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1.
THEME SONG
/ Uncle John Patterson
Uncle
John Patterson, banjo and vocal; James Patterson,
guitar; Jack Shirah, fiddle (Home recording of WLBB broadcast ca. 1960, by
Eugene Akers)
During his lifetime,John K. Patterson, the “Banjo King,” personified traditional
folk music in West Georgia. Born in Carroll County in 1910, he received his
musical education at a very early age, courtesy of his mother. A champion
banjo picker in her own right, Bessie Patterson handed down to her young son
a repertoire of traditional songs and the rudiments of his unique playing
style, described by folklorist Art Rosenbaum as “a combination of up-picking
with chordal brushes and three-finger melody playing.”
Among the first local performers on WLBB in 1947, Uncle John could be heard six days a week, twice a day, on his family’s fifteen minute program. Billed as the Ozark Mountain Boys, Patterson’s group included his teenaged son James on guitar, his daughter Virginia and a local lad named C.H. Gilley on vocals, and Ben Entrekin on fiddle. John’s wife Etta got into the act by reading their fan mail over the air.
During the late 1950s and early 60s, Uncle John, James, and various accompanists, including young fiddling prodigy Jack Shirah, ushered in the dawn every Saturday morning on the Me and Uncle John program, hosted by Bob Green. Tapping out the beat on the floor with his bare feet, John greeted farmers and other hardy souls up early enough to switch on their radios with his signature WLBB theme song. In true folk tradition, he set his lyrics to a melody borrowed from an old fiddle tune, Dance All Night With A Bottle In Your Hand. Recorded directly off the radio by a listener, this performance is an infectious throwback to the music of early Georgia string bands like the Skillet Lickers that helped lay the foundation for the bluegrass and country styles that developed after World War II.
2.
BILLY IN THE LOW GROUND / Uncle
John Patterson 
Uncle John Patterson, banjo; James Patterson, guitar; Ben Entrekin, fiddle;
unidentified, guitar (Home recording, date unknown)
Featuring
Uncle John’s old friend Ben Entrekin on fiddle, this variation on a regionally
popular square dance tune is representative of the Northwest Georgia string
band tradition in which Patterson became immersed during the 1920s and 30s.
During those years, he performed with such early country music legends as
Fiddlin’ John Carson, Gid Tanner, Riley Puckett, and A.A. (Ahaz) Gray in traveling
medicine shows, fiddling contests, and political rallies.
3. GROUND HOG /
J. N. & Onie Baxter
J. N. Baxter,
vocal, guitar; Onie Baxter, vocal, guitar; Joel Aderhold, banjo; Erlene Aderhold,
bass (Home studio recording, date unknown)
Among
the regular listeners to Uncle John Patterson’s distinctive brand of pre-bluegrass
string band music on WLBB was the younger sister of Leon Newman, a guitarist
who occasionally accompanied Patterson on his program. Raised in the Haralson
County farming community of Steadman in the 1930s and 40s, Iona “Onie” Newman
taught herself to play Chinese Breakdown on Leon’s mandolin when she was only
six or seven years old. Lonely and bored while her older brothers were away
in the service during World War II, Onie learned to play guitar next. After
marrying J. N. Baxter in 1954, she taught her husband to play as well.
J. N. and Onie’s affinity for acoustic instruments, precise harmonies, and tradition-based country and folk music steered them in the direction of bluegrass, the distinctive genre of acoustic, old-time country music developed by Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, the Stanley Brothers, and others during the 1940s and 50s. The couple’s shared devotion to the music eventually led them to form the Bluegrass Five in 1963. Their first group included banjo picker Joe Will McGuire, mandolin player Hughie Wylie, and bassist Howard McGuire.
Through nearly forty years of personal appearances at bluegrass festivals and other venues, including their own program on radio station WGDL in Douglasville, Georgia, J. N. and Onie have extended their influence as musical mentors and tradition-bearers to several generations of admiring bluegrass musicians and fans. As their arrangement of the traditional folk song Ground Hog indicates, the Baxters have never strayed far from their roots in old-time country music.
