DeFord Bailey | |
|---|---|
 Bailey in the 1970s | |
| Background information | |
| Born | (1899-12-14)December 14, 1899 Smith County, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Died | July 2, 1982(1982-07-02) (aged 82) Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.[1] |
| Genres | |
| Occupation | Musician |
| Instruments | |
| Years active | 1920s–1941 |
| Labels | |
DeFord Bailey (December 14, 1899 – July 2, 1982)[4] was an Americanold-time musician and songwriter considered to be the first African Americancountry music star. He started his career in the 1920s and was one of the first performers to be introduced on Nashville radio stationWSM'sGrand Ole Opry,[5] and becoming, alongsideUncle Dave Macon, one of the program's most famous performers. He was the first African-American performer to appear on the show, and the first performer to record his music in Nashville.[6] Bailey played several instruments in his career but is best known for playing theharmonica, often being referred to as a "harmonica wizard".
Bailey was born and raised in Tennessee, all his family played "black hillbilly" country and blues music and he learned how to play the harmonica and mandolin while recuperating from polio as a young child.[6] He moved from New York to Nashville with relatives in his late teens and was a significant early contributor to Nashville's burgeoning music industry. Among the first generation of entertainers to perform live on the radio, his recorded compositions were well-known and popular.
Bailey toured and performed withRoy Acuff and many well-known country artists during the 1930s. But as a result of the 1941 royalties disagreement betweenBroadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) andAmerican Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), he was fired by WSM and stopped making his living as an entertainer. Afterwards, he supported himself and his family by opening a shoe shining company and renting out rooms in his home. He returned to sporadic public performances in 1974 when he was invited to participate in the Opry's first Old-Timers show and in 2005 was posthumously inducted into theCountry Music Hall of Fame.
Deford Bailey was born on December 14, 1899,[4] near the Bellwood community inCarthage,Smith County, Tennessee.[2][7] At least one of his grandfathers had been enslaved.[8] All of his family was involved in music. A grandfather was a fiddler, and his mother, who died when he was about a year old, played guitar. Another brother learned banjo. Bailey suffered from polio, then called infant paralysis, and was taken in by an aunt named Barbara Lou. He learned to play theharmonica and mandolin at the age of three[8][7] when he contractedpolio.[7] While he was ill, Bailey was confined to bed for a year and could only move his head and arms. His style of playing the harmonica took root during that time, as he imitated the sounds of the natural world around him and of the trains traveling through the countryside.[9] Though Bailey did recover from his bout with polio, there were some long-term consequences. His back remained slightly misshapen, and he only grew to be 4 feet, 10 inches. He was so short and slender as a teenager that he was mistaken to be an underage child by railroad ticket agents.[10] His foster father, Clark Odom, was hired as a manager for a farm near Nashville, and in 1908 the family made the move from Smith County.[11] The Odoms and their foster son lived on Nashville and Franklin Tennessee farms Clark Odom managed for several years. In 1918, the family moved to Nashville when Clark Odom got a city job, and Bailey started to perform locally there as an amateur.[12]
Bailey's first radio appearance was apparently in September 1925[2][13] on Fred Exum's WDAD, a Nashville station that only lasted from 1925 until sometime in 1927.[14] His first documented appearances, however, were in 1926 according toThe Nashville Tennessean including WDAD on January 14[15] andWSM on June 19.[16] On December 10, 1927, he debuted his trademark song, "Pan American Blues" (named for theLouisville and Nashville Railroad'sPan-American), on a program then known as theWSM Barn Dance. At that timeBarn Dance aired after NBC's classical music show, theMusic Appreciation Hour. While introducing Bailey, WSM station manager and announcerGeorge D. Hay exclaimed on-air, "For the past hour, we have been listening to music largely from Grand Opera, but from now on, we will present 'The Grand Ole Opry.'"[2] "Pan American Blues" was the first recording of a harmonica blues solo.[17]
Several records by Bailey were issued in 1927 and 1928, all of them harmonica solos. In 1927 he recorded for Brunswick Records in New York City,[18][19] In 1928 he made the first recordings in Nashville,[6] eight sides[1] forRCA Victor,[18][19] three of which were issued on the Victor, Bluebird, and RCA labels. Emblematic of the ambiguity of Bailey's position as a recording artist is the fact that his arguably greatest recording, "John Henry[broken anchor]", was released by RCA separately in both its "race" series and its "hillbilly" series.[20] In addition to his well-known harmonica, Bailey also played the guitar,bones, and banjo.[2][3]
