The Skillet Lickers were an old-time band from Georgia , United States.
33-512: When Gid Tanner teamed up with blind guitarist Riley Puckett and signed to Columbia in 1924, they created the label's earliest so-called "hillbilly" recording. Gid Tanner formed The Skillet Lickers in 1926. The first line-up was Gid Tanner, Riley Puckett, Clayton McMichen and Fate Norris. Between 1926 and 1931 they recorded 88 sides for Columbia, with 82 of them commercially issued. Later members were Lowe Stokes, Bert Layne, Hoke Rice, Arthur Tanner and Hoyt "Slim" Bryant. Their best-selling single
66-571: A blues singer who played the guitar. Hornsby, who met Hicks at a barbecue restaurant, named him "Barbecue Bob" and used an image of Hicks in a chef's apron and hat, by a barbecue pit of roasting pork for marketing. He had white bands and performers in recording sessions with Black musicians, which was highly unusual at that time in the South . Columbia selected a producer to record his songs, like "Dear Old Girl" and "O, Susanna". By 1931, he and his band recorded more than two dozen sides. "Arkansas Traveler"
99-460: A building collapsed in Shelby, North Carolina , killing six people and injuring twice as many. Hornsby composed a song, "Shelby Disaster": Let the tears of fond remembrance, flow gently, full and free; Let all who read my story, extend their sympathy. But the whispering hope of ages, with true ambition shod, leaps forth with reconstruction, for hope is part of God. And remember there's
132-508: A city, whose streets should be our goal, where buildings never crumble, that city of the soul. The Great Depression (1929–1939) affected the phonographic industry, and Hornsby lost his job with Columbia Records despite selling over 9,000 copies of "The Shelby Disaster". Together with Clayton McMichen , Hornsby wrote History in a few words published in 1931 by Shapiro, Bernstein & Co. He returned to radio and worked with several stations, including WGST and WSB, where he
165-407: A different direction from that of Mac. The band recorded in two long recording sessions per year, from 1926 to 1931. Few members of the group were full-time professional musicians. Clayton McMichen was an auto mechanic. McMichen was a welder. Tanner was a chicken farmer. Riley Puckett toured as a musician with his own tent show. His technical virtuosity marks him out as one of the best guitarists of
198-531: A group called the Junior Skillet Lickers. Tanner's grandson, Phil, led Skillet Lickers II. 78s: Postwar recordings: Reissued material also appears on: Anthologies: Gid Tanner James Gideon "Gid" Tanner (June 6, 1885 – May 13, 1960) was an American old-time fiddler and one of the earliest stars of what would come to be known as country music . His band, the Skillet Lickers ,
231-440: A lower sound than Tanner or McMichen, but the combination of three fiddles marks out the group from almost everyone else at the time. On the group's later records, the three-fiddle lineup was usually composed of McMichen, Layne, and Lowe Stokes, playing tightly in unison or in harmony, while Gid Tanner switched to banjo. Arthur Tanner (brother of Gid) played banjo and guitar. Riley Puckett recorded solo for Victor and Decca in
264-510: A painter born in Georgia. His father was a contractor and a part-time Baptist minister . Dan Hornsby spent most of his childhood in Atlanta, GA where he lived in 1910 with his parents, Annie Mae Todd & J. Todd, and two younger sisters, Helen and Cynthia. Joseph T Hornsby, Dan & Louise Hornsby’s was the first born of five children of two sons and three daughters. Joseph Thomas registered for
297-621: A song, to when it was produced. His songs were a combination of country and folk music. Hornsby acquired country, folk, and blues talent for Columbia Records and MGM, including Bessie Smith and Hank Williams . The Grammy Museum had a display of his music archive artifacts for Columbia Records in 2013. Hornsby was inducted into the Atlanta Music Hall of Fame in 1986. Hornsby was born in Georgia on February 18, 1900. His parents were Annie May Todd Hornsby, born in Kentucky, and Joe T. Hornsby,
330-460: Is known on RCA Victor . Dan Hornsby Isaac Daniel (Dan) Hornsby (February 18, 1900 – May 18, 1951) was an American singer-songwriter, musician, recording artist, producer and arranger, studio engineer, band leader, artists and repertoire (A&R) man with Columbia Records , and radio personality. Hornsby began performing in the 1920s, and over the years, he formed or backed up bands. He often played multiple roles, from an idea for
363-466: The "Georgia Wildcats" on their first recording session for Columbia Records . He was National Fiddling Champion from 1934 to 1949. Mac made his last recordings in 1945, although he continued to perform until 1955 when he retired. His most notable composition was "Peach Pickin' Time in Georgia", later recorded by Jimmie Rodgers in 1932. By the time the folk revival was under way in the late 1950s, his irritation with being asked to play old-fashioned material
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#1732848020095396-582: The 1920s and early 1930s. While many bands are celebrated for their innovations, the Skillet Lickers are celebrated for embracing and popularizing a style of American music rarely heard outside of private performances or get togethers like picnics or in places outside of the South. They were a wellspring of such music and greatly aided in popularizing this type of fiddle driven, rural based music. They played many instrumentals, ballads, pop songs and comedy sketches, such as "A Corn Licker Still in Georgia". This
