Famous Faces of Granby, MO & Southwest Missouri

Regarded as the First Country Music's Record

HENRY C. GILLILAND 

The Granby-Born Fiddler Who Helped Launch Country Music 

Country music has a long and colorful history,  and some of its early roots reach deep into the Ozarks and the small towns and communities that once dotted the American frontier. Long before Nashville became synonymous with country music, fiddlers carried their talent and music from farmhouses,  community dances, county fairs,  reunions and contests. 

Many of those musicians have since been forgotten.  However, one lived long enough to see the birth of an entirely new era.  His name was Henry Clay Gilliland,  a fiddler,  Civil War veteran,  public servant and entertainer whose remarkable life stretched from the Southern Missouri frontier of the 1840s to the dawn of commercial country music in the early 1920s and his journey began in Granby, Missouri. 

A GRANBY BEGINNING 

Henry Clay Gilliland was born on March 11, 1845, in the north Granby area of Newton County, Missouri, to Joseph C. and Lucretia K. Gilliland.   He was one of eight children—six sons and two daughters. 

Gilliland's Missouri childhood was brief. When Henry was only eight years old, his family joined the great westward movement brought about by the California Gold Rush. They traveled as far as Sherman, Texas, where they spent the winter before continuing westward. By the fall of 1854, the family had reached Parker County, Texas.  The following year, Henry's father passed away. 

His widowed mother was left to raise the family in a frontier region that was still sparsely settled. Parker County itself was not organized until 1856, and the area remained close to territory occupied by the Comanche. Conflicts between settlers and Native Americans were part of life on that frontier, and Gilliland later recalled several dangerous encounters and narrow escapes. 

Life on the frontier also shaped the young man's education. Gilliland was largely self-taught, reading books whenever he could after the day's work was finished.  Books however, were not his only education.  Music was becoming an important part of his life. 

The Gilliland brothers were known as fiddlers, and Henry learned to play on his older brother Joseph's fiddle. That instrument would eventually take him far beyond the small communities where he first learned to play. 

THE WAR YEARS 

When the Civil War began, four of Gilliland's brothers entered the military service. Eventually Henry would follow.  In 1863, he enlisted in the Second Texas Cavalry, Arizona Brigade, and later transferred to the Twenty-first Texas Infantry. His service included duties along the Gulf Coast and participation in the Red River Campaign around Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1864.  The hardships of military life and exposure to the elements affected his health. 

When the war ended, Gilliland returned to civilian life in Texas.   The years following the war brought a new chapter for Henry. He became involved in veterans' organizations and remained active in reunions and gatherings where former soldiers came together. He also developed a reputation as an Indian fighter, a reflection of the difficult frontier environment in which he had lived.   In time, Gilliland became a prominent figure within the United Confederate Veterans, eventually attaining the organization's honorary rank of lieutenant general. 

In 1869, Gilliland married Susie Borden. They eventually had six children and made their home in Parker County, where Gilliland farmed and continued developing his reputation as a fiddler. 

As time passed on,  he would enter public service.  In 1888, he was elected district clerk of Parker County. Later, after moving into Oklahoma Territory, he served as city clerk and justice of the peace in Altus.   But government work was not the only interest in his life.  His fiddle was always near. 

THE FIDDLER 

Gilliland continued playing for dances, gatherings and community events. Eventually, the experience from his younger years became something much larger. He became one of the best-known contest fiddlers in North Texas and southern Oklahoma. 

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, fiddle contests were major community events. Musicians competed for prizes and recognition, while audiences came to hear the region's best players.  Gilliland repeatedly proved himself among them. 

In 1901, he was among the fiddlers who helped establish the Old Fiddlers Association of Texas. Historical accounts describe him as a driving force behind the organization, and he served as its secretary for many years.  His fame would continue to grow. 

He performed at the opening of the Texas State Fair in 1910. The following year, he traveled to Little Rock, Arkansas, for a major fiddling contest and tied for the world's championship. Afterward, he joined fellow fiddlers Jesse Roberts and Matt Brown on an exhibition tour through northeastern Texas.  By then, Gilliland was no longer a simple fiddler.  He was becoming a regional celebrity. 

