ALTON:
"There was a big crowd there and everything was decorated and all fixed up like the president of the United States would be there. It was by far the biggest and most important contest in the entire country. People who had never been to a contest before gathered with the contestants at the Old Athens (Alabama) Agricultural School. My mother had made (guitar) cases for us out of cotton sacks we used during the picking season and we had our names on them spelled out in full. I painted them on the cases with pokeberry juice.
"You know how it feels to be a combatant in any kind of contest so we rightly felt proud of the sack cases and we were primed to go for the first in the prizes in each case. I entered the contest for the best guitarist and we also entered the contest for the best band. There were some bands there that would have given Bob Wills some strong competition if Bob had been there. We didn't think we would win that one. By then we had 'Brown's Ferry Blues' down pretty pat-in fact we could play it then just as good as we ever did.
"When it came our time to play we sang just as soft as we could and just as loud as we could but we put the music in there, too -and that counts as much as anything I can think of to help put an act over. You can analyze music and record hits, I mean the legitimate ones, and you will find that there is a synchronization between the voice or voices and the instrumentation.
"We got tied for the first place with three pretty girls. Nothing worse could have happened because we knew the crowd usually takes sides with the singer if it happens to be a girl and those three girls could really sing. The rules were that they were to play two songs and two for us. The girls went out first, and I could tell they had lost something of their quality on their very first song. Their second one was not any better but they still got a tremendous hand from the audience. I knew we had something to beat. Rabon did, too, but it just made us work harder. We could feel the challenge in the air.
"For our first number we used the old song 'Columbus Stockade Blues.' It was written by Tom Darby and Jimmie Tarltor It is a plaintive prison and love song combined and when we got through singing men threw their hats into the top of the house and everybody screamed like the had really never before. We thought had it won then and we did but we still had the 'Brown's Ferry Blues' for them and when we did it the people really went wild and we won that contest without any question or any doubt. And that started us on our way to the Grand Ole Opry and the big record companies. Incidentally, I also won the first place for guitar playing with an instrumental rendition of 'St. Louis Blues.' Our names came out in the paper and it was really swell. Of all the days of triumph in my life, there were none any greater than those."
Truth Is Stranger Than Publicity (copyright 1977 by the Country Music Foundation Press, Nashville, TN)
RABON:
"Well, I'll tell you where we was borned. We was borned in Elkmont, Alabama. It's a little bitty town right on the outside of Athens. And, of course, we was raised in Athens, Alabama. I am the youngest one of the family and that makes me younger than Alton, and, of course, he's the ugliest one of the family."
ALTON:
"But you know, friends, the way we got singing really -- we had an uncle that was a famous songwriter, you know; wrote gospel hymns and everything, and we used to go over to his house and they had a big quartet there. Of course we called it a big one, because it was our cousins, see, and uncle Will and all the boys they'd get together and sing. And we got to liking to sing ourselves, so we kept on going like that."
"The first record we ever made [1931], we got in an old jalopy of car and drove from Athens to Atlanta, Georgia. And we got over there and there was a bunch of guys over there that we had a lot of their records. Clayton McMichen, Riley Puckett, Gid Tanner and old Fiddlin' John Carson. Remember those guys, Ray? Yeah, the Skillet Lickers and all the gang was there. And these guys that made the "Birmingham Jail" famous, you know -- Darby and Tarlton."
RABON:
"Yeah, and the old feller was there and he said, "You all got two guitars there. I know you didn't bring them over here if you couldn't play 'em." And he got us to play a tune out there in the audition room."
ALTON:
"Yeah, he and Rev. Andrew Jenkins, the old man that wrote "Death of Floyd Collins." Of course Rev. Jenkins is blind. But those fellows treated us good and that's the way we really got started. We played a lot of contests and a feller wrote in and got us an audition over there with Bob Miller of Columbia Records. It was a long time ago..."
Promotional interview, late 1940s, reprinted in Old Time Music 10 (Autumn 1973), pp. 19-20.
There is also a great write up on The Delmore Brothers by John Lilly here - The Delmore Brothers - A History
|
Online Now!
