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Remember? Michigan Ave. Gardens? Most likely you won’t, but if you do, you will remember that it was the first bar in Canton to receive their beer and wine license after prohibition in 1932. If you remember the bar, you will also remember they had outside toilets, and chickens and goats that would roam through the building while you were having your favorite drink. You would also remember that entertainment was a thing back then that was not known, or at least to be paid for, so some of the local people would bring their fiddles and guitars and once in a while, someone would bring in their banjo and have a regular old barn dance. Well, after all, that’s what it was. The old Michigan Avenue Gardens was in fact an old BARN! [1]
So begins a feature on the Club Canton, also once known as the Canton Tavern, originally printed in the December 1980 edition of Country In The City News. Club Canton will be the setting of the next author book sale and signing for “Detroit Country Music: Mountaineers, Cowboys, and Rockabillies,” on Sunday, January 19, 2014, from 3 to 7 p.m.
Special guests include Behind The Times, Detroit-based old-time and bluegrass musical trio. After they perform a set of music, the floor will be opened to musicians in attendance. Club Canton has graciously offered to prepare a buffet for a nominal charge, as well.
Since 1932 (and legend has it, BEFORE 1932), Club Canton has witnessed the evolution of country music from folk and old-time fiddle dances to cowboy and western, rockabilly to bluegrass, and what’s now referred to as traditional and modern. Local disk jockey and bandleader Farris Wilder was a mainstay on the Club Canton stage from 1951 to 1963. Other famous entertainers who appeared within its welcoming walls include Charlie Louvin, Dottie West, Ernest Tubb, and Johnny Paycheck.
The 1980 article continues
It has changed from when [patrons] used to be bothered by chickens, goats, mules and other assorted farm animals. It has changed from the days when you and your friends could bring in your guitars, banjo’s, fiddles and the likes and hold your own barn dance, but the friendliness has not changed. The warmth of fellow men and women from the deep south meeting and getting married has not changed. The packed houses have not changed …
In 1957 Helm and Jean Hunt purchased the Canton Tavern and renamed it Club Canton. Their son and his wife continue the operation, 57 years later. Our event on January 19, 2014, is the perfect opportunity to get acquainted with the legendary Club Canton!
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Notes
- [Possibly Mary Clark] “Remember Michigan Avenue Gardens?” Country In The City News Country In The City, Inc. December 1980 (Vol. 4, No. 1) 14.
The book signing on Dec. 13, 2013, was a real blast. It was wonderful to see our special guests, Al Allen and Della Redbird, in the same room together. We thank everyone who made it to downtown Detroit in person, especially our friends who have waited so long to see this project appear in print.
Keith and I (Craig) also signed copies of the book at shops in Greenfield Village on Dec. 20 and 21. Copies of the book remain for sale there.
New on this site is a Press page. A link to it appears by navigating your cursor over the “About” button at the top of this site.
Thanks to all who have expressed interest and support during the last few months. We’ve just begun publicizing the book, and more signings are in the works. Feel free to “like” the book’s page on Facebook to receive more timely announcements.
Our next event is scheduled for Jan. 19, from 3 to 7 p.m., at Club Canton, Michigan’s oldest country bar. We’re very excited to announce Behind The Times will play a set on the hardwood dance floor, then open it up for musicians to jam. A buffet will be available, too. More info to come.
It’s been 65 years since Little Jimmy Dickens made his debut on the WSM “Grand Ole Opry” barn dance. While the “Opry” has changed over the years, the 92-year-old Dickens seems as spry and witty as ever. While living in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1947-48, Dickens was invited by none other than Roy Acuff, the King of the Hillbillies, to be his guest on the show, after Dickens impressed Acuff during a Michigan appearance.
Dickens’ time in Saginaw revolved around a new radio station, WKNX, where he performed with his band, served as a radio announcer, and assisted with programming. Fiddler Casey Clark worked in similar capacities for the station managers, and Clark and Dickens often shared musicians in the days before they organized their own bands. Tex Ferguson arrived a few months later, and all three groups played shows together in schools, social halls, and a roller rink in Bad Axe. After his guest appearance at the “Opry,” Dickens moved to Nashville with encouragement from Acuff.
The complete story of Jimmy Dickens at WKNX radio Saginaw is covered in Casey Clark’s biography in the book: “Detroit Country Music – Mountaineers, Cowboys, and Rockabillies,” which includes quotes from Dickens himself.
