Clayton McMichen
Clayton "Mac" McMichen ( born January 26, 1900 in Allatoona, Georgia, † January 4, 1970 ) was an American old-time country musician and later. McMichen took during his career on numerous boards and is considered a forerunner of Western swing.
McMichen began his career as a professional musician beginning of the 1920s as a traditional Old -Time Fiddler, although even then Jazz influences were evident. Between 1926 and 1931 he became a member of the band Gid Tanner and his Skillet Lickers fame, but turned away from the old musical realities of the other members and developed a more urban style with his own band.
Life
Childhood and youth
Clayton McMichen According to his family originally came from Scotland and probably wandered the beginning of the 19th century in the United States, where they located in Paulding County, Georgia, settled. Clayton McMichen was born in 1900 in the small town of Allatoona, Georgia, a small community about 40 miles northeast of Atlanta.
McMichens father was a professional violinist and Mitchell played in the city in a hotel; his repertoire included contrary to the rural environment in which the McMichens lived, especially Viennese waltz. The young McMichen learned first but not from his father the Fiddlespielen because it hid his violin in front of him and forbade him to play on it. Rather McMichen was influenced at the age of eleven years of a black musician, called the family " Uncle ". Through him McMichen was brought to the fiddle and learned his first piece, the Traditional Sally Goodin '.
McMichen then secretly practiced on the violin his father while this went to work. One day he heard McMichen play and was so impressed that he gave it its own fiddle. From this point on, it was his father and his uncle, who taught him how to play. Even local Barn Dances to which she met with the community and on which his father played from time to time, had a great influence on McMichen. 1913 pulled the McMichen family to Atlanta, where 13 -year-old McMichen took a job as an auto mechanic. In 1922, he won second place at the Atlanta Fiddlers ' Convention, a yearly Fiddle Competition. It is quite possible that McMichen came here on many musicians with whom he would collaborate later.
1922-1925: Beginnings
In the same year McMichen made her first appearance on the radio. Six months after the station WSB in Atlanta had gone on the air, McMichen appeared along with the Hometown Boys, this time consisting of the Whitten Brothers (Charles and Mike Whitten ) and the Hawkins Brothers (Boss and Ted Hawkins ), for the first time in the program the radio station. It was September 18th and McMichen had chosen for his performance jazz and pop numbers like Alabama Jubilee, Dapper Dan and The Sunshine of Your Smile - traditional breakdowns were not in sight. The same happened two days after, when McMichen and the Hometown Boys - again on WSB - gave ring Waltz, Sweet Bunch of Daisies and the famous St. Louis Blues for the best. Already at this early stage showed how far McMichens musical taste of his contemporaries differed.
The occupation of the Hometown Boys varied greatly. In the same year came the singer and guitarist Riley Puckett to McMichen and often went with them on WSB. Other members were Lowe Stokes and later Bob and Robert " Punk" Stephens. The radio shows of the band came from the audience well and gave repeatedly encouragement from the audience.
On a Fiddlers Convention in August 1923 in Macon, Georgia, the Hometown Boys each occupied the front seats. While Riley Puckett the first and Mike Whitten took second place in the guitar competition, Ted Hawkins ' top banjoist " and Charles Whitten was finished in third place in the fiddle competition, could McMichen to play on the first place. At this event McMichen also received the nickname The North Georgia Wildcat.
McMichen and the Hometown Boys were 1922-1926 one of the most popular groups on WSB and were regularly heard there, even if the number of their performances decreased with time. On 7 July 1925, the Hometown Boys made their first recordings with Alabama Jubilee, Bully of the Town, Silver Bell and Sweet Bunch of Daisies on the label OKeh Records in the Columbia Studio in Atlanta. The band consisted at this session of Clayton McMichen (fiddle ), Lowe Stokes ( fiddle), Robert " Punk" Stevens, Sr. ( banjo), and Robert Stevens, Jr. ( clarinet). The use of a clarinet Restored a reference to jazz and other popular music that McMichen preferred. Stokes was not a regular member of the band, but played on these songs, only guitar since he was a good friend McMichens and had already lived for a time with him.
McMichens first OKeh plates did not sell well and it remained his only at this label. The Hometown Boys played together then rare, especially due to Robert Stephens death. The band was involved on the way to a show in a car accident; while the members were able to save all out of the car, it looked just like this, as if no one was seriously injured. But at the same moment Stephens fell to the ground and died on the spot - his neck was broken. Stephens ' father, Robert Sr. never got over this loss of time.
