Gid Tanner
Encyclopedia
James Gideon Tanner was an American old time fiddler and one of the earliest stars of what would come to be known as country music
. His band, the Skillet Lickers
, was one of the most innovative and influential string band
s of the 1920s and 1930s. Its most notable members were Clayton McMichen
(fiddle and vocal) and the blind Riley Puckett
(guitar and vocal).
. He made a living as a chicken farmer for most of his life. He learned to play the fiddle at the age of 14 and quickly established a reputation as one of the finest musicians in Georgia. Early on, he participated in several fiddle conventions together with his rival Fiddlin' John Carson
, what one of them didn't win, the other would. Tanner reportedly had a repertoire of more than 2000 songs.
Tanner and Puckett traveled to New York City
in March 1924 to make the first of a series of duet recordings for Columbia Records
. The first recording made with the Skillet Lickers was "Hand Me Down My Walking Cane," recorded in Atlanta on April 17, 1926. It was released by Columbia on a 78rpm disc backed with “Watermelon On the Vine". The group would eventually record more than 100 songs for Columbia before splitting up in 1931. Three years later, Tanner and Puckett reformed the Skillet Lickers and had several releases on Bluebird Records
. Tanner stopped making records in 1934, but continued performing into his seventies. He died in Dacula, Georgia
.
and country musicians to this day. Among their best-known songs are "Alabama Jubilee", "Shortnin' Bread
", "Old Joe Clark
", "Casey Jones
", "John Henry", "Bully of the Town", "Bile Them Cabbage Down", "Cotton-Eyed Joe
", "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss", "Soldier’s Joy", "Bonaparte's Retreat", "Leather Breeches", "Four Cent Cotton" and their biggest seller, "Down Yonder
". Their comedy recordings, including "A Corn Licker Still in Georgia" and "A Fiddler’s Convention in Georgia" were equally popular.
The lyrics of the Skillet Lickers' music used language then common among rural white Americans, but which today is considered offensive, including song titles like "Nigger in the Woodpile" and "Run Nigger Run".
Gid Tanner & the Skillet Lickers were inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1988. Following his death in 1960, Tanner's grandson and great-grandson continued performing as the Skillet Lickers. Phil Tanner, Gid's grandson, hosts an open jam session
on Friday nights in a refurbished chicken house on his father's old farm in Dacula, Georgia
.
Songwriter Bob Dylan
wrote and performed a version of Gid Tanner's "Down on Tanner's Farm", retitled and reset as "New York Town". It can be heard in Martin Scorsese
's documentary on Dylan, No Direction Home
.
and affiliated labels, Bluebird
, Victor
, His Master's Voice (India), Regal
(England), Regal Zonophone
(Australia), Montgomery Ward, and Vocalion
labels.
Postwar, at least one Tanner 45 rpm reissue single is known on RCA Victor
.
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...
. His band, the Skillet Lickers
Skillet Lickers
The Skillet Lickers were an old-time band from Georgia, USA.When Gid Tanner teamed up with blind guitarist Riley Puckett and signed to Columbia in 1924, they created the label's earliest so-called "hillbilly" recording. Gid Tanner formed The Skillet Lickers in 1926. The first line-up was Gid...
, was one of the most innovative and influential string band
String band
A string band is an old-time music or jazz ensemble made up mainly or solely of string instruments. String bands were popular in the 1920s and 1930s, and are among the forerunners of modern country music and bluegrass.-String bands in old-time music:...
s of the 1920s and 1930s. Its most notable members were Clayton McMichen
Clayton McMichen
Clayton McMichen was an American fiddler and country musician.-Biography:Born in Allatoona, Georgia, McMichen learned to play the fiddle from his father and uncle. He moved to Atlanta with his family in 1913, working as an automobile mechanic. While there, he entered and won several competitions...
(fiddle and vocal) and the blind Riley Puckett
Riley Puckett
George Riley Puckett was an American country music pioneer mostly known for being a member of Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers.-Biography:...
(guitar and vocal).
Biography
Gid Tanner was born at Thomas Bridge near Monroe, GeorgiaMonroe, Georgia
Monroe is a city in Walton County, Georgia, United States. The population was 13,381 at the 2008 census. The city is the county seat of Walton County, Georgia.-Geography:Monroe is located at ....