“Bluegrass and country both came out of hillbilly, so we’re kin if you go back far enough,” Onie Baxter, 2001
Narrated by long-time WLBB announcers Hiram Bray and Bob Green, the commercial for a local sausage manufacturer that bookends this track is typical of the irreverent, homespun humor these two popular radio personalities brought to the airwaves of West Georgia during the station’s early years.
4. SHE’S MY BABY / Alton StitcherAlton Stitcher, vocal, guitar; Uncle John Patterson, banjo (Home recording, Carrollton, Georgia, 1959)
Between
1948 and 1962, folk singer Alton Stitcher carved out a comfortable niche for
himself on WLBB. Born near Villa Rica, Georgia in 1916, Alton absorbed the
old folk songs and hymns he heard while growing up on farms and in mill villages
in the region. With his soothing vocal style and easy-going personality, Alton
maintained an on-air popularity that ensured he never lacked a sponsor for
his program. Although an effective performer on his own, the “Poet from the
Mountain,” as Stitcher was billed on Piedmont, Alabama radio station WPID,
preferred to share the spotlight whenever possible. At various times, his
musical partners ncluded the Craven Twins (Billye and Betty), Myrtle Gable,
Francis Ashemore, the Suddeth Sisters, the Akers Trio, and his close friend
Lee Williams, a gospel promoter and WLBB announcer from Bremen, Georgia.
Although none of the transcription discs of his radio programs recorded by WLBB engineers are known to have survived, it is fortunate that Alton chose to carefully guard the reel-to-reel tapes that he began recording at home in the 1950s. On this recording of one of his original compositions, based on the children’s song Skip to My Lou, Alton is tastefully accompanied on banjo by his friend and distant relative, Uncle John Patterson.
“The most fun was just being on the radio station, ’ cause you knew people were listening – even more than in church.” Alton Stitcher, 2001
5.
FREIGHT TRAIN BOOGIE / The
Storey Sisters
Nellie Storey, vocal, guitar; Rhoda Storey, vocal, stand-up
bass (Home recording, Carrollton, Georgia, ca. 1950)
In
contrast to Alton Stitcher’s relaxed, low-key style, Nellie and Rhoda Storey
projected a boisterous exuberance. Musically versatile to an exceptional degree,
they may have also been ahead of their time. As Rhoda’s adeptness at slapping
the strings of her big bass fiddle on their rendition of the Delmore Brothers’
Freight Train Boogie demonstrates, the girls possessed a musical
drive and spirit that might not have been out of place in the rockabilly explosion
spearheaded by Elvis Presley a few years later.
6.
BILE THEM CABBAGE DOWN /The Storey Sisters
Nellie Storey, guitar; Rhoda Storey, fiddle; James Moore, stand-up bass
(Home recording, ca. 1950)
Nellie, born in 1918, and Rhoda, two years
her junior, considered themselves jazz, rather than country, musicians. Regardless,
their repertoire of over 300 songs included a large number of hoedown fiddle
tunes, performed primarily to make people dance. On Bile Them Cabbage
Down, Nellie’s enthusiastic shouts of “kick it off, young’uns” and “play
it purty and let’s go home” reflect the years the sister act spent entertaining
at square dances and house parties during the 1930s and 40s. In an era when
men dominated country music, the Storey Sisters took advantage of every opportunity
to, in Nellie’s words, “get right in and mix it up with the boys.”
“I
can tell you right now, that’s not a girl playin’ that fiddle! A girl can’t
play that!”
(Nellie Storey, recalling the reaction of one WLBB listener to hearing
Rhodie play.)
7.