Ladies and gents, here ’tis, a blazing new read on Detroit music history: “Handsome Victory,” by Craig “Bones” Maki, featuring the rockabilly hit “I’m Gone.” Perfect for record hunting trips, or reading at the beach, this little pocketbook fits perfectly in the back pocket of your dungarees!
We begin with the story (a “remix,” and “extended take,” as some say in the music biz) of one of the least-known rockabilly 45s ever made in Detroit: Vic Gallon’s “I’m Gone.” Legendary guitarist Dennis Coffey — then known as “The Rock’n’Roll Kid,” who achieved his own No. 6 pop hit with the instrumental “Scorpio” in 1971 — said it was the first record he ever played on.
Here’s newly uncovered details about the studio where the record was made, and other artists who recorded there; rock’n’roll on Detroit radio in the 1950s; a survey of the waning years of Starday-King Records of Nashville; the early years of California country rock; surprising cameos by musicians who called Michigan home; and of course: what the heck happened to Vic Gallon! The book includes illustrations, scans of record labels, discographies, bibliography, index (a marvel of references), and suggested listening, including a playlist to go with the book, now available on YouTube here!
From the back cover:
Detroit, Michigan – 1957: A gifted young man’s basement recording studio, in a house on a quiet block in a northwest neighborhood, serves as ground zero for one of the most exciting — and elusive — rockabilly records ever made. With cool bearing, rock’n’roll singer Vic Gallon helps set teen-aged guitarist Dennis Coffey — a future member of the Motown Records “Funk Brothers” studio band — on a path toward greatness … and then disappears.
The story ends there, until you pick up this book!
How to get a-hold of your own copy of “Handsome Victory”
- If you live in the U.S., it’s for sale online at Lulu.com online here.
- “Handsome Victory” is available on major online sales platforms worldwide.
- Book shops may order copies through Ingram Content Group.
- Books signed by the author are available at The Book Beat in Oak Park, Michigan. Call ’em at (248) 968-1190, or send an email to info@thebookbeat.com.
Thanks, and have a ball, everybody! — Craig Maki
Thanks to everyone who attended the party for the Detroit Country Music book at Club Canton on Jan. 19! A packed house kept proprietors Emmett and Autumn and their crew busy, but they too enjoyed the live music played by Behind The Times, Dave Beddingfield, Brian Ferriby, Mitch and Jesse Manns, Hugh Nix, Keith Cady, and myself, along with singers Andy Barron, Jay Haynes, and others. The musical variety from the stage sounded like a soundtrack to the book, as patrons were treated to old-time, bluegrass, western swing, rockabilly, and honky-tonk songs. Guitarist Mitch Manns even worked in some fast picking numbers.
The legendary Club Canton and its bandstand, dating from the 1950s, hosts live C&W music several nights a week, so stop in and say “hello” some time. By the way, Emmett pointed out to me the tables closest to the dance floor date from sixty years ago. “I can’t get rid of them,” he said with a smile, “because they represent the history of this place.”
We sold out of our stock of books at Club Canton, but plan to bring more when we make a presentation at the Livonia Library Civic Center branch on Tuesday, March 4, at 7 p.m.
This Friday, Dec. 13, 2013, the first book signing event takes place at D:hive in downtown Detroit. Click here to see the flier. Friday evening we’ll present tributes to guitarist Al Allen, and bandleader Chief Redbird. Redbird died in 1978, and many of us never had an opportunity to meet him. Thankfully, Redbird’s daughter Della will be with us to reminisce, along with Al Allen himself, who played guitar for Redbird on many occasions. Stories about Chief Redbird and Al Allen can be found in the book “Detroit Country Music: Mountaineers, Cowboys, and Rockabillies.”
Chief Redbird’s first break into the top tier of show business was with Otto Gray’s Oklahoma Cowboys. He was known as Chief Sanders, then. From about 1927 to 1933, Redbird worked with the group, performing in vaudeville circuits and radio stations across the Midwest and East. Lucky for us, the group was so popular that they were invited to make a motion picture with sound. Here are parts one and two of the film, which give us an inkling of the immense talent Chief Redbird brought to stages in Detroit and across Southeast Michigan.
At the start of the first video, Redbird plays a cello (at right, in the still). At the start of the second, Redbird plays fiddle (second from right, in the still).
