Musicians Jan - 01 - Nashville Musicians Association

18 The Nashville Musician January-March 2009
By WALT TROTT
Steelin’ Away . . . that’s what Howard White
did so quietly on Oct. 20, when he died in his
sleep in what he called The White House, his
Gallatin residence. Home with him at the time
were wife Ruth and daughter Kathleen.
Among those legends who benefitted by
White’s steel guitar stylings through the years,
were no less than Don Gibson, Cowboy Copas,
Hank Snow, Ferlin Husky, Wilma Lee & Stoney
Cooper, and a young Hank Williams, Jr.
The former sideman, a Lifetime Member of
AFM Local 257, was 82. Howard’s widow said
he had most recently played his beloved Barney
Miller Special steel guitar at a private gathering,
marking the release of John Simon’s biography
“Cowboy Copas & The Golden Age of
Country Music.” White proclaimed great admiration
for Copas.
It was with Cowboy that he first played
WSM’s Grand Ole Opry, and earlier with Don
Gibson had performed on WNOX’s Mid-Day
Merry-Go-Round, top exponents of country
music.
“It just killed me when Kathleen called to
tell me yesterday,” says singer Kathy Copas
Hughes, explaining how she learned of
Howard’s death from his daughter. “We had
worked the road together (with the Copas band)
and when you’re in a car like that with them
(band members), I think you really get to know
them well. Howard was a genuinely funny person,
and I remember that Daddy got a lot of
kicks out of him.”
“I hate to hear this,” wrote fellow picker
Russ Hicks, on the Internet’s Steel Guitar Forum.
“Howard seemed to be in such good health,
and I’ve been very fortunate to spend some time
with him, Ruth and Kat lately . . . time that is
now even more precious to me. I’ll sure miss
him . . .”
Among White’s last professional performances
were the 2005 Roxy Regional Theatre
production of “A Closer Walk With Patsy Cline”
starring Lisa Danes and directed by Tom Thayer,
in Clarksville, Tenn.; and a rousing gig at Douglas
Corner in Nashville, where his steel supported
such artists as Norma Jean, George
Riddle, Leona Williams, Dave Kirby and
Frankie Miller, during the traditional Fan Fair.
Howard’s appeared in three Nashville-based
films: Marathon Pictures’ “Country Music On
Broadway” with cameos by Hank Snow, Ferlin
Husky, Skeeter Davis, George Jones and Audrey
Williams; “Second Fiddle To a Steel Guitar,”
featuring the old Bowery Boys’ Leo Gorcey and
Huntz Hall plus guest artists such as Faron
Young, Kitty Wells, Homer & Jethro and Dottie
West; and “The Girl From Tobacco Row,” with
Earl (Snake) Richards and Ralph Emery.
White also authored the books: “Every Highway
Out of Nashville” (with wife Ruth White,
1990), compiling his road stories;
“Mecklenburg: The Life & Times of a Proud
People,” a scholarly 1992 historical account of
his native Mecklenburg County, N.C.; and a
compact, anecdotal book of humor, “Grits, Red-
Eye Gravy & Wisdom, Southern Style.”
Howard first recorded in 1948, with Shan-
Howard stops by to say hello to producer-songwriter Buzz Cason and engineer Joe Funderburk.
Howard White’s finale, ‘Steelin’ away’
At the Union, Texas-based promoter Gabe Tucker reunites with fellow member Howard White and wife Ruth.
non Grayson’s Golden Valley Boys at King
Records in Cincinnati. He later contributed to
the records of Cowboy Copas, Wilma Lee &
Stoney Cooper, Canadian diva Lucille Starr and
Hank Snow, among others. He’s heard to good
advantage on the 1961 Top Five Snow single,
“Beggar To a King,” written by The Big Bopper
(J.P. Richardson). Other examples of his playing
can be heard on the Bear Family Records’
14-track Howard White album “Nashville
Sideman With Friends.”
White served a year in the U.S. Navy during
World War II. Unfortunately, in the Chemical
Warfare branch, Howard was exposed to
nerve gas during tests. As a result, he developed
a neurological condition that troubled him
throughout his life.
Howard Osmond White, Jr., born March
26, 1926 in Charlotte, N.C., was the elder son
of a Presbyterian couple Howard and Eula
Mae (Stewart) White. In addition to farming
two-and-a-half acres, Howard’s dad was
an aide to N.C. Gov. Cameron Morrison,
later a U.S. Congressman, prompting the
Whites to relocate to Washington, D.C.
There young Howard even worked in the
House of Representatives’ post office.
Once dad gifted him with a $12.50
Kalamazoo guitar, music became his great love.
In listening to Jerry Byrd’s unique Hawaiian
steel guitar playing on radio and records, however,
Howard became enamored of that instrument.
“So I watched the ads, earned some money
at a service station and bought myself a steel
guitar and a Sears & Roebuck amplifier,” he
once explained.
Knowing Byrd was on WLW-Cincinnati, “I
wrote him, asking how he got the sounds he
produced. He answered me back, giving me his
tunings and advice on string arrangements and
guages. Can you imagine anyone doing that
now? It would be like stealing secrets from the
federal government. From that time on, I was
hooked! There was no other instrument for me
but the steel.”
Howard experienced his first professional
let-down in 1947, when Arthur (Guitar Boogie)
Smith rejected him during auditions for Smith’s
Briar-Hoppers radio band.
That only made him more determined. So
he worked with Claude Casey at WBT-Charlotte.
It was Howard’s stint with Shannon
Grayson that led him to Cincinnati, where he
got to meet his idol Jerry Byrd face to face.