. He made a living as a chicken farmer for most of his life. He learned to play the fiddle at the age of 14 and quickly established a reputation as one of the finest musicians in Georgia. Early on, he participated in several fiddle conventions together with his rival Fiddlin' John Carson
Fiddlin' John Carson
Fiddlin' John Carson was an American old time fiddler and an early-recorded country musician.-Early life:...
, what one of them didn't win, the other would. Tanner reportedly had a repertoire of more than 2000 songs.
Tanner and Puckett traveled to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in March 1924 to make the first of a series of duet recordings for 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...
. The first recording made with the Skillet Lickers was "Hand Me Down My Walking Cane," recorded in Atlanta on April 17, 1926. It was released by Columbia on a 78rpm disc backed with “Watermelon On the Vine". The group would eventually record more than 100 songs for Columbia before splitting up in 1931. Three years later, Tanner and Puckett reformed the Skillet Lickers and had several releases on Bluebird Records
Bluebird Records
Bluebird Records is a sub-label of RCA Victor Records originally created in 1932 to counter the American Record Company in the "3 records for a dollar" market. Along with ARC's Perfect Records, Melotone Records and Romeo Records, and the independent US Decca label, Bluebird became one of the best...
. Tanner stopped making records in 1934, but continued performing into his seventies. He died in Dacula, Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...
.
Legacy and influence
Many of the songs they recorded remain popular with bluegrassBluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
and country musicians to this day. Among their best-known songs are "Alabama Jubilee", "Shortnin' Bread
Shortnin' Bread
"Shortnin' Bread" is a song by James Whitcomb Riley.-History:...
", "Old Joe Clark
Old Joe Clark
Old Joe Clark is a folk song, a mountain ballad that was "sung during World War I and later by soldiers from eastern Kentucky." An early version was printed in 1918, as sung in Virginia at that time. Joe Clark was born in 1839, a mountaineer who was murdered in 1885. There are about 90 stanzas in...
", "Casey Jones
Casey Jones (song)
"Casey Jones" is a song by the American rock band the Grateful Dead. The music was written by Jerry Garcia, and the lyrics are by Robert Hunter. The song first appeared on the Dead's 1970 album Workingman's Dead. Subsequently it was included on a number of their live albums.The Grateful Dead...
", "John Henry", "Bully of the Town", "Bile Them Cabbage Down", "Cotton-Eyed Joe
Cotton-Eyed Joe
"Cotton-Eyed Joe" is a popular American folk song known at various times throughout the United States and Canada, although today it is most commonly associated with the American South...
", "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss", "Soldier’s Joy", "Bonaparte's Retreat", "Leather Breeches", "Four Cent Cotton" and their biggest seller, "Down Yonder
Down Yonder
"Down Yonder" is a popular song with words and music by L. Wolfe Gilbert. It was first published in 1921. Four characters from Gilbert's 1912 lyric to "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee" returned in this song...
". Their comedy recordings, including "A Corn Licker Still in Georgia" and "A Fiddler’s Convention in Georgia" were equally popular.
The lyrics of the Skillet Lickers' music used language then common among rural white Americans, but which today is considered offensive, including song titles like "Nigger in the Woodpile" and "Run Nigger Run".
Gid Tanner & the Skillet Lickers were inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1988. Following his death in 1960, Tanner's grandson and great-grandson continued performing as the Skillet Lickers. Phil Tanner, Gid's grandson, hosts an open jam session
Jam session
Jam sessions are often used by musicians to develop new material, find suitable arrangements, or simply as a social gathering and communal practice session. Jam sessions may be based upon existing songs or forms, may be loosely based on an agreed chord progression or chart suggested by one...
on Friday nights in a refurbished chicken house on his father's old farm in Dacula, Georgia
Dacula, Georgia
As of 2010 Dacula had a population of 4,442. the median age was 35.2. There were 1,472 households with 92.0% of housing units occupied. The racial and ethnic composition of the population was 76.6% white , 11.3% black or African American, 0.3% Native American, 0.4% Asian Indian, 2.8% other...
.
Songwriter Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
wrote and performed a version of Gid Tanner's "Down on Tanner's Farm", retitled and reset as "New York Town". It can be heard in Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
's documentary on Dylan, No Direction Home
No Direction Home
No Direction Home is a documentary film by Martin Scorsese that traces the life of Bob Dylan, and his impact on 20th century American popular music and culture. The film does not cover Dylan's entire career; it concentrates on the period between Dylan's arrival in New York in January 1961 and his...
.