From decades ago to the present, country artists have created and sold promotional books. Most contain a combination of pictures, song lyrics and music. In Detroit, the Lazy Ranch Boys sold two “scrapbooks” of photos and descriptions from 1953 until they left town in 1958. Here are the covers of three known Casey Clark and the Lazy Ranch Boys books, along with a special bonus: Jimmy Martin’s Detroit scrapbook from ca. 1955.
Casey Clark’s story will be included in the book “Detroit Country Music: Mountaineers, Cowboys, and Rockabillies” by Craig Maki and Keith Cady, published by University of Michigan Press.
Fifty-two years ago, a Flint musician who served as a guiding light to countless students – as bright as a Lake Michigan lighthouse beacon – passed away at his home, aged 50 years. Steel guitar players from Michigan owe a historical debt to the masterful teachings doled out by Russell B. Waters at the Flint Honolulu Conservatory of Music and Dance during the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s. Players well-known in steel guitar circles, such as Chuck Rich, Terry Bethel, Chuck Adams, Jim Baker, and Chuck Hatfield, all took instruction from Waters before starting careers that led to greater recognition.
Born 1911 in Terre Haute, Indiana, Waters moved to Flint, Michigan, around 1927. [1] In 1934, he began teaching at the original Honolulu Conservatory (begun in 1926 in Flint, Honolulu Conservatory franchises appeared all over the United States through the 1970s). Proficient in several string instruments, Waters played with the Honolulu Ambassadors, specializing in Hawaiian music, in nightclubs and probably on radio. By the late 1940s, Waters hosted his students on WTAC radio Flint.
Chuck Rich said, “Russ Waters … had a radio show at noon on WTAC in Flint. … Russ would have his students on there. It’d be Terry [Bethel] and me, and Chuck Adams and Jim Baker, and we’d play the theme song. Then we’d all gather around [and play].” The boys played instrumental music, trading steel guitars for standard guitars and string basses with each tune, during the program. “It was just a big jam session all day long, after the radio [show]. And then there’d be things through the week … It was a good learning process,” he said. [2]
Terry Bethel clarified the group of teen-aged and pre-teen students played Moose lodges and other social halls, as well as supermarket openings, corporate functions, and at car dealerships in the Flint region. [3]
Jim Baker remembered Waters as a kind and patient man who gave much of himself to help his students succeed. His wife Sudie offered, “Russ Waters once said, ‘If I never did anything else in my life, at least I turned out a good bunch of steel guitarists.'” [4]
During the late 1940s and 1950s, Waters played steel guitar in “Smiling” Max Henderson‘s group. Henderson emceed TV and radio in Detroit and Flint, and wrote a column for the C&W magazine Rustic Rhythm. Waters can be heard playing tasteful licks on Henderson’s early 1950s recordings for Serenade Records.
Around 1955, Waters purchased the Honolulu Conservatory and continued teaching. When he left behind family and friends on January 16, 1962, Waters had taught music in Flint for 27 years.
Russ Waters’ former students Jim Baker, Chuck Rich, and Terry Bethel all played in Casey Clark’s Lazy Ranch Boys in Detroit. You can read about it in the book, “Detroit Country Music: Mountaineers, Cowboys, and Rockabillies.” On Tuesday, March 4, 2014, Craig Maki and Keith Cady will present an overview of 20th century country music in Detroit, as well as an in-depth examination of the history and personnel of the Lazy Ranch Boys, at the Livonia Public Library Civic Center Branch. See you there!
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Notes
- Russell B. Waters obituary, January 1962. Source: Newspaper clipping courtesy Jim Baker
- Chuck Rich interviewed by Keith Cady in 2002.
- Terry Bethel interviewed by Keith Cady in 2003.
- Jim and Sudie Baker interviewed by Keith Cady and Craig Maki in 2007.
In the introduction to the book, “Detroit Country Music: Mountaineers, Cowboys, and Rockabillies,” I noted that a very good singer and popular cowboy entertainer named Happy Hank broadcast over WJR radio Detroit, Michigan, during the 1940s. Other local cowboys, such as Smilin’ Red Maxedon (who also appeared on WJR) and Sagebrush Shorty, proved popular with young listeners and TV viewers after World War II, but Happy Hank’s legacy has been well-preserved (and well-deserved) in the 21st century. In this piece, you can link to a website that includes transcriptions of many of Happy Hank’s sparkling fifteen-minute radio broadcasts, originally sponsored by the Little Crow Milling Company of Warsaw, Indiana, makers of Coco-Wheats cereal.