1926-1930: McMichen Skillet Lickers and the
In April 1926 a new String Band was by Frank Walker, head of Columbia Records ' Old -Time Tunes Department, compiled, the next McMichen the musicians Riley Puckett (guitar), Gid Tanner (fiddle ), Fate Norris ( banjo) and McMichens Schwager Bert Layne (fiddle ) and had members. All the more paradoxical it seems that this group in the next few years was mainly known for its traditional fiddle pieces, McMichen displeased and again led to disputes. Already the first single Bully of the Town / Pass Around the Bottle was one of the best selling boards of the decade, followed by other hits. Even worse it was for McMichen that his name was not written on the plates, because Frank Walker called his new " supergroup " Gid Tanner and his Skillet Lickers ( with the suffix " with Riley Puckett " on the disk labels). McMichen wrote in 1958 to the musicologist John Edwards: " I finally raised so much light about it did Frank B. Walker put my name on all the records but the damage had already been done and Gid what starting to be known as the greatest old time fiddler in the country. " From then on, the plates were published under the name of Gid Tanner and his Skillet Lickers with Riley Puckett & Clayton McMichen.
Coinciding with the start of the Skillet Lickers began McMichen also, as leader of his own group, the Melody Men, einzuspielen plates for Columbia. The cast varied, but often sat out three Fiddlen - mostly Bert Layne, Lowe Stokes and McMichen -, clarinetist " Stranger" melon and Riley Puckett on guitar together. McMichen finally managed to convince Frank Walker, " hillbilly " versions of pop songs take, even if Walker remained skeptical. Pop bands he could find enough time, he did not need any rural Fiddler. But already the first single under the name Clayton McMichen & His Melody Men, Let Me Call You Sweetheart / Sweet Bunch of Daisies, sold over 100,000 copies, which was an enormous number for that time. At the sales of the Skillet Lickers, which exceeded 200,000 partially remote copies, McMichen but could not ranreichen.
Until 1931 McMichen for Columbia under contract and could achieve more hits. Nevertheless, Frank Walker insisted that McMichen still recorded old-time songs. Under the pseudonym " Bob Nichols " and " Oscar Ford " and under the band name McMichen - Layne String Orchestra ( McMichen, Bert Layne, Riley Puckett ) and Georgia Organ Grinders ( McMichen, Bert Layne, Lowe Stokes, Fate Norris, Melvin Dupree, Dan Hornsby ), he also published numerous plates.
1930-1936: Georgia Wildcats on tour
1929 learned McMichen guitarist Hoyt "Slim" Bryant know. In Bryant, he had found his perfect musical partner because Bryant also played jazz, new chord techniques mastered and also was familiar with the traditional Old- Time Music. On December 7, 1930 McMichen held with his new band, the Georgia Wildcats, the first session for Columbia from. The name was leaning against the nickname, got the McMichen 1923 at the Fiddlers ' Convention in Macon, Georgia.
Until 1931 McMichen performed with the Hometown Boys on WSB, but left the radio station then, because the line of the transmitter the Old-time musicians who performed there, paid no salary for it: "We kept playing up there [ WSB ] goin ' up there, and we got tired of playing for nothin '. We'd quit and then go back. " McMichen Bryant and therefore changed the beginning of 1931 to WLW in Cincinnati, Ohio, and WCKY in Convington, Kentucky. In October of the same year Columbia arranged a last session of the Skillet Lickers, was only present at the McMichen but since the label paid him for his sessions on average much money. As a husband and father, he took every opportunity was to earn money and therefore said to.
McMichens days at the Skillet Lickers were finally counted in 1931. He never wanted to play with these musicians together, as he later also confirmed in an interview with Norm Cohen: "Do not ask my questions any more about that bunch of nothing down there in Atlanta. They were all a bunch of stab -you- in - the-back no -goods ... and the more I can not forget them, and the longer I can keep them forgotten, the better. "Together with Slim Bryant (guitar), Bert Layne (fiddle ), Pat Berryman ( banjo) and Johnny Barfield (guitar) went McMichen as McMichen Clayton and his Georgia Wildcats on tour through the southern United States. 1931 was the group on WLW and WCKY heard, from 1932 on KDKA in Pittsburgh and on WTAM in Cleveland. In the summer of 1932, the Georgia Wildcats of Jimmie Rodgers, now superstar of Old- Time Music, invited to a session in New Jersey, on Rodgers grossed among other McMichens song Peach Pickin 'Time in Georgia and Bryant's composition Mother, Queen of My Heart.
While McMichen in New York City was, he played a few concerts and presented by Bob Miller contact with the record company Crown Records ago, for which he shortly afterwards took up the first pieces. The occupation of Georgia Wildcats important here but already from the initial starting, because Berryman and Barfield and Bert Layne had disembarked. This was Odie McWinders - already on the Rodgers session of August there - and Bob Miller has been introduced. After another session of Crown McMichen and the Wildcats New York again left New York and moved on to Louisville, where they played on WHAS. For Crown a total of 24 songs were recorded, but not all appeared to disk.
