Country Music in Tennessee: From Hollow to Honky-Tonk

Joseph T. Wilson, a native Tennessean, has served since 1976 as executive director of the National Council for the Traditional Arts, for which he has produced numerous festivals and national and international tours by folk artists as well as recordings and radio programs. He is also coauthor with Lee Udall of Folk Festivals: A Handbook for Organization and Management. The following essay originally appeared in a Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife program guide.

Among the less jarring opinions of Tennessee's fire-breathing Parson Brownlow, editor, governor, and Rebel "ventilator," was that the state would "ever be plagued with fleas and fiddlers, singers of morose songs, and the depredations of Old Scratch." Though he clearly disapproved of it, the sour parson was right: Tennessee's favorite music is tenacious. It came in folk form with the first settlers and continues to the present in a variety of styles and contexts from country taverns to Nashville recording studios. An historical example illustrates the linkage from the earliest folk styles to the country music of today.

George Dotson and Henry Skaggs were among the first eighteenth-century "long hunters" to view the sunny glades and hazy ridges of what is now east Tennessee. Today, a community called "Meat Camp" in Watauga County, North Carolina, takes its name from the spot in the Blue Ridge where each fall these far-ranging hunters salted and stored meat before it was carried to settlements east of the mountains. One of the lowest gaps in the Alleghanies, the one they called the "Trade Gap," is five miles from Meat Camp.

Henry Skaggs sought furs beyond the Trade Gap, and his explorations reached 150 miles west into Kentucky. Daniel Boone was a later traveler here and was assisted by Skaggs and his brothers. George Dotson remained near the Trade Gap and made a farm on the Bulldog Branch of Roan's Creek. Some of his descendants still live in Trade, Tennessee, the easternmost community in the state.

George's son Reuben was born in Trade in 1765 and lived there for 104 years. Among remembrances carried by descendants is his comment, "I've lived in four states but have never moved and live in the house I was born in." (Ill-defined boundaries led the first settlers to believe they were in colonial Virginia while they were actually in North Carolina, which in turn became the short-lived State of Franklin and ultimately

Tennessee.) Reuben loved "the singing of hymns, the old ballit [ballad] songs, and the playing of the fiddle." How well he loved fiddling and dancing is documented in the minutes of the Cove Creek Baptist Church. Reuben and his wife, Sarah Green, so offended the stern brothers and sisters that they were "sited to meeting" five times between 1811 and 1820. Their promises to sin no more were accepted, but in 1823, "a report taken up against Brother Reuben Dotson and Sister Dotson his wife that they both went to a frolic and stayed all night" resulted in their exclusion from the church. This conviction, that the fiddle is the devil's box, continues among some Tennesseans, but others have resolved the ancient dispute. Among them is prominent Nashville country musician Ricky Skaggs, a devout Christian and descendant of Henry Skaggs.

The Anglicizing of names has masked the ethnicity of Tennessee's first carriers of country music. In contrast to the widely held view that the early settlers were all of "the purest English stock," George Dotson was of Ulster Irish extraction, and Henry Skaggs was descended from an English mariner. Many who crossed the mountains with the Scotch Irish and English were of German or French Huguenot descent. The latter included Tennessee's first governor, John Sevier, who, like Reuben, was a devotee of balls and frolics.

The Appalachian dulcimer, derived from the German Scheitholt and now almost an emblem of Tennessee mountain culture, was actually rare until the craft revivals of the present century. It was the fiddle that remained the favorite Tennessee instrument until recent times, but highly skilled fiddlers who could play classics like "Rack Back Davy," "Arkansas Traveller," and "Forked Deer" have always been uncommon. On the other hand, the "ballit book" and religious songbook were open to all. Huge outdoor camp-meeting revivals that began in 1801 sent a knowledge of hymnody and songbook throughout the Volunteer State in a wave of religious fervor. Within five years these songs and a new way of singing spread throughout the nation and even to Ireland and England—Tennessee's first musical influence beyond its borders.

Tennessee fiddling was modified by popular influences during the second half of the nineteenth century, principally through traveling circuses and stage shows that featured musical performers. Improved communication brought popular sheet music to the state. But the most important of these influences was the wave of minstrel performance that began in the 1840s and continued into the present century. Handmade banjos fashioned after slave prototypes were in Tennessee before the minstrels, but black face performers improved on the instrument and developed new ways of playing in ensembles that featured several instruments. The old-time string band and even its modem manifestation, the bluegrass band, is heir to minstrel instrumentation and repertoire. In this way Tennessee country folk have long been in contact with commercial forces that have modified the old ballads, fiddle tunes, and sacred music.

Uncle Dave Macon

The following essay is derived from liner notes that accompanied the 1963 Folkways recording Uncle Dave Macon (F-RF 51).

