From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Sun Aug 4, 2002  2:08 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Carson Robison
 
CARSON ROBISON (By Shaun Mather)

Born 4 August 1890, Oswego, Kansas
Died 24 March 1957, Pleasant Valley, New Yok

Carson J. Robison, known in some circles as "the granddaddy of the
hillbillies," was a singer, guitarist, whistler and actor whose role in the
birth of country music has been unjustly overlooked. His father was a
champion fiddler while his mother was a singer and pianist, and by the time
he was 14 years old, he was already playing guitar professionally. It was as
a whistler that Robison first came into the recording studio, as part of
backing groups behind Vernon Dalhart and Wendell Hall. Ultimately he teamed
with Dalhart, and the two recorded and toured together from 1924 until 1928.
Robison also worked with the Crowe Brothers, and co-wrote songs with Frank
Luther Crowe ("My Blue Ridge Mountain Home," "Barnacle Bill The Sailor").
Other artists with whom Robison performed and recorded include singers Gene
Austin and Frank Crumit and guitarist Roy Smeck.

He formed his own group, the Pioneers in 1931, later changing their name to
the Buckaroos (long before Buck Owens!). They became the first country &
western group to tour England, they had a considerable recording and
broadcast career abroad as well as in America before World War II. Robison
had a hit in 1942 with the old standard "Turkey in the Straw," and wrote songs
on behalf of the war effort, including "We're Gonna Have to Slap That Dirty
Little Jap" and "Hitler's Last Letter to Hirohito" (# 5 country).

In 1946 Robison moved to Pleasant VaIley, NY, and signed with the newly
formed MGM label, where he would stay for the rest of his life. Two years
later, he had his second and last chart entry with the brilliantly dead-pan
"Life Gits Tee-Jus, Don't It?" (# 3 country, # 14 pop). In 1956, at the age of
almost 66, he recorded the novelty rock & roll number "Rockin' and Rollin'
with Grandmaw" ( MGM 12268) and, frankly, that record is the only reason
for his inclusion in this feature. Despite Robison's prosaic singing (a dead
ringer for Merrill Moore), there's nothing arthritic about the performance
which aficionados of Granny Rock can add to Skeets McDonald's "You
Oughta See Grandma Rock", Mac Curtis's "Grandaddy's Rocking" and
Solomon Burke's "Be-Bop Grandma" (and so on). Apart from the flipside,
a funny version of "Hand Me Down My Walking Cane", he left no more
geriatric rock 'n' roll in the vaults and died in 1957.

(Adapted from All-Music Guide.)

Recommended listening:
Home, Sweet Home on the Prairie: 25 Cowboy Classics - ASV.
"Rockin' and Rollin' with Grandmaw" is on That'll Flat Git It, vol. 7
(Bear Family 15789).