My Best to You ...

Trafford Publishing

Contents

Thanks...............................................................................ixAcknowledgements.....................................................................xiResources............................................................................xvForeword.............................................................................xviiThe Early Education of a Sideman.....................................................1Assumed to be Members of WNAX Staff..................................................21KMMJ - 1937 to 1938..................................................................23Gallery of Photos....................................................................27Filling in the Blanks................................................................63Observations of "Stranger"...........................................................71A Wayfarer's Soliloquy at Sundown....................................................73Belated Blessings and Best Wishes....................................................74Flowing Streams......................................................................75Here Are Some of the Little Things About Jack Teagarden..............................76Kasper "Stranger" Malone in Retrospect...............................................78Life's Eternal Law...................................................................79Musings on Ageing and Death..........................................................80My Homeland..........................................................................81Of Life..............................................................................82On Life's Road.......................................................................83Sartor Resartus......................................................................84Semper Somnio........................................................................85The Eternal Piper....................................................................86The March Winds......................................................................87Thoughts As Eighty-two Comes Into View, With a Qualm or Two..........................88To an Old Friend Who Remained at Home, While I Traveled Far Away.....................89To My Old Friends....................................................................90Winter Reveries......................................................................91Winter Scene of Long Ago.............................................................92

Chapter One

This is an attempt to bring out the feelings and the history of the time, its ways and its relation to me as a small time musician. I will have to write it in the first person and give an account of some of my experiences as a person, who by nature could have never adapted myself to life in any other profession. In other words, musically, I was born that way, and as fate would have it, in a very peculiar place and circumstance for a musician, that being: On a farm in Western Kentucky, to an old couple (father, 62 and mother 42) that had struggled through the years on a dry-land farm. They raised a family of six children.

I was, of course, unexpected but welcomed into that home in the month of October 1909. It was an Irish home, Presbyterian Irish on both sides and of long standing American heritage. The great-great grandparents were from Ireland and had brought their box of "Irish traits" with them and had passed them on to their descendants. Included were a good, friendly disposition and a sense of humor. The knack of making money was left out, but enough good old thrift was in there to insure a roof, and provisions and a love of the home and the reside. All the family had to work and none of us were lazy. This made for a happy, harmonious home.

My father had, as a young man, sold Melodeons (a small portable foot pump "field" organ) to churches and clubs. Known as "Oak" for his strength, he had, on occasion, transported them on his back. He could read music and played the instrument well. Once he became a family man, his music-making became only a hobby.

Living on a rather isolated farm, we used to sing a lot in the evenings, especially in the summer months. We would sit outside and sing the old tunes such as all the Stephen Foster songs and a few of the old standard hymns. My father's favorite hymn was "How Firm a Foundation". My mother could also play the organ but we usually sang without any instrumental accompaniment. Sometimes my older brother would play the guitar to help us hold the correct pitch.

My oldest brother, Clois Malone, had remained at home longer than most young men. He was twenty-four years older than me. After my father's death when I was 12 years old, Clois helped to guide me in many things. Our family had always been a peaceful one. I do not recall any big arguments ever taking place.

When I was about three, Clois had bought a new silver plated J.W. Pepper Cornet with a proper carrying case. He then presented me with his old battered brass one. I don't remember learning to play it, but by the time I was 5 or 6 years old, I could play tunes on it and I do remember being complimented by visitors and neighbors for my unique ability.

Editor's note: At this point K.M. had made a note to fill in at a later date, the details of his life prior to leaving home at age 15. He didn't get back to this document. I will fill in with some of his memories that he shared with me, shortly before he died.

