Clarence Ashley
Encyclopedia
"Tom" Clarence Ashley was an American clawhammer
Clawhammer
Clawhammer is a highly rhythmic banjo playing style and common component of American old-time music. The principal difference between clawhammer style and other styles is the picking direction...

 banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...

 player, guitarist and singer. He began performing at medicine show
Medicine show
Medicine shows were traveling horse and wagon teams which peddled "miracle cure" medications and other products between various entertainment acts. Their precise origins unknown, medicine shows were common in the 19th century United States...

s in the Southern Appalachian
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...

 region as early as 1911, and gained initial fame during the late 1920s as both a solo recording artist and as a member of various string bands. After his "rediscovery" during the folk revival
American folk music revival
The American folk music revival was a phenomenon in the United States that began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Richard Dyer-Bennett, Oscar Brand, Jean Ritchie, John Jacob...

 of the 1960s, Ashley spent the last years of his life playing at folk music concerts, including appearances at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

 in New York and at the Newport Folk Festival
Newport Folk Festival
The Newport Folk Festival is an American annual folk-oriented music festival in Newport, Rhode Island, which began in 1959 as a counterpart to the previously established Newport Jazz Festival...

 in Rhode Island
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...

.

Early life

Clarence Ashley was born Clarence Earl McCurry in Bristol, Tennessee
Bristol, Tennessee
Bristol is a city in Sullivan County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 26,702 at the 2010 census. It is the twin city of Bristol, Virginia, which lies directly across the state line between Tennessee and Virginia. The boundaries of both cities run parallel to each other along State...

 in 1895, the only child of George McCurry and Rose-Belle Ashley. Those who knew George McCurry described him variously as a "one-eyed fiddler, hell-raiser, and big talker." Shortly before Clarence was born, Rose-Belle's father, Enoch Ashley, discovered that George was an adulterer, and George was forced to leave town. Rose-Belle moved back in with her father, and around 1900, the family relocated to Shouns, Tennessee, a crossroads just south of Mountain City
Mountain City, Tennessee
Mountain City is a town in Johnson County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 2,383 at the 2000 census. It is the northeasternmost county seat in Tennessee; Mountain City is the county seat of Johnson County.-History:...

, where Enoch ran a boarding house. When Clarence was very young, he was nickname
Nickname
A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....

d "Tommy Tiddy Waddy" (after a nursery rhyme) by his grandfather Enoch, and thus became known to friends and acquaintances as 'Tom'. As he was raised by the parents of his mother, the name "McCurry" was dropped in favour of "Ashley".

From infancy, Tom was acquainted with musicians. His grandfather bought him a banjo when he was eight years old, and his mother and aunts taught him to play traditional Appalachian folk songs and ballads
Appalachian music
Appalachian music is the traditional music of the region of Appalachia in the Eastern United States. It is derived from various European and African influences, including English ballads, Irish and Scottish traditional music , religious hymns, and African-American blues...

. He also learned a number of songs and techniques from itinerant lumberjacks and railroad workers lodging at his grandfather's boarding house. In 1911, Tom joined a medicine show that happened to be passing through Mountain City. He played banjo and guitar, and also performed blackface comedy
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...

. Tom would play with medicine shows every summer until the early 1940s. During winters, he organized local concerts at rural schools. He would also play for money at coal camps and rayon mills, often accompanied by influential Johnson County fiddler G. B. Grayson
G. B. Grayson
Gilliam Banmon Grayson was an American Old-time fiddle player and singer. Mostly blind from infancy, Grayson is chiefly remembered for a series of sides recorded with guitarist Henry Whitter between 1927 and 1930 that would later influence numerous country, bluegrass, and rock musicians...

.

Recording career and the Great Depression

Tom made his first recordings for Gennett Records
Gennett Records
Gennett was a United States based record label which flourished in the 1920s.-Label history:Gennett records was founded in Richmond, Indiana by the Starr Piano Company, and released its first records in October 1917. The company took its name from its top managers: Harry, Fred and Clarence Gennett....

 during February 1928 with the Blue Ridge Mountain Entertainers, which then consisted of Ashley on banjo or guitar, Garley Foster on harmonica, and Clarence Horton Greene
Clarence Horton Greene
Clarence Horton Greene was an American musician and recording artist, noted for his fiddle and guitar work, and a pioneer in country music of the 1920s.-Biography:...

 on fiddle. Later that year, with the help of Victor producer Ralph Peer
Ralph Peer
Ralph Sylvester Peer was an American talent scout, recording engineer and record producer in the field of music in the 1920s and 1930s...