SOLDIER’S JOY /
Blue
Bonnet Boys
(Fotch Snow, fiddle; W. J. Snow, guitar; Bernard Payne,
mandolin; Alfred Ward, guitar (Home recording, Bowdon, Georgia, 1979)
Before there was a WLBB, Carroll County musicians in search
of radio exposure were forced to travel a bit over West Georgia’s miles of
unpaved roads. For the Blue Bonnet Boys, formed in the early 1940s by a group
of high school kids from Bowdon, the closest thing to a local radio station
was WGAA, some forty miles to the north in Cedartown. In addition to their
weekly fifteen-minute program there in 1945 and 1946, the band performed in
school auditoriums and movie theaters around West Georgia.
The first line-up of the band included W. J. Snow on vocals and guitar; his uncle, Fotch Snow, on fiddle; Alfred Ward on guitar and vocals; his sister Louise Ward on piano and accordion; and brothers Bernard and Mayon Payne on mandolin and tenor banjo, respectively. After the group disbanded in 1945, W. J. and Fotch kept the Blue Bonnet Boys in the public eye with new members Bonnie Bruce on lap steel guitar, Lonnie West on mandolin and piano, and guitarists Charles Cole and Adrian Robinson. Although the group finally split up in late 1946, various ex-members performed over WLBB in the years ahead.
In September 1979, all the original members of the Blue Bonnet Boys got back together for a highly publicized and well-received reunion show. Their rendition of the traditional fiddle tune Soldier’s Joy, recorded at a rehearsal for that gig, conveys the sense of fun that must have enlivened the group’s appearances some thirty-five years earlier.
8. HOLD FAST TO THE RIGHT / N. J. Defoor & Jim EmbryJim Embry, vocal, guitar; N. J. Defoor, vocal, mandolin (Home recording, Carrollton, Georgia, 1979
Over in Villa Rica, another gang of music-loving teenagers formed the Georgia
Playboys in 1943. Performing cover versions of popular country songs, Jim
Embry, N. J. Defoor, Joe Tyson, Charles Williams, W. J. Wortham, Perry Bone,
and Robert Williams made numerous appearances at local schools and other venues.
By early 1947, the Playboys had secured their own program on WLBB and would
remain regulars on the station well into the 1950s. Throughout that period,
various band members came and went, including Clarence Agan, S. M. Dobbs,
steel guitarist John Morris, and the singing Washington Sisters.
Starting in the early 1950s, mandolin player Nathan Defoor, better known as “Junior,” or simply “N. J.,” traveled back and forth every week from Villa Rica to Kentucky, where he was a regular cast member on the popular Renfro Valley Barn Dance radio program. Eventually tiring of the commute, N. J. chose to remain closer to home, performing and recording with WLBB gospel favorites Newt and Louise Holmes
A few weeks before he succumbed to cancer in 1979, N. J. got together one last time with Primitive Baptist preacher and former Georgia Playboy, Jim Embry, to record some of their favorite duets. The deep musical kinship shared by these two old friends was captured in this home recording of the sentimental ballad Hold Fast to the Right.
9.
BLUE GRASS SPECIAL /The
Akers Trio with W. J. Snow
Eugene Akers, mandolin; Faye Nell Akers, guitar; Rayford Akers, guitar;
W. J. Snow, lap steel guitar (Home recording, Bowdon, Georgia, ca. 1960)
Born in 1929 and raised on a musical diet of radio barn dances and records
by Fiddlin’ John Carson and the Carter Family, Carrollton teenager Eugene
Akers acquired an old “tater-bug” mandolin in the early 1940s and began teaching
himself to play. After little sister Faye Nell learned her first guitar chords,
the pair began practicing for hours at a time in the refuge of the family
car where they wouldn’t be disturbed.
Upon older brother Rayford’s return from military service at the end of World War II, the trio of siblings continued to hone their musicianship. Calling themselves the Radio Homefolks, they appeared on WLBB in 1949, performing their own material and providing backup for Alton Stitcher
Eventually changing their name to the Akers Trio, Eugene, Faye Nell, and Rayford played locally throughout the 1950s and 60s. During an informal jam session at the home of W. J. Snow, the former Blue Bonnet Boy accompanied the trio on Hawaiian lap steel guitar, an instrument he was in the process of learning to play. Among their impromptu performances documented on reel-to-reel tape was this unique arrangement of Bill Monroe’ s Blue Grass Special. In 1991, Eugene was inducted into the Hall of Honor of the Atlanta Country Music Hall of Farm in recognition of his achivements as both a musician and a country music historian.
