Detroit Country Music: Mountaineers, Cowboys, and Rockabillies

Chapter 12. Guitars, Bars, and Barre Chords: Fran Mitchell

181 Chapter 12 Guitars, Bars, and Barre Chords Fran Mitchell Roy Hall told me last time I seen him, he wanted to take me on the road with him. He wanted to hire me, and I said,“Roy, I can’t do that. . . . I got a daughter in school and I’m not gonna drag her all over the country.” —­Fran Mitchell1 Around 1942, Fran Mitchell arrived in Detroit with her first husband and baby daughter. Though her marriage didn’t last, her skills on the guitar helped her find work in Detroit country-­ western nightclubs, beginning with a trio that included herself, Bob Norton, and Duke Medley. Mitchell worked with a variety of bands through the early 1950s, before she decided she could make more money by tending bar than by playing guitar. She was born Frances Westfall in Ridgeley, West Virginia, across the Potomac River from Cumberland, Maryland. Railroad companies provided most of the jobs for Ridgeley residents. When her father lost his during the Great Depression, the Westfall family moved to Toledo, Ohio.“I was raised in Toledo, . . . and my brother Bob taught me how to play the ukelele. . . . When I was ten, I could play a uke a lot better than [radio and TV host] Arthur Godfrey ever thought he could.” 182 / Detroit Country Music Swingtime Cowgirls Around 1943, Mitchell joined the Swingtime Cowgirls. Led by vocalist Eveline Haire, and probably named for Patsy Montana’s “Swingtime Cowgirl” (1940), the band cut four sides for Edward Kiely’s Mellow label (also issued on Hot Wax) in 1942. The records featured cowboy swing (“Prairie Sweetheart ”) and hillbilly blues (“Triflin’Woman”) performed by a female quartet of guitar, bass, accordion, and fiddle.2 “Eveline was a good entertainer,” said Mitchell. “She played bass and sang real good. . . . We worked at the Wayside [Bowling Lounge, in Hazel Park],and all over....We had Irene Wright on fiddle—­she could play—­and Jeannie Lutes [on accordion], she was real good, too.” The band performed at WKMH Dearborn and in John’s bar on Grand River. Since WKMH opened in December 1946, Mitchell probably worked on and off with Haire during the 1940s. Guitar Gal Mitchell befriended local guitar players Chuck Oakes, Tommy Odom, and Cliff Gilbert (Gilbert worked as a Fender guitars representative in the 1950s and 1960s). Gilbert and Mitchell gigged with Oklahoma and the Westerners , as well as Tommy Whisman, who led groups around Detroit and on WEXL Royal Oak during the 1940s and early 1950s. In 1950 Mitchell married musician Bud White, who arrived in Detroit with piano player Roy Hall the year before. Their marriage lasted eleven months, but the couple parted on good terms. By the mid-­ 1950s, Hall and White moved to Nashville, Tennessee, but returned frequently to Detroit. During one visit, Hall offered Mitchell a job on the road with him. She promptly turned it down.“I couldn’t do it,” she said,“but I appreciated it. . . . Kirk [McGee] came to my house with some of the musicians once, and he Guitars, Bars, and Barre Chords: Fran Mitchell / 183 said,‘Fran, I can get you a job with WSM, . . . the USO shows.’I said,‘Thank you, but I can’t drag my daughter around the country.’”3 Mitchell started tending bar during the day.4 She enjoyed the company of musicians, and they appreciated her, letting Mitchell sit in whenever she felt the urge to play. Bob Mitchell Mitchell raised her daughter to adulthood before reconnecting with Detroit jazz guitarist Bob Mitchell, who lived in Detroit during the 1940s and 1950s. Working mainly with pianist Bobby Stevenson, his picking influenced a generation of local country guitarists, with whom he often jammed. “We had known each other since we were both twenty-­ two,” she said. They married in Phoenix, Arizona, where Bob Mitchell had retired. Bob Mitchell probably worked with Bobby Stevenson during the early 1940s, before Stevenson joined the air force.5 After Stevenson returned to Detroit in 1946, Bob Mitchell’s main gig was in the pianist’s trio, which included bassist Bob Foster, at the Wyoming Show Bar in northwest Detroit . They cut records for the Detroit-­ based Trophy label around 1946. One disk included hot instrumentals of popular C&W numbers.“Wabash Cannonball ” highlighted Stevenson riffing through a mix of honky-­ tonk and jazz piano, while Bob Mitchell displayed speedy, sophisticated picking on “Steel Guitar Rag.” Stevenson’s trio also...