To millions of younger country music fans, David Akeman, better known as Stringbean, was one of the comedy powerhouses of the Grand Ole Opry and television's Hee Haw, of which he was one of the original cast members. As a banjo player, however, his work goes back to the 1940s and a three-year stint with Bill Monroe.
Akeman was born to a farm family in Annville, in Jackson County, KY, and he became interested in music at an early age -- no surprise there, since not only did his father play the banjo at local dances, but he was surrounded by players of considerable skill in his local community, from all of whom he learned the banjo.
He built his first homemade instrument at age seven out of a shoebox and thread borrowed from his mother, and by the time he was 12 he traded a pair of prize bantams he had raised for a real banjo. He was already making the rounds of local dances and developing a reputation on the instrument, but not earning a living. Akeman spent time working for the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps, building roads and planting trees.
Then he entered a talent contest that was being judged by singer-guitarist-musical saw player Asa Martin, and won. He joined Martin's band, and during one performance the bandleader stumbled over Akeman's name and, unable to remember it, introduced him to the crowd as String Beans. With his tall, lanky frame, the name was a natural and it stuck.
At first, Akeman only played banjo in the group, but when another performer failed to turn up for a show, he was pressed into service as a singer and comic, and the act caught on. From that day forward, Akeman divided his time between comedy and music, along with some success as a semipro baseball player. He also broadcast on WLAP out of Lexington, KY, and played with various groups during the late '30s.
At the time, the banjo had virtually disappeared from country music, and it was old-time players like Akeman who helped keep it alive.
Curiously enough, it was as a sandlot ballplayer -- and not a banjo player -- that Akeman first came to the attention of Monroe, who fielded a private semipro team. It wasn't too long before Monroe learned of Akeman's other talents, and in the early '40s David became a full-fledged member of Bill's group, where he remained from 1943 until 1945, playing on such recordings as Goodbye Old Pal.
Akeman also spent some of his time during this period teamed with Willie Egbert Westbrook as String Beans and Cousin Wilbur, a comedy duo, who often worked on the same bills with Monroe's outfit.
Akeman left Monroe in 1945 -- his replacement was Earl Scruggs, a banjo player with a radically different technique. That same year, he married Estelle Stanfill.
During 1946, he first began working with Grandpa Jones (Louis Marshall Jones), a fellow old-time banjo player with a penchant for comedy. During the late '40s, Akeman also formed a team with Lew Childre and became a regular performer on the Grand Ole Opry. By this time, he'd adopted the costume by which he became best known to the public, a nightshirt and pants that made him look like a very tall man with very short legs.
This kind of costume had many antecedents, including Slim Miller, a onetime stage comedian who was said to be Akeman's direct inspiration.
After the war, Akeman also became a protégé of Uncle Dave Macon, one of the biggest stars of the Grand Ole Opry. Macon, who died in 1952, was a banjo-player/comic and one of the Opry's most beloved performers.
He took Akeman under his wing, telling him stories and jokes and playing him songs, and toward the end of his life he gave Akeman one of his own banjos.
Akeman was known by this time as Stringbean, and he was one of the Opry's top stars throughout the 1950s. Oddly enough, he didn't begin recording on his own until the early '60s, when he signed to the Starday label.
By that time, Scruggs had emerged as the dominant figure in banjo playing, especially among younger listeners, but Akeman still had an audience for his older style of playing and his mixture of cornball comedy and song. He had hits with Chewing Gum and I Wonder Where Wanda Went and recorded seven albums between 1961 and 1972. The first of those albums, Old Time Pickin' Grinnin' with Stringbean (1961), was one of the best of these, representing his repertory of the era -- folk songs (especially humorous animal songs), tall stories, jokes -- although several of his subsequent albums are also worth hearing, most notably Salute to Uncle Dave Macon (1963) and Old Time Banjo Picking and Singing (1964).
Akeman and Jones became the two biggest exponents of old-time banjo playing during this era.
Akeman remained a star of the Opry for the rest of his life, and in 1969 he and Jones became founding members of the cast of the television series Hee Haw. He became an instant hit, his lanky figure and bewildered expression, coupled with self-deprecating one-liners, making Akeman one of the most popular members of the cast.
All of this ended tragically for Akeman and his wife, Estelle, on November 10, 1973. They returned home from a performance at the Opry and surprised a pair of burglars who shot the banjoman dead on the spot and pursued and killed his wife. It was Jones who found the bodies the next day, and the murders sent shock waves through the Nashville community.