Bailey was a pioneer member of the WSMGrand Ole Opry and one of its most popular performers, appearing on the program from 1927 to 1941.[21] During this period he toured with major country stars, includingUncle Dave Macon,Bill Monroe, andRoy Acuff.[22] Acuff later said "I was an unknown when I began touring with DeFord. He could draw a crowd, not me. He helped me get started."[23] Bailey's own article at the Country Music Hall of Fame called him "one of the Grand Ole Opry's most popular early performers and country music's first African American star."[24] Like other Black stars of his day traveling in theSouthern United States andWestern United States, he faced difficulties in finding food and accommodations while on tour because of discriminatoryJim Crow laws.[23]
Bailey was fired by WSM in 1941 because of a licensing conflict betweenBMI andASCAP, which prevented him from playing his best-known tunes on the radio.[25] When he was let go from the Opry, that effectively ended his performance and recording career. Bailey then spent the rest of his life running his own shoeshine stand and renting out rooms in his home to make a living.[6][26] Though he continued to play the harmonica, he rarely performed publicly.[6] One of his rare performances occurred in 1974, when he agreed to appear on the Opry. This was a special event to mark the Opry leaving theRyman Auditorium for theGrand Ole Opry House.[27][6] This performance became the impetus for the Opry's annual Old Timers' Shows.[2]
Afterwards, Bailey continued to perform at the Opry only occasionally. He played there on his 75th birthday in December 1974, at the Old Timers Shows,[28] and also in April 1982. A few months later that year, in June, he was taken to Nashville's Baptist Hospital in failing health. Bailey died from kidney and heart failure on July 2, 1982, at his daughter's home in Nashville,[6][1][29] and is buried inGreenwood Cemetery there.[4]
Bailey's family were also in the music business. His son, also named DeFord Bailey and called DeFord Bailey Jr was a well-known musician in Nashville. At one time his band includedJimi Hendrix as a guitarist.[30][31] Bailey's grandson, Carlos DeFord Bailey, has performed at theGrand Ole Opry.[32]
Bailey himself said that he came from a tradition of "black hillbilly music".[2] His family members had played a variety of instruments, including a grandfather who had been a well-known local fiddler in Smith County, Tennessee. He said later when referring to playing the harmonica when he was growing up "Oh, I wore it out trying to imitate everything I hear! Hens, foxes, hounds, turkeys, and all those trains and things on the road. Everything around me."
[33] Along with performing well-known genre classics such as "Cow-Cow Blues", Bailey also wrote his own signature Opry songs, like the train-imitating "Pan American Blues" and the "Dixie Flyer Blues".[6] When WSM's power increased to 50,000 watts, Bailey's influence also increased, with harmonica enthusiasts listening to his performances and studying his recordings.[2]
2005 Nashville Public Television produced the documentaryDeFord Bailey: A Legend Lost.[34] The documentary was broadcast nationally through PBS. Bailey was inducted into theCountry Music Hall of Fame on November 15, 2005. The DeFord Bailey Tribute Garden at theGeorge Washington Carver Food Park in Nashville was dedicated on June 27, 2007.[35] TheEncyclopedia of Country Music called him "the most significant black country star before World War II."[36] Bailey is still being referred to as a "harmonica wizard" more than three decades after his death.[37][38]
Listing sourced from the University of Santa Barbara Library/American Discography Project's Discography of American Historical Recordings[39]
In 1927, Hay spontaneously renamed the Barn Dance while introducing some of his down-home musicians on a WSM weekday evening broadcast following a classical music program. Countering the view that "there is no place in the classics for realism," Hay said, "[W]e will present nothing but realism. It will be down to earth for the 'earthy.'" As if to illustrate his point, Hay introduced Bailey, whose "Pan American Blues" recreated the whoosh of the L&N Railroad express train he had heard from his boyhood. In his introduction, Hay also said, "For the past hour, we have been listening to music largely from Grand Opera, but from now on, we will present 'The Grand Ole Opry.'" Thus Bailey and his musical cohorts helped to inspire the name of America's longest-running radio show.
on about September 13, 1925 Nashville's first radio station took to the air"..."apparently WDAD continued to broadcast until 1927