, Ashley made several recordings with the Carolina Tar Heels, which consisted of Tom on guitar and vocals, his friend Dock Walsh on banjo, and Gwen or Garley Foster on harmonica. In 1929, Frank Walker of Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

 auditioned Ashley to make his first solo recordings, as well as to record with a trio called "Byrd Moore and His Hot Shots" at the Johnson City Sessions
Johnson City sessions
The Johnson City Sessions were a series of recording auditions conducted in Johnson City, Tennessee, in 1928 and 1929 by Frank Buckley Walker, head of the Columbia Records “hillbilly” recordings division. They were part of a search for native Appalachian-Blue Ridge Mountains musical talent...

. During the early 1930s, Ashley again recorded with the Blue Ridge Entertainers, this time for the American Record Corporation
American Record Corporation
ARC, the American Record Company, also referred to as American Record Corporation, or as ARC Records, was a United States based record company...

. The final recordings from his early era were a series of duets with harmonica player Gwen Foster in 1933.

The effects of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 made money scarce throughout the early 1930s. Not only was Ashley no longer recruited to make records, it was virtually impossible to earn money playing at coal camps or on street corners. The Depression (along with government regulations) also greatly reduced the crowds that attended medicine shows. Ashley worked briefly as a coal miner in West Virginia, and did odd jobs back in Shouns to support his wife, Hettie, and their two children. In 1937, he established a trucking business in Mountain City that hauled furniture and crops to various cities around the region. Throughout the following decade, Ashley performed as a comedian with the Stanley Brothers.
He also formed a local string band, the Tennessee Merrymakers.

Rediscovery

During the folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 revival of the late 1950s and early 1960s, urban ethnomusicologists rediscovered Ashley's music. By this time, Ashley was well-known among folk music enthusiasts due in large part to Harry Smith's
Harry Everett Smith
Harry Everett Smith was an American archivist, ethnomusicologist, student of anthropology, record collector, experimental filmmaker, artist, bohemian and mystic...

 1951 Anthology of American Folk Music, which included some of Ashley's early recordings. In 1960, Ralph Rinzler
Ralph Rinzler
Ralph Rinzler was the co-founder of the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the Mall every summer in Washington, D.C., where he worked as a curator for American art, music, and folk culture at the Smithsonian....

 met Ashley at the Old Time Fiddler's Convention in Union Grove, North Carolina
Union Grove Township, North Carolina
Union Grove is a township and unincorporated community in Iredell County, North Carolina, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 2069. Union Grove Township was established in 1865 but the Union Grove Post Office existed prior to the Civil War...

.
He eventually persuaded him to start playing banjo again and to record his repertoire of songs. Over the next few years Ashley and his friends Doc Watson
Doc Watson
Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson is an American guitar player, songwriter and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues and gospel music. He has won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Watson's flatpicking skills and knowledge of traditional American music are highly regarded...

, Clint Howard, and Fred Price played at numerous urban folk festivals, including the Chicago Folk Festival during 1962 and the Newport Folk Festival in 1963. They also made two records for Folkways Records
Folkways Records
Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987, and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways.-History:...

. A compilation of the two records plus other recordings are available on Original Folkways Recordings: 1960-1962.

Ashley continued touring the folk circuit throughout the mid-1960s.
He appeared at Carnegie Hall in New York and played at dozens of venues in California. In 1966, Ashley and Reidsville, North Carolina
Reidsville, North Carolina
Reidsville is a city located in Rockingham County, North Carolina. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 14,485.Originally established in the early 19th century as an outpost and stop on the stage line that ran between Salisbury, NC and Danville, VA called Wrights Crossroads,...

 guitarist Tex Isley toured England. A second tour of England was planned for 1967, but Ashley grew ill and discovered he had cancer before he departed. He died in 1967, at the Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Winston-Salem is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina, with a 2010 population of 229,617. Winston-Salem is the county seat and largest city of Forsyth County and the fourth-largest city in the state. Winston-Salem is the second largest municipality in the Piedmont Triad region and is home to...

.

Repertoire and influence

Ashley learned much of his repertoire from his grandfather and aunts and itinerant musicians lodging at his grandfather's boarding house in the early 1900s. His unusual G-modal banjo tuning style, which he called "sawmill" (gDGCD from fifth string to the first), was likely taught to him by family members. He recorded several songs derived from English or Irish ballads that were passed down through generations in Appalachia, the most well-known of which included "Coo Coo Bird
The Cuckoo (song)
"The Cuckoo" is a traditional English folk song. It has been covered by many musicians in several different styles. An early notable recorded version was performed by Appalachian folk musician Clarence Ashley with a unique banjo tuning....