10.
KENTUCKY /
Alton Stitcher
Alton Stitcher, vocal and guitar (Home recording, 1959)
Accompanied only by his gently understated guitar playing, Alton’s sublime interpretation of Kentucky, the 1948 hit record by country music traditionalists the Blue Sky Boys possesses a timeless quality that transcends categorization.
11.
BONAPARTE’S RETREAT /
Joe “Red” Tyson
Joe Tyson, fiddle (Home recording, date unknown)
Born into a very musical family in Villa Rica on April 1, 1929, Joe Tyson developed into a remarkably talented and versatile musician at a young age. By the time he was thirteen, Joe was playing his fiddle at local square dances. In 1948, he accepted an offer from country music stars Bill and Earl Bolick of the Blue Sky Boys to join their group. For a brief period, Tyson could be heard performing over Atlanta radio station WGST with the Blue Sky Boys as well as on WLBB with the Georgia Playboys.
His haunting solo performance of the traditional fiddle tune Bonaparte’s Retreat is similar to that recorded by Carroll County native and Tallapoosa, Georgia resident, A.A. (Ahaz) Gray for Okeh Records in 1924. Joe learned the arrangement from his father, an old time fiddler who, in turn, had learned it directly from Gray.
12. WICKED PATH OF SIN / The Radio HomefolksEugene Akers, mandolin, vocal; Faye Nell Akers, guitar, vocal; Rayford Akers, guitar, vocal; Harold Irving, vocal (WLBB acetate, 1949)
For most hillbilly musicians in West Georgia, the lines separating the sacred from the secular in their repertoires were indistinct. Reflecting the inspiration of their Primitive Baptist upbringing, Eugene, Faye Nell, and Rayford, with assistance from their cousin, Harold Irving, brought to this performance of one of Bill Monroe’s most popular gospel songs the style of close harmonizing they had developed while singing shape-note Sacred Harp hymns together in church.
13. I’M FEELING FINE / Newt & Louise HolmesNewt Holmes, vocal, piano; Louise Holmes, vocal (Acetate disc, recorded at WLBB, June 16, 1956)
Fundamentalist religion has long played a defining role in the lives of many West Georgians. For Newt and Louise Holmes, the pull of religion proved especially powerful. At the time of their marriage in 1944, Carrollton teenagers Louise Hulsey and_Newt Holmes were performing together in a country band called the Medody Boys and Girls. The high point in Newt’s brief career as a hillbilly musician arrived when he shared the stage of Carrollton’s Playhouse theater with cowboy singing star Tex Ritter
After Newt was called to the Church of God ministry, he and Louise made a life-long commitment to performing gospel music exclusively. By 1948, they were appearing regularly on WLBB as half of the Friendly Four Quartet. In 1952, the couple began performing as a duo, billed simply as Newt and Louise. On their first recording, made at WLBB in 1956, the sanctified power of Louise’s voice, coupled with Newt’s divinely inspired touch on piano, laid the artistic foundation on which their future group the Holmes Family would build a long and fruitful career in gospel music.
14. I HEAR A SWEET VOICE CALLING / Alton Stitcher & Elizabeth Cooper
Alton Stitcher, vocal, guitar; Elizabeth Cooper, vocal (Home recording, Carrollton, Georgia, ca. 1959)
Alton never failed to incorporate at least a couple of what he calls “sacred
ballads” into his radio programs. Typical in this respect is his tender duet
with Elizabeth Cooper on one of his most requested numbers, Bill Monroe’s
I Hear A Sweet Voice Calling.