The subsequent capture and life sentences imposed on the killers -- two brothers -- did little to assuage the anger that Akeman's colleagues and friends felt. His memory lives on in the Monroe songs on which he played and the relative handful of his own recordings that have surfaced.
FLORENCE COLE-TALBERT was a pioneer black concert and operatic soprano.
Cole was born in Detroit, graduated from the Chicago Music College in 1916, and made her professional debut at Aeolian Hall (New York) in 1918. She was married to pianist-director Wendell P. Talbert.
Cole-Talbert went to Europe in 1924, where she was acclaimed for her performance in the role of Aïda. She returned to the United States in 1927.
Cole-Talbert became a subject of controversy in the 1980s, when Brian Rust suggested in his Complete Entertainment Discography that she used the pseudonym Flo Bert for popular recordings on Gennett and Paramount.
Careful research by Quentin Riggs and others, however, has since revealed that Flo Bert (who was a contralto, not a soprano, and whose style bears no perceptible resemlance to Cole-Talbert's) was a white vaudeville performer whose appearances were documented in Variety and other entertainment papers of the day.
Cole-Talbert had at least one title issued on the Broome label (the first black-owned record label) that might predate her Black Swan releases. Black Swan issued three Cole-Talbert sides (single-sided 7103 and double-sided 7104) in March 1922, all of which were later reissued by Paramount.
One of her Black Swan masters was also issued on the mail-order National Music Lovers label under the pseudonym Maria Pecelli.
1902 Chris Columbus, Drums, b. Greenville, NC, USA, USA, d.
Aug. 20, 2002, New Jersy, USA, Worked with Louis Jordan, Wild Bill Davis, Duke Ellington and Floyd Smith.
The controversy over who discovered America doesn't touch this historical American jazz figure, whose full name was Joseph Morris Christopher Columbus.
He sometimes appears in credits as Joe Morris, but shouldn't be mistaken with the free jazz guitar player of the same name. This Joe Morris, and we'll stick to Chris Columbus from here on in and never mind the wrath of Queen Isabella, is an early 20th century jazz figure, although he kept playing well into the '70s, the decade as well as his age at the time. He also founded something of a musical dynasty, fathering jazz musician Sonny Payne.
Columbus was active as a bandleader for two decades beginning in the early '30s, including a residency at the Savoy Ballroom when it was the hippest music spot in town. From the mid-40s until 1952, he was a regular member of Louis Jordan's wailing combos, laying down a beat that is at times positively frightening; hence song titles such as Brother, Beware. (Actually, the song is a warning about women, not rhythms).
As rock music began to explode in the early '60s, Columbus was playing the funky organ combo of Wild Bill Davis. It was a sound that was considered old-fashioned at the time, and all involved were unconcerned about that opinion and unaware that their sound would be revived as an example of hip acid jazz rhythms in the 21st century. In 1967, he worked with Duke Ellington, including a plethora of recording credits.
The following decade, the drummer decided to take over band leadership duties again, although he took time out to tour Europe with his old boss, Davis, in 1972. While the tour lingered in France, he took part in several different recording sessions involving mainstream veterans such as trombonist Al Grey, organist Milt Buckner, and the legendary Chicago guitarist Floyd Smith, a regular playing partner of Columbus' in the Davis trios. In several interviews, the drummer chose a '50s live recording with Davis, Wild Bill Davis at Birdland, as the high point of his recording career.
Red Foley was one of the biggest stars in country during the post-war era, a silky-voiced singer who sold some 25 million records between 1944 and 1965 and whose popularity went far in making country music a viable mainstream commodity. Born Clyde Julian Foley on June 17, 1910, in Blue Lick, KY, he began playing guitar and harmonica at a young age, and by the time he was 17 had taken first prize in a statewide talent competition. While attending college in 1930, he was spotted by a talent scout from Chicago's WLS radio and was tapped to sing with producer John Lair's Cumberland Ridge Runners, the house band on the program National Barn Dance.
After seven years with the Ridge Runners, Lair created a new show, Renfro Valley Barn Dance, especially to showcase Foley's talents. The singer remained with the program until late 1939, performing everything from ballads to boogie to blues. At the same time, he became the first country artist to host his own network radio program, Avalon Time (co-hosted by comedian Red Skelton), and performed extensively in theaters and clubs and at fairs.