When he was five, he was playing nearby when his maternal grandfather, James Thomas McKinney started a re to cook some sorghum molasses. Young Kanoy Deloney, the name chosen by his sister, Vedas, and changed by the not-pleased recipient to Kasper Delmar, watched his grandfather move to the end of the pan where he needed to stand and keep the juice from burning before it was drawn off as molasses. The pan was only getting warm when his grandfather fell forward with his shoulder and one arm in the pan. Kanoy ran to the other end of the field where his older brother, James Travis, was loading sorghum into a wagon and told him what had happened to their grandfather. His brother quickly placed the child on the load of sorghum and raced the team of horses to where their grandfather lay, picked him up and took him to their home across the road. His brother rode to fetch the doctor, to no avail. Grandfather McKinney tried to speak but made no sense, he died later that evening.

A couple of years after Kanoy's father died, his brother, Clois, married Nobie, one of Kanoy's playmates. The child, now absent a father figure, began to carve out an identity separate from his family. He started with a name change to Kasper Delmar, a simple matter in a time when home births weren't always recorded. Kasper began spending more time with his older friends who also played instruments and accompanied them to St. Louis where they introduced him to busking, a practice that K.M. reported feeling was somehow not honest because people would drop money in a hat that the boys would put on the ground where they were playing. He felt conflicted because the money they collectively made enabled him to buy another instrument, something that pleased him, but he didn't feel that requesting money by putting out a hat was honest. These trips to St. Louis emboldened him and by the time he was fifteen, he told his mother that he was ready to make his living playing music and that he was leaving home. His mother told him that he had always been a good boy and she knew that he would do the right thing.

The young Kasper hitched a ride with a couple of older youths headed for Florida. The older boys had done construction-type jobs and felt that work would be easy to find. Kasper wanted to play music and took an instant dislike to the state of Florida. He left the other two young men and set off for Georgia, thumbing rides and sleeping in fields or barns along the way. Doubtless, there were days without food because he was very frail by the time he arrived in Armuchee, Georgia.

A kind couple took him into their home and called a doctor to treat him. The doctor's diagnosis was bi-lateral pneumonia. Kasper overheard the doctor tell the couple that he didn't think this young "Stranger" would live through the night. According to Kasper, that was sufficient incentive to prove the physician wrong. The name of the couple was not provided in any of Kasper's papers, however he did point out the home when his daughters visited Armuchee, Georgia to celebrate Kasper's ninetieth birthday.

K.M. had a life-long distrust of the medical profession that began with the death of his oldest sister, Laudie. Her death certificate cites peritonitis as the cause of her death. At the time of her death there were no antibiotics and systemic infections were dif cult to survive. Kasper blamed the medical profession for failing to save his sister and his father. This distrust survived to his own death.

Kasper tried the textile mills and found them to be destructive to the human soul. He delivered drugs for a pharmacy in exchange for a place to sleep and a few dollars a week. One of his duties was to carry the drunken pharmacist up to the loft of the building where the sleeping quarters were. Ironically, K.M. died across the street from this now abandoned building.

In this time frame, Kasper played with the Lon Worsham Auction Band and performed with musical groups in Atlanta. It was a hand-to-mouth existence, but he was becoming proficient on the clarinet and loosing his identity as an alto sax player. K.M. never cared much for alto sax. The baritone was more to his liking but from the time he began playing clarinet, he loved the instrument and was determined to perfect his performance.

* K.M.'s narrative picks up here:

As a very young man, I lived and worked as a musician in North Georgia. I was acquainted with many other young men, most of whom were a little older than I. They would leave home and go to Detroit, Michigan, where they worked in the automobile factories. Within a short time they would take a few days off and drive their slightly used or new Model T Fords back home to visit their parents and friends. Most of them would bring a suitcase or so, full of "legal" Canadian Whiskey and pass it around to their friends. It wasn't with the idea of making money (though the distance was a thousand miles); it was more of a friendly gesture and to "show off" that they were riding high in the financial state.

Salaries were very good in comparison, up among the Yankees. Some of those guys may still be up there. I knew one that did not care for the assembly line work in the factories and he switched over to running booze in a booze boat from Canada to hidden points in the U.S.A. He confessed that it was a simple matter, just pay the right people on both sides of the border and have no fear. He drove a more elegant new auto when he visited back home.

