"Fiddlin'" John Carson (March 23, 1868 – December 11, 1949) was an American musician and singer who is widely considered to be one of the early pioneers of
country music
Country (also called country and western) is a popular music, music genre originating in the southern regions of the United States, both the American South and American southwest, the Southwest. First produced in the 1920s, country music is p ...
.
Early life
Carson was born near McCaysville in
Fannin County, Georgia. He moved to
Cobb County in his youth. His father worked as a section foreman for the
Western and Atlantic Railroad
The Western & Atlantic Railroad of the State of Georgia (W&A) is a railroad owned by the State of Georgia and currently leased by CSX, which CSX operates in the Southeastern United States from Atlanta, Georgia, to Chattanooga, Tennessee.
It was f ...
Company. In his teens, Carson learned to play the fiddle, using an old Stradivari-copy violin brought from Ireland in the early 18th century.
[Malone, McCulloh 1975, p. 17.][Miller 1996, p. 73.] In his teens, he worked as a racehorse jockey.
[
In 1894, Carson married, and a couple of years later, in 1900, he began working for the Exposition Cotton Mills in ]Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...
, followed by work in other cotton mills of the Atlanta area for the next twenty years, eventually being promoted to foreman.[Wolfe 2001, p. 65.] In 1911, Carson's family moved to Cabbagetown, Georgia, and he and his children began working for the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill.[Goodson 2007, p. 174.] Three years later, in 1914, the workers of the cotton mill went on strike for their right to form a union, and Carson had nothing else to do but to perform for a living in the streets of North Atlanta.[ In these days, he wrote many songs, and he used to print copies and sell them in the streets for a nickel or a dime. Some of the songs he wrote dealt with real-life drama, like the murder ballad "Mary Phagan". Because the governor of Georgia, John Marshall Slaton, commuted the death sentence of the wrongly convicted murderer of Mary Phagan to a life sentence, Carson, in outrage, wrote another version of "Mary Phagan" where he accused the governor of being paid a million dollars from a New York bank to change the verdict, causing him to be thrown in jail for slander.][Wolfe 2001, p. 66.] The convicted killer, Leo Frank
Leo Max Frank (April 17, 1884August 17, 1915) was an American lynching victim convicted in 1913 of the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan, an employee in a factory in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was the superintendent. Frank's trial, convicti ...
, was lynched.
On April 1, 1913, Carson performed at the first annual "Georgia Old-Time Fiddlers' Convention", held at the Municipal Auditorium in Atlanta,[Russell 2007, p. 5.][Daniel 2001, p. 18–19.] where he came in fourth.[Daniel 2001, p. 22.] But between 1914 and 1922, he was proclaimed "Champion Fiddler of Georgia" seven times.[ The ]governor of Tennessee
The governor of Tennessee is the head of government of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the commander-in-chief of the U.S. state, state's Tennessee Military Department, military forces. The governor is the only official in the Government of Tenne ...
, Robert L. Taylor, dubbed him "Fiddlin' John".[ In 1919, Carson began touring, mostly the areas north of Atlanta, with his newly formed band the Cronies.][ He became associated with many politicians of Georgia, like Tom Watson, ]Herman Talmadge
Herman Eugene Talmadge (August 9, 1913 – March 21, 2002) was a U.S. politician who served as governor of Georgia in 1947 and from 1948 to 1955 and as a U.S. senator from Georgia from 1957 to 1981. A Democrat, Talmadge served during a time o ...
, and Eugene Talmadge, relations that gave rise to new songs like "Tom Watson Special".[ Carson and his daughter ]Rosa Lee
Rosa Mabel Lee (1884-1976) was a British statistician, the first woman scientist to be employed by the Marine Biological Association and the first woman to work as a government fishery scientist in the United Kingdom.
Lee studied the growth o ...
began a series of performances for different political campaigns: for the Tom Watson U.S. Senate Campaign in 1920, for all of the Gene Talmadge campaigns, and for the Herman Talmadge for governor campaign.[ On September 9, 1922, Carson made his radio debut at the '']Atlanta Journal
''The Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' (''AJC'') is an American daily newspaper based in metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia. It is the flagship publication of Cox Enterprises. The ''Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' is the result of the merger ...
s radio station WSB in Atlanta,[ It was reported by the ''Atlanta Journal'' that Carson's fame quickly spread all over the United States following his broadcast at WSB.][Miller 1996, p. 71.]
Career and aftermath
In early June 1923, Polk C. Brockman, an Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...
furniture store owner, who had been instrumental in the distribution of records for Okeh Records
OKeh Records () is an American record label founded by the Otto Heinemann Phonograph Corporation, a phonograph supplier established in 1916, which branched out into phonograph records in 1918. The name originally was spelled "OkeH" from the init ...
, went to New York City to work out a new business deal with Okeh Records.[Wolfe 2001, p. 64.][Malone, McCulloh 1975, p. 18.] Later, in New York, he was asked if he knew of any artist in Atlanta that could justify a recording trip to Georgia. Brockman promised to return with an answer. A few days later, he was watching a movie followed by a silent newsreel at the Palace Theater in Times Square. The newsreel contained footage of Carson from an old time fiddler's contest in Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...
. Brockman wrote in his notebook: "Record Fiddlin' John Carson".[ At his next meeting with Okeh Records Board, he persuaded Ralph Peer to go ahead and record Carson.][Miller 1996, p. 72.]