After exiting the Renfro Valley Barn Dance, Foley returned for another seven-year stint at the National Barn Dance show. In 1941, the same year he made his film debut with Tex Ritter in the Western The Pioneers, he signed a lifetime contract with Decca Records. His first chart single, 1944's Smoke on the Water, topped the charts for 13 consecutive weeks; in 1945, he was the first major performer to record in Nashville.
In 1946, Foley signed on to emcee and perform on The Prince Albert Show, a segment of the Grand Ole Opry program broadcast on NBC; his popularity with listeners is often credited with establishing the Opry as country's pre-eminent radio show. Beginning in 1947, he began recording with his backing band, the Cumberland Valley Boys, earning another number one single with New Jolie Blonde (New Pretty Blonde). With the group, he recorded seven Top Five hits between 1947 and 1949, including Tennessee Saturday Night, a chart-topper in 1948.
Again recording solo in 1950, he issued the song that would become his trademark tune, Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy, which stayed in the number one position for 13 weeks.
In 1951, Foley's second wife, Judy Martin (born Eva Overstake), committed suicide, reportedly over the singer's affair with another woman. In order to devote the majority of his time to raising a family, he cut back considerably on his performing commitments, although he continued to release hit after hit in a variety of musical styles, including rockabilly and R B; (There'll Be) Peace in the Valley (For Me), a 1951 smash, was the first record ever to sell one million copies on the gospel charts.
In the same year, he also released his first LP, Red Foley Souvenir Album. After several years spent in virtual retirement, in 1954 Foley was named to host The Ozark Jubilee, a country showcase for ABC television; the show was a hit, and ran through 1960. Also in 1954, he recorded the chart-topping One By One, the first of many duets with Kitty Wells.
After The Ozark Jubilee went off the air, he spent one season co-starring with Fess Parker in the program Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Although Foley continued recording throughout most of the 1960s, his hit-making days were largely behind him.
In 1967, he was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame. After a performance in Fort Wayne, IN, on September 19, 1968, Foley died of a heart attack. Among the survivors were his daughter Betty, a popular country vocalist in her own right, and another daughter Shirley, the wife of pop crooner Pat Boone.
Biography by Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr.
Born in the small town of Phoenixville, PA, in 1916, Terry Gilkyson's songs would one day create an important link during folk music's lost years, the mid-'50s.
Like many families in the '20s and '30s, music was a primary source of entertainment for the Gilkyson clan. While this influenced the young Terry to study music at the University of Pennsylvania, the formality of class work bored him and he dropped out after two years. He moved to Tucson, AZ, in 1937, working on a friend's ranch, learning to play guitar, and writing folk songs.
He joined the Army during WWII, serving briefly in the cavalry before joining the Army Air Corps where he remained until he was discharged in 1945. He returned to Pennsylvania where he took over his father's insurance business, but the dream of being a musician pulled him away from small-town life.
In 1947, Gilkyson, along with his new bride, relocated to Los Angeles, CA.
In 1948 he received his first professional job in music, operating a radio program called The Solitary Singer for the Armed Forces. During this time, and throughout his career as a singer, Gilkyson avoided controversial political and social subjects out of fear of being blacklisted during the Red Scare. He recorded The Cry of the Wild Goose in 1949, a song that became a number one hit for Frankie Laine in 1950.
He recorded two songs, On Top of Old Smoky and Across the Wide Missouri, with the Weavers, and three albums -- Folksongs, Terry Gilkyson, and Golden Minutes of Folk Music -- for Decca. He also received acting roles in a number of movies, including Star in the Dust (1956) and Slaughter Trail (1951).
In 1953, Gilkyson met Rich Dehr and Frank Miller, a duo who called themselves the Easy Riders, and the three decided to join forces.
They wrote Memories Are Made of This, a song that became a number one hit for Dean Martin, and recorded Marianne and Other Songs for Columbia in 1957. Gilkyson and the Easy Riders' ability to avert controversy served them well into the mid-'50s, a period when few folk musicians made names for themselves. The Weavers had nearly been put out-of-business by the McCarthy hearings, and the Kingston Trio would not burst on the scene with Tom Dooley until the summer of 1958.
Meanwhile, Gilkyson wrote and recorded material that became standard folk repertoire for musicians like Burl Ives, Harry Belafonte, and the New Christy Minstrels.
