The Clodhoppers and The Dixie Entertainers

Hailing from Gwinnett County, Georgia, fiddler Earl Johnson got the bug in his ear early on for raucous string band noise. He practiced furiously with his brothers Ester on guitar and Albert on banjo until 1923 when they both succumbed to an epidemic. In 1924 Earl joined Fiddlin' John Carson's Virginia Reelers and Arthur Tanner's Dixie String Band where he fine-tuned his fiddling prowess on stage and street.

After nailing the Georgia state fiddle championship in 1926, Earl cut a mess of sides for the Okeh label with his newly formed Dixie Entertainers. In 1927 he ditched the Entertainers and recorded with his new combo the Clodhoppers but by 1928 he was back with the Entertainers and continued with them until his final record in 1931 (Close Your Bright Eyes). Earl continued to perform right up until May 24,1965 where he wowed the populous at a fiddlers' convention in Stone Mountain, Georgia before promptly dropping dead.

Decades later, the question still remains: who rocked out harder--The Clodhoppers or the Dixie Entertainers?

The Clodhoppers gave us All Night Long which has to be the Louie Louie of miserable marriage songs. The Entertainers' I'm Satisfied gives Night a drunken run for the money with its loopy observations on domestic life that play out like a hillbilly version of The Lockhorns. Both are total liquored-up party songs that celebrate the terribleness of it all.

Both also have background vocals that sound like a goat that's been strapped to a Spook-a-Rama funhouse car and then sent spiraling off into mid-town traffic. I don't know who this little lady is that's responsible for these falsetto-like deeds but Earl had the good sense to bring her in on both of these sessions and for that we will fire up the mp3 player and blast his music on this late summer afternoon.

I'm Satisfied   Earl Johnson's Dixie Entertainers
recorded February 21, 1927 in NYC
All Night Long   Earl Johnson's Clodhoppers
recorded October 7, 1927 in Atlanta, GA

Comments

[doomsday fartshadow]

great stuff! the woman's voice chiming in is classic....sounds like the untalented wife was allowed/squeezed her way in to the 'band' if you ask me. charming though.

yeah, i think i like both songs equally. i think all night long has the edge for the amount of music in between the more sparse lyrics. they really stretched it out. usually a ditty like that is about half that length, and the lyrics repeat.

oh and great quality for something so old and obscure! good find!

[doomsday fartshadow]

i'll be waiting to hear a mashup of 'all night long' ac/dc's titular version :P

[Paul]

She makes Miss Audrey sound tuneful, all right. Great, great stuff, thanks!

[Mindwrecker]

Too bad these are ripped at only 128k.

[Spazz]

Mindwrecker: I'm used to cranky responses from blog readers but I gotta say that today you take the freakin' cake!

[Zombek]

I would say the Lockhorns are pretty hillybilly right now considering I have yet to see one cell phone joke to date.

As far as 128k do you really think you are missing that much considering the fidelity of a 78.

[Mindwrecker]

First off: apologies to Dave the Spazz, you're right, I'm being non-constructive, and to a fellow WFMU blogger to boot. Consider me shamed.
And, yes, of course no one can tell much difference when it's an old 78, as to what level of mp3 was used; HOWEVER- why not always use the highest rate? Why compromise what is already a terribly compromised format? I know I'm railing against a windmill here, but with all of the folks out there online putting up things at sadly unlistenable rates like 64k and 96k, it'd be nice if WFMU's files were a bit better-sounding than the big muddy world.
Anyhoo-- Very Sorry to sour your day!
By the way---these kind of records are always a joy, this is great stuff- keep up the good work.

[steve]

new listiner here
between these 2 hillbilly classics and cindy & burts Der_Hund_Der_Baskerville(search that brought me here an hour ago) my card is punched.
ill be back.
thanks!!!
ps if ya like nonstop "60's underground" ck out www.beyondthebeatgeneration.com/