Biography
If the moniker Walker's Corbin Ramblers evokes a rural paramilitary outfit more readily than an Appalachian string band devoted to old-time repertoire, the culprit lies less in the generic term "ramblers" than in its sheer ubiquity throughout the region. Any ensemble adopting the word therefore appends a specific locale, and here that locale is Corbin, Kentucky, a modest community whose place in the music's past far exceeds its size. Already in 1927 the local barber Frank Shelton interrupted his trade to commit "Pretty Polly" and "Darlin Cory" to disc, performances that scholars have likened to the Dead Sea Scrolls of the idiom for their foundational status.
Returning to the possessive element in the name directs attention to John Walker, the actual mayor of Corbin and the ensemble's director, a combination of civic and musical authority unmatched in the mountains until Ralph Stanley might conceivably occupy the White House. Walker bears no relation to the unrelated John Walker Lindh, known as the American Taliban. The sides the group cut during the so-called golden age preserve some of the most potent acoustic string music to emerge from the highlands and rank among the decade's outstanding examples irrespective of genre. Part of their local renown may have stemmed from the mayor's dual role; residents found it difficult to decline a booking reminder issued by the town's chief executive.
The band's most celebrated alumnus, far outstripping Walker in musical achievement, was mandolinist and guitarist Larry Hensley, who performed with multiple groups and also recorded under his own name. Hensley hailed from Monarck, Virginia, and maintained a close friendship with the collector Ed Ward, who later curated the traveling exhibition "The Awfulest Gang of Records You've Ever Seen: Ed Ward and the Golden Era in Country Music" for Southeast Community College's American Music program in spring 2000. Hensley entered Walker's ranks in 1933 after several seasons with the Yellow Jackets, an old-time string band unrelated to the later jazz-fusion ensemble of identical title.
Additional personnel comprised Walker's brother Albert and mandolinist Mack Taylor, the latter of whom composed pieces subsequently taken up by Western swing outfits, performed in that style himself, and eventually settled in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. In 1934 Walker's Corbin Ramblers recorded for Vocalion; among the results, the instrumental "E Rag" continues to puzzle listeners because it appears to sit in the key of B, a discrepancy traceable to inconsistencies between lathe and master speeds rather than to any remastering claims of "state-of-the-art digital techniques." Ward himself remains unsatisfied, having once remarked, when asked whether he had ever encountered the four unissued Walker's Corbin Ramblers sides, "No I wished I did, I'd give anything if I did."
Returning to the possessive element in the name directs attention to John Walker, the actual mayor of Corbin and the ensemble's director, a combination of civic and musical authority unmatched in the mountains until Ralph Stanley might conceivably occupy the White House. Walker bears no relation to the unrelated John Walker Lindh, known as the American Taliban. The sides the group cut during the so-called golden age preserve some of the most potent acoustic string music to emerge from the highlands and rank among the decade's outstanding examples irrespective of genre. Part of their local renown may have stemmed from the mayor's dual role; residents found it difficult to decline a booking reminder issued by the town's chief executive.
The band's most celebrated alumnus, far outstripping Walker in musical achievement, was mandolinist and guitarist Larry Hensley, who performed with multiple groups and also recorded under his own name. Hensley hailed from Monarck, Virginia, and maintained a close friendship with the collector Ed Ward, who later curated the traveling exhibition "The Awfulest Gang of Records You've Ever Seen: Ed Ward and the Golden Era in Country Music" for Southeast Community College's American Music program in spring 2000. Hensley entered Walker's ranks in 1933 after several seasons with the Yellow Jackets, an old-time string band unrelated to the later jazz-fusion ensemble of identical title.
Additional personnel comprised Walker's brother Albert and mandolinist Mack Taylor, the latter of whom composed pieces subsequently taken up by Western swing outfits, performed in that style himself, and eventually settled in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. In 1934 Walker's Corbin Ramblers recorded for Vocalion; among the results, the instrumental "E Rag" continues to puzzle listeners because it appears to sit in the key of B, a discrepancy traceable to inconsistencies between lathe and master speeds rather than to any remastering claims of "state-of-the-art digital techniques." Ward himself remains unsatisfied, having once remarked, when asked whether he had ever encountered the four unissued Walker's Corbin Ramblers sides, "No I wished I did, I'd give anything if I did."