J.E. Mainer

Mainer’s Mountaineers stood among the foremost string bands of the 1930s, their leader J.E. Mainer handling the fiddle. The ensemble forged a vital bridge between earlier string-band traditions and the emerging bluegrass style while embodying three hallmarks of mountain-southeast musical life: the brother duet, the direct tie between country performance and radio advertising, and the continued prominence of turn-of-the-century sentimental material in 1930s repertory. Born in Buncombe County, North Carolina, Mainer grew up in the surrounding highlands; his earliest instrument was the banjo, which he played for local square dances. Like many southeastern musicians, he viewed music as an escape from the punishing conditions of the region’s textile mills; he left home in his mid-teens, first reaching Knoxville, Tennessee, then settling in Concord, North Carolina, in 1922, where he remained for the rest of his life. After temporarily lending his banjo to his brother Wade, Mainer sold agricultural seed on commission and received a tin fiddle as payment. Once he had mastered the showcase piece “John Henry,” he acquired a superior instrument and soon joined Wade and other local players to form a band. His interest in public performance intensified after repeated victories at fiddle contests.

By the early 1930s the commercial viability of country music on radio was well established, and Charlotte’s Crazy Water Crystals Company, which marketed bottled mineral water of questionable therapeutic value, engaged Mainer’s Mountaineers for promotional broadcasts and secured them a regular slot on the powerful Charlotte station WBT. Augmented by guitarists John Love and Zeke Morris, the group was renamed the Crazy Mountaineers and stayed on WBT for four years. The resulting popularity drew the attention of record labels, leading to the ensemble’s first Bluebird sessions in Atlanta in 1935.

Among the fourteen titles cut at that date was “Maple on the Hill,” a sentimental standard from the turn of the century written by Gussie Davis, an African-American janitor and composer based in Cincinnati. Vernon Dalhart and the Carter Family had already introduced the song to country listeners, yet the mournful warmth of J.E.’s fiddle and Wade’s banjo established it as a lasting country favorite. In 1936 Wade and Zeke Morris departed to form the Sons of the Mountaineers; J.E. assembled a new lineup with Snuffy Jenkins, George Morris, and Leonard Stokes and spent more than a year performing on stations in Spartanburg and Columbia. In 1939, again with fresh personnel, Mainer returned to Bluebird, recording alongside Clyde Moody and Jay Hugh Hall.

After World War II he became one of the first artists signed to the independent Cincinnati label King, cutting sides with a band that included his sons Curly and Glenn. Shifting musical tastes soon curtailed wider opportunities, and Mainer retreated to Concord, limiting himself to local engagements for the next fifteen years.

The folk revival brought renewed attention in 1962 when Chris Strachwitz of the California-based Arhoolie label located the group and produced the album The Legendary Family From the Blue Ridge Mountains, thereby presenting Mainer’s music to a fresh audience. King reissued selected earlier material, including Good Ole Mountain Music, in the early 1960s, and throughout the decade Mainer continued to record albums and appear on radio and at festivals. He remained active until his death in 1971.