Happy Hank began life in 1903 as Marcus Dumont Williams, born south of Dallas, Texas, in Ellis County. By the time he reached his twenties, Marc Williams had worked as a cowboy, entertained as the “Cowboy Crooner” on early Dallas-Fort Worth radio station KRLD, and attended classes at university (sources have noted University of Texas and Southern Methodist University). He entertained at public appearances across North Texas, and made dozens of records for the Brunswick and Decca labels from 1928 to 1936.
According to historian Kevin Fontenot, Williams’ most successful records included the traditional ballads “Cole Younger,” “Jesse James,” and “Sioux Warriors.” “Williams possessed a smooth singing style that contrasted sharply with the roughhewn sound of early cowboy singers … As a result he forms a bridge between those artists and later silver screen cowboys such as Gene Autry,” wrote Fontenot. Indeed, Williams’ vocals sounded as if he presented the experience of the early American cowboy with a refined vaudeville approach. [1]
Through the 1930s, Williams worked as a solo and led groups on radio and stage. In 1931 he appeared on the Great Northern Railway’s “Empire Builders” radio program broadcast from Chicago, Illinois. [2] It’s likely Williams developed the Happy Hank show during the World War II era. Precisely when he moved north remains a mystery, although he reportedly lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, before moving to Detroit.
According to Broadcasters magazine, the Happy Hank children’s program began Jan. 31, 1944, with an initial contract for fifty-two weeks of shows. By February, nineteen stations across the United States broadcast the production. [3] One year later, Billboard magazine mentioned Happy Hank as a “transcription personality show” on WJR radio’s early morning programming. The broadcast aired at 7:45 a.m., “aimed directly at kids getting up for school.” [4]
Happy Hank’s theme
Smile when you wake up
And start out the day
By laughing your troubles away
Don’t frown or worry
It won’t help a thing
The best way is tune right up and sing
When Old Man Trouble troubles you
Just put him in his place
I found out the thing to do
Is laugh right in his face
Just smile when you wake up
Be happy and gay
And laugh all your troubles away [5]
Happy Hank’s productions flowed brilliantly with nonstop music, allegories, riddles, sing-alongs, cowboy story serials, commercials for Coco-Wheats, and in-home visits to listeners via “the electric eye” which he used to check the hygiene of his kiddie audience through the radio.
Detroit area disk jockey and country crooner Andy Barron remembered putting on his clothes to the “Dressing Race” song (which Happy Hank sang to encourage children to dress themselves in the morning) when he was a child. You can hear Andy sing it and reminisce about Happy Hank via the link on this page.
Listen to Andy Barron recall Happy Hank’s ‘Dressing Race’
Visit www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com to hear original transcriptions of Happy Hank’s radio show (1945-48) – including Happy Hank’s version of the “Dressing Race” and many other clever tunes. A collection of Marc Williams’ 1930s cowboy records was issued by Jasmine Music on CD in 2004. Click here for details.
Marc Williams attended Wayne State University in Detroit, and graduated with a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1960. [6] Across America, most early morning programming for children had moved to television by then. In a 1973 interview for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Williams revealed he attempted moving Happy Hank to TV during the 1950s, but the transition was unsuccessful. Around 1971 Williams returned to Fort Worth, where he continued practicing law. He died suddenly in 1974, and was buried in a family cemetery plot in Midlothian, Texas.
Special thanks: Kevin Coffey, Kevin Fontenot, and Andy Barron
****************************************************
Notes
- Kevin S. Fontenot “WILLIAMS, MARC,” Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fwick), accessed 2016. Uploaded on March 18, 2015. Modified on November 1, 2015. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
- ”Empire Builders Radio: 300929 – The Hill Trail” (http://empire-builders-radio.blogspot.com/2015/09/300929-hill-trail.html), accessed 2016. Uploaded September 2015.
- ”Radio Advertisers” Broadcasting (Feb. 21, 1944) 36.
- H.F. Reves “Second Look at Motor City Air – CBS Outlet, WJR, Next” Billboard (Feb. 3, 1945. Vol. 27, No. 5) 10.
- Words and music by Marc Williams. Copyrighted and published by Joe Davis, Inc.
- ”Commencement 1960” The Wayne State Law Journal (May 1960. Vol. VIII, No. 3) 26.