Elizabeth was a seasoned radio performer in her own right. In the late 1940s, at the age of nine or ten, she had sung gospel at WLBB with her older sisters, Edna and Mary, in the Cooper Trio.
The "Deathless Weekend" public service announcement that introduces the song was narrated by the late film actress Susan Hayward, who settled down near Carrollton during the 1950s, this public service announcement earned WLBB a Georgia Association of Broadcasters Achievement Award.
15. NEW DEPRESSION BLUES / The Storey SistersNellie Storey, vocal, guitar; Rhoda Storey, vocal, stand-up bass (Home recording, ca. 1950)
While their own composition New Depression Blues may have owed a lyrical and musical debt to their favorite country-blues yodeler, Jimmie Rodgers, The Story Sisters’ almost cheerful perspective on Depression-era farm life evokes the rustic flavor of their own specific time and place. When Nellie and Rhoda harmonized about “corn in my crib,” “cotton down in my patch,” and “my old gray mule and plow,” they were not merely waxing poetic. After they were grown, the girls stayed down on the farm, helping out their widowed father with the plowing and other hard, physical labor required to grow cotton, corn, and other crops
Sadly, the demands placed on their time and energy by caring for their ailing father forced Nellie and Rhoda into almost total retirement from public performance near the end of the 1940s. For Nellie, this withdrawal from the local hillbilly music scene that had nurtured and supported her talent felt “like missing the bus a hundred miles from home, and no way to get back.” In the years to come, their musical activities would be confined primarily to their own living room, where they kept in practice by jamming with friends and documenting their repertoire on tape.
16. WHOA, MULE / J. N. and Onie Baxter with Leon NewmanJ. N. Baxter, lead vocal; Onie Baxter, guitar, vocal; Leon Newman, vocal (Acetate disc, home recording, Carrollton, Georgia, 1956
J. N. and Onie Baxter’s reputation as regional bluegrass pioneers has been augmented by the recent discovery of a set of acetate discs recorded in 1956 that sheds light on the evolution of bluegrass music in West Georgia. These primitive home recordings of the Baxters and an informal group of like-minded musicians with whom they “jammed around” are a testament to their pre-bluegrass roots in older country music traditions.
17. STAY ALL NIGHT (STAY A LITTLE LONGER)Charles Cole and his Southern Kinfolks
Charles Cole, lead vocal, guitar; Lonnie West, guitar, vocal; Ray Long, stand-up bass; Nellie Storey, guitar, vocal; Rhoda Storey, fiddle, vocal (Acetate disc, January 1947)
One night at a local appearance by Atlanta’s WSB Barn Dance Gang in late 1946, an ambitious, twenty-year-old singer and guitar player from Carrollton named Charles Cole encountered the talents of the Storey Sisters for the first time. Duly impressed by their act, the former Blue Bonnet Boy invited the girls to join the group he was putting together for the purpose of performing on Carrollton’s eagerly anticipated new radio station. Piano player/guitarist Lonnie West and bassist/comedian Ray “Cousin Arfus” Long completed the lineup of Charles Cole and his Southern Kinfolks.
The four selections included here by the group are taken from a set of acetate discs that document one of their first performances on WLBB in January 1947. Over the course of the program, Cole’s versatile band performed a fairly wide range of country music that drew on both traditional and popular sources. The rural, West Georgia hoe-down flavor they injected into their interpretation of Stay All Night (Stay A Little Longer), a recent hit for western swing bandleader Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, demonstrated an ability to incorporate up-to-date material into their repertoire without compromising their regional roots.
18. HILLBILLY BOOGIE / Charles Cole and his Southern KinfolksRhoda Storey, electric guitar; Nellie Storey, guitar; Ray Long, stand-up bass. (Acetate disc, January 1947)
Performed
with proto-rockabilly fervor by “champion girl fiddler” Rhoda Storey on electric
guitar, this cover version of the Delmore Brothers’ 1946 hit record underscored
the Storey Sisters’ potential to make an impact far beyond the borders of
Carroll County had they remained active as performers.
