Biography
Born on 25 May 1875 in Sumner County near Nashville, Tennessee, Humphrey Bate died in the same city on 12 June 1936. Although he mastered the harmonica during childhood, Bate followed his father into medicine and earned his degree from Vanderbilt Medical School. He served with the Medical Corps in the Spanish-American War of 1898, then assumed his father’s established practice at Castalian Springs close to Gallatin, Tennessee. A lifelong passion for light classical pieces and the marches of Sousa prompted him to assemble his first string band in the opening years of the twentieth century; by 1919 the Castalian String Band had become a local favorite. When Nashville’s inaugural radio outlets began transmitting in 1925, Bate was apparently the first old-time performer to air music that resembled country styles. He began on WDAD and soon led the initial string ensemble heard on WSM, appearing there on 25 October; George D. Hay later christened the group the Possum Hunters. Bate’s daughter Alcyone, born in Nashville in 1912 and deceased there on 14 October 1982, joined the band at age four and, by 1926, at thirteen, served as its regular pianist while also playing ukulele; she is regarded as the first woman both to appear on and to sing on the Grand Ole Opry. Affectionately titled the “Dean of the Opry,” Bate remained an active performer on the program for eleven years. He discovered Deford Bailey and his endorsement to WSM helped establish Bailey as the Opry’s first black star. In March 1928 the physician and his musicians cut their sole session for Brunswick Records in Atlanta, yielding ten Brunswick sides and two Vocalion sides. Stricken by serious cardiac trouble in 1936, Bate successfully implored Hay “to let me die in harness” and continued broadcasting until his final broadcast. Aware of his condition’s gravity, he told his wife, “Ethel, this one’s going to take me away from here,” and was monitoring his own pulse when it ceased. The Possum Hunters experienced occasional personnel shifts, yet the core lineup usually comprised Bate on harmonica, Oscar Stone on fiddle, Walter Ligget on banjo, Oscar Albright on bass, Staley Walton on guitar, Burt Hutcherson on guitar, and, from 1931 onward, Humphrey “Buster” Bate Jnr. on harmonica, guitar, and Jew’s harp. Following Bate’s passing, Stone, born around 1881 in Obion County, Tennessee, and deceased in 1949, directed the group until his own death. Alcyone Bate maintained her own WSM program, sang during the 1930s with Jack Shook’s band, headed the vocal ensemble the Dixie Dons, functioned as a staff composer and arranger for the station, and issued several solo recordings, among them a notable version of “Silver Threads Among The Gold.” After Stone’s death she and Walton sustained the Possum Hunters into the 1950s; when the band eventually disbanded they performed for a period with the Crook Brothers. Upon Walton’s death Alcyone Bate Beasley concluded a career that spanned more than forty years. She died in Nashville’s Memorial Hospital in October 1982 after suffering a stroke. A handful of Bate’s recordings have surfaced on County and Rounder compilations and may represent the sole surviving documents of an early Opry artist who apparently broadcast country music on the program before any other such act.