Bill Carlisle, RIP -- from CMT
Joe Cline
Edward Morris
03/17/2003
Bill Carlisle, the Grand Ole Opry star whose abrupt midsong leaps
earned him the name "Jumpin' Bill," died Monday (March 17) at his
Nashville-area home after years of declining health. He was 94.
A Grand Ole Opry member since 1953, Carlisle was inducted into the
Country Music Hall of Fame in 2002. Carlisle made his last Opry
appearance on March 7 and suffered a stroke last Wednesday (March 12).
William Carlisle was born Dec. 19, 1908 in Wakefield, Ky., near
Louisville. Following the lead of brother Cliff, who was four years
his senior, Carlisle learned to play guitar and began doing shows in
the region during the 1920s. In 1929, Carlisle, his brother and father
and other members of the family launched The Carlisle Family Saturday
Night Barn Dance on a Louisville radio station. Four years later,
Cliff helped his brother get a deal with ARC Records, the upshot of
which was the recording "Rattlesnake Daddy," one of Carlisle's own
compositions.
Recording for a variety of labels during the '30s, Carlisle
popularized such tunes as "String Bean Mama," "Jumpin' and Jerkin'
Blues" and "Sally Let Your Bangs Hang Down." He also toured the
live-radio circuit, sometimes with Cliff, sometimes with his own band,
working at stations in Lexington and Louisville, Ky.; Charlotte and
Winston-Salem, N. C., Greenville, S.C.; Shreveport, La.; and
Knoxville, Tenn. In Knoxville, he and his brother starred for years on
the historic country music shows, Midday Merry-Go-Round and Tennessee
Barn Dance.
Working as the Carlisles, the brothers achieved their first chart hit,
"Rainbow at Midnight," in 1946. Two years later, as the Carlisle
Brothers, they charted again with "Tramp on the Street." Bill Carlisle
came into his own as a solo recording artist in the early 1950s via a
series of novelty hits, most of which he wrote himself. These included
"No Help Wanted," "Knothole," "Shake-a-Leg" and one that added an
enduring phrase about aging to the American lexicon, "Too Old to Cut
the Mustard." In addition to Carlisle, the song was cut by Ernest Tubb
and Red Foley, the Maddox Brothers and Rose and the unlikely duo of
Rosemary Clooney and Marlene Dietrich.
Carlisle's most surprising hit was his 1954 cover of the Drifters' R&B
smoothie, "Honey Love," which came out the same year. His version
reached No. 12 on the country charts. Carlisle made his final chart
appearance in 1965-66 with "What Kinda Deal Is This." Although best
known for his novelty tunes, Carlisle also wrote the now-classic hymn,
"Gone Home."
During much of his half-century on the Grand Ole Opry, Carlisle sang
with a group that featured his son, Billy, and daughter, Sheila.
A memorial service is expected to take place later this week.
Joe Cline