On June 19, 1923, Carson made his recording debut in an empty building on Nassau Street in Atlanta, cutting two sides, " The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane" and "The Old Hen Cackled and the Rooster's Going To Crow." Brockman told researchers in the 1960s that Peer had disliked the singing style of Carson and described it "pluperfect awful", but Peer was persuaded by Brockman to press five hundred copies for him to distribute.[Wolfe 2001, p. 67.] (Peer's biographer, Barry Mazor, argues that Peer's dissatisfaction concerned the technical quality of the recording, rather than the music, and that Peer was keen to make more recordings of Carson in New York.) The recording was immediately sold out from the stage of the next Fiddler's convention on July 13, 1923.[ Peer, realizing Carson's potential, immediately invited Carson to New York City for another recording session.][ His recordings of "You Will Never Miss Your Mother Until She Is Gone" and " Old Joe Clark" both sold over one million copies.]
Carson ceased recording temporarily in 1931 but resumed in 1934, now for the Victor label. Between 1923 and 1931, Carson recorded almost 150 songs, mostly together with the "Virginia Reelers" or his daughter Rosa Lee Carson, who performed with him as Moonshine Kate
Moonshine Kate (born Rosa Lee Carson; born October 10, 1909, Atlanta, Georgia died 1992, Bainbridge, Georgia) was an American country and folk guitarist and banjo player who is best known for recording with her father Fiddlin' John Carson and ...
.[Malone, McCulloh 1975, p. 19.] Carson's final recordings were done in Camden, New Jersey, for Bluebird Records
Bluebird Records is an American record label best known for its low-cost releases, primarily of children's music, blues, jazz and swing in the 1930s and 1940s. Bluebird was founded in 1932 as a lower-priced subsidiary label of RCA Victor. Bluebi ...
. In 1935, Carson made a trip to Hollywood, as movie producers were eyeing him as their next big movie star. Along with Rosa Lee, he was to appear in a film called ''The Mountain Stillers'', though this never came to pass. He wrote more than 150 songs in his life, but only nine were ever copyrighted.[ Because Carson could not read sheet music, he had his songs transferred to standard notation by Irene Spain, the stepdaughter of the preacher Andrew Jenkins.][Peterson 1997, p. 23] Carson was involved in several copyright issues with both Okeh Records and other musicians during his active career.[
In his later years, he worked for the local government as an elevator operator in Atlanta, a job he had obtained through his friendship with governor Herman Talmadge.][Russell 2007, p. 7.] He died in 1949 in Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...
, Georgia, holding his fiddle in his arms, and is buried in Sylvester Cemetery in the East Atlanta neighborhood of Atlanta, where surviving friends and family play music at his grave each year around the anniversary of his birth.
Views on race and evolution
Carson's song "There Ain't No Bugs on Me" mocked the theory of evolution, stating "there may be monkey in some of you guys, but there ain't no monkey in me". In the same song, he referenced the Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to KKK or Klan, is an American Protestant-led Christian terrorism, Christian extremist, white supremacist, Right-wing terrorism, far-right hate group. It was founded in 1865 during Reconstruction era, ...
("my old man joined the Ku Klux, and ma, she lost her sheet"), whose rallies he regularly attended. Another of Carson's songs was "Ballad of Little Mary Phagan", a murder ballad that stoked the anti-Semitism present in Atlanta in the wake of Phagan's murder. Carson later wrote a song in praise of the tree from which Leo Frank
Leo Max Frank (April 17, 1884August 17, 1915) was an American lynching victim convicted in 1913 of the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan, an employee in a factory in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was the superintendent. Frank's trial, convicti ...
had been lynched.
Footnotes
References
* Daniel, Wayne W. (2001) ''Pickin' on Peachtree: A History of Country Music in Atlanta, Georgia'', University of Illinois Press
The University of Illinois Press (UIP) is an American university press and is part of the University of Illinois System. Founded in 1918, the press publishes some 120 new books each year, thirty-three scholarly journals, and several electroni ...
* Goodson, Steve (2007) ''Highbrows, Hillbillies and Hellfire: Public Entertainment in Atlanta, 1880–1930'', University of Georgia Press
The University of Georgia Press or UGA Press is the university press of the University of Georgia, a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia. It is the oldest and largest publishing house in Georgia and a me ...
*
* Malone, Bill C. - McCulloh, Judith (1975) ''Stars of Country Music: Uncle Dave Macon to Johnny Rodriguez'', University of Illinois Press
The University of Illinois Press (UIP) is an American university press and is part of the University of Illinois System. Founded in 1918, the press publishes some 120 new books each year, thirty-three scholarly journals, and several electroni ...
*
* Miller, Zell (1996) ''They Heard Georgia Singing'', Mercer University Press
* Peterson, Richard A. (1997) ''Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity'', University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the university press of the University of Chicago, a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It pu ...
* Russell, Tony (2007) ''Country Music Originals: The Legends and the Lost'', Oxford University Press US
* Russell, Tony – Pinson, Bob (2004) ''Country Music Records: A Discography, 1921–1942'', Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum
* Wolfe, Charles K. (2001) ''Classic Country: Legends of Country Music'', Routledge
Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...
External links
Biography
From the Georgia Encyclopedia site
*Allmusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...
*
Fiddlin' John Carson recordings
at the Discography of American Historical Recordings
The Discography of American Historical Recordings (DAHR) is a database catalog of master recordings made by American record companies during the 78rpm era. The 78rpm era was the time period in which any flat disc records were being played at ...
.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carson, Fiddlin John
1868 births
1949 deaths
American fiddlers
American male singer-songwriters
Appalachian old-time fiddlers
Musicians from Appalachia
Okeh Records artists
People from Fannin County, Georgia
Singer-songwriters from Georgia (U.S. state)
Southern old-time fiddlers