Eck Robertson
Alexander Campbell " Eck" Robertson ( born November 20, 1887 in Delaney, Arkansas, † February 15, 1975 in Borger, Texas) was an American Old-time musicians. Robertson is considered - along with Henry Gilliland - as the first country musician who ever made recordings on vinyl.
- 2.1 Singles
- 2.2 albums
Life
Childhood and youth
Eck Robertson, named after a well-known Christian pastor, was born in 1887 in Delaney, Arkansas. But in 1891 the family moved to Texas, where Robertson grew up on a farm near Amarillo. With five years Robertson, learned to play the fiddle and later also ruled guitar and banjo. In 1904, Robertson went about with a Medicine Show. Here he joined the traditional fiddle tunes of his homeland with vaudeville and developed the " Texas Style " of Fiddelns, which should be relevant later for the Western Swing. In 1906 he married and settled in Texas.
Career
Already in 1910 Robertson was widely known as an entertainer. His talent as an entertainer and Fiedler already helped him in front of his recordings to an immense popularity. Robertson told jokes, stories, entertained the people with music and won fiddle contests like no other. Exactly these contests, called " Fiddler 's Contest ," made him so famous.
Together with his friend Henry C. Gilliland Robertson traveled in June 1922 to Virginia to play on a Civil War Veterans Reunion. But during the event, there was the two musicians, for whatever reason, to travel to mind, to New York City to make recordings. Gilliland knew a lawyer friend, who lived in New York and the two musicians recorded. First visited Robertson and Gilliland, still in Konföderiertentracht, the city; a day later they played in their southern uniforms before the directors of the Victor Records and managed to pique their interest. Before Robertson and Gilliland, the labels Old- Time Mountain Music and Hillbilly were ignored. Robertson played with Gilliland a few pieces, but it was the solo piece Sallie Gooden of Robertson, which was released on the A- side in March 1923. This plate is considered the commercial beginning of the genre, which was later called country music.
On March 29, 1923, almost a year later, Robertson stepped in Texas at the radio station WBAP and played the pieces Sallie Gooden and Arkansas Traveler. It was one of his first radio appearances and also one of the first rural musicians.
During the 1920s, Robertson played a no further plates. Instead, he played on the radio, on fiddle contests and was a regular guest of the "Annual Old Confederate Soldiers ' Reunions ", the event, which he and Gilliland had left in 1922 for New York. End of the decade, Robertson had engagements at the Grand Ole Opry and Ralph Peer finally convinced him in 1929 about going back into the studio. In August of the same year, Robertson played along with his wife Nettie (guitar ), daughter Daphne (guitar) and son Dueron ( Banjo) a few pieces. The following month he made with fiddler JB Cranfill his last recordings.
But Robertson continued to perform frequently, played at Barn Dances, in theaters and on the radio. In the 1960s, John Cohen visited the already gray-haired man in Amarillo, Texas, where Robertson now lived, and took up the last pieces of his life. The folk revival allowed Robertson for the last time a little awareness and a few concerts. He died in 1975 at the age of 87 years.
Discography
Singles
- Apple Blossom
- Forked Deer
- Brilliancy and Cheatum
- I, General Logan & Dominton Hornpipe
- Apple Blossom
- My Frog Is not Got No Blues
- My Experience On The Ranch
- The Arkansaw Traveler
- Sally Goodin