Detroit Country Music: Mountaineers, Cowboys, and Rockabillies

Chapter 4. The York Brothers, George And Leslie

37 Chapter 4 The York Brothers, George and Leslie Someone in Hamtramck tried to sue George and Les about that song. . . . Said,“You’re putting our city down.”We got a lot of requests for it. —­Tommy Venable, bass player for the York Brothers, regarding the song “Hamtramck Mama”1 Leslie York’s brother George knocked at the apartment door. “Les, you in there?” he called. Leslie set down his glass, and swung himself up from his chair.“Yeah, it’s open,” he said. George entered with the half-­ smile he wore when something bothered him.“Have a chair,” said Leslie. A few drinks and cigarettes later, George had shared his news: Nearly four years on WSM radio and the Grand Ole Opry couldn’t save Leslie’s job after his blunder on the Ryman Auditorium stage. George looked up and said,“Eddie can get us back on the Louisiana Hayride .” “You don’t have to leave,” chuckled Leslie.“They didn’t fire you.” “If you’re going, I’m going. What am I gonna do? I can’t just sit and stare at the walls.” “Well, I’m not crazy about Shreveport. But I guess it’s better than nothing .” George stared at his brother.“We can always go back to Detroit,”he said. In the Cumberland Mountains, Louisa, Kentucky, sits on the border of West Virginia. U.S. Route 23, the“hillbilly highway,”runs through the town, and the region has long been regarded as an excellent place to fish for bass 38 / Detroit Country Music and hunt deer and wild turkey. Growing up in Louisa, George and Leslie York learned hunting and fishing, as well as music. Both played guitar and developed decent singing voices.2 Born February 17, 1910, George York won his first talent show at age eleven. After completing the eighth grade, he frequented theater stages at night, while working days in coal mines at Wheelright, Burdine, and Jenkins.3 During the late 1920s, George moved to Denver, Colorado, and caught the ear of a local bandleader who hired him to work in nightclubs and on radio. Leslie York, born August 23, 1917, left school after completing the ninth grade.He earned a few dollars by catching and selling wild game and fish,and working at neighboring farms.At a talent show in Lexington’s Kentucky Theater , he won a four-­ week spot on a local radio station. In 1936 Leslie joined George in Portsmouth, Ohio, where his older brother sang at WPAY radio. The York Brothers’ voices sounded with similar timbre and blended well as George sang most of the lead vocals, and Leslie sang harmony. A master of old-­ time guitar picking, George combined single-­ note runs with chords with a style traditionally played behind fiddles. Leslie played melody and improvisations that echoed the music of Southern speech. Although he avoided the“virtuoso” tag, Leslie got the job done in his own way. Born on the banks of the Ohio River in Portsmouth, the York Brothers act matured along the Detroit River in Detroit, where George and Leslie settled by 1939. Perhaps Portsmouth’s annual floods—­ particularly the devastation of 1937—­ convinced the Yorks to head north. Universal Appeal Hamtramck, a city within Detroit’s borders, began as a township in 1827, named after Jean François Hamtramck of Quebec, who fought for the American cause during the Revolutionary War. In 1796 Commander Hamtramck took charge of Fort Shelby in Detroit for the United States. One hundred years later, several hundred German families farmed Hamtramck Township. After John and Horace Dodge constructed the Dodge Brothers Auto Car Company facilities on the township’s south end in 1910, Polish immigrants moved in by the thousands. In 1922 citizens incorporated Ham- The York Brothers, George and Leslie / 39 tramck to prevent Detroit annexation. Despite the Poles’ efforts to spread Catholicism, Prohibition-­ era mobsters brought booze, drugs, and prostitution to Hamtramck, giving the young city a wide-­ open reputation. At the start of the 1930s, state authorities directed a clampdown on the most obvious illegal activities, resulting in the arrest of several politicians, including the city’s first elected mayor.4 Perhaps the Yorks were inspired by stories they heard, or scenes they witnessed firsthand, to write their most famous song.In the spring of 1940,months after“Hamtramck Mama”first appeared in jukeboxes throughout Detroit, Hamtramck Mayor Walter Kanar sought a court...