That Nashville Sound is in the middle of a weeklong special series of columns on special features, historic impacts and photos on African-Americans in country music. Today's story is about the very first star of the Opry- DeFord Bailey. It's a story equally inspirational and tragic, nearly beginning and ending with the Grand Ole Opry.DeFord Bailey (1899-1982) was born as a young black man in Smith County, Tennessee, about forty miles east of downtown Nashville. DeFord's mother, Mary Reedy, named him after two of her former schoolteachers, Mr. DeBerry and Mrs. Ford. When he was a little over a year old, his mother died of an unknown illness. DeFord's father, John Henry, had a younger sister named Barbara Lou who helped care for DeFord. Gradually, she took over complete care of DeFord and became his foster mother. Barbara Lou gave DeFord his first harmonica (or mouth harp).
At the age of three, DeFord contracted infantile paralysis (polio). At the time, the disease was almost always fatal. He was confined to bed for a year and was only able to move his head and his arms. It was at this time that he started to develop his playing style. He would lie in bed and listen to the sounds of dogs howling, of wild geese flying overhead, of the wind blowing through cracks in the wall, and most importantly, of trains rumbling in the distance. Eventually he recovered, although the disease severely stunted his growth and left him with a slight hunchback.
Music continued to be a large part of DeFord's upbringing in Smith County. Most members of his family played instruments and his grandfather, Lewis Bailey, was a champion fiddler. The tunes they played were part of a rich tradition of string band music, a style DeFord called black hillbilly music.
On October 5, 1925, a new broadcast station, WSM, went on the air. The station, which was created by the National Life and Accident Insurance Company, was interested in presenting a first-class image so it hired George D. Hay, one of America's most popular announcers. Shortly after he arrived in Nashville, Hay aired a similar program with a local champion fiddler named Uncle Jimmy Thompson. The show received a huge response. On December 27, 1925, WSM and Judge Hay sent out a press release announcing that WSM would begin a regular broadcast of an hour or two of old familiar tunes — a show that became known as "The Barn Dance," and later the "Grand Ole Opry."
Nashville was home to another radio station that started in the fall of 1925. WDAD went on the air a few months earlier than WSM and was operated by a local radio supply store called Dad's. Pop Exum, the manager of the store and one of DeFord's biggest fans, made DeFord a regular on WDAD. Pop had met DeFord at an auto accessory store that he had managed prior to Dad's and where DeFord would come to buy auto parts for his bicycle. Another one of Dad's regulars was Dr. Humphrey Bate, a country doctor who also played the harmonica. Dr. Bate's band, later called the Possum Hunters, played on both WDAD and WSM. When Dr. Bates heard DeFord play, he insisted that DeFord join him on WSM's new Saturday night "Barn Dance" program. One night, DeFord agreed to come and played on that evening's show without an audition. The show's announcer, Judge Hay, liked DeFord so much he asked him to perform regularly from that point forward.
Throughout 1926, DeFord was a regular on the weekly show. Judge Hay, who liked to find colorful nicknames for all of his performers, dubbed DeFord "The Harmonica Wizard." In fact, the Harmonica Wizard's music inspired the show's famous name--the Grand Ole Opry.
By 1928, DeFord had settled into a weekly routine with the Opry, appearing twice as often as any other performer. In early Opry years, the show embraced all types of indigenous music and made no attempts to limit itself to an all white audience. In fact, efforts were made to attract a "colored" audience. The Opry and all other WSM shows were designed to sell National Life insurance. A large portion of National Life's business consisted of small policies popular with both white and black low-income customers. Judge Hay told DeFord that "half of National Life's money comes from colored people and that DeFord had helped make those sales."Over the years, however, the Opry became more identified with music of the rural white south. The cast of the show was all white, with the exception of DeFord. Occasionally other black performers, including the Fisk Jubilees Singers and the Carthage Quartet, were featured on the show, but DeFord was the only one of any long-term duration. The combination of his musical skills and his diminutive, non-threatening physical appearance may have opened doors for him that were closed for others of his race.