In October 1932, McMichen went to Chicago to follow a commitment in the National Barn Dance on WLS, then the most successful Barn Dance show in the country: "Then in October, Mac went to WLS Chicago with the idea did he would bring us up in the spring after he got established " Slim Bryant recalled in an interview with Richard Matterson. In the spring, after McMichen had built up a greater popularity with audiences of Barn Dances, he won after the Georgia Wildcats, who were still playing at this time on WHAS in Louisville. The group was next McMichen and Bryant from Bert Layne and Jack Dunnigan. 1933 hosted the World's Fair in Chicago, appeared on the McMichen and the Wildcats and also a radio show moderated for this purpose out of a plane, which was broadcast on WLS.
After the World's Fair in the fall of 1933 to a close, the offers were less so McMichen and Bryant after a brief stopover returned to Louisville with WGY in Schenectady. The Georgia Wildcats were also expanded in 1935 with bassist Raymond " Loppy " Bryant, Slim Bryant's brother, and Dave Durham (trumpet / saxophone). The old members Pat Berryman and Jack Dunnigan also played in the group.
The next few years were still marked by appearances on various channels, including KMOX in St. Louis, WCKY in Covington and WLW in Cincinnati. In the fall of 1936 McMichen of the management of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, one of the most famous Barn Dance Shows, committed. McMichen and the Wildcats - at this time without Slim Bryant - played by the spring of 1937 in the Opry, the show left but because the management paid too little and McMichen lucrative offers had in view. At this time, the young guitarist Merle Travis the Georgia Wildcats joined.
1937-1939: Decca Sessions
1937 McMichen got a contract with Decca Records, a resident of New York City label, which had previously been collected in the years of strong relevance to the U.S. plate market. On July 27, 1937 played McMichen and the Georgia Wildcats one of their first session for Decca. Overall, on this day, there are ten pieces, including In the Pines, Bile The Cabbage Down and Sweet Bunch of Daisies. The latter first success at Columbia was McMichens been and was used by him in his radio shows in Louisville as a signature tune. The style of the Wildcats had developed rapidly in recent years to the Western Swing out, yet the Wildcats were still playing in a traditional string band lineup. Other leading western swing musicians of the time such as Bob Wills, Milton Brown and Cliff Bruner had expanded their bands to orchestras, which also drums, brass and piano were used.
McMichen and the Wildcats returned in the summer of 1937 for a second session in the Decca studios back. 1939 held McMichen the last session for Decca, during which he only recorded medleys. A total of 18 different songs were played in a more or less short-lived - including many old-time pieces ( Old Joe Clark, shortenin ' Bread, Pretty Little Aries ).
1940-1970: Late career in Louisville and death
Between 1939 and 1945 traveled around McMichen continue and often occurred on staged Fiddlers ' Contest, mostly with Natchee the Indian and later with Sleepy Marlin. These contests were organized by Larry Sunbroke and were well received by the audience.
McMichen settled definitively in 1945 in Louisville again, after he spent 14 years traveling around the United States. His band, he converted to a Dixieland jazz group with which he was heard daily on WAVE. Shortly after the founding of Georgia Wildcat Modern Dance Orchestra is Slim Bryant, Jack Dunigan and some other of McMichen to advance their own careers parted. McMichens new band consisted of Orville Furrow (saxophone / clarinet), Eddie Reinhart (piano ), Paul Swain (saxophone / clarinet / flute), Gene Edwards (saxophone / clarinet), Dave Durham (trumpet / fiddle), Bill Swain ( bass) and Jimmie Pearson (drums). Together with his band appeared on McMichen in dance halls in Kentucky and Indiana. He remained a respected musician, had his own TV show and also played in local bars. He also owned a bar that Pappy McMichen on Spring Street in Louisville. 1955 McMichen decided to turn your back on the music and withdrew from the music business for the time being final return, the music remained connected.
In the 1960s were McMichens shots, especially his works from the 1920s, rediscovered and also the person McMichen himself stood in the spotlight again. A young audience, inspired by new folk musicians such as Bob Dylan, to the old artists turned to and thus solved the folk revival of. In addition to performances at numerous folk festivals, such as Bill Monroe Orange Blossom Bluegrass Festival, McMichen was also interviewed several times and article about him appeared in the trade press. In these interviews with music journalists remarked repeatedly pejoratively in reference to the Skillet Lickers and described it as a hillbilly who would not be able to play. Fiddler Lowe Stokes he did not mention regarding the Skillet Lickers.
Clayton McMichen died on January 4, 1970 in Battle, Kentucky.