Back in 1939 Republic Studios in Hollywood, California, after sending a representative to visit the Grand Ole Opry of Radio Station WSM in Nashville, Tennessee, decided to make a motion picture of the show. Since it was impossible to get all the stars of the Grand Ole Opry of that time into one movie, the choice was narrowed down to and included Uncle Dave Macon and his son, Dorris, Roy Acuff and his Smoky Mountain Boys, with Little Rachel, and George D. Hay, "The Solemn Old Judge" from whose dream the Grand Ole Opry got its start and who for many a year thereafter controlled its destiny.

The motion picture was made in 1940 and was an immediate success. If you've missed it, watch your television programs. Ifs still being primarily shown on "Late Shows."

Uncle Dave Macon was the star of the picture. Not because he wanted to be or even tried to be. It just worked out that way. Kindliness, human understanding, humor, combined with dignity, have a way of making themselves felt. This is a description of Uncle Dave Macon.

But this is not all the story. The man and his music must be cultivated, studied, and understood, and the intense enjoyment thereafter cannot be entirely explained in words.

We started talking about Uncle Dave's motion picture first instead of giving his birth date, etc., because we wanted to tell a story as it was related to us. Biographical details can come later.

In 1940 Uncle Dave Macon was a young man of seventy years. Behind him was an eminently successful career. He was one of America's greatest folk singers. He was known and loved by millions and did not need to worry about money if the "house needed a new roof." Still he was a man of nature, of the soil upon which he was raised. He did not make a motion picture because of a need or desire for money, but because he was a folksinger—and such people must sing. But on to our story.

Uncle Dave traveled from Tennessee to California in Roy Acuff's station wagon. Before leaving home he packed one of is own home-smoked Tennessee hams in a wooden box to take along for the trip. By the time they all got to Hollywood the ham was all eaten up. So, Uncle Dave, who was about to make a picture that would net him enough to buy quite a few lumber yards, took the empty box to Roy Acuff and asked that it be carefully stowed in the wagon and taken back home because it would make a good hen's nest.

We tell this little story as an introduction to [his music], for the philosophy herein is part and parcel of his songs and his style of rendition. He had a song for everyone who has been broke, or hungry, or happy, or drunk, or in love. He touched each of these with a tender humor that never judges but only understands.

David Macon was born at Smart Station in Cannon County, Tennessee, on October 7, 1870. He sang a song about the Cannon County Hills, which was never recorded.

The words went like this:

In the Cannon County Mountains
They have bright and growing fountains,
In every hill they have a still;
But just you remember
One hundred and forty-nine days from next November,
There'll be moonshine in the Cannon County Hills

Chorus:: On those hills; those beautiful hills
There'll be moonshine in the Cannon County Hills
Bright lights on Broadway—
The sun shines bright in Dixie
But there's moonshine in the Cannon County Hills

If you want to sing this song, although Uncle Dave deviated somewhat, the music to the state song of West Virginia, "Oh! Those Beautiful Hills," fits.

He was one of a large family, which was customary in those days. The Macons were prosperous farmers admired by and a credit to their community. Still today the name of Macon is highly respected locally. The name is also known intimately throughout the South and by lovers of folk music throughout the world. World fame was the doing of "Uncle Dave," but more about this later. Suffice it to say that the Macon family remain the kind of people who make this country great.

When David was still a little boy the family moved from the farm to Nashville, Tennessee, when they had purchased and intended to operate a hotel on Brood Street. Nashville was a cultural center in those days, as it still is in the folk/country music fields as well as others. Most of the leading musical, or, for that matter, dramatic shows of the country passed through the city. Many of these entertainers often stayed at the Macons' hotel. Young David Macon was enchanted by his surroundings, the people, their stories, and their music. He acquired a five-string banjo. His friends in show business taught him how to play. Very soon he was going very well indeed although his avocation was somewhat limited by chores and school. Dave Macon attended what is now known as the Hume-Fogg High School.

All of this happened seventy-six years ago as of this writing [c. 1963]. Uncle Dave died in March 1952, at the age of eighty-two. He never retired. Just a couple weeks prior to his death he made his regular appearances at the Grand Ole Opry, Radio Station WSM, Nashville, Tennessee, and brought down the house as always.

For over sixty-six years Uncle Dave Macon, also fondly known as the "Dixie Dew Drop" or "King of the Banjo Pickers" or "King of the Hillbillies" or "The Squire of Readyville," entertained many millions of Americans by playing his three banjos (he always carried three, each tuned to a different key), and singing the old, a few of the new southern folk songs and ballads, as only he could. Over the years he lightened the burdens of these millions. He brought cheer into sickrooms, taught children to respect their parents, taught parents to love their children and each other. During the Great Depression he brought sunshine into every home that could afford a five-dollar used radio or knew someone who could. During World War II, as an old man far past normal retirement age, he not only kept up the pace but added to it by entertaining service people whenever he had a chance.