429-543: The 1930s and early 1940s. He also belonged to a trio called Bert Layne and his Mountaineers. After 1931 the group occasionally consisted of Riley Puckett on guitar, Gordon Tanner on fiddle, Edward "Ted" Hawkins on mandolin and record producer Dan Hornsby on vocals. There are recordings by a group called the Arthur Tanner and the Cornshuckers, which may have contained Gid Tanner . The virtuosity of Puckett tended to pull in
462-463: The Skillet Lickers as Columbia's first recorded southern rural artist. In 1926, the Skillet Lickers were formed around Tanner as a studio band. The first recording made with the Skillet Lickers was " Hand Me Down My Walking Cane ," recorded in Atlanta on April 17, 1926, when the country music scene in Atlanta rivaled Nashville's. It was released by Columbia on a 78-rpm disc, backed with "Watermelon on
495-921: The Skillet Lickers. Phil Tanner hosts an open jam session on Friday nights in a refurbished chicken house on his father's old farm in Dacula, Georgia . Levi Lowrey also continues in his footsteps as a country music artist, songwriting for Zac Brown and featured on Southern Ground Records in a multi-album record deal. Bob Dylan wrote and performed a version of Gid Tanner's "Down on Tanner's Farm", retitled and reset as "New York Town". It can be heard in Martin Scorsese 's 2005 documentary on Dylan, No Direction Home . In various prewar lineups Tanner recorded singles for Columbia and later rival labels Bluebird , Victor , His Master's Voice (India), Regal (England), Regal Zonophone (Australia), Montgomery Ward, and Vocalion . Postwar, at least one Tanner 45-rpm reissue single
528-699: The Skillet-Lickers for Columbia Records. Hornsby began his career as a talent scout with Columbia Records , RCA Victor Records and then worked for MGM, during which he looked for talented performers — often in the country and blues genres — and signed those he chose to a contract. Hornsby discovered Hank Williams for MGM and Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers , Riley Puckett , Bessie Smith , Clarence Ashley , and Charlie Poole at Columbia. In 1931, he recruited Alton and Rabon Delmore (later known as Delmore Brothers ) for Columbia Records. He recruited African American musicians, including Robert Hicks,
561-449: The Vine". In the next eight years, the group recorded more than 100 songs. In 1934, Tanner and Puckett re-formed the Skillet Lickers, and several of their recordings were released by Bluebird Records . Tanner stopped making records in 1934 but continued performing into his seventies. At the age of seventy-one, Tanner won his last first-place trophy. He died in Dacula, Georgia in 1960. Many of
594-504: The age of 14 and quickly established a reputation as one of the finest musicians in Georgia. Early on, he participated in several fiddle conventions together with his rival Fiddlin' John Carson ; what one of them did not win, the other would. Tanner reportedly had a repertoire of more than 2000 songs. Tanner and Puckett traveled to New York City in March 1924 to make the first of a series of duet recordings for Columbia Records , establishing
627-589: The banjo, and harmonica. He lived in Resaca, Georgia . He had previously performed as a one-man band and had made a device with strings and levers which he played with his feet. Norris made some recordings under his own name and was only occasionally a member of the band. By 1931 he appears to have disappeared from the line-up, to be replaced by Gid on banjo. He later died on stage in Subligna, Georgia on November 11, 1944. Lowe Stokes (Marcus Lowell Stokes 1898-1983), who played
660-653: The draft at age 18 and was a student at North Georgia College . He lived in Fulton County, Georgia , at that time. At age 19, Dan Hornsby worked as a painter with the W.E. Browne Decorating Co. in Columbus, Georgia , with his father and while painting a hotel, met Louise Wise of Little Rock, Arkansas . She sang and danced. They married about 1920 and had three daughters Dorothy, Helen, Silvia and two sons, Joseph T. and Robert S. Their children were Joseph, Dorothy, Helen, Robert, and Silvia. Hornsby died on May 18, 1951, and
693-703: The fiddle, was born in Elijay, Georgia . A superb fiddler, considered McMichen's equal and one of the finest recorded fiddlers of the time, he won many fiddle championships in the region. Stokes lost his right hand to a shotgun blast in the late 1920s, in the midst of the Skillet Lickers' popularity. He eventually began fiddling again using a prosthetic attachment to hold his bow, and he can be heard playing on some later Skillet Licker records in this manner (for example, on "Broken Down Gambler"). Later, Stokes moved to Chouteau, Oklahoma where he died. Bert Layne (fiddle), brother-in-law of McMichen, played occasionally. His fiddle had
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#1732848020095726-414: The first commercial performers on the station. In the 1920s and 1930s, Hornsby was a radio announcer in Atlanta. He had his own program, sponsored by a bakery, on Atlanta's WSM Radio station where he acquired the nickname "Cheerful Dan". He sang in two octaves and had speaking roles under the name "Tom Dorsey" for drama shows. He also often wrote the scripts and performed for recordings with Gid Tanner and