I rode with him (Elmo M.) on a return trip from Rome, Georgia to Detroit and it took only 36 hours. There was another driver with us, Marvin S., and they shared the wheel. One would sleep, the other would drive, then at one time they both slept and I slowed down a bit but kept the vehicle in motion. When one of them would take over, they would raise more dust. Considering long stretches of gravel roads and repair detours, small town speed limits and such, I would say that it was no less than remarkable to drive a thousand miles in exactly 36 hours in 1927.

Detroit was not our final destination. After a three-day rest up, we continued on to Chicago. I, in order to search for work, they went to see the famous Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney fisticuffs bout, September 22, 1927. They had placed a $100.00 bet between themselves on the outcome of that surprising event. If I remember correctly, Marvin lost his $100.00 and had to pay his own way back to Rome, Georgia. Elmo had to run more booze from unknown Canadian points to similar points in the U.S.

I haven't seen or heard anything from either of these gentlemen since that time. I remember them well because they were both quite jolly fellows that enjoyed life in the world in a much different manner than I could ever think of doing. Me bet $100.00? I wouldn't bet $100.00 on a grizzly bear against a billy goat, without substantial odds on the bear.

Chicago treated me just as it treated most other young musicians: It ignored me. After a month, I wrote to the Columbia Phonograph Company in Atlanta, Georgia, asking when their next recording session would be. I was surprised to receive a "hurry up" telegram stating that they'd been inquiring for me in Rome for a session that was to be in a couple of weeks. Could I attend? Man, could I ever! My funds were almost, if not all expended. I took the train to Paducah, where a salesman friend of my brother took me to Memphis, Tennessee, for free. I hitchhiked to Gadsden, Alabama, borrowed enough to come into Atlanta, first class, by train. I made the recording session with Clayton McMichen and Riley Puckett, then recording as McMichen's Melody Men.

We had recorded together under that name the year before and the records had sold well. They wished to keep the trio, as it was: Violin, Clarinet, guitar with the already famous guitar and vocalist, the blind Riley Puckett. Things were just right for us and we made several sides of good old sentimental hill folk style music. Frank Walker of New York was our recording engineer and I later learned that he was famous in New York City as being one of their best. Though I was just seventeen, I remember that his friendly, sandy to red haired Jewish assistant would give each of us, a good shot of very fine whiskey just before the recordings were to be cut, possibly to prevent microphone fright. With two or three shots of that great whiskey, I wouldn't have been scared of anything, not even the legendary conductor, Arturo Toscanini.

Other Southern groups were there to be recorded. For instance, there was Gid Tanner and his very popular Skillet Lickers. I don't know why, as they were less than even good hillbilly musicians. Hugh Cross was a solo act with his own guitar accompanist, at that time Hugh was also very young and he later became famous nationwide as a Tennessee Hillbilly singer on the famous Chicago radio station, WLS; in time he faded away in popularity. To quote an old timer that I know, "Did ya' ever see it fail? When ye git up, theer, is the most dangerous point of a feller's career; theer's always somebody slippin up behind ye."

There were several people slippin' up behind him and a great number of them made fortunes where Hugh made only a good honest living. (For instance Gene Autry, that later owned a chain of radio stations across the West.) Some of the other folk "whiners" took over the recording industry in Nashville, Tennessee and did a great job of hoarding up coin. Roy Acuff came on a lot later and took over a big hunk of that. I have never quite understood what determines the difference between good and bad in the hillbilly singer field. Some sing well and just get along. Others sing awful, hit the top, and stay there. Maybe it's just ignorance and plain fortitude. They don't know that they sing badly and would not believe it even if told by thousands of people. It is well known that people can be deaf and blind, ready to believe anything you hit them over the head with, if it is repeated enough.

