James Gideon "Gid" Tanner (June 6, 1885 – May 13, 1960) was an American old-time fiddler and one of the earliest stars of what would come to be known as

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

. His band, the

Skillet Lickers The Skillet Lickers were an old-time band from Georgia, United States. 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 ...

, was one of the most innovative and influential

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. While being active countr ...

s of the 1920s and 1930s. Its most notable members were Clayton McMichen (fiddle and vocal),

Dan Hornsby Issac Daniel Hornsby (1 February 1900 – 18 May 1951) was an American singer songwriter, musician, recording artist, producer and arranger, studio engineer, band leader & band member. Discovered talent as A&R man with Columbia Records, and radi ...

(vocals),

Riley Puckett George Riley Puckett (May 7, 1894 – July 13, 1946) was an American country music pioneer, best known as a member of Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers. His dynamic single-string guitar playing, featuring dramatic bass runs, earned for him a ...

(guitar and vocal) and Robert Lee Sweat (guitar).

Biography

Tanner was born in Thomas Bridge, near

Monroe, Georgia Monroe is a city in Walton County, Georgia, United States, serving as the county seat. It is located both one hour east of Atlanta via US 78 and GA 138 to I-20 and east of Hartsfield–Jackson International Airport and is one of the exurban c ...

. 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 (March 23, 1868 – December 11, 1949) was an American old-time fiddler and singer who recorded what is widely considered to be the first country music song featuring vocals and lyrics. Early life Carson was born near M ...

; what one of them did not win, the other would. Tanner reportedly had a repertoire of more than 2000 songs. Tanner and Puckett traveled to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

in March 1924 to make the first of a series of duet recordings for Columbia Records, establishing the Skillet Lickers as Columbia's first recorded southern rural artist. In 1926, the Skillet Lickers were formed around Tanner as a studio band. The first recording made with the Skillet Lickers was " Hand Me Down My Walking Cane," recorded in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

on April 17, 1926, when the country music scene in Atlanta rivaled Nashville's. It was released by Columbia on a

78-rpm A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near ...

disc, backed with "Watermelon on the Vine". In the next eight years, the group recorded more than 100 songs. In 1934, Tanner and Puckett re-formed the Skillet Lickers, and several of their recordings were released by

Bluebird Records Bluebird Records is a record label best known for its low-cost releases, primarily of kids' music, blues and jazz in the 1930s and 1940s. It was founded in 1932 as a lower-priced RCA Victor subsidiary label of RCA Victor. Bluebird became known ...

. Tanner stopped making records in 1934 but continued performing into his seventies. At the age of seventy-one, Tanner won his last first-place trophy. He died in

Dacula, Georgia Dacula ( ) is a city in Gwinnett County, Georgia, United States. It is an exurb of Atlanta, located approximately northeast of downtown. The population as of the 2010 census was 4,442, and the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the population to be 6, ...

in 1960.

Legacy and influence

Many of the songs recorded by the Skillet Lickers were traditional American fiddle tunes that remain popular with bluegrass and country musicians to this day. Among them are " Alabama Jubilee", "

Shortnin' Bread "Shortnin' Bread" (also spelled "Shortenin' Bread", "Short'nin' Bread", or "Sho'tnin' Bread") is an African-American folk song dating back at least to the 1890s. James Whitcomb Riley published it as a poem in 1900, building on older lyrics. A " ...

", "

Old Joe Clark "Old Joe Clark" is a US folk song, a mountain ballad that was popular among soldiers from eastern Kentucky during World War I and afterwards. Its lyrics refer to a real person named Joseph Clark, a Kentucky mountaineer who was born in 1839 and murde ...

", " John Henry", "Bully of the Town", " Bile Them Cabbage Down", "

Cotton-Eyed Joe "Cotton-Eyed Joe" (also known as "Cotton-Eye Joe") is a traditional American country folk song popular at various times throughout the United States and Canada, although today it is most commonly associated with the American South. The song is ...

", "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss", " Soldier's Joy", " Bonaparte's Retreat", "Leather Breeches", "Four Cent Cotton", " Knoxville Girl", and their biggest seller, " Down Yonder". It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a

gold disc Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...

by the RIAA. Their comedy recordings, called "rural drama records", including the saga "A Corn Licker Still in Georgia" (Issued over the course of 7 records) and "A Fiddler's Convention in Georgia", were equally popular. Gid Tanner & the Skillet Lickers were inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1988. Following his death in 1960, Tanner's grandson Phil Tanner and great-grandson Levi Lowrey continued performing as the Skillet Lickers. Phil Tanner hosts an open jam session on Friday nights in a refurbished chicken house on his father's old farm in

. Levi Lowrey also continues in his footsteps as a country music artist, songwriting for

Zac Brown Zachry Alexander Brown (born July 31, 1978) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and co-founder and lead singer of the country–rock Zac Brown Band, as well as electronic dance music group Sir Rosevelt. In 2019, Brown released a pop su ...

and featured on Southern Ground Records in a multi-album record deal.

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

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 Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He is the recipient of many major accolades, inclu ...

's 2005 documentary on Dylan, ''

No Direction Home ''No Direction Home: Bob Dylan'' is a 2005 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 focuses on the period between Dylan's arrival in New ...

Discography

78 rpm

In various prewar lineups Tanner recorded singles for Columbia and its affiliated labels

Bluebird The bluebirds are a North American group of medium-sized, mostly insectivorous or omnivorous birds in the order of Passerines in the genus ''Sialia'' of the thrush family (Turdidae). Bluebirds are one of the few thrush genera in the Americas. ...

, Victor,

His Master's Voice His Master's Voice (HMV) was the name of a major British record label created in 1901 by The Gramophone Co. Ltd. The phrase was coined in the late 1890s from the title of a painting by English artist Francis Barraud, which depicted a Jack Russ ...

(India), Regal (England),

Regal Zonophone Regal may refer to: Companies * Regal Beloit, usually referred to as Regal, an American manufacturer of electric motors * Regal Cinema (disambiguation), several cinemas of that name * Regal Cinemas, a major American theater chain * Regal Cinemas ...

(Australia), Montgomery Ward, and

Vocalion Vocalion Records is an American record company and label. History The label was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Company, a maker of pianos and organs, as Aeolian-Vocalion; the company also sold phonographs under the Vocalion name. "Aeolian" was ...

. Postwar, at least one Tanner 45-rpm reissue single is known on RCA Victor.

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 recordings

* ''Gid Tanner & the Skillet Lickers'', RCA Victor EPA-5069 (1958) * ''Gid Tanner & His Skillet Lickers'', Folk Song Society of Minnesota 15001-D (1962) * ''The Skillet Lickers: Vol. 1'',

County A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

506 (196?) * ''The Skillet Lickers: Vol. 2'',

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'', 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'',

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) * Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers, ''Old Timey's Favorite Band'' (4 CDs), JSP JSPCD 77155 (2012)

References

External links

Southernmusic.net
*Cohen, Norm. Liner Notes for the CD ''Old Time Fiddle Tunes and Songs from North Georgia'' (County Records, 1996) *Russell, Tony. ''Country Music Records: A Discography, 1921–1942'' (Oxford University Press, 2004)
The New Georgia Encyclopedia
*''Stars of Country Music'', (University of Illinois Press, 1975)
Gid Tanner recordings
at the Discography of American Historical Recordings. {{DEFAULTSORT:Tanner, Gid 1885 births 1960 deaths American fiddlers American country fiddlers American bandleaders Southern old-time fiddlers People from Walton County, Georgia People from Dacula, Georgia Country musicians from Georgia (U.S. state) 20th-century violinists