G.B. Grayson

G.B. Grayson. . , (Side One) , Among the first generation of recorded country music artists, vocalist and fiddle player G.B. Grayson together with his recording partner, Henry Whitter, wrote or adapted several songs that became standards. These included "Tom Dowley," "Rose Conley," "Little Maggie," "Nine Pound Hammer," and "Ommie (Naomi) Wise." Although their recording career spanned just two years, 1927 to 1929, their legacy impacted bluegrass, folk, and American roots music., Gilliam Banmon "G.B." Grayson was born in Crumpler, Ashe County, NC, on November 11, 1887. His grandfather had emigrated from Scotland, and his uncle, Major James Grayson, had led a pro-Union revolt in northeast Tennessee against the Confederacy. The year after the Civil War ended, Maj. Grayson was farming in Trade, TN, when he hired a laborer who called himself Tom Hall. After leaving Grayson's employment, Hall was revealed to be murder suspect Tom Dula, Grayson headed the search party that captured him. Dula's crime was rendered graphically in a song played within the family, “Tom Dooley”., G.B. Grayson's family moved 40 miles west from Crumpler to Laurel Bloomery. Grayson was known then as Banmon (rendered in the 1900 census as "Bandman"). A childhood infection or injury left him partially sighted. Grayson first took up the banjo then the fiddle. In adulthood, he played at schoolhouses and dances to support himself and his wife, Fannie Mahaffey Grayson, whom he married in 1908. They had seven children between 1910 and 1925., Among the musicians Grayson encountered locally were Clarence (Tom) Ashley in nearby Shouns and guitarist-harmonica player Henry Whitter, then living across the state line in Warrensville, NC. Ashley had yet to make recordings but, when Grayson met Whitter in 1927, Whitter had already recorded prolifically for OKeh and Paramount Records. Whitter recognized Grayson's talent as a fiddle player and appreciated his trove of songs. They recorded in New York for Gennett Critic Records in October 1927, and, several days later, in Atlanta for Victor Records. On one of the first Victor recordings, "Train Forty-Five" Whitter asks Grayson where he's bound: Grayson says, “I'm a-goin' to Laurel Bloomery, Tennessee." Their last session was for Victor in October 1929., In the 1930 census, conducted on May 2, Grayson was enumerated as a musician/broadcaster, owning a house on Birch Branch Road near Laurel Bloomery. He lived there with Fannie and their six surviving children. On August 16 that year, he was killed in a road accident. Riding on the running board of a car, he was hit by a truck. He had walked seven miles from his house to see his brother in Damascus, VA, and had just caught a ride home., Grayson and Whitter made 40 recordings. Although other artists had previously recorded some of the ballads they performed, like “Ommie Wise," "Rose Conley” (aka "Down in the Willow Garden"), "Short Life of Trouble," "Banks of the Ohio” (recorded by Grayson as "I'll Never Be Yours"), and "Nine Pound Hammer," their recordings were among the most influential. Theirs was the first version of "Tom Dooley”., Critic Tony Russell praised Grayson and Whitter's recordings for the way they relocated "mythlike narratives of half-forgotten seductions and murders in the known present, ground[ing] them in the geographical, ethical, and social landscape of '20s Appalachia. That this terrain was shifting uneasily beneath the pressures of modern life was all to their point. Their tales were for alltime.", (Caption) , Grayson with Henry Whitter and the Greer Sisters. ca. 1920. Courtesy: John Edwards Memorial Foundation Records (20001) Southern Folklife Collection at Wilson Special Collectlons Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, (Side two) , 7 Genres of Music call Tennessee home. More songs are written, recorded and played live here than anywhere else in the world., The Soundtrack of America is made in Tennessee. Tennessee Music Pathways connect you to the people, places and events that shaped music history., From big cities to small communities, this statewide program identifies, explains and preserves the legacy of music in Tennessee. Be it a story of the past, a star of the present or the promise of the future Tennessee Music Pathways let you Follow the Music.