Immediately after the recording session was over, Hoke Rice from Shreveport, Louisiana, a guitar player that I had met before, said to me, "I know where we can pick up some extra money." I was interested in that. He explained that a small theatre nearby was trying something new, a local talent show. We went into the back storage room (they had no studios at the time) and with guitar and clarinet whipped up a few lively numbers that seemed to have public appeal. We then went to the theatre and registered for the performance. The applause of the audience was to determine the winner of first prize of $20.00, a big wad of dough at that time.

The show went on and it was pretty bad. We were spotted late in the performance and we hit them hard and woke them up. We thought that we had that first prize wrapped up but you know what happened? Following us was a shapely young thing clad in a hula skirt. A dancer, she was not; with just a few wiggles and a bow and she had the first prize made. We were fortunate to get second prize, $10.00. $5.00 for each of us was still pretty good. It would pay for a week in a hotel room or for board and room in a boarding house.

I never saw Hoke after that time. I later heard that he was successful in the music business, there in Louisiana. I have often wondered if he remembered the incident and if he has the same dislike of hula dancing that I have had since that time. I can remember many happenings of that year following the recording session but I can't bring them into a sequence any more.

There was another famous southern old time fiddler there but he did not record with us. I think he had a contract with the Victor Company. To my way of thinking, he was the best. His name was Lowe Stokes. Lowe was a tall, well-dressed, quiet, handsome and moody young man, well-liked by everyone. He could be real dynamite if someone got rough with him, or if something got out of line. For instance, the last day of our recording session, at about 5 PM, Blind Riley Puckett was all finished with the recording and was waiting for his wife to come in and pick him up to take him home. She had gone out an hour or so before with a Romeo-type big, handsome man for coffee. Stokes didn't like that idea very well and when they finally returned, he told them off. Naturally it developed into a fight.

It all happened in the main big business office. The secretaries and all personnel had departed, a half an hour or so before. There were only papers and desks and chairs and business machines like in any other big office there. Stokes worked Mr. Big Romeo over but good. There were loose papers all over the floor, blood spattered and mixed up with over-turned desks. When it was over, it looked like a hurricane had hit. Mr. Big-and-Handsome left in a hurry, looking very much damaged.

Stokes calmed Riley's nervousness down by telling him that everything was O.K. Riley had sat there patiently, hearing everything. I will never forget my feelings at seeing that fight and I will never forget my feelings at seeing Mrs. Riley Puckett take his arm and lead him down the stairs, while I wondered what the office workers would think and do the next day when they would arrive for work. Maybe they would petition the Main Office in New York to NOT have anymore hillbilly recording sessions on Pryor Street, Atlanta, Georgia, or at least to provide a recording studio separate and away from the office for such things.

I have lost the sequence but I think it was a month or so later when I went to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and stayed at Lowe Stokes's little hotel on Market Street. Lowe always associated with a very rough element of people and he was, at that time, helping a girlfriend run the hotel. I had a small room at the head of the stairs and was not allowed to go into the back rooms. I knew what was going on. It was a drinking place with other accommodations. Two or three times on my first few days there the police would stop in and chat with me, look through my suit case and into my clarinet case. I remember hearing one of them saying to the other, "What the hell is a clean kid doing staying in this place?"

The police are not always so well organized. Sometimes one faction accepts money and promises protection, then something happens and everything is upset. Such a thing apparently happened in this hotel. Amid a lot of excitement, Lowe and his girlfriend asked me if I would check out of their place and go to a hotel nearby and take a large theatre trunk with me. They would pay for the cartage, room and everything, so I had to come along with the deal. I knew for sure that it was a trunk full of bootleg whiskey. I also knew what would happen to me if something went wrong. I was given a key to the room in the other, almost desolate hotel not far away. I was scared beyond explanation. In this nearly deserted hotel there was a very large room with an iron bed, the only light came from one dim light bulb hanging by a wire from the ceiling; the large theatre wardrobe trunk was shoved up against the wall in the corner. That was where I spent one night. Next morning, I went back to Lowe and his girlfriend with suitcase, clarinet and key and asked them to let me loose from such a dangerous situation. They told me that I could come back and have my little room once again.

(Continues...)

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