Gid Tanner

The Skillet Lickers were perhaps one of the most important and influential string rings from the ’20s and ’30s. Led by fiddler Gid Tanner, the music group combined old-timey nation music using a wacky love of life and showmanship that produced the group perhaps one of the most well-known nation rings in America. The initial lineup from the music group highlighted the dexterous and amazing interplay of Tanner, guitarist Riley Puckett, fiddler Clayton McMichen, and banjoist Destiny Norris. From 1926 to 1931, the Skillet Lickers had been typically the most popular nation music group in the united states. Following the first band’s dissolution, Puckett and latter-day fiddler Bert Layne led different rings known as the Skillet Lickers, however the group wasn’t relaunched until 1934, when Tanner shaped a fresh lineup that documented one final program that yielded their biggest strike, “Down Yonder.” Tanner do have the proper towards the Skillet Lickers name; in the end, he was the musician that sparked Columbia Information A&R consultant Frank Walker to put together the entire music group in 1925. Before the formation from the Skillet Lickers, Tanner experienced worked his method up through the traditional circuit of celebrations and traveling demonstrates fiddlers frequented. His 1st great achievement arrived in the center of the 1910s, when he started to frequently earn fiddling conventions in Atlanta. Furthermore to playing, Tanner was also an achieved comedian, which designed he was an all-around entertainer, with the capacity of earning audiences easily. Ultimately, Columbia asked him to record for his or her label, and in early 1924, he journeyed to NY along with his longtime friend and accompanist, Puckett, and produced a small number of singles. The next year, Walker journeyed to Atlanta using the motives of developing a string supergroup. Keeping in mind Tanner and his information, he asked the fiddler and Puckett to end up being the core of the group, adding McMichen and Norris towards the lineup. Choosing the name the Skillet Lickers (a tribute towards the Lickskillet Music group, a string music group that used to try out fiddler contests), the music group documented and released their initial singles in 1926. The Skillet Lickers had been an immediate strike, shooting to the very best of the graphs with the dual A-sided one “Bully of the city”/”Pass Throughout the Container and We’ll All Have a Drink.” The one was implemented quickly by “Watermelon Dangling on the Vine”/”You,” which verified their position as hillbilly superstars. Making use of their third solo, the Skillet Lickers released their first humor record with “A Corn Licker Still in Georgia,” which alternated music using a comic dialogue about backwoods moonshiners. The record was their biggest one however, equalled by their second humor strike, “A Fiddler’s Convention in Georgia.” Not merely did the humor information sell much better than the right instrumental fiddling information. Any solitary featuring Puckett performing became a big success. Combined with the achievement came internal pressure within the music group. All their information were acknowledged to “Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers,” which became a way to obtain discomfort to Puckett and McMichen, both of whom experienced that these were even more integral towards the sound from the music group than Tanner. A bargain was reached, as well as the information bore the convoluted credit “Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers With Clayton McMichen and Riley Puckett.” Nevertheless, that didn’t end friction inside the group, who experienced at that time included several fresh, younger users like fiddlers Lowe Stokes and Bert Layne. The brand new users want to go the Skillet Lickers toward Traditional western golf swing music. McMichen sided using the newer associates, but the staying trio wished to stay accurate with their folk root base. By 1930, the associates acquired begun to component ways and acquired stopped touring frequently. Furthermore to dealing with the Skillet Lickers, McMichen became a studio room musician for Columbia and used Jimmie Rodgers. Finally, he produced a fresh string music group known as the Georgia Wildcats. McMichen even so participated in every of the studio room periods for the Skillet Lickers, which found a halt in 1931. Following disbandment from the Skillet Lickers in 1931, Puckett and Layne both toured and documented with groups known as “the Skillet Lickers,” however the name was officially reclaimed by Tanner in 1934, when he agreed upon to Victor’s Bluebird label. Tanner set up a new band of Skillet Lickers — including Puckett, mandolinist Ted Hawkins, guitarist Mike Whitten, guitarist Hoke Grain, guitarist Hugh Combination, and his sons Arthur and Gordon, on banjo and fiddle respectively — and documented over 30 music in San Antonio. It had been the final period Tanner ever inserted a studio room. The sessions created “Down Yonder,” which became Tanner as well as the Skillet Lickers’ last big strike. Following 1934 program, the Skillet Licker name was retired, rather than long from then on, Tanner retired himself. Puckett, McMichen, and Layne all pursued single careers. Pursuing Tanner’s loss of life in 1960, his child Gordon continuing fiddling, conserving the custom of his dad as well as the Skillet Lickers.