" (which he learned from his mother), "House Carpenter", and "Rude and Rambling Man
The Newry Highwayman
"The Newry Highwayman" is a traditional Irish folk song about a criminal's life, deeds, and death. It is also found in England, Scotland, the USA and Canada. The earliest known broadside is from about 1830 . Some versions mention "Mansfield" and this is sometimes taken to be William Murray, first...

". Other recordings included the murder ballads "Naomi Wise
Omie Wise
Omie Wise or Naomi Wise was an American murder victim, who is remembered by a popular murder ballad about her death.-The song:Omie Wise's death became the subject of a traditional American ballad...

", "Little Sadie
Little Sadie
"Little Sadie" is a 20th Century American folk ballad in D Dorian mode. It is also known variously as "Bad Lee Brown", "Cocaine Blues", "Transfusion Blues", "East St. Louis Blues", "Late One Night", "Penitentiary Blues" and other titles. It tells the story of a man who is apprehended after shooting...

", and "John Hardy
John Hardy (song)
"John Hardy" is a traditional American folk song based on the life of a railroad worker in West Virginia. The historical John Hardy killed a man during a craps game, was found guilty of murder in the first degree, and was hanged on January 19, 1894....

", and the folk songs "Frankie Silvers" and "Greenback Dollar". An African-American influence can be heard on Ashley's renderings of "Dark Holler", "Haunted Road Blues", and "Corrina, Corrina
Corrina, Corrina (song)
"Corrine, Corrina" is a 12 bar country blues song in the AAB form. "Corrine, Corrina" was first recorded by "Bo Carter" Chatmon . However, it was not copyrighted until 1932 by Chatmon and his publishers, Mitchell Parish and J. Mayo Williams...

". In 1933, Ashley made the first known recording of "House of the Rising Sun", which he claimed he learned from his grandfather, Enoch. During the folk revival years of the 1960s, Ashley and his band helped to popularize the Southern hymn, "Amazing Grace
Amazing Grace
"Amazing Grace" is a Christian hymn with words written by the English poet and clergyman John Newton , published in 1779. With a message that forgiveness and redemption are possible regardless of the sins people commit and that the soul can be delivered from despair through the mercy of God,...

."

Several notable musicians cite Ashley as an important influence. Country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 singer Roy Acuff
Roy Acuff
Roy Claxton Acuff was an American country music singer, fiddler, and promoter. Known as the King of Country Music, Acuff is often credited with moving the genre from its early string band and "hoedown" format to the star singer-based format that helped make it internationally successful.Acuff...

 once worked medicine shows with Ashley, and Ashley probably taught him "House of the Rising Sun" (which Acuff recorded during 1938) and "Greenback Dollar." Folk musician Doc Watson
Doc Watson
Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson is an American guitar player, songwriter and singer of bluegrass, folk, country, blues and gospel music. He has won seven Grammy awards as well as a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Watson's flatpicking skills and knowledge of traditional American music are highly regarded...

 began his recording career with Ashley in 1960 and played in Ashley's band throughout much of the decade. Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...

 frontman Jerry Garcia
Jerry Garcia
Jerome John "Jerry" Garcia was an American musician best known for his lead guitar work, singing and songwriting with the band the Grateful Dead...

 once said in an interview that he learned clawhammer
Clawhammer
Clawhammer is a highly rhythmic banjo playing style and common component of American old-time music. The principal difference between clawhammer style and other styles is the picking direction...

 picking from "listening to Clarence Ashley." Other folk musicians influenced by Ashley include Joan Baez
Joan Baez
Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....

, Judy Collins
Judy Collins
Judith Marjorie "Judy" Collins is an American singer and songwriter, known for her eclectic tastes in the material she records ; and for her social activism. She is an alumna of the University of Colorado.-Musical career:Collins was born and raised in Seattle, Washington...

, and Jean Ritchie
Jean Ritchie
Jean Ritchie is an American folk singer, songwriter, and Appalachian dulcimer player.- Out of Kentucky :Abigail and Balis Ritchie of Viper, Kentucky had 14 children, and Jean was the youngest...

.

Sources

  • Tom Clarence Ashley: An Appalachian Folk Musician (Masters Thesis: East Tennessee State University) by Minnie M. Miller, 1973.
  • The Music Of Clarence "Tom" Ashley 1929-1933 Greenback Dollar

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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