Although Uncle Dave has been purported to have enjoyed "corn liquor" throughout most of his life, he gave it up for religious convictions as brought out in his song "From Earth to Heaven," recorded on Burnswick record number 329. Be this as it may, Uncle Dave knew the Bible from front to back and back to front, as evidenced by his many religious recordings and his inimitable quotes. During his extensive travels through the length and breadth of this land, he never hesitated to lay down the banjo to preach a sermon in some little out-of-the-way community. But Uncle Dave was not only a musician, a folk artist, and a preacher; he was above all a man, an American, and an individualist. He knew both sides of the old King's English. He "shore" could cuss. But his cuss words were always appropriate and never off-color.

Above all, Uncle Dave was a man who never grew old. He was as young as eighty as most of us were or are at twenty, or thirty, or even forty or more.

At this point, we would like to quote, with permission for which we are very grateful, from a book written by George D. Hay, the Solemn Old judge of the Grand Ole Opry, and entitled "A Story of the Grand Ole Opry":

Back in about 1939, our station, WSM, received a tentative offer from Republic Studios, in Hollywood, to make a picture of the Grand Ole Opry. They dispatched a representative to Nashville to 'catch' the show and look over the situation. We asked Uncle Dave if he would mind entertaining our friend at his farm in the Cannon County Hills, knowing that the producer would get the right background and become acquainted with a true representative of the Opry. Uncle Dave was delighted. He asked his cook to prepare a real, sho' 'nuf Tennessee dinner with all of the trimmings and we drove down from Nashville on a beautiful day.

Friends, we hope some day that some of you will be fortunate enough to be Uncle Dave's guests at dinner. Until that day arrives, we fear that you will have missed a great deal in the realm of culinary art and true Southern hospitality. Uncle Dave asked the blessing and we were served a dinner which is not for sale anywhere in these United States, more is the pity. We were forced to satisfied with rich country ham, fried chicken, six or seven vegetables, done to a Tennessee turn, jelly preserves, pickles, hot corn bread and white bread. Then came the cake. Oh, well, why carry this any further …

After dinner Uncle Dave invited us to be seated under a large tree in his front yard, where we discussed the possibility of the Grand Ole Opry picture. As the producer and your reporter drove back to Nashville, that experienced executive said, "I have never met a more natural man in my life. He prays at the right time and he cusses at the right time and his jokes are as cute as the dickens." Needless to say, Uncle Dave was chosen to be one of the stars of the Opry picture. Roy Acuff and his boys and Little Rachel and the Solemn Old judge were the other representatives of the Opry in the picture which was produced in 1940 in Republic Studios by Armand Schaefer, and directed by Frank McDonald. Uncle Dave was the most popular man in the picture. Everybody loved him.

In 1932 about twenty of us, including Uncle Dave, played a large picnic in the woods of West Tennessee, promoted by a Mr. Dowland. We got there early in the morning and, on a crude bandstand, played to eight or ten thousand people throughout the day, putting on about five one-hour shows. Uncle Dave was our star and he shined forth in all of his glory that day. The next year we repeated it and for three or four years we played two picnics a year for Mr. Dowland in Tennessee and Kentucky. It was on one of these occasions that we saw Uncle Dave without a word to say—no comeback when the boys played the celebrated "badger game" on him. Usually, he thinks very quickly on his feet, but on that occasion all he could do was to say, "Shucks"!

We ran across a picture of Uncle Dave, taken when he was eighteen. He was very carefully dressed with his little coat buttoned closely be-neath his white collar and tie, topped off by a hat of soft felt, turned up in front. His banjo was in his lap. He was a city dude—no mistake about it. However, it was not until thirty years later, at the age of forty-eight, that Uncle Dave left his farm with his boys and started on his professional career as "King of the Banjo Pickers." That was twenty-seven years ago. What a career, started at an age that many of us are hunting a soft place to light for the later years.

Asked how he finally made up his mind to turn professional entertainer, Uncle Dave told us:

All of my life I had played and sung for fun. My neighbors always asked me to play at picnics and special occasions. Finally one very self-important farmer approached me and asked me to play at a party he was planning. I was very busy and a bit tired, so I thought I would stop him. I told him I would play at his party for fifteen dollars. He said, "Okay, it's a deal." It was a large affair and in the crowd was a talent scout for Loew's Theatres.