We went to King Records and they gave us quite a tour, and we talked with them some. Nothin’ ever come of it. We didn’t try too hard at that time. [laughs] – Skeet Ring [1]
Despite the nation’s economic recession, 1949 was a banner year for the three-year-old Fortune Records company in Detroit. Billboard magazine reviewed several country platters that Fortune issued by Detroit artists, including the first commercial disks by Roy Hall, Lawton “Slim” Williams, Earl and Joyce Songer, Jeff Durham, and Eddie Jackson. Among Fortune’s 1949 country-western records appeared the only one ever made by Lowell Otis “Skeet” Ring. Ring’s disk was also the last commercial record made by a country music pioneer.
Born 1926 in Black Rock, Arkansas, a small town on the Black River, which flows into the Mississippi, Ring came of age during the Great Depression, when live music – usually made at home in rural areas – figured prominently as entertainment. “I had a grandfather that played the fiddle. … He was pretty good on it,” said Ring.
When the United States entered World War II, Ring headed to Detroit, to work in a defense plant. “I was [classified] 4-F [by] the Army. … I wanted to do something for the war effort,” he said. Ring found work manufacturing artillery shells. With money saved from his factory job, Ring bought a guitar and began picking and singing around the house. He often jammed with guitarist Tracey White, who lived next door in a community of workers from the South surrounding Grand Boulevard and Woodward Avenue.
Hillbilly Swingsters
After the war ended, Ring trained to become a millwright. He and two friends from East Tennessee worked during the week and played music on weekends at the Pullman Bar in Highland Park. It was located on Manchester, across the street from a Ford Motor Company facility. The stage included chicken wire fencing to prevent flying bottles from striking entertainers when fights broke out. “They just sold beer,” said Ring. “They didn’t sell liquor at that time.” He called the band the Hillbilly Swingsters, and the trio included guitarist Les Bonine, who had moved from Knoxville, where he had worked at a radio station.
The Hillbilly Swingsters’ bass man, Sam “Dynamite” Hatcher, also came from Knoxville. A vocalist and harmonica player, Hatcher sang “Wabash Cannonball” and other numbers with Roy Acuff and his Crazy Tennesseans at a 1936 session for the American Recording Company. “He done all the singin’ for Roy, when Roy first started,” said Ring. “Roy didn’t think he could sing [well], so Sam done the singing. … He was a good singer. We kinda took turns singing.” [2]
Hatcher left the Crazy Tennesseans in 1938, when Acuff moved the group to WSM radio Nashville and changed the band’s name to the Smokey Mountain Boys. In Detroit, Hatcher mostly sang popular C&W songs from the 1930s such as “Little Red Wagon,” and “Freight Train Blues,” another tune he cut with the Crazy Tennesseans. Ring, with his baritone, gravitated to songs by Ernest Tubb.
On top of the world
When the men heard of Fortune Records in 1949, they recorded and paid for the manufacture of a few hundred records. They cut an up-tempo version of the blues standard “Sitting On Top Of The World” backed with a song that Bonine and his sister wrote, “Sunset Beau.” A jazz pianist who sounded like Bobby Stevenson added a pop feel to the session. [3] Fortune’s public relations agent promoted the disk, distributing samples to jukebox vendors and disk jockeys in the region.
“I heard it a lot on WEXL,” said Ring, referring to the Royal Oak radio station. He recalled disk jockey Brother Bill, a.k.a. Guy Bowman, spinning the record on his “Hillbilly Hit Parade” show at WJBK radio Detroit. The band visited Cincinnati, Ohio, to meet famous country music disk jockey Nelson King at WCKY radio. While in Cincinnati, they visited King Records facilities, but never pursued a deal with the company.
Listen to: Skeet Ring & the Hillbilly Swingsters – Sitting On Top Of The World
Sunset bow
Besides working at the Pullman bar on weekends, the band visited local jamborees and played private parties. “We would pick up, at different times, other players … steel players,” said Ring, who remembered working some gigs with Dwight Harris. Harris played Hawaiian steel in the manner of Jerry Byrd. The Hillbilly Swingsters continued gigging across Southeast Michigan until the mid-1950s.
“We were playing a wedding out around Romeo,” said Ring. “We got done singing, and [Hatcher] said he was having a hard time. … Said he had a bump on his tongue. And he goes to the doctor, and the doctor just cuts it off, so they could examine it. It turned out to be cancer, and he didn’t live very long. … [The band] just about dried up, then.” Hatcher was about thirty-two years old when he died.
Ring worked jobs across the United States and Europe, but not as a musician. “I worked construction as a millwright,” said Ring. “I worked all over, back then, … in different states. I worked out of the country a couple of times … Belgium.”
