Who was/is Clayton McMichen ? - CDs, Vinyl LPs, DVD and more

Clayton McMichen

Clayton McMichen (1900-1970) was the adventurous fiddle-playing member of Gid Tanner & his Skillet Lickers, the 1920s' top selling string band. McMichen wrote and recorded his bitingly satirical view of the effects of the Volstead Act in April 1930 for Columbia, a recording that remained unissued until the 1980s. Rodgers recorded the song as Prohibition Has Done Me Wrong at his August 1932 session, with McMichen playing fiddle. For some reason, the record was held back, the only song commercially recorded by Rodgers that was never released. Reasons for this have been speculated upon for years, which have included the possible inferior quality of Rodgers' performance and the realization that, by the time it was released, prohibition would be repealed, taking the bite out of the message. Whatever the cause, the master stayed in Victor's vaults for a decade before being destroyed in a 1944 purging of unused masters. No test pressings or copies have ever been found. McMichen's wry, atypically restrained performance reasons that the banning of alcohol would lead to addiction to 'potash poisoning,' use of dangerous, bootlegged liquor, and other, more deadly substances, including 'dope, cocaine, and morphine.' Rodgers' influence on the Georgia-born McMichen is evident in that McMichen utilizes Rodgers' blue yodel in the chorus.

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More information about Clayton McMichen on Wikipedia.org

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