Western Swing With Wade
Meeting Wade "Pappy" Ray after his retirement, one does not truly appreciate his career as a musician.
A true child prodigy, Ray first drew attention playing musical instruments on the front porch of his family's porch in Boynton, Ark. Learning the fiddle on a homemade instrument his father made out of a cigar box, Ray soon broke into vaudeville. Billed as the "youngest violin player in the world," by the time he was ten his violin collection had grown to 200 -- presents from fans and admirers.
As with many child stars, he rode that fame -- until he grew up.
"I couldn't sell it as a six-year-old anymore when my voice started to change,"
he said. "The child prodigy thing had to be
shelved."
Fortunately, his talents didn't rely solely on his youthful charms. At the age of 18, he joined Pappy Cheshire's National Champion Hillbillies on KMOX radio in St. Louis. After a stint in the army, he joined the Prairie Ramblers on WLS in Chicago. Then he headed to Hollywood.
Pappy's Hollywood years coincided with his heyday as a performer. He appeared in a number of Republic Picture westerns and became musical director for Rex Allen, appearing on both his radio show and many of his movies.
His band became the houseband for Cow Town, a western nightclub in LA, a venue where he played for two years. Around this time his group recorded some of Pappy's best records, "I Was Just Walking Out The Door," "Heart of a Clown," "The Things I Might Have Been," "Walk Softly" and "Are You Fer It."
Wade always mentioned that his career coincided with the demise of many popular forms of entertainment. His career as a child star came as vaudeville was dying and he made it in movie westerns about the time TV killed them off. Similarly, his western swing music fell out of fashion in the '50's when Elvis Presley brought rock 'n' roll to the forefront.
Ironically, Wade was one of the first musicians to electrify his fiddle. Both he and Stuff Smith claimed to be the first.
He also draws many parallels between western swing and Dixieland. In western swing, the steel guitar plays the parts covered in Dixieland by the trombone; the fiddle plays the clarinet parts.
Wade noted western swing was viewed as unsophisticated, but he felt many of the chords were more intricate than its Dixieland cousin and the musicians were not shy about experimenting.
He noted that when Tex Williams' Western Caravan recorded the first version of "Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette," they used a harp. Not a harmonica, but a stringed harp like Harpo Marx used to play.
"It's never up front so you don't notice it, but if you listen you can pick it up," Wade said.
Ray's popularity on the West Coast came to haunt him when he decided to move to Nashville, the center of country western. Although he enjoyed gigs on the Grand Ole Opry and performing with musicians such as Ferlin Huskey and Hank Cochran, he did not come up through the Nashville system and still has no love loss for the music produced from that city.
It was probably no coincidence that Wade hooked up for a time with Willie Nelson, traveling the southwest and other areas willing to listen to their brand of music. Nelson and Wade had a number of similarities. Nelson also broke into music while still a youngster and Nashville also took to knocking him down after his early success.
Wade and Floyd Tillman are said to be Nelson's primary influences and Nelson still remembers his old friend.
In 1996 Willie sent an audio tape played at the Wade Ray Fiddle Contest and Bluegrass Show, an annual event held in Sparta, Ill., wishing Wade good luck and suggesting that one day he might attend the event. The tape prompted rumors of Willie's appearance this year, leading emcee Paul Brake to spoof the crowd with a Willie Nelson impersonation.
Soon after the 1996 show, Willie sent a limo to Wade's Sparta home and took Ray and his wife Gracie to St. Louis where Wade joined Willie's band on stage for a couple of numbers.
Wade lamented the fact that he was not at his best and the only member of Willie's band familiar with Ray's old songs was Willie himself.
Still, Wade Ray is enjoying a bit of a comeback and in addition to the annual show in Sparta, TRG Studios in Europe recently released a CD of his old songs.
For all his pride in the musicianship of western swing, Wade Ray remains an entertainer first.
"When I'm playing, I try to pick out someone who is really into the music, tapping his feet and all," Wade said. "But if I see him searching his pocket for a cigarette and looking bored, I know it's time to change gears."
Highlights from the 2001 Pappy Wade Ray Fiddle Contest and Bluegrass Show at the Sparta Lions Club.
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