 1924 article in the Literary Digest describing Stokes victory, he penned his 1925 poem, “The Mountain Whippoorwill” (Or, How Hill-Billy Jim Won the Great Fiddlers' Prize) which begins: Up in the mountains, it's lonesome all the time, (Sof' win' slewin' thu' the sweet-potato vine.) Up in the mountains, it's lonesome for a child, (Whippoorwills a-callin' when the sap runs wild.)
Stokes Fiddle
In “Tales From Kentucky Lawyers” there’s a chapter entitled “World’s Most Famous Fiddle” which tells the true story of fiddler Marion Sumner who was known as The Fiddle King of the South. Many years after Lowe Stokes death, the legend of his fiddle victory was still alive. Sumner owned the fiddle that Stokes used to win the contest and it was his most prized possession. Marion went broke and had to file bankruptcy and listed under his assets “one fiddle.”
At the hearing Lawyer William Hamblin asked “Well Marion tell me about the fiddle.”
Marion said, “Well it’s old.”
Hamblin asked, ‘You reckon you’d give fifty dollar to keep it.”
“Yeah,” said Marion, “reckon I would.”
So for fifty dollars Sumner bought a fiddle worth what collectors estimated is a $50,000 fiddle!
Stokes Career
Stokes also won the coveted Georgia Old-Time Fiddlers' Convention held in Atlanta the next year in 1925. By most accounts including Tony Russell’s, Lowe was born May 28, 1898. Lowe was the sixth of seven children born to Jacob Stokes, who was a farm laborer, born in 1848.
He moved from Cartersville to Atlanta in 1922 and after meeting T.M. “Bully” Brewer was invited to stay with him. Brewer an accomplished guitarist and singer wanted to learn the fiddle. “You can come on home with me,” said Brewer, “and teach me to play the fiddle and you can stay with me forever.”
Although Stokes lived with Brewer for three years, he began his career with fellow fiddle genius Clayton McMichen, who quickly became one of Lowe’s regular sidekicks and mentors over the years and invited Lowe to play in his Home Town Boys band.
In 1928 he replaced McMichen’s cousin Bert Layne and became the third fiddle in the Skillet Licker band.
When Lowe Stokes joined the group as the third fiddler, he brought with him clean, articulate phrasing and superb tone, the result of the smooth, long-bow style he had perfected. Charles Wolfe writes that "Often Stokes used a mute on his bridge to better match McMichen's sound; [Stokes] also said that this idea of [McMichen playing a close harmony to the individual notes of the melody] came from his listening to jazz fiddler Joe Venuti, who was then in his heyday."
By 1930 Stokes was married and lived in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He was offered a retainer by Brunswick to back up any singer or group that need a little punch. [Charles Wolfe: Classic Country] On one tour around 1930, the trouble-bound Stokes was stabbed perilously near the heart as the nasty consequence of a love triangle, then in a drunken altercation at a bootlegging joint a few days was shot in the hand later while still healing from the earlier wound.
The session of December 7, 1930 was Stokes last as a leader, and it was almost his last, period. On Christmas Day that year he was involved in a shooting incident near Cartersville, Georgia. He never cared to talk about it afterwards, but Bert Layne thought he intervened in a fight between one of his brothers and another man and was shot while trying to grab the latter's gun. His right hand was so badly damaged that it had to be amputated. Layne, hearing the news, hurried to Cartersville and found Stokes "sittin' up in a barber chair getting a shave! I never saw a man with such a nerve in all my life." Within a year he was playing again, using a prosthetic attachment devised for him by McMichen.
Stokes Later Life
Lowe Stokes quit fiddling sometime in the '60s though his fans were still visiting him. He lived in Chouteau, Oklahoma when Brad Leftwich and then Joe LaRose visited him a few times and started an interview process that culminated in a wonderful article in Old Time Music magazine's spring 1984 issue.