19.
AS LONG AS I LIVE
Charles Cole and his Southern Kinfolks
Charles Cole, lead vocal, lead guitar; Lonnie West, guitar, vocal; Ray
Long, stand-up bass (Acetate disc, January 1947)
At the age of fifteen, Cole was taught his first guitar chords by Rev. Andrew “Blind Andy” Jenkins, a family friend and well-known songwriter, performer, and recording artist from Atlanta. The distinctive guitar licks that Cole inserted between the verses of this romantic ballad of love and loss brought a degree of originality to his and Lonnie West’s interpretation of the popular duet number written by Roy Acuff and recorded by the Bailes.
20. DOWN YONDER / Charles Cole and his Southern KinfolksCharles Cole, guitar; Lonnie West, piano; Ray Long, stand-up bass; Nellie Storey, guitar; Rhoda Storey, fiddle (Acetate disc, January 1947)
Lonnie West’s ragtime piano playing added a unique dimension to the Kinfolks’ arrangement of this West Georgia square dance favorite.
21.UNDER THE DOUBLE EAGLE / The Radio HomefolksEugene Akers, mandolin; Faye Nell Akers, guitar; Rayford Akers, guitar. (WLBB acetate, 1949)
Modeled after an arrangement for mandolin and guitar by two of Eugene’s musical
inspirations, James and Martha Carson, the Radio Homefolks’ version of this
instrumental standard showcased Faye Nell’s blossoming talent on lead guitar,
as well as the close musical empathy she shared with her two brothers.
Alton Stitcher & Marshall Hannah
Alton Stitcher, vocal, guitar; Marshall Hannah, guitar
(Home recording of WLBB broadcast, ca. 1960, by Eugene Akers)
Alton’s performance of the old folk song Froggie Went A Courtin’, recorded during one of his guest appearances on local country singer Marhsall Hannah’s weekly program on WLBB, provides an audio snapshot of Stitcher in his natural element as a radio entertainer. Hannah, who as a ten-year-old boy had taken guitar lessons from Alton and would later record in Nashville, accompanied his mentor on rhythm guitar.
23. JOHN HENRY / Onie Baxter & Leon NewmanOnie Baxter, lead guitar; Leon Newman, guitar (Acetate disc, home recording, 1956)
In bluegrass circles, Onie Baxter is thought of primarily as an accomplished singer and rhythm guitar player. But as this 1950s home recording of one of the best known of all American folk songs reveals, her aptitude as a lead guitarist is quite impressive as well.
24. LEATHER BREECHES / Joe Tyson and his Farm HandsJoe Tyson, fiddle; probably Willie Williams, guitar (Acetate disc, July 9, 1949)
Following his stint with the Blue Sky Boys, Tyson began leading his own group, Joe Tyson’s Farmhands, in 1949. Their recording of the old fiddle tune Leather Breeches spotlights only one facet of Tyson’s prodigous talent. Joe was also an accomplished songwriter, pianist, guitarist, and vocalist, with a smooth singing style reminiscent of Eddy Arnold. Up until his untimely death in 1972, “Red” Tyson continued to write, perform, and record both country and gospel music with a variety of West Georgia musicians.
25.
SHORTENIN’ BREAD / Leon Newman
Leon Newman, banjo (Acetate disc, home recording, 1956)
Onie Baxter’s brother
Leon documented a brief sampling of the traditional claw-hammer banjo style
that was more the rule than the exception during the pre-bluegrass era in
West Georgia. 26. BANJO BREAKDOWN
/ Joe Will McGuire & Onie Baxter
Joe Will McGuire, banjo; Onie Baxter, guitar (Acetate disc, home recording,
1956)
This early
recording of one of the first bluegrass banjo pickers in Carroll County provides
evidence of the impact of Earl Scruggs, Don Reno, and other masters of the
5-stringed banjo on “hillbilly” musicianship in West Georgia during the 1950s.
27.
