| People of the 1920s K through P |
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Mrs. Wilda Lindsey worked in the business office of WSB Radio for 44 years!! We include her in our listings because for over four decades everyone who worked at WSB Radio got their paycheck thanks to her tireless work.
YEARS AT WSB: 1929 to 1973!! |
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1922 - Pastor of the first Presbyterian Church of Atlanta, Lyon saw the medium of radio as a great way to spread the word. Easter Sunday 1922, WSB became the first station in the nation to broadcast a complete church service. To this day on Sundays, WSB still broadcasts church services. |
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Songwriter and fiddler Clayton McMichen appeared on WSB as early as September 18, 1922. His bands included the Home Town Boys, the Melody Makers, the Dixie String Band, the Skillet Lickers and the Georgia Wildcats.
More on McMichen from the New Georgia Encyclopedia: Clayton McMichen became one of the most successful and respected fiddlers to gain experience and exposure at the Georgia Old-Time Fiddlers' Conventions, held in Atlanta from 1913 to 1935.
McMichen was born on January 26, 1900, at Allatoona, in Cobb County. With a father who played fiddle and a grandfather who played banjo, he showed an interest in music at an early age. By the time he was eleven years old, he was playing the fiddle and eagerly learning the ancient tunes that had been handed down in his family. His first documented appearance at the Atlanta fiddlers' conventions was in 1922, when he won second place for his rendition of "Arkansas Traveler."
On September 18, 1922, a mere six months after Atlanta's first radio station, WSB, went on the air, McMichen and a group of his musician friends, calling themselves the Home Town Boys, made their broadcast debut. They soon became one of the most frequently appearing acts on the station, and their programs, featuring a mixture of fiddle tunes, popular jazz numbers, and familiar ballads, provided entertainment for WSB listeners over the next four years.
In 1923, at a fiddlers' contest in Macon, McMichen won first place with his fiddling ability, and a newspaper reporter covering the event dubbed him "The North Georgia Wildcat." The epithet stuck, and McMichen's future fiddle bands became known as the Georgia Wildcats. Between 1926 and 1930 McMichen recorded with Gid Tanner's famous Skillet Lickers, an influential Atlanta-based old-time string band. Modern critics have given McMichen much of the credit for the success of the Skillet Lickers, citing his jazzy but polished fiddling. McMichen himself criticized some of his fellow Skillet Lickers band members for being "about thirty years" behind the times in their musical styles and repertoire.
On January 13, 1931, McMichen made what was apparently his last appearance on Atlanta radio with a broadcast over WSB. He subsequently worked on various radio stations in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Midwest, and in Nashville, Tennessee, where he was a member of the Grand Ole Opry. McMichen settled in Louisville, Kentucky, where, for many years before his retirement in 1955, he was heard regularly on local radio and television stations. During the last ten years of his professional career McMichen led his band in Dixieland jazz arrangements that met with enthusiasm among his audiences.
McMichen was rediscovered during the 1960s folk music revival, and for several years he made appearances on college campuses and at bluegrass and folk festivals around the country. Although known primarily for his performances on stage, radio, and records, Clayton McMichen was a songwriter of considerable talent. Some of his compositions that gained wide acceptance among country musicians were "My Carolina Home," "Dear Old Dixie Land," "Peach Pickin' Time in Georgia," and "Georgiana Moon." He died in Battletown, Kentucky, on January 3, 1970. |
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| Roy joined WSB in 1927 as an announcer. Roy was part of a tradition among early radio announcers to dress up for the invisible audience. Roy is quoted in the book WELCOME SOUTH BROTHER “Announcing was mostly a matter of identifying the station every half hour. But, we put on coats and ties even for that.” |
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Paschall worked at the Atlanta Journal and was the first man Major John Cohen talked to about the possibility of starting a radio station. Paschall enthusiastically endorsed the idea saying the paper should “put in a station at the earliest moment”. (Account from the book WELCOME SOUTH BROTHER.) |
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| The original chimes are on display today at WSB Radio. |
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| Twin sisters who appeared on WSB with a set of chimes. Lambdin Kay wanted to end each WSB program with an identifying set of notes and Nell offered her chimes. Lambdin ordered the chimes to be used at the end of each program with the first three notes of the song “Over There.” Many radio buffs claim that this was the origination of what later became the famous NBC three notes that identified that radio network. |
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Singer with the Metropolitan Opera who sang in the early days of the new radio station. “She sang with such gusto that she blew the transmitter off the air” according to the account in the book WELCOME SOUTH BROTHER.
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Riley Puckett was an outstanding vocalist who appeared on WSB between 1922 and 1926. From the New Georgia Encyclopedia comes this accounting of his life and career: George Riley Puckett was one of the nationally known pioneer country music artists who gained experience and exposure at the Georgia Old-Time Fiddlers' Conventions, held in Atlanta between 1913 and 1935. His dynamic single-string guitar playing, featuring dramatic bass runs, earned for him an enviable reputation as an instrumentalist. Many aspiring guitarists who followed him have studied and copied his style. Although he was an accomplished musician on several instruments, his singing was most responsible for establishing him as an important figure in the history of country music.
Born near Alpharetta in 1894, Puckett was blinded shortly after birth, presumably the result of misapplication of medicine for his eyes. While attending the Georgia Academy for the Blind in Macon, he learned to play the piano. Later, as a teenager, he taught himself to play banjo, and in time he became a contest winner on the instrument.
His vocalizing was a regular feature at the Georgia Old-Time Fiddlers' Conventions. Newspaper reporters covering these events referred to him as the "Bald Mountain Caruso" in admiration of his renditions of such songs as "When You and I Were Young, Maggie" and "Sleep, Baby, Sleep." For several years Puckett played and sang with the Home Town Boys, a string-band ensemble composed of Atlanta-area musicians. They made their debut on Atlanta's six-month-old radio station, WSB, on September 18, 1922. Until going off the air in 1926, they remained one of the station's most popular acts.
In 1924 Puckett accompanied fiddler Gid Tanner to New York, where, on March 7 and 8, they recorded twelve songs and tunes for the Columbia Phonograph Company. They were the first country-music artists to record for that firm. These recording sessions yielded vocal selections by Puckett and fiddle tunes by Tanner. One of Puckett's songs, "Rock All Our Babies to Sleep," established him as probably the first country-music artist to yodel on records. Yodeling was employed as an embellishment by numerous country music vocalists well into the 1940s.
Puckett was a charter member of the influential string band Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers and continued to record with the group through their last session in 1934. Puckett recorded as a solo artist into the early 1940s, creating a discography of more than 200 records on such labels as Columbia, Decca, and Bluebird. His repertoire included novelty songs, religious songs, traditional folk songs, cowboy songs, and ballads from the field of popular music.
In addition to making records, he appeared in stage shows and worked on radio stations in Atlanta and other Georgia cities, as well as selected eastern and midwestern cities. Riley Puckett was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1986. He died on July 13, 1946, in East Point. |
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