Every year, at this time, I am bombarded with ballots and promo
packages from the CMA and the Record Companies, wanting me to vote for
their new stars, to honor these new folks, at the CMA Awards,
some of whom have been in the music business for as much as two or
three years. They so badly want to honor these folks. A lot of them I
never even heard of, but, I reckon that is just because I don’t much
listen to new country radio, so I am ignorant of what is happening
there. I suppose I am preoccupied with my list of deserving country
music legends, that seldom, if ever, even get mentioned at their Award
Ceremonies, but that I know were the real heroes of this music called
country. Here is one of the stories that I am working on for my new book……
In 1985, Denise and I bought a 55 Acre piece of undeveloped land outside of Castalian Springs, Tennessee. I ran some cattle and a few horses on the land, because I love to mess with them. One day, walking along my fence line, back in the woods, I noticed an old, falling down shack, just over my line fence and overgrown with brush and sticker bushes.
I slipped through the fence and made my way through the briar patch over to the old building. The roof had fallen in toward the back, and as I got closer, I could see it originally had been a one-room log cabin, with a room built on to the back. Being a history nut and loving old buildings, I climbed in through what was left of the front porch and a partially opened door. Inside was a jumbled mess of leftovers of life. Papers, old bottles, old scraps of clothes. The rough walls had been papered over with old newspapers from the turn of the century.
As I was rustling through some scraps of paper, I came upon an old stained letter. The Postmark on the letter was 1929, I couldn't make out the month or day, inside the envelope was a piece of newspaper, showing the death of John Walton, 2 year old son of Staley Walton. Looking further I came upon a post card to Staley Walton, from Roy Acuff, dated 1955, "Staley, I'm sorry about your sickness. Hope you are feeling better, Roy". Suddenly, I realized I was in the lifetime home of Staley Walton, rhythm guitar player for Dr. Humphrey Bate and the Possum Hunters. I always knew he had lived around this area, but had no idea where.
In September 1925, Dr. Bate and his band became the first musicians to play old-time music on Nashville radio when they performed on the small local station WDAD. A month later, William Craig, a purchasing agent for the National Life and Accident Insurance Company, invited Dr. Bate to play on the company's new radio station, WSM, which could reach a much wider audience than WDAD. Bate happily accepted, and over the following weeks, he and his band— which was typically called "Dr. Bate's Band" or some similar variation— played on WDAD in the afternoon and WSM in the evening. The Possum Hunters became the first string band on the newly formed Hayride format show, that was then renamed, "The Grand Ole Opry".
The Opry founder, George D. Hay, named the band, "Dr. Humphrey Bate and The Possum Hunters". This band was the seminal start of country music bands forever to come, and Staley Walton was an important part of this historic group.
Dr. Bate's band was unusually large for a string band, typically consisting of two fiddles, two guitars, a banjo, a cello, and a bowed bass. Regular band mates included guitarists Burt Hutcherson and Staley Walton, fiddlers Oscar Stone and Bill Barrett, banjo player Walter Ligget, and bassist Oscar Albright. Dr. Bate's daughter Alcyone Bate Beasley often performed with the band as a ukelele player. The band's set usually opened with the song, "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight," and the band's repertoire included "Old Joe," "Greenback Dollar," "Going Uptown," and "Eighth of January."
Looking further, I found a letter to Staley Walton, Castalian Springs, Tennessee, from Dr. Bate's daughter, Alcyone Bate Beasley, postmarked in California, in the early 70’s. It was a letter from one musician to another, about their music history. Her father, Dr. Bate, passed away in 1936, the Possum Hunters would continue to be a part of the Opry, in various forms, with Alcyone and Staley Walton working to keep them together. But it was a struggle, especially during the 60’s as the Opry adopted a more sophisticated sound that tended not to highlight the string bands.
Pushed farther and farther back, and used mainly as backup for the Square Dancers, It was a cruel treatment for the ones who had started the whole shebang, who showed up every Friday and Saturday night, whether they got to perform or not, just because they felt a deep attachment to their comrades in music.
I had gotten to know most of the Possum Hunters from my Opry appearances, during the 60's and early 70's, but I never really knew Staley, other than to say hello, for he was very shy and would sit backstage at the Ryman, in a corner, alone. The Possum Hunters, The Crook Brothers, along with Sam and Kirk McGee, "from Sunny Tennessee" represented the real Opry to me, and a lot of my friends. I thought it sad that they were virtually ignored, and pushed aside by the management at the Opry.
Kneeling there in the old house, amongst tangled remains of a legends life, I looked around. No running water, no central heat and air, the old remains of an outhouse, further back in the briar patch. One bare light fixture, hanging from the ceiling....I reckon I just thought I had been raised in the country, Staley Walton defined the very word, "country", living his simple life with his wife, losing his two year old son to some early death, going through the rigors of a primitive Tennessee life, but showing up, every Saturday Night, for his appearance with his friends and neighbors, to play their music on the Opry, and being there when it all started.
Staley Walton would never know fame...never have his spot in the Country Music Halls of Fame...never make more than a few dollars a night for playing his old guitar....but, he was there when it began, he was one of the founders of this music we call country. I knelt there in his one room shack, and felt so humbled, and a bit choked up with emotion for a life that I never knew, but who touched me just the same.
Heroes in music don't have to be the headliners, they can be the support crew, the light crew, the sound man or the stage manager.....or they can be the rhythm guitar man that you can always depend on to be there when the music is being made, every time. Staley Walton never left the music, unfortunately, the music left him.
Staley Walton, the first rhythm guitar player on the Grand Ole Opry, made music history, but few will ever know his name.
The picture is of Dr. Humphrey Bate and The Possum Hunters, made sometime in the 1920’s. Staley Walton is the rhythm guitar player, standing in the back on the right hand side.
Stan
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