Bill Browning
Wilmer "Bill" Browning is a Rockabilly musician best known for writing Dark Hollow which was later popularized by the Grateful Dead.[1]
Bill Browning | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 16, 1931 Wayne County, West Virginia |
| Died | January 23, 1977 (aged 45) |
| Genres | Bluegrass |
References
- Green, Buck. "Bill Browning remembered". Bluegrass Today.
Bill Browning, the Forgotten Man Behind “Dark Hollow”
By Edward Morris
I'd rather be in some dark hollow, where the sun don't never shine, Than to be at home alone, just knowin' that she's gone, That would cause me to lose my mind (Lyrics from original recording)
Although the song “Dark Hollow” has become a bluegrass and country standard, so little is generally known about Bill Browning—the artist who wrote and first recorded it—that Wikipedia, as of early 2017, accorded him but this one sentence: “William ‘Bill’ Browning is a Bluegrass musician best known for his recording of Dark Hollow which was eventually popularized by the Grateful Dead.”
Alas, even this small mention manages to get three things wrong: His first name was Wilmer, not William; he was not bluegrass but rockabilly; and Jimmie Skinner, with his No. 7 country hit on Mercury Records in 1959, popularized the song eleven years before the Grateful Dead began performing it in concerts and fourteen years before the band recorded it on an album.
Browning recorded and released the first version of “Dark Hollow” in 1958 on Island Records, an independent label he and restaurant owner Frank J. Videmsek had established the year before in Cleveland, Ohio. (1) “Dark Hollow” was the B-side to another of Browning’s songs, “Borned [that’s the original spelling on the label] With the Blues.” (2)
A partial list of artists who have since recorded and/or publicly performed “Dark Hollow” includes Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley, Larry Sparks, James King, Roland and Clarence White, Del McCoury, J. D. Crowe & the New South, Dan Tyminski and Ronnie Bowman, the Seldom Scene, David Bromberg, Tom T. Hall, Mac Wiseman, Aubrey Haynie, David Grisman, Joe Val, Joan Baez, Frank Solivan & Dirty Kitchen, Lonesome River Band, Tony Rice and Chris Jones & The Night Drivers. (3)
So who was Bill Browning and why should he be remembered?
Wilmer Lewis Browning was born May 16, 1931, the first of eight siblings, in Wayne, West Virginia to coal miner Haskell Browning and his wife, Elsie Napier Browning. Acceding to his son’s interest in music, the elder Browning bought him a Gibson guitar when he was still a teenager and subsequently secured a mandolin for his brother, Carlos. (4)
After performing locally, the Browning brothers entered and won a talent contest conducted by “The Old Farm Hour,” a live weekly radio program broadcast on WCHS in Charleston, West Virginia. This win apparently garnered the two enough attention to be invited to join a band called Lew West & The Kanawha Valley Ramblers that had its own weekly program on WTIP, a competing Charleston radio station. (5) When he was 16, Browning formed Bill Browning & the Kanawha Valley Boys and had his own show on WTIP from 1947 to 1950. (6)
Like thousands of other young West Virginians had done before him, Browning moved with his wife and baby son to Cleveland, Ohio in 1955 in search of work. (7) He soon found a job driving for White Star Trucking. “After a while Bill's music bug began stirring again,” his widow recalls. “The [Browning] boys had never stopped playing around the house, but Bill wanted more than that. The Circle Theater on the east end of Cleveland was where Nashville artists were booked in every Saturday night. Bill began putting a band together and went over to see Mr. [Emanuel ‘Manny’] Stutz, [manager] of the theater, about a spot on one of the shows. He talked Mr. Stutz into letting him be master of ceremonies [of the 'Circle Theater Jamboree'] and use his band to back all the artists who booked in without their own bands.” (8)
When WJW disc jockey Danny Ford, who also worked as an emcee at “Circle Theater Jamboree,” was killed in a car accident in July 1956, (9) Browning wrote and recorded a song memorializing him that, according to Mrs. Browning, earned him considerable local attention. Browning had met Frank J. Videmsek while frequenting his restaurant on his truck route. He discussed his musical ambitions and achievements with Videmsek and eventually talked him into setting up Island Record. In addition to owning the label, Videmsek served initially as Browning's personal manager. During this same period, the young West Virginian began writing his own songs.
“After Island Records came into being,” says Mrs. Browning, “we also started a publishing company call B&F Publishing and also the Jean Johnson Booking Agency [Doris Jean Johnson was Mrs. Browning's maiden name.] Every record package and address was done across our kitchen table.”