In the spring of 1941, DeFord was about to begin his sixteenth season with the Grand Ole Opry. The NBC network had been broadcasting the show for about a year and a half, and the Opry was changing, becoming more slick and professional. DeFord appeared only on a handful of the network broadcasts. The slick new "uptown" acts that had arrived in the mid-1930's appeared on that portion of the show, while the old-timers played on the non-network portion. Also affecting DeFord's appearances on the show was a licensing issue with ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers), which required venues to pay fees for the use of copyrighted music. ASCAP's contract with radio was coming up for renewal in 1940, and in the process ASCAP was attempting to double its usage fees. Radio networks were furious and were trying to boycott all songs copyrighted by ASCAP. DeFord was hit hard by the ban because most of his repertoire was copyrighted by ASCAP.
To counter the loss of ASCAP material, radio broadcasters, including those responsible for the Opry, created a new organization called BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated) and began creating a catalog of music designed primarily for radio. Besides countering ASCAP, another reason the Opry may have been insistent on creating and licensing new songs to BMI was because one of the original six hundred stockholders in BMI was WSM's Edwin Craig. He made it clear that performers on his station were expected to do their part by creating new songs that could be copyrighted and licensed through BMI.
Hurt, puzzled, and offended by the Opry's insistence that he now create new material, DeFord continued to perform his old tunes. By the end of July, the boycott was over and NBC signed an agreement with ASCAP. Things returned to the way they were, with one exception. After May 24, 1941, DeFord's name no longer appeared on the show's line-up. He had been let go. The firing of DeFord Bailey is one of the most controversial aspects of Opry history. Judge Hay offered his own explanation in his book A Story of the Grand Ole Opry: (1946)
"That brings us to DeFord Bailey, a little crippled colored boy who was a bright feature of our show for about fifteen years. Like some members of his race and other races, DeFord was lazy. He knew about a dozen numbers, which he put on the air and recorded for a major company, but he refused to learn any more, even though his reward was great. He was our mascot and is still loved by the entire company. We gave him a whole year's notice to learn some more tunes, but he would not. When we were forced to give him his final notice, DeFord said, without malice, ‘I knowed it waz comin', Judge, I knowed it waz comin'." - Judge Hay
DeFord's remembrance of the events was very different. While he strongly disagreed with Hay's explanation, he didn't blame Hay for being fired.
"He had a boss too. It was the company. It's terrible for a company to say things like that about me. That I didn't know no songs. I read between the lines. They seen the day was coming when they'd have to pay me right … and they used the excuse about me playing the same old tunes."
This charge was unfounded and it didn't seem to apply to other Opry members. DeFord played a certain body of work mainly because, for years, the Opry management insisted that he play those tunes.
DeFord remembered, "I told them I got tired of blowing that same thing, but I had to go along with 'em you know. Gene Austin played on Saturday night when I was there. Played 'Blue Heaven' on his guitar. Well, I come back next week and had that down on my harp. They said, "No. Naw, don't play that. That's their song. You play blues like you've been playing."
Alcyone Bate Beasley, the daughter of DeFord's first mentor, Dr. Humphrey Bate, once said,
"On today's Opry, and on the Opry for generations, most performers do exactly what DeFord was let go for. They play the tunes they are best known for. Who can imagine Roy Acuff on the Opry not playing either 'Wabash Cannonball' or 'Great Speckled Bird," said Alcyone Bate Beasley.
In the last decade of his life, DeFord was befriended by David Morton, a Vanderbilt graduate history student and public housing employee. Morton developed a strong friendship with DeFord and eventually recorded the only publicly available album. He even asked Morton to write his biography.
Morton convinced DeFord to return to the Opry stage four times before he died. Though he never made the spectacular comeback that Morton envisioned, DeFord was satisfied with his accomplishments, realizing at last his preeminence in the field.
Source for the material in this section, including excerpts: David C. Morton with Charles K. Wolfe, DeFord Bailey: A Black Star in Early Country Music (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1991)
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