Detroit Country Music: Mountaineers, Cowboys, and Rockabillies

Chapter 3. The Kentucky Troubadour: Mountain Red

29 Chapter 3 The Kentucky Troubadour Mountain Red To sing successfully on these [Kentucky radio] stations as Mt. Red did, he had to know his backwoods strains and deliver them as they should be, for Kentuckians know their“Coming around the Mountain” as citizens of Naples know their“O Sole Mio.” —­ Paul Wade, Michigan-­ based country music promoter1 What you don’t see anymore are the real hillbillies, who used to just get out there and have fun. —­Bobby Hogg, Mountain Red’s son2 Dressed in his suit of navy blue jacket and cream-­ colored slacks, the eighteen-­year-­old man with slicked red hair sat stiffly in the waiting room of WMBC radio, his guitar case at his side and harmonica in his coat pocket. Operating from the mezzanine level of the 700-­ room Hotel Detroiter on Woodward Avenue, a few blocks north of Detroit’s main entertainment district , WMBC featured a daily variety of commentary and music programming . The July heat caused the man to mop his brow with a handkerchief. He was thinking on his one-­ way bus ride from Kentucky and the relief he felt when he found his brother in Detroit, just two days before. A click from a door disrupted hopeful thoughts as a well-­ dressed man entered. Following introductions, Hy Steed, the station’s music director, ushered the young 30 / Detroit Country Music man into an empty room with a baby grand piano.“And what is your radio act called?” asked Steed. “I’ve gone by Mountain Red since my first job at thirteen,”said Red with a smile, and rattled off the call letters of several stations in Kentucky and Ohio. He pulled on his resonator guitar and assembled a wire rack around his neck, placing a silver harmonica within reach of his mouth. Red picked his guitar as he alternately sang and blew his harmonica to a song he’d lived within for so many years, the vocal nuances he added to its ancient lyric enkindled the verses with a fresh blaze of meaning. I’d rather be in some dark holler where the sun don’t ever shine Than to hear you call another darling, when you promised to be mine I don’t want your greenback dollar . . . Toward the end of the song, Red shifted his performance into high gear by thumping a foot on the polished wood floor of the studio. Steed noted the locks of hair that fell out of place during the man’s presentation.“That’s fine, fine,” he said.“Do you know any cowboy numbers?” “Yes, sir. As I like to say, this one’s for the children to ride home on,” and Red slid into a song about an old pony.“Is music your sole livelihood?”asked Steed as he considered the salability of the young man’s act.When Red confirmed the question, Steed hired him on the spot. On May 17, 1914, Mountain Red, a.k.a. Robert Ford Hogg, was born in a three-­ room house near the Kentucky River in Letcher County, Kentucky, near Blackey, in the Eastern Coal Fields. His father George Matt operated a store of general merchandise and groceries in the remote village, and the family got by with few hardships to endure.3 His mother Polly Ann purchased a $12.95 guitar and a harmonica, from a Sears-­ Roebuck mail order catalog. Red took to playing music and singing like a fly on molasses. In 1927 Red left home for Berea, Kentucky, where he enrolled in secondary school, and washed dishes afternoons and evenings to pay for his room and board. The Kentucky Troubadour: Mountain Red / 31 He made a wire shoulder rack to hold the harmonica as he strummed guitar, and performed at churches and talent shows. Clyde Foley, a popular student a few grades ahead, admired Red’s Eastern Kentucky“high and lonesome”vocals. He suggested Red audition at a nearby radio station. (Foley later entered a career in radio, calling himself“Red,” too.) At age thirteen, Red adopted a character type popular among folk music singers at the time, the mountaineer, as“Mountain Red” at WFBE Cincinnati , Ohio. Within a few years, he dropped out of school to pursue a career in entertainment. From the late 1920s until 1932, Red worked programs on WLM and WKRC Cincinnati, Ohio; WHAS Louisville, Kentucky; WLAP Lexington, Kentucky; and WCKY Covington, Kentucky.4 Mountaineer...