In 1964 Ring was sent to a job site in Nashville, near a television broadcast studio. “I got to know Roy Acuff pretty well,” he said. “We sat around and drank coffee around the coffee machine there, in the recording studio. Of course, we had a lot to talk about, because of Sam.”
He lived in Westland, a Detroit suburb, for thirty-five years before retiring and moving to Northern Michigan woods. Skeet Ring died January 2010, in Big Rapids.
******************************************
Notes
- Lowell Otis “Skeet” Ring interviewed by Keith Cady in 2004.
- Frank “Red” Jones also sang and recorded with the Crazy Tennesseans. Until 1938, Acuff sang but a few songs per show, sharing vocals with Jones and Hatcher. When Acuff moved the band to Nashville, Hatcher chose to stay in Knoxville, before heading to Detroit.
- Bobby Stevenson led a trio in jazz nightclubs and worked with the WXYZ orchestra in Detroit. He played occasionally on country recording sessions during the late 1940s.
Fans of longtime Detroit resident and country music bandleader Forest Rye are smiling at the thought of recordings they hadn’t heard before.
A record I’d never seen on the short-lived Alben label turned up recently. Detroit juke box and vending machine operator Ben Okum and his business partner Al Smith created the Alben Records Company in 1948. Okum issued the first version of Jimmy Work’s “Tennessee Border” on Alben 501 late that year (see “Detroit Country Music: Mountaineers, Cowboys, and Rockabillies” for Work’s story). Alben pressed a couple of other records, with red and silver labels, for the Rhythm and Blues market, but the label of the record in question had the blue and silver color scheme of Work’s record, and a catalog number of 601.
The artist’s name, Uncle Ruye, caught my eye because it appeared to be an alternative spelling of “Rye” – and Forest Rye was known to record under another name, Conrad Brooks, for records on Universal, Hot Wax, and Mellow. Furthermore, one side was titled “Crying My Eyes Out,” a song that Mercury Records issued in 1951 by Rye.
I Smiled At Her – Uncle Ruye and his Sage Hollow Boys
Crying My Eyes Out – Uncle Ruye and his Sage Hollow Boys
“The ‘I Smiled At Her (She Smiled At Me)’ song was sung to me by my cousin Katherine … She remembered it from when she was a young girl,” she said. [1]
Probably recorded in 1949, the Alben disc may have been an audition of sorts for Rye. Ben Okum developed ties with Mercury Records around that time, and Rye recorded a new version of “Crying My Eyes Out” along with three other originals for the Chicago-based label around 1950-51. [2]
Click here to read my original account of Forest Rye in Detroit.
*************************************
Notes
- Linda (Rye) Austin interviewed March 3, 2014
- “Crying My Eyes Out” b/w “After All These Years” Mercury 6328; “Midnight Boogie Blues” b/w “Won’t You Give Me A Little Loving” Mercury 6329
- Source: Advertisement for Boy Scouts benefit show at Saline High School in Saline, Michigan. Saline Observer. (Thursday, April 24, 1947. Vol. 64, No. 29) 2.
I was born to be a bluegrass picker and I really don’t know why I done that [rock’n’roll sessions in Detroit]. [Jack Brown] liked my singin’ and he called in a voice lady to train my voice a little bit. He told me, “Now go in there and sing just like you always sing.” I sang high and low … and she said, “I can’t teach him nothin’! He knows more about it than I do.” — Jimmy Lee Williams [1]
When Jimmy Lee Williams took a job in an auto factory in 1955, he was known among country musicians for playing mandolin with the Stanley Brothers, Mac Wiseman, and the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers. In Detroit, his friends called him “Big Jim Williams” due to his tall stature, but decades later, the name on his records for Michigan’s Fortune and Clix labels made him famous around the world as “Jimmy Lee.”