After forming a second version of the Easy Riders and writing Greenfields, a smash hit for the Brothers Four, Gilkyson began working for the Disney studios in the early '60s. He wrote songs for Swiss Family Robinson (1960), Savage Sam (1963), and The Jungle Book (1967), and received an Oscar nomination for The Bare Necessities.
When Disney attempted to put him on salary in the early '70s, he feared that he would lose the rights to his songs and decided to retire.
Gilkyson's three children also work in the music business. Tony has played in a number of bands, including the punk rock group X, while Eliza is an accomplished singer/songwriter.
Nancy served for 20 years as a Vice President at Warner Brothers Records. Terry Gilkyson died in Austin, TX, on October 15, 1999.
Come on Coot Do That Thing was the name of the song, and she did.
Coot Grant was the main stage name of Leola B. Pettigrew, a classic blues singer and guitarist from Alabama whose legal name became Leola Wilson following her marraige to performing partner Wesley Wilson. The pair, who ironically were born in the same year, met and began performing together in 1905 and were wed seven years later.
Pettigrew was already known as Coot Grant by this time, the name representing some kind of word play on the nickname Cutie. She had been involved in show business since she was a child, beginning as a dancer in vaudeville. Prior to the beginning of the first World War she had already toured both Europe and South Africa, sometimes appearing under the name of Patsy Hunter.
Her husband, who played both piano and organ, also performed under a variety of bizarre stage names including Catjuice Charlie, in a gross-out duo with Pigmeat Pete, as well as Kid Wilson, Jenkins, Socks and Sox Wilson.
The husband and wife, billed as Grant And Wilson, Kid and Coot and Hunter And Jenkins, appeared and recorded with top jazz artists such as Fletcher Henderson, Mezz Mezzrow, Sidney Bechet and Louis Armstrong. They performed in musical comedies, vaudeville, travelling shows and revues and in 1933 appeared in the film Emperor Jones with the famous singer Paul Robeson.
Their songwriting was certainly as important as these performing activities. The couple published some 400 songs, most famous of which is Gimme A Pigfoot , one of classic blues singer Bessie Smith's grandest hits. There seemed to be no subject this songwriting pair wouldn't touch, as evidenced by titles such as Dem Socks Dat My Pappy Wore and the unfortunately unreleased Throat Cutting Blues .
On her own, Grant also recorded country blues including some collaborations with guitarist Blind Blake in 1926. The careers of both she and her husband began to falter in the mid '30s, with the pair returning to the studios only briefly in 1938, and again a decade later when Mezzrow hired them to perform and write material for his new King Jazz label. Grant kept performing following her husband's retirement in 1948, but eventually dropped so far out of sight that to date no details have been discovered about her death.
All of the material she performed, solo and in duo with Wesley Wilson, has been reissued on archive labels such as Document.
A decent pianist who was a talented arranger, Don Kirkpatrick kept busy during the swing era. As a player, he was best-known for his long-time association with Chick Webb (off and on during 1927-37) and Don Redman (1933-37).
Kirkpatrick, who also worked with Harry White, Elmer Snowden, Zutty Singleton and Mezz Mezzrow, became a freelance arranger after leaving Webb. He wrote arrangements for many bands including those of Benny Goodman, Count Basie and Cootie Williams. Don Kirkpatrick (who never led his own band or record date) remained active as a player during the post-swing years, playing with Bunk Johnson (1947), Sidney Bechet (1951), Wilbur De Paris' New New Orleans Jazz Band (1952-55) and Doc Cheatham (late 1955) before dying at the age of 50 from pneumonia.
1899 Benny Krueger, alto and tenor sax, clarinet, d. April (Or July) 29, 1967. (some claim b.
July 17)
The saxophone has been associated so strongly with jazz for such a long time that it is probably hard to believe that there was a time prior to 1920 when the instrument had actually yet to make its appearance on a jazz record. This is where Benny Krueger comes in. Of no relation to the horrific character with knives on his fingers, this Krueger was known as a music director and orchestra leader for crooners such as Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallée.
Also an accomplished songwriter, Krueger started out on clarinet and saxophone and began working with the Original Dixieland Jazz Band in 1917, staying with the group for half a dozen years.