THE GOSPEL HOUR
/ Rev. Bobby Lee Woodruff
(WLBB transcription disc, December 1948)
For local evangelists like , a Pentecosal Holiness preacher and hosiery mill worker from Carrollton, WLBB offered access to a much larger congregation than they could otherwise hope to minister to. Due to a shortage of preachers, many rural churches in the area were limited in their ability to hold Sunday services more than once a month. In particular, elderly shut-ins unable to attend church services looked forward all week to hearing the local preachers who came into their homes every weekend by the way of radio.
28. I’VE GOT A LONGING TO GO / Newt & Louise HolmesNewt Holmes, piano, vocal; Louise Holmes, vocal (WLBB acetate, June 16, 1956)
WLBB maintained its Sunday tradition of programs by local gospel groups well into the 1990s. Newt and Louise’s Holmes Family remained a regionally popular touring and recording act on the gospel circuit until Newt’s passing in 1998.
29. FOOTSTEPS OF JESUS / The Radio HomefolksEugene Akers, mandolin, vocal; Faye Nell Akers, guitar, vocal; Rayford Akers, guitar, vocal (WLBB acetate, 1949)
This country gospel roadmap for the soul is one of Rayford Akers' original songs.
30. HEAVEN’S REALLY GONNA SHINE / Sewell Gospel QuartetOnie Baxter, vocal; Joe Daniel, vocal; John Payton, vocal; Harold Blackmon, vocal; David Maddox, piano (Acetate disc, 1956)
This rapturous performance by Onie Baxter and a group of her co-workers from Sewell Manufacturing plants in Bremen and Temple exemplifies the popular style of white gospel quartet singing that flourished on the radio and at singing conventions in and around Carroll County during the 1940s and 50s.
31. BRING BACK MY BLUE EYED BOY / J.N. and Onie BaxterJ. N. Baxter, vocal, guitar; Onie Baxter, vocal, guitar; Joel Aderhold, banjo; Erlene Aderhold, bass (Home studio recording, date unknown)
Here is another example of the fusion of traditional songs and stellar musicianship that has long been characteristic of bluegrass music.
32. DANCE ALL NIGHT WITH A BOTTLE IN YOUR HANDUncle John Patterson with Ben Entrekin
Uncle John Patterson, banjo; James Patterson, guitar; Ben Entrekin, fiddle; unidentified, guitar (Home recording, date unknown)
Uncle John’s home recordings enhance the legacy of commercial recordings left behind when he passed away in 1980. As a member of the Carroll County Revelers, a trio of Carrollton pickers that included fiddler Jessie Chamblie and his brother, guitarist/vocalist Henry Chamblie, Patterson’s banjo playing was first featured on their 1931 Vocalion recordings of Rome Georgia Bound and Georgia Wobble Blues.
Later in life, Uncle John’s remarkable musicianship was showcased on his album Plains Georgia Rock, recorded by folklorist George Mitchell and released on the Arhoolie label in 1977. Reflecting his keen interest in politics, Patterson also recorded several 45-rpm singles with such topical titles as Muddy Roads of Vietnam, Watergate Blues, and First Lady Waltz.
33. THEME SONG (REPRISE) / Uncle John PattersonUncle John Patterson, banjo; James Patterson, guitar; Ben Entrekin, fiddle; unidentified, guitar (Home recording, date unknown)
Probably
more than any other local musician, Uncle John benefited from his years on
WLBB. The noteriety he gained from his popular radio program undoubtedly contributed
to his election to two consecutive terms as Carroll County’s representative
to the Georgia State Legislature, from 1968 to 1972.
This project is supported in part by the Georgia Humanities Council and the Georgia Council for the Arts through the appropriation of the Georgia General Assembly. The Georgia Council for the Arts is partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support includes a contribution from the Warren P. and Ava F. Sewell Foundation and the generosity of the College of Arts and Sciences and the History Department at the University of West Georgia; Airshow Mastering; Sony Music; and individual donors.
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