Browning named his band the Echo Valley Boys. It was an assemblage of Appalachian emigres that included guitar wizard and native Kentuckian Rudy Thacker, who met Bill through the offices of Tex Clark, then owner of a record store in Cleveland and later a talent hustler in Nashville. Other members of the Echo Valley Boys in its various incarnations were Art Fulks, Merl Hoaf, Jackie Wooten, Roy Barker, Marshall Looney and future “Nashville Cat” Wayne Moss.
Although Browning wrote both songs and sang lead vocals on them, his first two recordings Island released in 1957 were credited democratically to the Echo Valley Boys. The songs were “Wash Machine Boogie,” B-sided by “Ramblin' Man.” The former was pure rockabilly, cheeky, pulsating and as blue-collar as punching a time clock. The latter showed Browning's country chops, with a nod in the folk song direction. Browning would release four more sides on Island in 1957, all under the name “Bill Browning and His Echo Valley Boys.” They were “Don't Wait Too Late”/”One Day a Month” and “Hula Rock”/”Makes You Feel-a So Good.”
Next came “Dark Hollow.” Billboard reviewed it in its March 17. 1958 issue, saying, “This is a train weeper delivered in traditional style by the artist. Plucked and steel guitars lend effective support on the medium beater. Traditional c&w fans will like this.” Of “Born With The Blues,” the reviewer opined, “A c&w blues delivered just as appealingly as the flip. This can also do biz.” (10)
And do biz the record did. A little more than two months after the review appeared, Billboard announced that “Bill Browning and His Echo Valley Boys recently joined the WWVA Jamboree in Wheeling, W. Va. . . . Browning and band are set for shows in New York, New Jersey and Maine, starting May 27 . . . and closing June 2.” (11) With the Jamboree gig nailed down, Browning and family moved from Cleveland to St. Albans, W. Va., a suburb of Charleston, the state capital. Back on his home turf, Browning recruited into the Echo Valley Boys a hot young guitarist named Wayne Moss who had been playing behind local radio and TV star, Sleepy Jeffers. Moss worked both the road and the “Jamboree” with Browning. “He was fun to work with, and he kept us busy playing gigs,” Moss says. (12) “We toured through Canada a lot. Of course, he was able to promote those things from [radio station] WWVA.” In this edition, the Echo Valley Boys consisted to Moss, bassist Tiny Smith and comedian Lazy Jim Day. “[Bill] had a Hudson we [toured in] a lot. I remember one day waking up in a snow bank with Lazy Jim Day on top of me. Tiny Smith lived in Pennsylvania and had a Cadillac. So we'd drive [from West Virginia] to Pennsylvania in Bill's car and get into Tiny's Cadillac and go the rest of the way. . . . Lazy Jim liked to drink a lot. So we'd be in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan or somewhere, and he'd say, 'Hook a right up at the next corner. I want to get me some sheep dip.' That's what he called his liquor. I quit performing with [Bill] when it was time to move to Tennessee.” Moss left Browning for Music City in 1959. There he eventually co-founded the cutting-edge bands Area Code 615 and Barefoot Jerry and earned his “Nashville Cat” honorific by playing on sessions for such luminaries as Bob Dylan, Lefty Frizzell, Waylon Jennings, the Everly Brothers and Linda Ronstadt.. Cash Box praised Browning's “Dark Hollow” followup single, “Don't Wait Too Late”/”One Day A Month,” in its Sept. 20, 1958 number. In assessing “Don't Wait Too Late,” the reviewer said, “Bill Browning, who created quite a stir in platter circles with the chart-riding Island debut, 'Dark Hollow,' bids fair to follow suit via his newest single for the diskery. It's a persuasive, moderate paced item that finds Bill warmly passing along a bit of friendly advice to the lovelorn.” The reviewer was equally flattering to the B side. (13)