In 1951 in Knoxville, White linked up with
young Don Gibson, playing on WNOX’s Mid-
Day Merry-Go-Round and The Tennessee
Barndance.
Next, thanks to guitarist Randy Hughes,
Howard was hired to play in star Cowboy
Copas’ band, including on the historic Grand
Ole Opry. When Copas disbanded, Howard
worked in various bands, including Ferlin
Husky’s Hush Puppies, Wilma Lee & Stoney
Cooper’s Clinch Mountain Clan, also backing
Las Vegas’ charmer Judy Lynn, and then-newlyweds’
Hawkshaw Hawkins and Jean Shepard.
On shorter stints, White worked with Hank
Williams, Tex Ritter, Grandpa Jones, Red
Sovine, Jim Reeves, Minnie Pearl, Wilf Carter
(Montana Slim) and toured with Audrey Williams
and her 9-year-old son Hank, Jr., in February
1959.
Howard fondly recalled as a highlight, however,
an on-stage performance with Jerry Byrd
playing twin steels on the Opry’s Prince Albert
NBC-TV network portion.
Another great memory for White was playing
on the original demo by songwriter William
Trader for his song “A Fool Such As I,”
later recorded by Howard’s boss-to-be Hank
Snow and, of course, Elvis Presley.
Tiring of the road, White began working behind-the-scenes
on Music Row, pitching songs
on behalf of firms like Moss Rose, Famous
Music, Pamper Music and briefly Tree Music.
He worked closely with pioneers such as Hubert
Long, Hal Smith and Smiley Wilson. Howard
also developed his own Locomotive Music
Company with his first copyright being “90
Miles From Nashville,” its demo recorded at
Muscle Shoals, Ala., some 90 miles from Music
City, hence the title.
Some songs White promoted were “Me and
You and a Dog Named Boo” for Stonewall Jackson,
“The Welfare Check” cut by pop diva
Connie Francis, and a novelty number “Her
and the Car and the Mobile Home” recorded
by Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner.
When songwriters Glenn Martin and Dave
Kirby brought in their co-write “Is Anybody
Goin’ To San Antone,” he listened and suggested
changes, taking no credit. Originally, the
writers penned: “Is anybody goin’ to San Antone
or Fargo, North Dakota/Any place is all right/
As long as I forget I ever knowed her . . .”
White warned, “Boys, you can’t say it like
that! You need to think of another city besides
Fargo, N.D., to rhyme with, because ‘knowed
her’ is such bad English.”
The rewrite - “Is anybody goin’ to San
Antone or Phoenix, Arizona/Any place is all
right/As long as I forget I’ve ever known her.”
- became Charley Pride’s third #1 single in
1970.
White was indeed a creative person, who,
once decided on a project, pursued it relentlessly
until it became reality. He produced an album
“Music At the Hermitage,” sponsored by the
overseers to the national homestead and museum
for America’s seventh President Andrew
Jackson; and also recently recorded an album
of inspirational songs, “Hymns We Used to
Sing.”
In his book of road recollections, “Every
Highway Out of Nashville,” White told it like
it was, much to the dismay of fellow travelers,
one of whom was the Opry’s Ernie Ashworth.
He recalled beginning a tour with Ernie
(“Talk Back Trembling Lips”). Howard was
taken aback when the troupe drove up for him,
writing, “He showed up before our first tour in
a white station wagon, with great big lips
painted all over it. I said, ‘Oh, no!’ He said,
‘This is what I’ve always wanted.’ . . . I had to
drive that car from Florida to California.”
Among the instruments White played on
during his long career was a Rickenbacker, and
a Sho-Bud pedal steel. Ruth explains, “Shot
Jackson actually made that one out in Jack
Anglin’s chicken house before it was Sho-Bud.
Howard wasn’t really that big a fan of the pedal
steel, and later enjoyed his Barney Miller Special
steel guitar. It’s sitting right here and it is a
beautiful instrument.”
In his book, too, Howard looked back on
decades of performing, remembering the career
highs and lows.
“There are still old fans that remember me
out there and to them I say Bless You! I am
proudest though, when a young musician remembers
my work. Recently, one such steel
guitar player Paul Franklin said he remembered
meeting me when he was a little boy. Another
steel picker Russ Hicks said he remembers skipping
school to buy a record of mine, and then
going home and learning to play like I did . . .
Just like I did with Jerry Byrd records.”
Although Acuff-Rose concluded Howard
was talented enough to sign as an artist to
Hickory Records back in the 1950s, White himself
acknowledged, “I’ve never been a star. I’ve
always been a sideman, but there’s satisfaction
in a job well done. There’s so many people I
have known that are playing at the big matinee-in-the-sky,
and they are waiting for the rest
of us to join them when the curtain opens up on
the evening show. And that will be a really big
show! And no one will worry about how many
people they can pull in at the box office, or the
standing ovations or who broke the attendance
record.”
Survivors include his wife of 43 years, Ruth
(Bland) White, daughter Kathleen, and brothers
William W. White of Charlotte, N.C., and
Dr. James G. White of Daytona Beach, Fla. A
memorial service was conducted Oct. 26, in the
Texas Troubadour Theater, courtesy of friend
David McCormick.
Among those goodnaturedly recalling their
associations with White were Harold Bradley,
Lloyd Green, Billy Robinson, Henry Strzelecki,
Buzz Cason, Les Leverett, Don Jennings, Joe
Lee, Howard’s wife Ruth White and yours truly.
Howard White plays his favorite instrument.