Artist Detailed Info: Gid Tanner

James Gideon Tanner (June 6, 1885 – May 13, 1960) was an American old time fiddler and one of the earliest stars of what would come to be known as country music. His band, the Skillet Lickers, was one of the most innovative and influential string bands of the 1920s and 1930s. Its most notable members were Clayton McMichen (fiddle and vocal) and the blind Riley Puckett (guitar and vocal).

Gid Tanner was born at Thomas Bridge near Monroe, Georgia. He made a living as a chicken farmer for most of his life. He learned to play the fiddle at the age of 14 and quickly established a reputation as one of the finest musicians in Georgia. Early on, he participated in several fiddle conventions together with his rival Fiddlin' John Carson, what one of them didn't win, the other would. Tanner reportedly had a repertoire of more than 2000 songs.
Tanner and Puckett traveled to New York City in March 1924 to make the first of a series of duet recordings for Columbia Records. The first recording made with the Skillet Lickers was "Hand Me Down My Walking Cane," recorded in Atlanta on April 17, 1926, when the country music scene in Atlanta rivaled Nashville's. It was released by Columbia on a 78rpm disc backed with “Watermelon On the Vine". The group would eventually record more than 100 songs for Columbia before splitting up in 1931. Three years later, Tanner and Puckett reformed the Skillet Lickers and had several releases on Bluebird Records. Tanner stopped making records in 1934, but continued performing into his seventies. He died in Dacula, Georgia.

Many of the songs they recorded remain popular with bluegrass and country musicians to this day. Among their best-known songs are "Alabama Jubilee", "Shortnin' Bread", "Old Joe Clark", "Casey Jones", "John Henry", "Bully of the Town", "Bile Them Cabbage Down", "Cotton-Eyed Joe", "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss", "Soldier’s Joy", "Bonaparte's Retreat", "Leather Breeches", "Four Cent Cotton" and their biggest seller, "Down Yonder". Their comedy recordings, including "A Corn Licker Still in Georgia" and "A Fiddler’s Convention in Georgia" were equally popular.
The lyrics of the Skillet Lickers' music used language then common among rural white Americans, but which today is considered offensive, including song titles like "Nigger in the Woodpile" and "Run Nigger Run".
Gid Tanner & the Skillet Lickers were inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1988. Following his death in 1960, Tanner's grandson and great-grandson continued performing as the Skillet Lickers. Phil Tanner, Gid's grandson, hosts an open jam session on Friday nights in a refurbished chicken house on his father's old farm in Dacula, Georgia. Great-Grandson, Levi Lowrey also continues in Gid's footsteps as a country music artist, songwriting for Zac Brown, and featured on Southern Ground Records in a multi-album record deal.
Songwriter Bob Dylan wrote and performed a version of Gid Tanner's "Down on Tanner's Farm", retitled and reset as "New York Town". It can be heard in Martin Scorsese's 2005 documentary on Dylan, No Direction Home.


James Gideon Tanner (1885–1960), a farmer from Dacula, Georgia, became a crowd favorite at the annual Georgia Old-Time Fiddler's Conventions held in Atlanta from 1913–1935. Gene Wiggins has written:
"Gid was the most outrageous clown of all fiddlers. Looking and sounding funny was his specialty. A big roan-haired, ruddy-faced oaf, he had a deep bass and high falsetto. He could throw his head so far back he looked decapitated. He could turn around almost completely, like an owl."

Throughout the 1920s, Tanner was titular head of Columbia's best-selling hillbilly band, The Skillet Lickers.

His final recordings were made in 1934 with a reconstituted band, this time under Victor's Bluebird label, a session that allowed his talents as an entertainer to shine.

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