759-623: The hard-driving fiddle-based style employed by each of these performers. Clayton McMichen (1900–1970) was the lead fiddler. He was known as "Mac". At the age of 11 he learned to play the fiddle from his uncle and father. Two years later, in 1913, his family moved to Atlanta, Georgia where Mac made his living as an automobile mechanic. In 1918 he formed a band called "The Hometown Boys" consisting of himself and Charles Whitten on fiddles, Boss Hawkins and Mike Whitten on guitars and Ezra "Ted" Hawkins on mandolin. The Hometown Boys made their first radio debut on September 18, 1922. In 1931, he performed with
792-422: The performers: The quartet became a trio in 1927 when Perry Bechtel left the group. The trio played on a WSB (AM) program in Atlanta. Besides his quartet and trio, Hornsby created or joined Skillet Lickers , Young Brothers Tennessee Band, Georgia Organ Grinders, Lowe Stokes and His North Georgians, and Bamby Baker Boys. In 1922, Atlanta's WSM Radio went on air, making Bamby Baker Boys, Hornsby's group,
825-582: The songs recorded by the Skillet Lickers were traditional American fiddle tunes that remain popular with bluegrass and country musicians to this day. Among them are " Alabama Jubilee ", " Shortnin' Bread ", " Old Joe Clark ", " John Henry ", "Bully of the Town", " Bile Them Cabbage Down ", " Cotton-Eyed Joe ", "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss", " Soldier's Joy ", " Bonaparte's Retreat ", "Leather Breeches", "Four Cent Cotton", " Knoxville Girl ", and their biggest seller, " Down Yonder ". It sold over one million copies, and
858-503: Was "Down Yonder", a hillbilly breakdown , in 1934 on RCA Victor . They disbanded in 1931, but reformed for occasional recordings after a couple of years with a changing line-up. "Back Up and Push" was another well-known recording. The Skillet Lickers, together with fellow North Georgians Fiddlin' John Carson and the Georgia Yellow Hammers , made Atlanta and North Georgia an early center of old-time string band music, especially
891-510: Was a scriptwriter, announcer, and entertainer until his death. For Bluebird Records , he played Uncle Ned in a series of children's bedtime stories and sang with the big band of Perry Bechtel . In 1934, he joined RCA Victor Records . In 1986, Hornsby was inducted into the Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame , joining some of his friends and associates: Gid Tanner , Clayton McMichen , and Riley Puckett . In 2013, Hornsby
924-442: Was a set of 14 sketches with a running gag that people in authority wanted to stamp out illegal stills and after-hours fiddle-playing, but secretly wanted to drink the liquor, and hear the tunes. They even depicted a real-life minister of the church drinking the moonshine in a sketch. The New Lost City Ramblers , a revival old-time group from the early 1960s, were fans of the Skillet Lickers. Tanner's son, Gordon Tanner, went on to lead
957-570: Was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA . Their comedy recordings, called "rural drama records", including the saga "A Corn Licker Still in Georgia" (Issued over the course of 7 records) and "A Fiddler's Convention in Georgia", were equally popular. Gid Tanner & the Skillet Lickers were inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1988. Following his death in 1960, Tanner's grandson Phil Tanner and great-grandson Levi Lowrey continued performing as
990-646: Was buried at the Crest Lawn Cemetery in Upper Westside, Atlanta . Nikki Hornsby , Dan Hornsby's granddaughter, became a singer and songwriter in the late 20th and early 21st century. She inherited her grandfather's music archive after her parents died and has worked to keep the memory of his music career alive. Hornsby entered show business in the 1920s. He formed the Dan Hornsby Quartet with Perry Bechtel, Taylor Flanagan, and Sterling Melvin. Of
1023-492: Was first recorded with Hornsby's voice. He then produced his recordings, such as " Take Me Out To The Ballgame ", " I Want A Girl ", and " You Are My Sunshine ", for its inaugural recording. He produced recordings with the Young Brothers Tennessee Band, like " Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey " and " Little Brown Jug ". He wrote, sang, and produced a few original folk songs for Columbia. On August 28, 1928,
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1056-455: Was one of the most innovative and influential string bands of the 1920s and 1930s. Its most notable members were Clayton McMichen (fiddle and vocal), Dan Hornsby (vocals), Riley Puckett (guitar and vocal) and Robert Lee Sweat (guitar). Tanner was born in Thomas Bridge, near Monroe, Georgia . He made a living as a chicken farmer for most of his life. He learned to play the fiddle at
1089-507: Was unconcealed. At the Newport Festival he spoke out on stage of his disdain for the Skillet Lickers. However, the recordings he made with that band are the only ones of his in print. In the early 1930s. the band occasionally toured without Gid Tanner , and without Puckett, with McMichen in charge instead. On these occasions Bert Layne would black-up for on stage comedy. Fate Norris, (Singleton Lafayette Norris) of Dalton, Georgia played
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