Tennessee
Uncle Am Stuart was one of the oldest old-time fiddlers to record in the 1920s. Stuart, from Morristown, Tennessee, was born in 1853 and learned a large part of his fiddling repertoire before and after the Civil War at southern barn dances. In 1924, at the age of 68, Stuart travelled to New York City and recorded fourteen sides for Vocalion Records. The record company paired Stuart with a studio musician for guitar accompaniment which left the recordings a bit stiff. (Wolfe, 1997)
Stuart was also known for attending fiddlers' conventions in the early 1920s. Most notably, he was present at the 1925 Mountain City, Tennessee Fiddlers' Convention where fellow Tennesseans Charlie Bowman, Stuart, Dudley Vance (the winner), and G.B. Grayson all placed in the contest.
The track featured here, "Forki Deer" (Forked Deer), has a rich and varied history and was one of the fourteen recorded in New York on July 7th, 1924.
Charlie Thomas Bowman was born on July 30, 1889 in Gray Station, Tennessee about eleven miles from Johnson City. Bowman's father and grandfather were old-time fiddlers, and young Charlie started playing the banjo at the age of ten. Charlie and his brothers played music locally and attended many regional fiddling contests in the 1910s and 1920s. As previously mentioned, it was at the 1925 Mountain City Fiddlers' Convention that Bowman met Uncle Am Stuart, Fiddlin' John Carson, and - most significantly - The Hill Billies, the band he would join and later begin his long and storied career as a professional musician. (Cox, 2007)
Bowman is well-known for his fiddle compositions "East Tennessee Blues" and "Roll On Buddy," among others. Also featured here is the tune "Bug in the Taters," which closely resembles the well-known fiddle tune, "Ragtime Annie." These two tracks were released in 1926 and 1927, with "East Tennessee Blues" credited to Al Hopkins & His Buckle Busters and "Bug in the Taters" credited to the Hill Billies.
Although G.B. Grayson was born in Ashe County, North Carolina, he spent the majority of his short life in Laurel Bloomery, Tennessee just over the state line in Johnson County. Gillian Banmon Grayson was born in 1887, and his mother and father were both deceased by the time G.B. was sixteen years old. Blinded at an early age, Grayson's interest in music provided a means to make a living, and he played the fiddle along with several other instruments.
The Mountain City Fiddlers' Conventions of 1925, 1926, and 1927 played a pivotal role in Grayson entering the world of professional music. In 1925, Grayson met Fiddlin' John Carson, Uncle Am Stuart, and Tony Alderman from The Hill Billies. The following year, 1926, he was broadcast on an impromptu radio station set up by Tony Alderman in the Mountain City Hotel. Finally, in 1927 Grayson met Henry Whitter, who he'd strike a partnership with and eventually record seventeen sides for Gennet Records and twenty-two sides for Victor Records.
Grayson and Whitter's recordings made a profound impact on traditional recording artists throughout the early part of the twentieth century. Their canon of songs is considered by some scholars as the primordial bedrock of modern bluegrass music. Songs like "Short Life of Trouble," "Rose Conley," and "Lee Highway Blues" are still played in modern traditional groups to this day.
Grayson was killed in a car accident in August 1930, riding on the running boards of a car on his way back to Laurel Bloomery after performing in Damascus, Virginia. He was forty-two years old. (Beckworth, 2018)
The tune feature here, "Train 45," is sometimes called "Reuben's Train" and is derived from an old banjo tune that Grayson worked into a fiddle tune. Grayson can be heard emulating the train and singing the verses, some of which reference places near his home of Laurel Bloomery.
John Dykes was born around 1868 and spent years working as a brick mason and a miner at places like Dorchester and Josephine in Wise County, Virginia. During this time, he also won fame as one of the best square-dance fiddlers in the region. By the 1920s he had stopped working in the mines and had bought a farm in the Bloomingdale area near Kingsport, Tennessee. There, about 1925, he formed a new band called the Magic City Trio. (Wolfe, Old-Time Herald, 1988)
Myrtle Vermillion, who could play banjo and guitar, played autoharp in the trio. Vermillion was related to the Addington family of Scott County, Virginia which related her to Mother Maybelle Carter's family. The third member of the trio was G.H. "Hub" Mahaffey, a guitarist and singer originally from Norton, Virginia who had moved to Kingsport to work as a carpenter.
In March of 1927 the trio journeyed to New York City to record for Brunswick Records. They cut sixteen recordings in two days along with Dock Boggs, fourteen of which are Magic City Trio recordings. By 1930, with Myrtle Vermillion having another child and increasing responsibilities at home, the Trio had disbanded.
The tracks featured here, "Free Little Bird" and "Huckleberry Blues," were both recorded on March 10, 1927 in New York City and issued on one release. "Huckleberry Blues" is also known as "East Tennessee Blues."
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