4/9/2024 0 Comments Hillbillys playing rock roll![]() The couple practiced together for the next four years before turning professional in 1949. They remained in touch when Earl served during World War II and married following his discharge in 1945. ![]() She was impressed by Earl Songer’s one-man show and they became musical friends. She learned to play guitar while growing up and moved to Dearborn, Michigan, to join her sister and work at Ford. Joyce was born in Tennessee, one of 15 children. He played as a one-man band at company functions, and that is where he met Joyce Goode. Earl Songer was born in West Virginia and came to Detroit in the late 1930s to work at the Ford Motor Company. In the late 1940s and early 50s, Earl and Joyce Songer also played the hillbilly music that catered to white migrant Southern auto workers. The York Brothers then signed with King Records out of Cincinnati where they recorded “Motor City Boogie” and dozens of other songs throughout the 1950s. Both brothers enlisted in the Navy and, after the war ended, they relocated to Nashville and recorded yet another version of “Hamtramck Mama” on the city’s Bullet label. The duo's recording career was derailed during WW II’s shellac shortage which led to record companies cutting back on releases. Despite not being openly displayed, "Hamtramck Mama" became a massive jukebox hit in the Midwest, and it left little to the imagination with its attractively bluesy rhythms and suggestive lyrics. Because of their content, these types of recordings were sold under the counter at record shops. "Hamtramck Mama" was a prime example of what was known as a "party record". The song’s popularity might have been helped by the controversy generated by some Hamtramck politicians who criticized what they felt were bawdy lyrics: “She shook it last night and the night before, got up this morning wanted to shake it some more”. The York Brothers’ biggest early hit was “Hamtramck Mama” which reportedly sold nearly 300,000 copies by 1942 after it had been issued on four different Detroit labels – Universal, Hot Wax, Mellow, and Fortune. Their sibling harmony can be directly traced to the Everly Brothers who later covered the York Brothers’ 1942 song “Long Time Gone”. The York Brothers’ style, which combined elements of hillbilly music and blues, was a precursor to rockabilly. Recording as the York Brothers, they paid homage to their new home on several of their recordings including, “Hamtramck Mama”, “Highland Park Girl”, and “Detroit Hula Girl” on Universal Records, a small Detroit label. Their distinctive brand of country boogie and close harmony singing became very popular in the many country music taverns which had sprouted up around town because so many Southerners were now employed in the Michigan auto plants. As teenagers they had experienced the often-dangerous work as miners, so the brothers traveled to Detroit in the late 1930s for new opportunities. George and Leslie York were born and raised in a musical family in Kentucky. ![]() Some of the newcomers were attracted to the city’s emerging hillbilly music scene, a term that was commonly used to categorize a wide variety of styles including country and western, bluegrass, and even some forms of gospel. Detroit continued to be a magnet for newcomers until the early 1950s, when the city's population peaked at nearly two million. Because of the auto industry, Detroit's population had expanded to 1.6 million by 1940, making it the fourth largest city in the United States.
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