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FOLKLIFE FOLKLIFE
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CHARLIE AND IRA STRIPLING MUSICS OF ALABAMA: Excerpted with permission
from With Fiddle & Well-Rosined Bow by Joyce Cauthen, University of Alabama Press Charlie Melvin Stripling (b. 1896) and his guitar-playing brother Ira "climbed to the heights of music fame from a beginning as inauspicious as a human mind can imagine," reported the Commercial Dispatch [Columbus, Mississippi] in 1929, on the occasion of the brothers' first recording trip to Chicago: Born twelve miles east of Kennedy in North Pickens County...the Striplings grew up among those sturdy self-reliant...unassuming young men. Musical instruments did not have a place in the early years of the Stripling boys' lives...and it was through sheer accident that Charlie discovered his talent for music. At the age of 18 years, he ordered a toy violin costing forty-seven cents for a Christmas present for his nephew. The toy arrived several days before Christmas and Charlie, giving over to childish instincts, used the miniature violin while awaiting the proper time for its disposal, finding that he could "strike tunes" easily. {Inspired by his brief time with the toy fiddle, Charlie bought his own fiddle and bow from one of his neighbors. He paid a dollar for it.} Charlie and Ira practiced together for almost a year before entering a fiddle contest at Kennedy. At that contest, Charlie was surprised to take first place over a large number of fiddlers. Thereafter, said the Commercial Dispatch, it was "about as easy to win first prize off Stripling at a fiddlers convention as for the proverbial camel to gallop through the eye of a very small needle." Stripling started getting invitations to contests further away from his home town. At first, Charlie didn't feel like he could go off to communities where he wasn't known and take the prize. But he soon found out how easy it was. "The further away from home, the easier it was to win...!" Charlie declared. Though Charlie wasn't accustomed to playing without his brother, he still won $25 at the 1925 fiddlers' convention in Birmingham, through a contest rule which didn't permit a guitar accompanist. Charlie had to play solo again at the 1926 DIxie Fiddlers' Convention, and though he was up against scores of the South's top fiddlers, playing to audiences of 8,000, he still won second place.} Stripling's success at fiddle conventions made him something of a local hero. His admirers in the community saw to it that Stripling was not passed over by the commercial recording companies, as were so many Alabama fiddlers. On November 15, 1928, {Charlie and Ira} traveled to Birmingham {paying their own travel expenses to audition for Carey Walker, who was dubious since the duo didn't sing}, where the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company had set up a temporary recording studio in the Bankhead Hotel. Many bands which sounded good to Charlie's brother Ira had been passed over, but after playing just a couple measures for Walker, he decided to record them. The brothers didn't hear back from the recording company, and assumed that their cuts hadn't been published. Ten months later Charlie heard one of their tunes playing at a music store in Fayette! He and his brother had neither been notified of the release nor paid for it! Eventually Stripling contacted the Brunswick Company in Chicago. Jack Kapp, who had supervised the recording in Birmingham, expressed surprise that the Striplings had not been paid. He told them to come to Chicago prepared to record a dozen selections, and promised to pay them when they came. According to Stripling "I didn't have much confidence in him, because he hadn't paid us for the first one. And I said, "Well, what about paying our expenses to pay our way over there?'...He wired {the money} to me. The next morning we left and went to Chicago." In Chicago, on August 19, 1929, the brothers recorded sixteen tunes, all of which were released on the Vocalion label. Some were also released on the Australian and Canadian labels...Before the recording session, Kapp informed the brothers that they should not play anything that had already been recorded, {like the more common "Turkey in the Straw", "Hen Cackle", "Leather Breeches", etc.} Thus he played several tunes of his own composition, among them "The Kennedy Rag", named after his hometown...Stripling's "compositions" were committed to memory and to the recording machine, but not to paper, as he had never learned to read or write music. The records made in Chicago were well-received, {and as Stripling recalled, "were selling like hotcakes"}...Dave Kapp, brother of the Brunswick a gent, invited them to record for Decca in New York. There, on September 10, 1934, they played fourteen tunes, ten of which were issued. Except for the traditional tune "Chinese Breakdown", most were waltzes fox-trots, and "ragtime breakdowns". Their final recording session was March 12, 1936, in New Orleans, where Decca had set up a temporary studio. The fourteen numbers they recorded were again a mixture of traditional tunes and original compositions. As was the case with most country artists of the day, the Striplings did not get rich from the recording efforts. When given a choice between being paid a flat fee of $50 per record ($25 per tune) or receiving a 1¢ per record royalty, the brothers chose the former...It was not grand pay, but the fact that they were artists for a major recording company helped them get other jobs that did pay well. Despite the supplemental income the Striplings received from their recordings and performances, Ira Stripling eventually found that he could not afford to continue as a musician... Thus, for financial reasons, the 1936 recording session in New Orleans was one of the last performances for the Stripling Brothers, as a duo. Charlie Stripling, however, continued to perform regularly with his children and other local musicians - at theaters, schoolhouses, dances and contests - for the next 30 years. He farmed for a living, supplementing his income with his fiddle. Stripling had married Tellie Sullivan, age 14, in 1919. They farmed and ran a country store in Pickens County before moving to Kennedy in 1926. In 1934, Tellie died, leaving Stripling with six children, all under 15. He later married Myrtle Wheeler and three more children were born. Eventually all nine children could play one ore more instruments. A tradition developed at family gatherings: During a musical session, the family would play a tune, then each member would pass his instrument to the next musician and play the following tune on a different instrument... Stripling also performed with his sons {at dances, contests and schoolhouses, making a living that way during the Depression}. Stripling also continued to enter contests with much success... Besides having a full rich tone, good technical ability, and a driving style, he was a showman who won many prizes with his trick fiddling on such tunes as "The Lost Child" and "Pop Goes The Weasel". After World War II, Stripling remained an active fiddler even though the frequency of fiddlers' conventions and home dances decreased. He became the fiddler of choice at large community dances because, over the years, he had developed a repertoire of dance tunes that pleased many tastes. After Stripling's sons married and moved away from Kennedy to raise their families, Stripling was able to find other good musicians to play for dances at all the American Legion huts and National Guard armories in west Alabama. {People came from all over the state to hear the band. Though the venues were large enough, so many came that there was scarcely space left for dancing!} The band continued to grow in popularity, and by 1958 Stripling was playing to large dance crowds two or three nights a week... It was at the Mayfield community house that Stripling, aged sixty, played for the last time. Suffering severe stomach pain, he was taken from the dance to the hospital. After a long stay in the hospital, he fell victim to arthritis. He said that eventually, "I got back to where I could play a little, but the boys had all left me and I lost interest and got out of practice." When he was interviewed in 1963, Stripling no longer had a fiddle in the house. Charlie Stripling died in 1966. Stripling recorded this version of "Wolves A'Howling" in his home for University of Alabama professor Ray Browne. He learned it from an older fiddler, Pleasant C. "Plez" Carroll (1850-1930). Carroll was a member of a large family of fiddlers who lived a mile from the Striplings when Charlie began to play. "Wolves A'Howling was a Carroll family tune. For more information on the Stripling Brothers, see With Fiddle and Well-Rosined Bow: The History of Old-Time Fiddling in Alabama (University of Alabama Press, 1989) by Joyce Cauthen.
"Wolves a Howling" Recorded
by Ray Browne in 1952. REFERENCES Order With Fiddle & Well-Rosined Bow by Joyce Cauthen, University of Alabama Press |
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