Frank Hutchison

Frank Hutchison ( born March 20, 1897 Raleigh County, West Virginia, † November 9, 1945 in Dayton, Ohio) was an American Old-time musicians. The strongly influenced by the blues Hutchison is considered innovative and influential musicians on the slide guitar.

Life

Childhood and youth

Hutchison was born in 1897 in Raleigh County, but shortly thereafter his family moved to Logan County. As a child he learned to play harmonica and guitar later. The black miners Henry Vaughan and Bill Hunt influenced Hutchins later immensely - especially Hunt Hutchison brought many blues songs in, including Worried Blues and The Train That Carried the Girl from Town ( Hutchison later on board recorded ). As a young man he began working in the mines of Logan County, where he may have suffered an accident at work, as contemporaries later testified in interviews, Hutchison had hobbled.

Career

Besides, he resigned in Logan County on in cinemas and on summer evenings, which already earned him local notoriety. In the fall of 1926 Hutchison traveled to New York City where he recorded on September 28, his first two titles Worried Blues / Train That Carried the Girl from Town for OKeh Records. Sales of the plate were good, so another session for OKeh Hutchison organized in February 1927 on the he recorded nine other pieces. Among them were traditional pieces such as The Wild Horse or Guitar Rags as the West Virginia Rag. The latter was taken up by Hutchison with a text he had herself composed, on the same session under the title Coney Isle again. Cowboy Copas named the piece in 1960 at Alabama and had thus a big hit.

Hutchison rose with his plates on to a successful Okehs of Old-time musicians. Many of his pieces included many elements of the blues, not least through Hutchison's slide style on the guitar. He put the instrument like a steel guitar on his legs and played the sounds with a metal rod, as his then girlfriend Jennie Wilson recalled. Hutchison is considered so as the first white musician who made ​​recordings in this style.

By 1929, Hutchison took more plates for OKeh on, including the Logan County Blues, a guitar piece, which is named after Hutchison home, Lonesome Valley and re-recordings of Worried Blues and The Train That Carried the Girl from Town as well as some pieces with the Fiddler Sherman Lawson. His last session Hutchison played one in July 1929. His last recording was the K. C. Blues, an instrumental version of the traditionals John Henry.

The Great Depression destroyed Hutchison's recording career. After his last recordings of the OKeh Medicine Show along with some other old-time musicians who were under contract for OKeh, he never made more recordings. 1934 Hutchison moved with his family after Chesapeake, Ohio, but then back to Lake, West Virginia, where he owned a small shop and worked as a postal clerk. 1942 burned down his shop and Hutchison was alcoholic. He and his family moved to the fire to Ohio, where he died in 1945 from liver cancer.

Discography

  • The Gospel Ship
  • Old Rachel
  • Lonesome Valley
  • Over the Waves
  • Cluck Old Hen
  • Old Corn Liquor
  • Sally Gooden
  • Boston Burglar ( alt. version )
  • Down in Lone Green Valley
Dayton (Ohio) Logan County (West Virginia)
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