Ray Edenton

Following the Michael Simmons track about the Osborne Brothers Bluegrass/Tiple connection I felt on a great Nashville artist and one of the rare great recorded tiple players.

Ray Edenton started his career in radio in 1946 and playing bass fiddle with the Crazy Joe Maphis early 50's  group the "Corn Crackers" .
Later he became a major country music and bluegrass sideman guitarist  in the Nashville studios from 1953 to 1991, with 15,000 sessions on the clock he had time to experiment different instruments and tiple was one of those.
At the end of the 50's bluegrass producers search for new sounds and instruments melted flavors: mouth harps, pianos, accordions and sometimes tiple follows the slide guitars and the sacred  "banjo mandolin fiddle guitar" combinations.
Between 1959 & 1962 he's credited on tiple for 3 sessions :
 in 1959 with the Osborne Brothers , then for the 1959 Mac Wiseman "Great Folk Ballads" album and in 1962 again with Wiseman for "Bluegrass Favorites"










On two of the Osborne Brothers tunes the tiple is well recorded, nice open playing reveal the typical sound on songs intro and counterpoint , Ray is obviously an accurate tiple pick player playing arpeggios and clean chords rolls.

"I Love You Only" :


"It's just the idea" :






 Thomas Goldsmith talk about the Osborne sessions in "The bluegrass reader":

On Mac Wiseman "Great Folk Ballads" in a more "high" mandolin sound and playing he echoed and counterpoint the two guitars, one  played with nice middle tones embellishments probably by Chet Atkins  .

"When It's Lamplightin' Time In the Valley" :


"Little Moses" :



On "Bluegrass Favorites" it's quite hard to sift out of the mix the tiple parts, Benny Williams the mandolin virtuoso is clearly in front of the band for most of the tracks.

http://www.rayedenton.com/

Johnny Duschel

Hard to find something about the artist.... and the tunes!
Thanks for help in advance!

The Billboard 27/05/1950 :

Johnny Duschel is also credited as tiple player on a 1955 Merill Moore single :

The Golden Melody Boys

Also known as "Demps and Phil",  Dempsy Jones (vocal and tiple )  and Phil Featherstonhaugh or Featherstonehaugh or Featherstone (mandolin) was an Iowa country duet of the 20's.
As told by Tony Russell in "Country Music Originals: The Legends and the Lost" Dempsy Jones was a baseball player and lately manager and the Linn County Recorder, Featherstonehaugh "didn't have much a profession" and was run in for transporting liquor in an automobile and fined 300$ in 1925 but he was a fine mandolin player.
The duet was locally successful around 1925 and recorded for paramount in Chicago during1927.
Fans could follow them on stage and on local radio shows to hear an old time repertoire with comedy tunes and a few instrumentals with "modern" chords & strums ornamentation and nice melodies .







A description of their string complementarity by Tony Russell :

5 tunes could be find on the Davey O'Hoolahan blog with this vinyl compilation , but the blog description is wrong when speaking about a guitar mandolin duet ( except for guitar rag for my opinion)

The complete Paramount recordings can be found in this tremendous 600 mp3 20's/30's old time music compilation for 10$ (J15108 Parker and Woolbright - Golden Melody Boys)

"Down in Arkansas" :


"Freak Melody" :


"Sabula Blues" :

Dr. Humphrey Bates & His Possum Hunters

Credited in the Michael Simmons article Dr. Humphrey Bate & His Possum Hunters , a legendary pioneering country string ensemble conducted by harmonica player Dr Bate seems to used a tiple .

According to record credits ( here compiled in : "the first génération of country music stars" by David Dicaire ) Buster Bate, son of Humphrey, played the instrument occasionaly as he played Jew's harp  harmonica & fiddle but no audio or photograph his here to testify, his sister Alcyone played "ukelele" (photographs) and piano.

Buster the tiple player is here, playing jew's harp behind Uncle Dave Macon ( banjo and hat ):

The Four Virginians

According to the  Kip Lornell  "Virginia's blues, country & gospel records, 1902-1943: an annotated discography",
this obscure country band of textile mill workers recorded six sides of ballroom music for Okeh in 1927.
Two guitars, a fiddle and a (T18?) tiple played by Leonard Jennings.


















Hard to find audio but two tracks on the tube reveals that the tiple is strummed as the rythm guitar :

They came back as old timmers in the 70's but only one veteran of the Okeh sessions is here :
Richard Bigger the fiddler.
Leonard Jennings passed away in 1977.
Audio of the 8-tracks 70's recordings and details about the "new" group here.