Another news brief in the same issue noted that “Dark Hollow” was “one of the big items” in jukeboxes around Richmond, Virginia but had been “unavailable” for a time, probably the consequence of a small label suddenly having a sizable hit to manufacture. (14) Jimmie Skinner's version made its debut in the Jan.19, 1959 issue of Billboard and spent a total of 10 weeks on the country charts. (15). Later that year, Browning would depart Island to record the first of an eventual four sides for Starday Records. While Browning was on tour in Massachusetts, Lazy Jim Day became ill and died in the back seat of Browning's car on Sept. 5, 1959. “I remember Bill saying he almost burned his car up trying to get him to the hospital,” Browning's widow says. Despite such adversities, Browning's stature as a performer continued to grow. The Jan. 11, 1960 issue of Billboard reported: “A c&w package featuring Johnny Horton, of 'Louisiana Hayride,' Hawkshaw Hawkins and Jean Shepard of 'Grand Ole Opry,' and Bill Browning and His Echo Valley Boys, of WWVA, Wheeling, W. Va., pulled a full house at the high school auditorium in Greensburg, Pa. New Year's Eve.” (16) It appears, however, that the rigors of the road finally got to Browning. At the end of a weeks-long Spring tour, he returned home and announced to his wife that he was quitting the music business. “He never said why and I didn't ask,” his widow recalls. This decision probably occurred in mid 1960, considering the paucity of references to Browning between the period he recorded for Starday (1959-60) and the creation of his own custom labels, Marbone and Alta, in circa 1966. Some time during the mid to late 1960s, Browning established Midway Recording Studio in Hurricane, West Virginia, a village midway between the state's largest cities of Huntington and Charleston. During his non-musical interim, Browning had returned to driving trucks for a living. As a studio owner, Browning catered to country and gospel artists in the tri-state region of West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky. He recorded himself only occasionally. To this day, he is sometimes confused, even by discographers, with Bill “Zekie” Browning, another rockabilly singer who flourished about the same time in the Cincinnati area. Browning's widow remembers that record royalties were sometimes sent to the wrong Browning.
On Memorial Day weekend of 1975, Browning discovered that his ailment that had been diagnosed as acute colitis was cancer instead. (17) The diseased progressed, and he died Jan. 23, 1977 at the age of 45, leaving as survivors his wife, Doris Jean, and children Billy Chris, Angela Jean, Deanna Lynn and Susanne Rene.
Searches through various discographies, trade magazine reviews, news stories and sweeps of YouTube reveal that Browning made the following recordings. With only two or three exceptions, he was the sole writer of all the songs cited.
On Island Records:
“Wash Machine Boogie”/”Ramblin' Man” (as the Echo Valley Boys) “One Day A Month”/”Don't Wait Too Late” “Makes You Feel-a So Good”/”Hula Rock” “Breaking Hearts”/”Lay Me Low” “First Prayer”/”Let The Bible Be Your Guide” “Borned [original spelling] With The Blues”/”Dark Hollow” “Gonna Be A Fire” and “Down In The Holler Where Sally Lives” on a 45 EP labeled “W.W.V.A. Jamboree Special” that also included two songs each from the Cook Brothers, Buddy Durham and Hardrock Gunter. “Just Because You Say Your [original spelling] Sorry”/”Sinful Woman”
On Starday Records:
“Don't Push Don't Shove”/”Dark Valley Walls” “Down In The Hollow”/”Country Strings”
On Salem Records (no history of which with Browning could be found. However, the songs cited are listed in Browning's BMI catalog):
“She's Not Such A Bad Girl”/”Lookout Girl”
On Marbone Records (Browning's label):
“Marbone Swamp”/”It's A Long, Long Way” “I Heard That Train A-comin'”/”Dear Mom” “I Was Touched By The Master's Hand”/”Precious Memories” (as Bill Browning and the Hilanders)
On Alta Records (Browning's label):
“He Sent His Only Son”/”People”
Bill Browning and the Hilanders (album)
“Gone Astray,” “The Church Is Gone,” “How Great Thou Art,” “I Believe In Jesus,” “I've Been Saved,” Today Was Yesterday's Future,” “Oh Lord, Do You Remember Me,” “Soul Salvation,” “There'll Be Singing,” “Don't Wait Too Late.”
1. Interview with Browning's widow, Doris Jean Browning. 2. Label photos on YouTube 3. Revealed via YouTube search. 4. Interview with Doris Jean Browning. 5. Ibid. 6. Ivan Tribe, Mountaineer Jamboree: Country Music In West Virginia, pp. 117-118. 7. There is some dispute about the year in which Browning move to Cleveland. Tribe (op. cit.) says it was 1955; Mrs. Browning estimates it was “around 1954.” 8. Interview with Doris Jean Browning. 9. Cash Box, July 21, 1956, no page number listed. 10. Billboard, March 17, 1958, p. 34. 11. Billboard, May 26, 1958, p. 47. 12. Interview with Wayne Moss. 13. Cash Box, Sept. 20, 1958. 14. Ibid., p. 59. 15. Joel Whitburn's Top Country Songs: 1944 to 2005, p. 347 16. Billboard, Jan. 11, 1960, p. 49. 17. Letter from Doris Jean Browning.