* * * *
Born on Leap Day, 1932, in Wythe County, Virginia, near the Tennessee border, Williams listened to the region’s string band music on his grandparents’ battery-powered radio, and it inspired him to learn fiddle, mandolin and guitar. His cousin Paul Humphrey (a.k.a. Paul Williams) lived a mile up the road, and the boys often got together to pick and sing. After winning a talent contest at their high school in 1949, WMEV radio host Cousin Zeke hired Williams and Humphrey to perform at his station, located one county over in Marion, Virginia. Late in 1950, the boys rode a bus north to Bluefield, West Virginia, where Ezra Cline was holding auditions for his Lonesome Pine Fiddlers. When Cline asked what they called their act, the boys replied, “The Williams Brothers.” According to Humphrey: “We were on WHIS [radio]. It was 5,000 watts … which was pretty good. … We was on there every morning. Jimmy and Paul, the Williams Brothers, and Ezra Cline and the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers. We did that almost two years. [Then] Jimmy went to work with Mac Wiseman. [The Lonesome Pine Fiddlers] had already auditioned for RCA-Victor and got the contract. That’s why it hurt so bad when Jimmy left, ’cause we had some stuff worked up.” [2]
Wiseman held a show at Bluefield’s Glenwood Park, and Williams replaced Ted Mullins on mandolin a few days after Wiseman’s appearance. Williams performed and recorded (for Dot Records) with Wiseman’s Country Boys until 1952, when he joined the Stanley Brothers (Carter and Ralph) at WCYB radio in Bristol, Tennessee. Besides working the road and radio, the Stanley Brothers cut several sides for Mercury Records while Williams was on board.
Halfway rock’n’roll
In 1955, Williams tired of traveling with the Stanley Brothers and called his brother, who worked for General Motors’ Cadillac factory in Detroit. With his wife and young son, Williams moved to Michigan and started work the morning after he arrived. Outside of the factory, he looked for opportunities to pick with local musicians and jammed with Jimmy Martin, the York Brothers, Frank Wakefield, Ford Nix, Bill Napier [3] and others, but didn’t join any groups.
One day in 1956, Williams met Fortune Records owner Jack Brown and cut a record for the label. Shortly after that session (possibly later that year, or in early 1957), Williams cut another two songs and handed that tape to John Henson of Troy, Michigan, for the earliest-known record issued on his Clix label.
Earlier that year, East Tennessee native Buster Turner cut an unorthodox bluegrass record with electric guitar for Brown (“That Old Heartbreak Express,” Fortune 187) in Detroit. [4] A few weeks later, Brown issued Williams’ first solo record, which sounded like bluegrass musicians playing rhythm and blues. Williams said the musicians he recorded with — at both sessions — were unknown to him, and the music on his records surprised his friends.
At the Fortune studio, located in a seedy section of Third Street, Williams set aside his mandolin for a flattop guitar, and recorded his songs “You Ain’t No Good For Me” and “Sad And Lonely.” Drenched in tape echo, both songs featured electric guitar and a snare drum. In the previous two years, rock’n’roll records steadily gained ground in popularity, and some country musicians, usually with encouragement from their record companies, experimented with the trend. In 1954, Elvis Presley’s first record included a remake of bluegrass monarch Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon Of Kentucky” with a boogie beat, and rockabilly musician Charlie Feathers, Presley’s neighbor in Memphis, Tennessee, once declared that the rockabilly style was a combination of bluegrass and “cotton patch blues.” [5]
“I knew rock’n’roll was goin’ real big,” said Williams. “I said, ‘Well, mine’s halfway rock’n’roll … and I don’t know what the rest of it is!’ I had a big ol’ guitar with leather wrapped around, and I had my name wrote on it (Jimmy Lee). That record played pretty good there, in Royal Oak [on WEXL radio]. One of the announcers (I think he was pulling my leg a little bit) said, ‘Hey man, that sounds a whole lot like Elvis!’ But I got better sense than that. I just cut the record, and on the side I was pickin’ bluegrass. I never did try to do anything with it.”
In October 1956, a record reviewer at Detroit’s Teen Life newspaper wrote the following: “Another recording artist joining the Elvis Presley gold rush is Jimmy Lee on Fortune. Jimmy is a little high for Elvis. He hits some real high soprano notes that sound like Nolan Strong.” [6]
In lyrics and feeling, his songs express emotions related to separation and isolation, feelings that he may have experienced when he left the Stanley Brothers and moved from the South to work within the confines of a Detroit factory. Compared to mainstream music of 1956, Williams’ performances sound introspective and dark. Williams’ vocal begins low and hits the ceiling during the refrain of “You Ain’t No Good For Me.” The song presents a dialog between a man and a woman (all sung by Williams), with her defiant response to his menacing verses sung as the high part in the refrain.
Second verse:
If you don’t want a lickin’ better sit right down,
Stop that lookin’ at me with that fra-ha-hown
Refrain:
[low] Baby
[high] I-I-I-I don’t wanna
[low] Baby, you ain’t no good for me [7]
Listen to the entire song here.
