Detroit Country Music: Mountaineers, Cowboys, and Rockabillies

Chapter 10. Chuck Hatfield And The Treble-Aires

153 Chapter 10 Chuck Hatfield and the Treble-­Aires [Chuck Hatfield and Boots Gilbert] came in [to the Detroit country music scene], and all the rest of us were just sort of . . . bar musicians. They had had some training on the radio, . . . and they were smoother and more commercial, or more sophisticated, than we were. They’d do that Spade Cooley stuff. —­Bill Hayes, musician1 After the tone arm drops its stylus into the groove in the flipside of a Davis Sisters single issued by Fortune Records, a steel guitar fanfare announces the arrival over the speaker of one of the top C&W groups that worked in Detroit: Chuck Hatfield and the Treble-­ Aires. The instrumental that follows , titled “Steel Wool,” jumps with improvisations on steel guitar, fiddle, and standard guitar. Led by husband-­ and-­ wife team Chuck Hatfield (steel) and Boots Gilbert (bass),the Treble-­Aires entertained in Detroit during the 1950s.Gilbert’s sister Dee Cardis played rhythm guitar,and her husband Vic swung the fiddle. Guitarist Al Allen appeared on“Steel Wool,” too.“If they were going to a studio,” said Allen,“they’d call me.”2 A gifted steel guitarist with a slick and punchy style influenced by innovators such as Jerry Byrd, Noel Boggs, and Earl Joaquin Murphey Jr., Hatfield led the Treble-­ Aires on a stack of records on the Fortune label in Detroit. They backed the Davis Sisters, May Hawks, the York Brothers, and other celebrated entertainers at engagements across Southeast Michigan . They starred in programs at WJR radio and WWJ-­ TV Channel Four. Singer Danny Richards remembered Hatfield“could play a steel guitar and turn your head—­ and you’d think it was Merle Travis on the guitar. Brother, he was good.”3 154 / Detroit Country Music Chuck Hatfield Charles E. Hatfield was born August 24, 1930, in Flint to Mr. and Mrs. Herman K. Hatfield, who came to Michigan from Missouri by way of eastern Kentucky (yes, those Hatfields). A 1952 clipping from the Flint Journal gave an account of Hatfield’s childhood, noting he taught himself to play mandolin , ukulele, guitar, piano, and organ by age six.4 Three years later,“he went professional as a‘trick’yodeler”with the Rio Grande Cowboys in Flint. During the same year, he fell from the upper level of a barn and injured his back. While recuperating in bed, Hatfield practiced his music. Contrary to the Flint Journal, he completed at least one course at the Honolulu Conservatory of Music, in downtown Flint.5 At age seventeen, he chose to concentrate on steel guitar. Singer Dusty Owens said he met Hatfield in 1947 when they worked together with Bud Davis and His OK Ranch Boys at WWOK Flint. Owens learned accordion at the Honolulu Conservatory.6 In the early months of 1948, Owens joined Tex Ferguson and His Drifting Pioneers at Saginaw’s WKNX radio. Ferguson’s band performed alongside groups led by Jimmy Dickens and Casey Clark. In September Chuck Hatfield began playing steel for Ferguson. Just as Hatfield settled into his role as a Drifting Pioneer, Ferguson moved to KFEQ St. Joseph, Missouri. About the same time Ferguson left Saginaw, Casey Clark took a job at a radio station in Fort Madison, Iowa. Clark may have worked with Bob Manning, a bandleader at the station. Hatfield may have traveled with Clark to Iowa, because he wound up playing in Manning’s group, the Riders of the Silver Sage. Born in 1912 in Sherman, Texas, Manning spent his first eight years in the Lone Star State before his family moved to California. During the late 1930s he led the Bob Manning Trio, singing and yodeling in Bakersfield. Manning settled in Dallas, Texas, after World War II. In 1947 he organized a band that played barn dances, dance halls, nightclubs, and the Texas State Fair in Dallas.7 They made recordings for Jim Beck at his Dallas studio, and Beck issued two singles on his Dude label before the group disbanded and Man- Chuck Hatfield and the Treble-­ Aires / 155 ning moved to Fort Madison in 1948.8 Manning regrouped with Billy Gray (vocals, guitar) from Paris, Texas, Robert Lawrence “Texas Blackie” Crawford (take-­ off guitarist), James “Pee Wee” Reid (bass), and Hatfield (who also sang tenor in the group). Right away, Manning had the new band cut music for Beck. They remade Ted Daffan’s 1940 hit “I’m A Fool...