[Harp-L] from another list----------------- Country Hall salutes 'Harmonica Wizard']

[Joel Fritz <jfritz666@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

About time too.  He probably should have been in the first five.

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http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=musicNews&storyID=2005-0
9-01T180845Z_01_HAR165317_RTRIDST_0_MUSIC-BAILEY-DC.XML

By Chris Morris
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - When country music pioneer DeFord Bailey
is officially inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in the fall, he
will become just the second black performer to join its august 95-member
ranks, joining 2000 inductee Charley Pride.

Bailey's name will enter the Country Hall's rolls November 15 during the
Country Music Assn.'s awards ceremony at New York's Madison Square Garden.
It will be close to 80 years after country's "Harmonica Wizard" and first
black star made his 1925 debut on the Grand Ole Opry, the venerable weekly
showcase on radio station WSM in Nashville.

"It's been a long time coming, but we kept the faith," says Carlos DeFord
Bailey, DeFord's grandson, who has followed in his elder's footsteps as a
"Music City shoeshine man" and country musician.

Says CMA executive director Ed Benson, "They've all been lobbying to get
DeFord Bailey into the Hall of Fame for a number of years, but our process
is immune to lobbying."

Better late than never.

After nominations from a 12-member nominating committee and two rounds of
voting by a 350-member panel of selectors, Bailey's place in country history
is secure.

Born outside Bellwood, Tenn., on December 14, 1899, Bailey taught himself to
play the harmonica while recovering from a childhood bout of polio that left
him with a hunched back and a stunted height of 4 feet, 10 inches. He
learned to make his harp bark like a dog, moan like a freight train and
cluck like a chicken.

Moving to Nashville with his family in 1918, Bailey became a regular on
local station WDAD in 1925. Late that year, another WDAD musician asked
Bailey to join him on a new WSM show, "Barn Dance." The program was modeled
after "Barn Dance" on WLS in Chicago and featured its former host, "Judge"
George D. Hay.

It has been said that Bailey's specialty train-rhythm number "Pan American
Blues" inspired the announcer's off-the-cuff remark about "grand ole opry,"
which led to the renaming of the show.

"His significance was being the first African-American playing on the Grand
Ole Opry," Carlos Bailey says. Adds Benson, "He did a lot to create an
ongoing interest in the harmonica as an instrument." Harp players like
bluesman Sonny Terry acknowledged Bailey's influence.

He was one of the Opry's most popular early attractions. When the program
inaugurated a touring show in 1933, in an era when mixed-race performances
were verboten, Bailey became the first artist to break the onstage color
barrier

Except for a four-month detour at a Knoxville, Tenn., station, he starred
at the Opry for 15 years. In 1941, Bailey was fired after being innocently
caught in the middle of a music licensing dispute between ASCAP and its
newly founded rival, BMI. That year, he opened a shoeshine parlor on 13th
Avenue in Nashville. He seldom looked back at his music career, though he
guest-starred at the Opry a few times before his death in July 1982.

History is finally catching up with Bailey's accomplishments. The past 15
years have brought a major biography, a CD of mid-'70s performances and a
PBS documentary. But the Hall of Fame induction might be the pinnacle of
recognition.

Says Carlos Bailey: "When I was young, I just knew him as Granddaddy. I
didn't know I was around a legend."

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter



© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.



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