Biography:Arkansas Barefoot Boys
Arkansas Barefoot Boys
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| Profile: | Musician |
| Source of information: | https://archive.org/stream/jemfquarterlyser1984john/jemfquarterlyser1984john djvu.txt |
Biographical notes
The following is excerpted from W.K. McNeill's article "Five Pre-World War II Arkansas String Bands: Some Thoughts on their Recording Success", printed in JEMF Quarterly, vol. XX, No. 73, Spring/Summer 1984, pp. 71-73 [1]
Dr. Smith's band recorded in September 1928, but seven months earlier, a band made up of much younger personnel (Smith's members were mostly in their thirties) made its recording debut also in Memphis. This venture was the climax of the group's brief musical career which began in Vanndale, Arkansas, a small community located in Cross County, some forty miles from the Tennessee line. For the recording session, they took the name The Arkansas Barefoot Boys but, ordinarily, they were just known as "the band." Although the Barefoot Boys started playing together in the late 1920s, their story begins a few years earlier when two cousins, James Leroy Sims and Cyrus Futrell, moved from their native Cross County, Arkansas, to southeast Missouri.
James L. "Roy" Sims was born in Cherry Valley, Arkansas, 14 October 1907, and Cyrus Futrell was born in Vanndale, Arkansas, 21 May 1909. Although they were first cousins, they were raised as brothers. About 1919, their family moved to Kennett, Missouri, a small town about one hundred miles northeast of Cross County. There they learned to play fiddle and guitar, teaching themselves on instruments ordered from Sears and Roebuck. They also came into contact with a dredgeboat operator on the St. Francis River who was a good fiddler; with him, the cousins formed a string band that played for local musicals and dances. A short time later, Sims and Futrell moved back to Arkansas where they became acquainted with Hubert Haines, a proficient guitarist and fiddler whose father was also an old time fiddler and the source for several of the tunes performed by the new band.
William F. Harrison, a music teacher at the Vanndale High School, learned about the musical activities of Sims, Futrell, and Haines, and encouraged them by arranging for them to play in chapel, at various dances, for commencement programs, and the like. It was through his connections that their recording session on the OKeh label was arranged. Unfortunately, transportation was not provided so the young men had to find a way to reach the recording studio. They hired a friend, William Camp- bell, who had a Model T Ford, to take them to Memphis; as part of his pay, they allowed him to play harmonica on the record.
In addition to having an extra musician, the band also acquired a name. A few days prior to the Memphis session, the group thought it would be best if they had a name. Cyrus Futrell came up with The Arkansas Barefoot Boys and that was the one that appeared on the record label. Certainly it was fitting that they were called boys for all of the members were young. Futrell, who played fiddle on the session, was only eighteen; Sims, who played harmonica, was twenty; Haines, the guitarist, was twenty-one; and Campbell, the second harmonica player, was twenty-two.
Of the four tunes the Arkansas Barefoot Boys recorded, only two were issued. One, "I Love Some- body" (generally known in Arkansas as "Crooked Stovepipe") had been learned from Albert McMarion, a fiddler from Kentucky who had relatives in Vanndale, Arkansas. He spent one winter in the town and, during that time, taught the piece to Cyrus Futrell. According to Roy Sims, the Barefoot Boys usually called the tune "Crooked Stovepipe" but on the record it appeared as "I Love Somebody," suggesting that someone other than the band supplied the title.
The other tune issued from this session was "The Eighth of January," possibly Arkansas' most popular fiddle tune. While the tune had been performed by many local musicians, the Barefoot Boys were more influenced by versions they heard on records and radio. Nevertheless, their rendition was not a carbon copy of anyone else's for they improvised freely on the tune. The other tunes recorded, but not released, were "Soldier's Joy," which they learned from a recording by Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers, and "Benton County Hog Thief." This latter number, which was as close as the group came to a vocal, featured Cyrus Futrell supplying hog calls and was a piece that the band apparently had from oral tradition.
The four member Arkansas Barefoot Boys never played together after that day in February, 1928. The three original members continued performing at local dances and musicals until Hubert Haines got married in the early 1930s. It is unfortunate that this group made no more records, for they report- edly had a repertoire of about three hundred tunes including some rarely encountered items like "Old Mother Barber" as well as a number of gospel songs and "modern" ballads like Carson Robison's "Zeb Turney's Gal." After Haines left, Sims and Futrell continued playing on an irregular basis until 1946 when Futrell moved to New Mexico and gave up music for several years. Since 1971, he has lived near Mtn. View, Arkansas, where he occasionally gathers neighbors at his house for an evening of music making. Sometimes the group includes the other members of the Arkansas Barefoot Boys, with whom he recorded over a half-century ago.