Ray Atkins

b. Raymond Atkins, 19 Feb 1927, Erwin, Tennessee, USA, d. 1 Feb 1997. Ray ‘Duck’ Atkins was therefore inspired by Pete Kirby’s dobro using Roy Acuff that he made a decision to find out the device himself. After earning a talent competition in 1942, he became a member of Carl Tale’s Rambling Mountaineers and used them at WNOX Knoxville, until Tale left for armed forces service in Globe Battle II. Between 1946 and 1951, after a spell at WROL Knoxville with Bonnie Lou And Buster as well as the Morris Brothers, he became a member of Johnnie And Jack port’s Tennessee Hill Boys and used them at WPTF Raleigh, WSM Nashville and KWKH Shreveport, finally departing because his wife didn’t like Shreveport. He rejoined his aged boss, Carl Tale, in Knoxville until 1955, when, relatively tired of traveling, he became a WNOX personnel musician. In 1958, he started daily television looks with Arthur Smith at WBT Charlotte, where he also obtained his nickname of Duck due to his Donald Duck impersonations inside a humor act having a duck puppet known as Quackerjack. In the middle-60s, he became a disk jockey, and later on became mixed up in management of r / c when he became part-owner of WIXE Monroe. He offered his businesses in 1990, and retired to Mint Hill, NEW YORK. Although he produced Apollo, King Information and RCA Information recordings with Johnnie And Jack port (playing on the big strike ‘Poison Like’) and with Tale on Mercury Information and Columbia Information, he produced few, if any, single recordings. Nevertheless, historian John Morris ultimately persuaded him out of pension to record for his Aged Homestead label.