Odus Maggard

You can certainly tell you young Joseph Odus Maggard was created into a music family. His mom, Malinda Wells Maggard, was linked to Kitty Wells, perhaps one of the most well-known female nation & western performers. Maggard discovered both electric guitar and banjo as a boy, evidently playing music also before he was big more than enough to actually contain the instruments by himself. He was engaging at local rectangular dances when he was five years of age. Whoever was thinking about booking him, generally a neighbor, would come across and grab the massively underage picker, appealing to possess him back his parent’s hands by a particular time. He’d then be shipped following the event, his storage compartments stuffed with transformation he previously received as payment. As an adolescent he installed with Woodrow Roberts, who also sang and performed guitar. They started performing being a duo and in the middle-’30s they became a member of forces using a fiddler, Pat Hill. This group guaranteed a gig broadcasting on WOPI out of Bristol, TN, and started contacting themselves the Southern Melody Children. The radio areas resulted in gigs all over the region so that as the music group grew more vigorous they changed Hill with fiddler Joe McConnell. In 1937 Maggard and Roberts visited Charlotte, NC, to trim some edges for the RCA Victor Bluebird series. A few of these game titles were released over the Montgomery Ward label and bought from the chain’s shops and through their catalogs. In 1938 they documented in Charlotte once again, this time around for Decca. It had been the rowdy, hard-drinking atmosphere of the first bluegrass and old-time music picture that led Maggard to drop out of executing, as he didn’t approve of either. A brawl at a gig he was playing in Harlan State, KY, was the last straw, most likely actually as the music group was playing for the square dance. Over time of working being a pipefitter, Maggard visited barber college and finished up starting the Design Barber Store in Kingsport, TN. Music under no circumstances fallen out of his existence, however. He held his tools alongside his scissors, shavers, and brushes and will be playing old-time music whenever the way to obtain customers dry out. Maggard continues to be extremely praised for his songwriting abilities. His songs consist of “Down in Baltimore,” “Lovely Locust Blossoms,” as well as the unhappy “Back California.” Enthusiasts of banjo playing treasure his early recordings, and believe that he might have been among the greats if he previously decided to go after banjo picking, rather than hair slicing, as his life’s profession. He documented the recording Southern Melody for the June Appal label in the ’80s, and it had been re-released on Compact disc in 1995.