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Sluffirlb DaUg fol/graiil)Saturday, August 9, 2008 A-5Bluefield jazzman to enter W.Va. Music Hall of Fame posthumouslyBy BILL ARCHERBluefield Daily TelegraphBLUEFIELD — When he left Bluefield in the second decade of the 20th Century. Maceo Pinkard was on his way to becoming one of the most prolific composers in New York City’s Tin Pan Alley. But that was a day and time when composers were in the background, and few African Americans enjoyed anybroad-based recognitionPinkard. who was born in Bluefield in 1897, attendedBluefield State College until1914, and launched his song writing career the following year with a song called, “I’m going back Home. Pinkard’s compositions included “Sugar. That Sugar Baby of Mine,” “Them There Eyes,” a song made popular by Billie Holiday and a number one hit in the summer of 1925, “Sweet Georgia Brown. asong Pinkard co-wrote with Bemie and Ken Casey. Pinkard toured with his own orchestra, wrote an all-black revue, “Lisa,” in 1922, ran a theatrical agency and was the first African American to own a music pub lishing business. He was inducted into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame in 1984.Pinkard, who died in 1962, was selected as one of four late, great West Virginia musicians who will be indicted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame. The other entertainers set to be inducted into the Music Hall of Fame posthumously include Charleston’s “First Lady of Jazz,” Ann Baker, country music star Woodrow Wilson “Red Sovine from Charleston and the nation’s undisputed polka king, Frankie Yankovic from Davis.“This is wonderful news,” Virginia Hebert said when she heard of Pinkard’s induction intothe Hall of Flame. “I graduated from (BSC) in 1932, so we were not contemporaries, but my par ents knew him and spoke of him often. His name was a household word in Bluefield.“Both of my parents knew him,” Hebert said of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Clark. “He accomplished so much in his life. His accomplishments were great for all black people. I don’t know that he ever actually came back here to Bluefield after his career took off, but my father spoke of him often.”Hebert said that the black press including the Chicago Defender and Pittsburgh Courier carried stories about Pinkard, and the Bluefield Daily Telegraph even mentionedPinkard and his success in the newspaper’s 1939 semi-centennial edition, but Pinkard’s accomplishments in an era when Jim Crow laws tended tostifle African American progress in the arts and business world became less well known in southern West Virginia.As a young man, Joseph Bundv, director of the Bluefieldw wbased Afro-AppalachianPerformance Company, remem bered his father discussing Pinkard’s biggest hit, “Sweet Georgia Brown,” with I)r Claude Kingslow, who owned a pharmacy on Bland Street in Bluefield.“Dr. Kingslow stayed in con tact with Maceo after he left Bluefield,” Bundy said. “They exchanged Christmas cards and letters. Maceo Pinkard's wife wrote Dr. Kingslow when Maceo died in 1962.”The success of the great stride piano player, Teddy Weatherford who grew up in Bluefield. prompted a jazz researcher from Scotland to visit Bluefield fo talk with Weatherford’s friend.John Scruggs. The article that followed gave note to Pinkard, Weatherford, Bobby Benson and Willor English, who lived on Jones Street and played organ at Bundy’s church, John Stew'art United Methodist.After he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Marshall University, Bundy went to the Library' of Congress to learn more about Pinkard. “It wasn’t until I came back from that trip that I found out I could have found out more if I just walked across * the street, Bundy said. “My neighbor, Fred Dodson, a jazz trumpeter with the West Virginia Collegians, Nelson’s Nighthawks and other groups remembered Pinkard from when he was little, Bundy said.“His mother was a seamstress, and when Fred’s mother went to get something sewed, she would take him along with her,” Bundysaid. “Fred got to know Maceo pretty well.” Dodson passed away a few years ago at age 92,“For a little place like Bluefield, it’s amazing that we had so many great jazz musicians who were either bom here or lived here,” Bundy said.The West Virginia Music Hallof Fame will induct its new class of honorees in a ceremony at thewCultural Center on Nov. 6. Living inductees include Wilma Lee and (the late) Dale T. Stonev Cooper, bluegrass greats from Randolph County; Phyllis Curtin, an esteemed American soprano and teacher from Clarksburg; Robert Drasnin a big band sax player/composerfrom Charleston; the Lilly Brothers and Don Stover, blue grass greats from Clear Creek, Raleigh County; and Charlie MpCoy, the king of bluegrass and country harmonica from Oak Hill, Favette Countv.
Newspaper Details
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
Bluefield, West Virginia, US
Sat, Aug 09, 2008
Page 5
Full Page
Clipped by
Virginia T.
VA, USA 16 Mar 2023
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