Biography
Emry Arthur, who cut sides for Paramount in the 1920s, grew up amid the familiar Appalachian mix of hardship and musical inheritance. His mother had died when he was only a year old. His father, a locally admired bass singer, fostered the boy’s interest in music and later took satisfaction in the several dozen recordings his son completed. All of Arthur’s brothers sang as well, and Henry Arthur occasionally joined him on fiddle. Arthur himself handled vocals and guitar, though a hunting accident that cost him one finger kept his playing confined to basic, if highly functional, rhythmic strumming—far removed from the fleet technique of Django Reinhardt. He married three times; his third wife, Della Hatfield, added harmony vocals to his records for both Paramount and Vocalion. For most of his life he made his home in Indianapolis, supporting himself with day labor such as operating an elevator rather than through performances or discs. His early recordings helped bring the traditional piece “A Man of Constant Sorrow” to wider attention, an influence whose commercial rewards he never collected in advance. Some scholars of old-time music have even proposed him as the song’s author, yet the claim has never been settled, and unlike fellow Appalachian musician Frank Proffitt with “Tom Dooley,” Arthur never secured a copyright. In the late 1920s he supplied backup guitar for Dock Boggs sessions whose material Revenant later reissued to strong acclaim in the 1990s. By 1932 demand for his style had collapsed, forcing him into steady work at a meat-packing plant. His final studio dates took place in 1935 for Decca. He remained absent from the 1960s folk revival and is believed to have stopped playing long before then.