According to Kerry Bleach who visited Lowe in March 1982: “Lowe's playing was indeed affected by his injury and loss. The few sides he recorded after the loss are not nearly as strong and as confident fiddling as one can hear from the pre-loss recordings. Lowe did go on the vaudeville circuit after his injury and played with cowboy singer Ray Whitely, I think in the late '30s and early '40s. Clayton McMichen, who was an inventive mechanic, created the universal-joint, wing-nut gripper prosthetic bow-holding device that Lowe used after losing his right hand (in what Lowe said was a hunting accident). Lowe used a rubber band to maintain tension. He also had a guide, something that resembled a miniature football goal-post, inserted into his fiddle fingerboard that kept that end of the bow from sliding down the fingerboard and allowed him to keep his bowing parallel to the bridge.”
Wit the encouragement of Bleach and others, Lowe began fiddling again. Bleach: “Joe Larosa continued visiting and some of Lowe's neighbors encouraged Lowe to keep playing, which he did, to the delight of his wife Hazel, who had never heard him fiddle in person up to that time. Lowe played with Bob Cowan and Ray Smith at many local functions for a couple of years and Lowe appeared on the tape they issued on the Marimac label. Lowe also was invited to the Brandywine Festival as part of their Georgia music theme. Lowe was playing quite well at that time.”
Stokes continued to fiddle the rest of his life wearing a glove over his prosthetic right hand like he did in one of his last appearances at the 1982 Brandywine festival. His performance of Hell Broke Loose In Georgia in 1982 was included on a CD of Bradywine Mountain Music Collection: Chubby Dragon CD1006. Lowe Stokes died in June 1983.
Lowe Stokes Discography:
Lowe Stokes and His North Georgians- Columbia 1927-30: Bone Dry Blues; Everybody’s Doing It; Home Brew Rag; It Just Suits Me; Katy Did; Left All Alone Again Blues; Row, Row, Row; Sailing Down The Chesapeake Bay; Sailing on The Robert E. Lee; Take Me Back To Georgia; Take Me To That Land of Jazz; Unexplained Blues; Wave That Frame; Wish I Had Stayed in the Wagon Yard;
Claude Davis, Bert Layne & Lowe Stokes; 6-3-1928 Gennett: Sweet Bunch Of Daisies; Sweet William; Traveling Coon; Way Down In Alabam; The Fiddlin’ Bootleggers Part I; The Fiddlin’ Bootleggers Part II;
Lookout Mountain Revelers: (Lowe Stokes, Bert Layne Claude Davis) Paramount Chicago June 1928:
Barn Dance On The Mountain Part I; Barn Dance On The Mountain Part II; Bury Me Beneath The Willow; Down In Atlanta; Dreaming of Mother; I Ain’t Got No Sweetheart; Oh Wasn’t I Getting Away; Pussycat Rag; When The Maple Leaves Are Falling;
Monroe County Bottle Tippers: (Lowe Stokes, Bert Layne and Claude Davis) Gennett 1928: Fiddlin’ Bootleggers Part I (Skit with music); Fiddlin’ Bootleggers Part II
Lookout Mountain Revelers (Lowe Stokes; Bert Layne and Claude Davis) Paramount June 1928: Barn Dance Down On The Mountain Part I-II; Bury Me Beneath The Willow; Down In Atlanta; Dreaming Of Mother; I Ain’t Got No Sweetheart; Oh Wasn’t I Getting Away; Pussycat Rag; When The Maple Leaves Are Falling;
Lowe Stokes and Mike Whitten- Columbia 1929: Katy Did; Take Me Back To Georgia (Rattlesnake Bit The Baby)
Lowe Stokes and Riley Puckett- Columbia 1930: Billy in the Low Ground; Sally Johnson;
Oscar Ford (Lowe Stokes, Bert Layne, Riley Puckett) Columbia 1930: Farmer’s Dream; Me And My Gal; Riding In A Chevrolet Six; Sweetest Girl In Town;
Lowe Stokes and His Pot Lickers: Chicken Don’t Roost To High; Four Cent Cotton; Kitty and The Baby; Prohibition is A Failure; Rocking my Sugar Lump (Bile Dem Cabbage Down); Up Jumped The Rabbit
Lowe Stokes and “Heavy Martin” April 1930, Brunswick released on Vocalion: Done Gone; Possum Up a Gum Stump
Descriptive Novelty (with Dialogue) Lowe Stokes, Heavy Martin, Homer Miller Walt McKinney and Bill Brown: The Great Hatfield-McCoy Feud Part I-IV (four sides different episodes)
Seven Foot Dilly and His Dill Pickles (Dilly And His New Group) November 1930: A Bootlegger’s Joint in Atlanta (Part I and Part II); Bibb County Hoe Down; Kenesaw Mountain Rag;
Swamp Roosters (Lowe Stokes; Bert Layne; Hoke Rice-guitar) November 1930: Citaco; Swamp Rag Cat
Fate Norris-Biography
Singleton LaFayette “Fate” Norris, who played the banjo for the Skillet Lickers, was from Resaca, Georgia, north of Atlanta, and unfortunately, is almost inaudible on most of the recordings. He was born in 1878 and was married to Elizabeth (Lizzie), with whom he had one daughter, Mable. In the 1900 Census he lists his occupation as farm laborer but later he lists it as musician. He is not to be confused with Land Norris, no relation, who was a banjo player from the same area that played occasionally with Fiddlin’ John Carson. The first mention of Fate performing is in the July 4, 1912 Fiddlers contest in Lawrenceville, Georgia where he is listed a Fate Norris of Norcross.
