Clayton "Pappy" McMitchen
DIGR 4 U2
Anybody have any memories of "Pappy" ?
MY mother played music with him for years, did anyone out their also play
music with him or know someone who did? I am looking for others that knew him
or played music in the Louisvile,Ky. area?
Rebecca Scott
201 Kim Ct.
Lou.KY. 40214
n
now someome who did?
Jim Nelson
Paul Tyler wrote:
>
> Please tell us more. Where? When? Who? What were the call letters.
> A lot of people here know him as lead fiddler in the Skillet Lickers and
> the Wildcats, but not as Pappy. We still mostly picture him as he was
> in 1931. Though I personally wasn't around then. I remember hearing a
> lot of stories about him playing at dance halls in small towns in
> southern Indiana (places like Birdseye, Eckerty, and English). And when
> he came on the radio he always said "Howdy, Howdy, Howdy." Or so I'm
> told. Supposedly a tape recording exists of his legendary visit to Bill
> Monroe's Bean Blossom Jamboree (not the festival, the concert barn).
McMichen moved with his band, the Georgia Wildcats, to Louisville around 1932-33. He
based himself there for the remainder of his musical career and the rest of his life.
After he quit the music business, he owned and operated a tavern which is still in
operation (though I hear it's kind of a fern bar these days). According to a Georgia
Wildcats songbook I have (dated 1934), the Wildcats at that time were Clayton McMichen
on violin and vocals, Hoyt "Slim" Bryant on guitar and bass, Jack Dunnigan guitar and
singer, Pat Berryman on banjo, violin, and mandolin. I believe that Bert Layne (fiddle)
and Merle Travis (guitar) were members of the Georgia Wildcats at different times.
According to my book, there was a Georgia Wildcat Dance Orchestra which included Bill
Swain on bass, Dave Durham on trumpet and hot fiddle, Orville Furrow on sax and
clarinet, Eddie Rheinhart on piano, Jimmie Pearson on drums, Paul Swain on sax and
clarinet, and Gene Edwards on sax and clarinet. Don't know if, when, or how often this
aggregation played together, but I do know that in the mid-to-late forties, McMichen had
turned the Wildcats into sort of a dixieland band that played dance halls all over
southcentral Kentucky and southern Indiana. (I can hear folks scoffing at this, but I've
heard that McMichen always held the music played by Gid and company in disdain and
didn't much care for the hayseed image either.) I saw a letter in McMichen's scrapbook
(now there's a fascinating read!) at the Country Music Foundation in which he tries to
interest some exec at Decca (I think) in signing his (dixieland) band. It didn't pan
out, though.
McMichen and the Wildcats had regular radio shows in Louisville throughout the 1930s and
40s beginning on WHAS and later on WAVE. While doing research for a thesis a few years
ago, I spoke a couple of folks who mentioned seeing the Wildcats at a place called the
Quonset in Bowling Green. Another mentioned that at one point in the late forties, you
could hear the Wildcats at noon on WAVE and Clifford Gross's band over on WHAS (or maybe
it was the other way around). The Wildcats recorded extensively for Decca throughout
the thirties and into the early forties. This material included reworkings of jazz and
popular standards as well as hillbilly material and some original songs. Around 1939
McMichen recorded an album of fiddle tunes for Decca--three or four records with medleys
of three tunes to a side. Good stuff. Cary Ginell's *Decca Hillbilly Discography* has
listings for all of this material. I recall seeing an interview with Jack Dunnigan by
Nolan Porterfield in an issue of the *Journal of Country Music* from about 1983. As far
as I know, Slim Bryant may be the only Wildcat still living, although I'm sure there are
some I don't know about. McMichen's daughter, Juanita Lynch, is alive and well and
currently resides just outside of Elizabethtown, KY.
After all this rambling, we still don't know where the nickname "Pappy" came from.
Jim Nelson
David Sanderson
Don't know any exact connection, but there is a tape that Mac Wiseman
sells called something like "The Clayton McMichen Story" with a fiddler
called Red Herron, supposedly a McMichen protegee (and plenty good, in
fact). Has Joe Maphis playing plectrum banjo and Merle Travis on
guitar, with Wiseman and a couple of others. This is apparently Travis'
very last recording session, according to Wiseman.