78 rpm
In various prewar lineups Tanner recorded singles on ColumbiaColumbia 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...
and affiliated labels, Bluebird
Bluebird Records
Bluebird Records is a sub-label of RCA Victor Records originally created in 1932 to counter the American Record Company in the "3 records for a dollar" market. Along with ARC's Perfect Records, Melotone Records and Romeo Records, and the independent US Decca label, Bluebird became one of the best...
, Victor
Victor Talking Machine Company
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American corporation, the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. It was headquartered in Camden, New Jersey....
, His Master's Voice (India), Regal
Regal Recordings
Regal Recordings is a British record label functioning as an imprint of Parlophone.-Background:Regal Records was a British record label founded in 1914 as a subsidiary of the UK branch of Columbia Records known as Columbia Graphophone Company...
(England), Regal Zonophone
Regal Zonophone Records
Regal Zonophone Records was a British record label formed in 1932, through a merger of the Regal Records and Zonophone Records labels. This followed the merger of those labels' respective parent companies - the Columbia Graphophone Company and the Gramophone Company - to form EMI.Originally Regal...
(Australia), Montgomery Ward, and Vocalion
Vocalion Records
Vocalion Records is a record label active for many years in the United States and in the United Kingdom.-History:Vocalion was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Piano Company of New York City, which introduced a retail line of phonographs at the same time. The name was derived from one of their...
labels.
Postwar, at least one Tanner 45 rpm reissue single is known on RCA Victor
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...
.
Postwar recordings
- Gid Tanner; Gordon Tanner; Phil Tanner's Skillet Lickers : Skillet Licker Music 1955-1991: The Tanner Legacy - Global Village CD-310 (1997)
Reissued material
- Gid Tanner & the Skillet Lickers : eponymous - RCA Victor EPA-5069 (1958)
- Gid Tanner & His Skillet Lickers : eponymous - Folk Song Society of Minnesota 15001-D (1962)
- The Skillet Lickers : Vol. 1 - CountyCounty RecordsCounty Records also expanded into the bluegrass music genre, although Freeman preferred those artists who stayed the closest to their old-time roots. The label's first bluegrass release was 1965's Blue Ridge Bluegrass featuring Larry Richardson and the Blue Ridge Boys.-Related businesses:Freeman...
506 (196?) - The Skillet Lickers : Vol. 2 - CountyCounty RecordsCounty Records also expanded into the bluegrass music genre, although Freeman preferred those artists who stayed the closest to their old-time roots. The label's first bluegrass release was 1965's Blue Ridge Bluegrass featuring Larry Richardson and the Blue Ridge Boys.-Related businesses:Freeman...
526 (1973) - Gid Tanner & His Skillet Lickers : Hear These New Southern Fiddle and Guitar Records - Rounder 1005 (1973)
- Gid Tanner & His Skillet Lickers : The Kickapoo Medicine Show - Rounder 1023 (197?)
- Gid Tanner & the Skillet Lickers : eponymous - Vetco LP-107 (197?)
- The Skillet Lickers : A Day At the Country Fair: Early Country Comedy - Old Homestead OHCS-145 (1985)
- Gid Tanner & His Skillet Lickers : Early Classic String Bands Vol. 3 - Old Homestead OHCS-193 (1990)
- Gid Tanner & His Skillet Lickers : A Corn Licker Still in Georgia - Voyager VRLP-303 (197?), reissued as VRCD-303 (1997)
- The Skillet Lickers : Old-Time Fiddle Tunes and Songs from North Georgia - CountyCounty RecordsCounty Records also expanded into the bluegrass music genre, although Freeman preferred those artists who stayed the closest to their old-time roots. The label's first bluegrass release was 1965's Blue Ridge Bluegrass featuring Larry Richardson and the Blue Ridge Boys.-Related businesses:Freeman...
CD-3509 (1996) - The Skillet Lickers : Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order Volume 1: 1926-1927 - Document DOCD-8056 (2000)
- The Skillet Lickers : Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order Volume 2: 1927-1928 - Document DOCD-8057 (2000)
- The Skillet Lickers : Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order Volume 3: 1928-1929 - Document DOCD-8058 (2000)
- The Skillet Lickers : Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order Volume 4: 1929-1930 - Document DOCD-8059 (2000)
- The Skillet Lickers : Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order Volume 5: 1930-1934 - Document DOCD-8060 (2000)
- The Skillet Lickers : Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order Volume 6: 1934 - Document DOCD-8061 (2000)
External links
- http://www.southernmusic.net/gidtanner.htm