Experienced in the medicine show circuit, Fate often appeared as a one-man band. He had a flare for comedy that included a 'talking doll' and built his elaborate one-man band contraption of six instruments, which he took to fairs and fiddlers' contests throughout the south. Reprinted from a 1927 Tennessee newspaper article: “Fate Norris, of Dalton, Georgia, the one-man wonder, who plays six individual instrument in an individual band, will also furnish entertainment. Mr. Norris has in his band two guitars, bells, bass fiddle, fiddle, and mouth harp or kazoo. He devoted seventeen years to mastery of his art.”
Fiddler Bill Helms recalled seeing Norris at a fiddler's convention in Chattanooga: “Fate Norris was there too, had a musical soapbox - made out of soap boxes with a pocket knife, and strings from mandolins, guitars, fiddles, autoharps. Had pedals and kneepads. Played two instruments with his feet; played a mouth harp.” [From 'Interview with Bill Helms', JEMF Quarterly, Vol. 2, Part 3, (June 1967), p. 57.]
When the Skillet Lickers appeared in Nashville in 1927, it was reported: “There are no recordings of Fate Norris' one-man band, only these descriptions and a few photographs, one of which shows him sitting before his contraption, fiddle in hand, on a sidewalk in front of a hand-written sign reading: 'A real string band played by one man will start at 12 pm'.” JEMF Quarterly, Vol. 12 (winter 1976), p. 180.
The photograph provides a better view of Norris' invention, its unusual arrangement of guitars, a large cogwheel, and the three pedals for his left foot and one for his right. He's added kazoo to his fiddling and looks as if it is one minute past noon and he is about to launch into his first number.
Norris also recorded with two groups that bear his name in the 1920s: Fate Norris and The Tanner Boys; Fate Norris and His Playboys (See Discography below).
Singleton LaFayette Norris died on stage Nov 11, 1944 after playing for the March of Dimes benefit in Subligna, Ga. He said, "I'm not afraid," and fell to the floor [Spring 1997 volume of the Chattooga County Historic Society Quarterly].
Fate Norris Recordings:
Fate Norris and The Tanner Boys (Columbia Records; November, 1926- Fate Norris with Gid and Arthur Tanner): I Don’t Reckon That’ll Happen Again; New Dixie
Fate Norris and His Playboys (Columbia Records; April- 1929- Fate Norris Clayton McMichen Riley Puckett): Roll Em On The Ground; Johnnie Get Your Gun;
Bert Layne-Biography
Bert Monroe Layne (Born Dec. 14, 1889 in Arkansas- Died 0ct. 22, 1982 in Kentucky) was one of the three founding fiddlers of the Skillet Lickers. “Uncle Bert” was the epitome of the “Arkansas Traveler;” his travels carried him across the nation in search of musical conquests. Bert married a Georgia girl, Alline and Clayton McMichen married her sister, Daisy. The two brothers-in-law combined with Gid Tanner to become the fiddlers for the Skillet Lickers. Layne, who has some music training, was responsible for arranging the music so each fiddle knew his part.