--
David Sanderson dav...@greennet.net
02/09/98 23:38
[ Standard Disclaimer ]
Paul Mitchell
On Mon, 9 Feb 1998, Jim Nelson wrote:
> 1983. As far as I know, Slim Bryant may be the only Wildcat still
> living, although I'm sure there are some I don't know about.
Yes, of course this would include Kasper D. "Stranger" Malone whom Carl
Jones and James Bryan ran into. He played clarinet on some early Wildcat
recordings, (some of which are re-issued on the out of print Davis
Unlimited LP which also features some of McMichens fiddle medleys).
Kasper's listed in the Who's Who of Jazz, (on bass, an instrument which
he uses with classical ensembles as well), but still likes to
play rags (such as Black and White Rag) on clarinet, as well as sing his
own versions of pop dittes accompanying himself on guitar.
Hopefully Bryan, Jones and Malone will get into a recording studio pronto;
they did appear at a folk festial (in Georgia, I believe), late last year.
Paul
==============================================================================
Paul Mitchell email: pa...@thing.oit.unc.edu
Academic Technology and Networks phone: (919) 962-5259
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Oldtime1
Rebecca and Paul's posts are a reminder that McMitchen's Skillet Lickers years
were relatively brief; that much of his life was spent working radio in the
Louisville area. There were some great interviews with him published in Oldtime
Music magazine (not the same as the Oldtime Herald) a dozen years ago and from
those I gather that McMitchen was surprised at the devotion to his early
recordings; that he preferred his swinging years in Louisville.
Some of those who met McMitchen during his Newport festival appearence also
relate that he thought it odd that the early bands got all the attention from
the young, new, fans.
His later bands were excellent; many well-respected players were associated
with his "Pappy" years. One of them was my late friend Merle Travis who began
working for Pappy at age 13 and thought him one of the finest musicians and
bandleaders to ever carry a bull fiddle on top of his car.
I suppose those bands were under-recorded because Pappy was in Louisville for
the depression, and things didn't impove much for country folk until the war
years. So he had him a fine dance band on radio and a set of regular gigs that
paid relatively well. But why no big national come-back attempt after the war?
The only hint I get from the interviews is that he'd settled into a rather
comfortable lifestyle and was in his middle years.
Its easy to be judgemental about the middle class and its prediliction for
comfort if one has always been part of it. But McMichen had been an automobile
mechanic and he'd played the hell-holes where a fence of chicken wire protected
the musicians from thrown bottles. I believe I'd have stayed in Louisville,
too, and visted with Cliff Carlisle, another wild child that Louisville tamed.
I only wish there was more on CD of his dance band and variety show bands.
Joe Wilson
Peter Feldmann
Oldtime1 wrote about Re: Clayton "Pappy" McMitchen:
> There were some great interviews with him published in Oldtime
>Music magazine (not the same as the Oldtime Herald) a dozen years ago and
>from
>those I gather that McMitchen was surprised at the devotion to his early
>recordings; that he preferred his swinging years in Louisville.
I really enjoy his 78's with "The Georgia Organ-Grinders".
_Peter
-------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Feldmann * Blue Dalmatian Productions
pfel...@REMOVE-bix.com
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F.Gentry
Jason Hill
In article <34DF81...@wulaw.wustl.edu>, Jim Nelson
<nels...@wulaw.wustl.edu> writes
>
> According to a
>Georgia
>Wildcats songbook I have (dated 1934), the Wildcats at that time were Clayton
>McMichen
>on violin and vocals, Hoyt "Slim" Bryant on guitar and bass, Jack Dunnigan
>guitar and
>singer, Pat Berryman on banjo, violin, and mandolin.
>Jim Nelson
A similar combination to this, certainly including Clayton McMichen and
Slim Bryant, accompanied Jimmie Rodgers on some of his later recordings.
Interesting to hear that Slim Bryant is still alive. I wonder if any
other musician who worked with Rodgers is still alive.
--
Jason Hill