My act seemed to go over very well. When I had finished, the theatre man offered to book me at a leading theatre in Birmingham, Alabama, at several hundred dollars a week. They held me over many weeks and booked me throughout the country. I was in the show business and I have been in it ever since.

Uncle Dave has been ably assisted by his son, Dorris, who plays the guitar and sings with him occasionally. Dorris is a fine, upstanding farmer who looks after his dad under all circumstances.

Besides his son, Dorris (incidentally, Uncle Dave had seven sons, Dorris being the fifth), Uncle Dave was often joined on records, radio, and personal appearances by his close associates Sam and Kirk McGee (the McGee Brothers) and Sid Harkreader (fiddle or guitar). There was also a Mitzi Todd (fiddle) on some of the Fruit Jar Drinkers sides recorded by the Vacalion Record Corporation.

As a matter of interest to real died-in-the-wool folk collectors, Uncle Dave plays the guitar on one Vacalion record of "The Girl I Left Behind Me" with Fiddlin' Sid Harreader on the fiddle. Real "old timers" will also recall that Uncle Dave Macon could play piano as on some occasions, for variety, the Solemn Old Judge would ask Uncle Dave to sit down at the "old three-legged piano" and play "The Girl I Left Behind Me" or "Eli Green's Cake Walk," just for example.

Besides being one of America's greatest banjo players, rendering our heritage of old-time folk music in any appropriate style, Uncle Dave was also a great showman and a trick banjo artist. Many have tried to imitate his style but none have succeeded.

This is a kinda' mixed up thumbnail sketch of the Grand Old Man. This is Uncle Dave "with his gates-a-jar collar, gold teeth three banjos, great big Tennessee smile and NO MAN'S COLLAR DOES HE WEAR!" How many times have us old timers heard him introduced this way!

Norman Tinsle

Tennesseans and other Americans were "busking" for coins and selling song "ballits" generations before technology made possible a country music industry. That technology was first applied to the music of rural Americans in the 1920s and soon created audiences for recordings, radio broadcasts, and stage appearances. At first, Nashville was less important than Atlanta and Chicago as a country music center and largely ignored in the field-recording forays of commercial record companies when rural musicians first found their way onto major labels in the 1920s. A single institution, the Grand Ole Opry, made the Tennessee capital a music center. Begun in 1925 and broadcast on the static-free, clear-channel, 50,000-watt signal of WSM, it reached much of the United States. Opry founder George D. Hay, with a concern for variety, chose his acts carefully. The first was Uncle Jimmy Thompson, a fiddler with a nineteenth-century style and repertoire. Hays soon added Dr. Humphrey Bate's "hell-for-leather" string band, the minstrel-influenced banjoist Uncle Dave Macon, barbershop quartets, and, beginning in the 1930s with the addition of "western" to country music, a variety of pseudo-cowboy-style bands. Although the Opry in the early years paid virtually nothing to its artists, performers could sell stage appearances and recordings throughout the South, the Mid-Atlantic states, and much of the Midwest, as it became the apex of country music success to be a Grand Ole Opry performer.

Because so many musicians "worked out of Nashville," the first recording studios were built there. Country music with its folk roots was viewed as a specialty item for major companies, worth doing but not significant in the overall business. The best that could happen to a country music "hit" was a "cover" by a popular artist that would increase song publishing royalties. Increases in the expendable income of rural and urban blue-collar workers encouraged an annual growth of country music as an industry throughout much of the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Part of what came to be called "the Nashville sound" was much influenced by the success of a small group of musicians in Memphis in the mid-1950s. The best known were Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, John R. Cash, and Carl Perkins. Their "rockabilly" recordings merged rural Black blues and white "hillbilly" style with an electric studio sound. They, and Black artists such as Howlin' Wolf, B. B. King, and Rufus Thomas were recorded by Sam Phillips and his associates at Sun Records. The immediate popularity of the rockabillies and the later emergence of commercial rock and roll showed recordings produced in Tennessee to be far more than specialty items.

As country music in general moved further from its folk roots, the production of a Nashville record became formulaic. Sharp edges were eliminated, while the goal became a recording that could "crossover" to pop and youth markets. String sections and "doo-wah" choruses were used along with session musicians whose motto was, "Play as little as you can as well as you can."

This synthesis of blues, balladry, and string band music is still largely the music of working-class whites. Its development continues, but the past is recalled especially by well-known traditionalists such as Ricky Skaggs and Bill Monroe. Perhaps more important, much of Tennessee's country music is still for the consumption of local folk—distant from the recording industry—in fiddle contests, church meetings, house parties, and honky-tonks.

COUNTRY MUSIC IN TENNESSEE: FROM HOLLOW TO HONKY-TONK

Uncle Dave Macon

BIBLIOGRAPHY

RECORDINGS