While his Fortune disk received little attention, the Clix record fared worse. However, it represents an imaginative exploration of rock’s combinatorial possibilities, being one of the first mixed-race rock’n’roll sessions in town. A black vocal group backed Williams and his bluegrass vocal style, along with saxophone, drums, electric guitar, bass, and piano. [8]
One song, “She’s Gone,” features a danceable, uptempo beat, but Williams begins with a startling wail of despair. The refrain ends with, “I’ll never see my darling / She left me all alone.” [9] Listen to the song here.
The flip side, “Baby, Baby, Baby” is a slow blues with a desperate, pleading delivery by Williams trying to convince his woman to return to him. He sings softly, but with a nervous energy that sounds barely contained.
From here to yonder
After the sortie into rock’n’roll, Williams continued building Cadillac cars and picking bluegrass. Then his life took another abrupt turn: “My health got real bad and a preacher came to visit me at the hospital there, in River Rouge. He invited me to come to his church. I told him I didn’t have good enough clothes. He said, ‘You don’t have to worry about that. Just come on.’ I went to his church and gloriously got saved. From that I started writing songs, and went from here to yonder,” said Williams.
Williams listened regularly to country disk jockey and musician Red Ellis on WHRV radio Ann Arbor. One afternoon Ellis aired a Stanley Brothers record on which Williams had played mandolin, so Williams gave him a call. Soon after, the two men teamed up to play and write religious music. From 1958 to 1961, they performed all over Southeast Michigan. With Ford Nix on banjo and Bob Stiltner on bass (who Williams met during his time with the Stanley Brothers), the group recorded more than 30 songs for Starday Records, issued on several extended-play singles and two albums. They also cut singles for local labels such as Pathway, and Happy Hearts.
Williams said he “tore the sheet with brother Ellis” in 1961, and moved back to Bluefield. “I felt the callin’ to go out and preach,” he said. He started a group called Jimmy Williams and the Shady Valley Boys at WHIS radio. From there, he began his evangelistic work. Eventually Williams moved his family to Florida, but he returned to Michigan and cut a couple of high-energy bluegrass gospel albums with Ellis in the early 1970s for Jessup Records of Jackson, Michigan.
By now, Williams’ solo efforts for Fortune and Clix have reached the ears of rock’n’roll and rockabilly music fans around the world. While those records seemed full of raw, emotional yearnings for better times, Jimmy Lee Williams spent his later life communicating spiritual joy with a contagious fervor in his performances, which he kept up until his passing in 2012.
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Notes
- Jimmy Lee Williams interviewed by Keith Cady in 2002.
- Paul Williams interviewed by Keith Cady in 2002. After the Williams Brothers episode, Paul Humphrey was known as Paul Williams for the rest of his career.
- Bill Napier moved to Detroit in 1954 and played mandolin with Curly Dan Holcomb (he later formed an act with his wife: Curly Dan and Wilma Ann) while working in the auto industry. Williams suggested that Napier try out for the Stanley Brothers band, and four months after his first audition, Napier joined them for a spell that lasted until 1960. He went on to work with several others, including Charlie Moore during the 1960s. Napier died in 2000.
- In a 2001 interview, Buster Turner told Keith Cady about playing bluegrass music in Detroit. “We had an electric guitar added in, to play a little more country … slow dancing. Up there [in Detroit], you couldn’t hardly get a job in a bar where they had dancing, if you played bluegrass. But if you had an electric guitar … you could play a little slower music like ‘Tennessee Waltz’ and stuff. That’s the way it was back then, with bluegrass.”
- “Now let me tell you where rockabilly comes from. It comes from the cotton patch blues, and from bluegrass.” Charlie Feathers quoted by Ben Sandmel from his liner notes to the “Charlie Feathers” Elektra Nonesuch (American Explorers) 9 61147-2, 1991 compact disc.
- “Variety Key In New Crop Of R&R Tunes” Teen Life (Oct. 19, 1956) 3. Nolan Strong was the lead singer of a Detroit-based rhythm and blues vocal group called the Diablos, who also recorded for Fortune Records.
- “You Ain’t No Good For Me” (Jimmy Williams) Trianon Publications (Fortune 191, 1956)
- Detroit-based record collector Cappy Wortman once speculated that Williams’ Clix sides were made at the Fortune Records studio with the Five Dollars vocal group.
- “She’s Gone” (Jimmy Williams) True Tone Publishing (Clix 100, 1957)
- Bond, Marilyn, and S. R. Boland. The Birth of the Detroit Sound: 1940-1964. Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2002.
