Whitey & Hogan and the Briarhoppers

 

 

I found a Whitey & Hogan LP in the used bin. The DAHR reports [SOURCE] the duo was active for 66 years which was strange because I didn't recognize their names: Roy "Whitey" Grant and Arval Hogan. They were born in 1916 and 1911 respectively.  But Grant was born in Charlotte (Mecklenburg county) . Even in 1916 that was a city: population around 35,000. Hogan was from Robbinsville population was around 400 then. Robbinsville (Graham county) peaked in the 1970s and has fallen to a population of around 800 today. By comparison, Grant was the city kid. I had to do some reading to realize what I had in my hands.

They met in 1935 working at the Firestone cotton mill in Gastonia, NC. It was also called the Loray Mill and nicknamed the "Million Dollar Mill."  It's about 30 miles from Charlotte. At its peak in the early 1900s, it employed over 750 workers. The building abutted he south side of the Southern Railway tracks. That building is still standing today but as a mill, it closed it's doors in 1993. Today it's a hipster office space today owned by the Thrasher Group. But back in 1935 it was the largest mill in the south. [SOURCE] All of that to say Whitey and Hogan were 24 and 19 when they met at the Loray Mill.

They began performing as a duo, playing mandolin and guitar locally. Initially they played under the name The Spindle City Boys, no doubt for the textile boom town they worked in. Then their radio debut was on WSPA in Spartanburg, SC on Scotty the Drifters weekly program. Scotty is fairly obscure because he also recorded as the Singing Soldier. His real name was Benny Borg. He recorded about 17 sides, less than half were issued. He was still on WSPA as late as 1942. 

Whitey and Hogan eventually got their own sponsorship from Efird's Department Store and a radio spot at WGNC radio in Gastonia in 1939.  There is a small confusion in the timeline in 1939 as the book The WBT Briarhoppers by Tom Warlick has Whitey & Hogan on the Rustin Radio Show in Gastonia, the show was sponsored by Rustin Furniture. The show was broadcast from the main storefront at 278 West Main Ave. (That building is also still standing, and was renovated into condos in 2023.) The book does not cite the station, but in 1939 in Gastonia that had to be 1420 WGNC-AM. There was a prior station application in Gastonia, WJBR which was granted in 1937 and deleted over it's CP and delayed construction. I do not think WJBR was ever actually on air.

 

1939 was a big year for Whitey & Hogan. They recorded sixteen sides for Decca Records in one marathon session on November, 8th 1939 in the Decca New York studio. They eventually recorded a total of 30 for Decca. It was at WGNC they met another even more popular act, The Briarhoppers. At the time the Briarhoppers had 8 members "Dad" Johnny McAllister, Jane "Minnie" Bartlett and Billie Burton, Homer Drye, "Big" Bill Davis, Clarence "Elmer" Etters, Thorpe "Zeb" Westerfield and Don "Ham" White. (Don was actually named Walden "Don" Whytsell)  That's not the only line up but that's the troupe that Whitey and Hogan joined in 1941. 

The original Briarhoppers were put together by Charles H. Crutchfield in 1934 as a platform to sell snake oil tonics and quack medical treatments. He too had previously been at WSPA but also WIS-AM in Columbia, SC.  They claimed in Billboard that the Brirarhoppers increased ad sales 18% on WBT. That program was so successful that Crutchfield was named WBT's program director in 1935, having only been at the station for 2 years.

The Briarhoppers were big before 1939. Their show ran from 3:45 to 4:45 in 1937. They sold a lot of ads and a got a big write up in 1937 in The Mirror (below) and another in Billboard.  Billboard was a bit classist about it and wrote "[The] redeeming condiment is announcer Charles Crutchfield, WBT program director, whose suave comments and humorous ad libbing prevent the program from being just another hillbilly affair..."  The Mirror write up was more even handed:

Way down South in Charlotte, NC everybody agrees upon one thing. That is an old saw which, when set with new teeth, goes like this: Versatility, thy name is Briarhopper. And to prove it, in case you seem skeptical or perplexed at their assurance, they simply tell you to tune in WBT at four o'clock any afternoon and judge for yourself. And then is when you agree they are right. At five o'clock, we mean, after you've spent an enjoyable hour listening to WBTs Briarhopper Band. Led by Dad Briarhopper, Johnny "Mac" McAllister, these eight hill billies just don't give a hoot which instrument they happen to fish out of the pile before the program starts, because any Briarhopper can play any instrument well, and does before the program is over. And if that isn't proof enough of their versatility, they all sing in the same gifted manner. The mature-voiced male members can step to the microphone and do a pleasing job whether the script calls for a twanging hill billy rendition, a quartet part, solo, or opera. While the girls' voices are surefire in any type of song, in both solo and combination singing. Who are these talented Briarhoppers? Well, there's Dad and Minnie and Billie and Homer and ...but why not take a peek at the picture and really meet the folks. Fans, the Briarhoppers. 

At the height of the Briarhoppers’ fame there were two touring versions of the band, dubbed Unit One and Unit Two, at different time including Marty Schopp, Sam Poplin, Fred Kirby, Garnett B. "Hank" Warren, Shannon Grayson, Hank Warren and Claude Casey to name a few. In 1945 WBT started their own Hayride-style jamboree called the "Carolina Hayride."  It broadcast coast to coast on CBS. It was succeeded by the Dixie Jambouree and Carolina Calling all of which included in some form, the Briarhoppers. The Briarhopper show finally ended its run on WBT in 1951. Before it wrapped, Whitey and Hogan recorded more sides for Sonora records in 1945 and Deluxe in 1947. (Sonora also did some Fred Kirby sides in 1946.)

In the dust of the Briarhoppers Whitey and Hogan stuck together and both worked for the post office.  Then in the 1970s, seeing a resurgence in the popularity of country music, Whitey and Hogan reformed the Briarhoppers as a 5-peice band. That line up included Shannon Grayson, Don White, and "Fiddlin’ Hank" aka Garnett Warren. An LP compilation of their Decca sides and unreleased transcriptions was released in 1977 on Homestead records. That record must have sold OK because it was followed by two volumes of new recordings; releasing Vol I in 1981 and Vol II in 1984. JEMF regular, Ivan M. Tribe wrote the liner notes on all three. Lamon records released two other Briarhopper LPs "It's Briarhopper Time!" came out in 1980 and Hit's Briarhopper time Again in 1981. 

In 2003, Whitey and Hogan, along with Don White, as the only surviving former members of the Briarhoppers received the North Carolina Arts Council Folk Heritage Award. The book The WBT Briarhoppers came out in 2007 and while assembled from a mountain of original research and interviews, already enough folks had died that  we don't know what happened to several members. Tom Warlick has done more research than anyone else alive and his blog remains a great source: https://wbtbriarhoppers.blogspot.com/

Clarence Etters died in 1960, he was only 59. Johnny McAllister died in 1967, born in 1903 he was only 64. Homer Drye died early in 1983, Bill Davis in 1989, then Shannon Grayson died in 1993, Fred Kirby in 1996, Hank Warren in 1997, Charles Crutchfield in 1998, Claude Casey in 1999, Sam Poplin died in 2000, Arval Hogan in 2003, Don White died in 2005. Marty Shopp in 2009, and then Roy Grant in 2010. But despite the great power of the internet, the fates of Jane "Minnie" Bartlett, Billie Burton, and Thorpe Westerfield remain unknown.