Layne’s Early Life
Layne's father made instruments for his children but preferred dancing to playing music. According to an interview by Margaret Riddle: Many other relatives in the family played either fiddle or banjo "They all played banjo, and he used to kill everybody's cat around there to get a hide for his banjos," Layne recalled about his father and aunts. Layne started playing fiddle at dances when he was a youngster. Sometime around turning 16 he took off from Arkansas and made it all the way to Colorado, often hopping freights. He worked in mines and drove teams of horses, among other odd jobs. By the time he was 20 he was looking for something a bit more permanent and wound up going out to California with his sister and her husband, then rambled back east to Toledo, Ohio.
Layne Rambles to Atlanta; Meets McMichen- Moves To Ohio
Layne met McMichen for the first time in 1925 and the relationship quickly led to a series of professional involvements. “Uncle Bert” appeared and recorded with the bands of his brother-in-law's, such as McMichen's Melody Men or the Georgia Wildcats. Layne also did a comedy routine appearing as "Uncle Zeke" and particpated in the comedy skits of the Skillet Lickers.
Besides McMichen, Layne played and recorded with old-time musicians Lowe Stokes and Claude Davis. This grouping cut a series of sides for the Brunswick label in the late '20s. Layne also recorded for Okeh, Gennett, Victor, and Columbia. Layne was involved as part of the songwriting team with McMichen behind classics such as "Take Me Back To My Carolina Home” (known as My Carolina Home) and "Down on the Old Ozark Trail."
McMichen, Layne, and others broadcast over WLW in Cincinnati in 1931, and after the former ever-roving player took off for Cleveland, Layne inaugurated a 1936 song folio entitled: Bert Layne's Mountaineer Fiddlers. Layne teamed back up with McMichen for a show at World's Fair in Chicago in 1933 and a spot on the WLS National Barn Dance that same year.
Layne’s Later Years
In his later years, Layne never really stopped fiddling. He retired, so to speak, in Covington, KY, the town right across the river (and state line) from Cincinnati that was traditionally a haven for residents of that city seeking more liberal liquor laws or legal strip clubs. In his mid-eighties, he organized a reunion festival including a series of broadcasts out of the Arkansas stomping grounds of his early days. Bert's son, Bert Jr., lived in a suburb of Cleveland (Middleburgh
Heights) where he and family often were visited by "Uncle" Bert.
"Uncle" Bert Layne died in 1982, at the home of Clifford and Juanita Lynch (Clayton McMichen's daughter) in Battletown, Kentucky, where he had been living for a year or two. Before that, he lived in his own apartment in Covington, Kentucky.
Bert Layne Recordings (See Also Lowe Stokes; Clayton McMichen; Skillet Lickers Discographies- above):
Oscar Ford (Lowe Stokes, Bert Layne, Riley Puckett) Columbia 1930: Farmer’s Dream; Georgia is my Home; Girl I Love In Tennessee; Little Nan; Me And My Gal; Race Between a Ford and Chevrolet; Riding In A Chevrolet Six; Sweetest Girl In Town;
Claude Davis & Bert Layne (Mack Williams is also mentioned) Winston-Salem, NC- Sept. 21, 1927 Okeh: Down In A Southern Town; Give Me Your Heart; Sleep On Brown Eyes; Thinking of The Days I’ve Done Wrong; Traveling Coon; Way Down In Alabam; When The Flowers Bloom In Springtime; When The Maple Leaves Are Falling;
Bert Lanes Melody Boys (Layne- fiddle; Claude Davis guitar vocals) Brunswick 1930: Give Me Your Heart; I Ain’t Got No Sweetheart; Nights Of Gladness; Sparklets Waltz;
Johnny Barfield, Hoyt Bryant, and Bert Lane; 1931 Champion: Back To my Georgia Home; Highway Hobo; On The Banks of the Old Ohio; Peach Pickin’ Time In Georgia; Rabbit Hunt Part I; Rabbit Hunt Part II; Sweet Florine; Yum Yum Blues;