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