This combo, featuring legendary New Orleans cats such as Nick LaRocca on cornet and drummer Tony Sbarbaro, is normally credited with cutting the world's very first jazz records. While it is normally a sign of intelligence to downgrade the contributions of record producers and A R men in this genre, in the case of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band it was actually someone from the RCA Victor record company management who felt strongly that a saxophone belonged in this newly developing style.
According to historical accounts, Krueger was the record company's choice, not the band's. In fact, Krueger and his instrument were supposedly shoved down the band's throat, an unfortunate and violent image considering a saxophone is involved.
The decision was a good one, however.
Recordings such as the 1920 Palesteena were big hits, representing the onset of a process in which the saxophone would forever be identified with syncopated music and improvisation. Such is not the case with Krueger himself, however, who by the mid-'20s had evolved into a bandleader and was cutting sides such as Lovin' Sam and a version of Bye Bye Blackbird. Although operating on the periphery of jazz with an obvious overlap in both available musicians and repertoire, the Krueger style was strongly aimed at the dance band crowd.
His recording sessions were part of hyperactive production schedules, attempting to stay abreast of the latest popular recordings. Bandleaders from this scene often created alternate versions of tunes under fictitious names.
Krueger also worked steadily as a contractor for various radio stations, and by the mid-'30s had established himself deep in the valley of Vallée by becoming this superstar hitmaker's musical director.
His group also began backing up Crosby during this period, the arrangements leaving room for Krueger's alto saxophone comments. As a songwriter, Krueger specialized in the type of romantic sentimentality that has been popular since the first days of pop music.
Sunday, speaking of which, is his most prolifically covered ditty.
It shows up in an R B version by Louis Jordan and as saccharine '50s pop in the hands of Pat Boone, and was given the straight jazz treatment by one of the greatest saxophonists of all time, Lester Young. Another well-known Krueger standard is I Don't Know Why, as in I don't know why I love you like I do.
1914 Sing Miller, Piano, b.
New Orleans, LA, USA, d. May 18, 1990. né: James Edward Miller.
Among the great early Jazz musicians with whome Sing worked are Kid Sheik Colar, Thomas Valentine, The Humphrey Brothers, Jim Robinson and Polo Barnes. Sing was also a member of 'The Harmonizing Browns Quartet'.
A fixture in New Orleans for decades, Sing Miller was a minor but very competent performer.
Early on he sang with the Harmonizing Browns Quartet and played banjo before switching to piano in the late '20s. Miller spent most of his career freelancing around town, sometimes in bands (including with Percy Humphrey as early as the 1930s) and sometimes as a soloist. After a stint in the military (1942-45), Miller was a member of drummer Earl Foster's group for quite a few years (1945-61).
In the 1960s he began playing at Preservation Hall and with such New Orleans All-Stars as Kid Thomas Valentine, Kid Sheik Colar, the Humphrey Brothers, Jim Robinson and Polo Barnes. Although never a famous name, Sing Miller toured Europe as a soloist in 1979 and 1981, and recorded as a leader for Dixie (1972) and Smoky Mary (1978).
Since leaving New York in 1959, Tony Scott (a top bebop-oriented clarinetist) has been an eager world traveler who enjoys exploring the folk music of other countries.
Unfortunately, his post-1959 recordings have been few, far between, difficult-to-locate, and sometimes erratic, but Scott was an unheralded pioneer in both world music and new age.
Tony Scott attended Juilliard during 1940-1942, played at Minton's Playhouse, and then after three years in the military he became one of the few clarinetists to play bop. His cool tone (heard at its best on a 1950 Sarah Vaughan session that also includes Miles Davis) stood out from the more hard-driving playing of Buddy DeFranco.
Scott worked with a wide variety of major players (including Ben Webster, Trummy Young, Earl Bostic, Charlie Ventura, Claude Thornhill, Buddy Rich, and Billie Holiday), led his own record dates (among his sidemen were Dizzy Gillespie and a young Bill Evans) which ranged from bop and cool to free improvisations (all are currently difficult to locate), and ranked with DeFranco at the top of his field.
Unfortunately the clarinet was not exactly a popular instrument in the 1950s (as opposed to during the swing era) and Tony Scott remained an obscure name outside of jazz circles. In 1959, he gave up on the U.
S. and began extensive tours of the Far East. He played Eastern classical music, recorded meditation music for Verve, and, other than some brief visits to the U.
S, has lived in Italy since the 1970s where he has sometimes experimented with electronics.
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