He was also known affectionately in Altus as “Uncle Henry.” His playing was remembered as fast, precise, loud and technically impressive.

AN UNEXPECTED PARTNERSHIP 

Somewhere along the way, Gilliland's life crossed paths with a much younger fiddler named Alexander Campbell “Eck” Robertson.  Robertson, born in 1887, was decades younger than Gilliland. Yet the two discovered that their styles would play well together. 

They began performing together around the Southern Plains, playing towns throughout Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle.  When Gilliland and Robertson appeared in a small community, their arrival could be a major event. They brought with them something that people of the era understood immediately—the excitement and entertainment of accomplished fiddlers playing live.  Their friendship would eventually take them somewhere neither man could have imagined when they first began playing together.  New York City. 

THE TRIP TO NEW YORK 

Gilliland's involvement with veterans' organizations eventually provided an unexpected connection. 

On June 21, 1922, Gilliland and Robertson were in Richmond, Virginia, for a large veterans' reunion, where thousands gathered. Gilliland knew New York attorney Martin W. Littleton, who had connections with the Victor Talking Machine Company.  After the reunion, Littleton helped the two musicians obtain an opportunity to audition for Victor in New York. 

The contrast had to have been remarkable.  Gilliland was 77 years old.  Robertson was in his thirties. 

They had come from the world of frontier fiddling, dances and veterans' gatherings and suddenly found themselves in one of America's largest cities, standing before representatives of one of the country's major recording companies. 

Gilliland reportedly arrived still wearing his Confederate uniform from the reunion, while Robertson appeared in his distinctive western attire.  They were hardly the usual candidates for a recording session.  But when Robertson opened his fiddle case the Victor representatives listened. 

The audition went well enough that the two were invited back.

Enjoy listening to what is regarded as the first Country Music Song. Click link below. 

YouTube link to "Arkansaw Traveler". https://youtu.be/mg_kQ05V0Wo 

THE RECORDING THAT WOULD CHANGE EVERYTHING 

On June 30, 1922, Henry Gilliland and Eck Robertson entered the Victor Talking Machine Company's New York studio.  They recorded two fiddle duets: 

“Arkansaw Traveler” and “Turkey in the Straw.” 

Gilliland played the lead part while Robertson supplied the second fiddle.  The following day, Robertson returned to the studio without Gilliland and recorded additional material, including

 “Sallie Gooden.” That recording would become particularly important in the history of country music.  The recordings were issued by Victor in 1922, with wider circulation following in 1923. 

Historians use slightly different language when describing the achievement. Country music did not suddenly spring into existence in a New York recording studio. Fiddle traditions had existed for generations, and other forms of rural and traditional music had already been recorded. 

What made the Gilliland-Robertson sessions so important was the meeting of a living regional fiddling tradition with the rapidly expanding commercial recording industry.  They were among the first traditional rural musicians to put this kind of music onto commercial records. 

And a Granby-born Missouri fiddler was there at the beginning. 

THE LAST CHAPTER 

For Eck Robertson, the recordings opened the door to a long career in music. 

For Henry Gilliland, the moment came near the end of his life. At 77, he had already lived several lifetimes.  He had been born in the Granby area when the nation was still decades away from the modern recording industry. He had crossed the country as a child, grown up on the Texas frontier, served during the Civil War, farmed, served in public office, organized fiddlers, won contests and performed for audiences across the South. 

Now, in his final years, he had helped place his fiddle music on a commercial record that would become a historical placemark in history.  Gilliland returned to Altus, Oklahoma, after his recording days were over. 

He died there on April 21, 1924, at the age of 79. 

He did not live to see how enormously the recording industry would grow or how the music he helped put on record would evolve into one of America's most influential musical traditions.  But his contribution remained. 

FROM GRANBY TO THE BEGINNING OF COUNTRY MUSIC 

Today, the names associated with country music's early history often include performers who came decades after Gilliland.   Although Henry C. Gilliland belongs much closer to the beginning. 

He was born near Granby, Missouri, in 1845, when music was something experienced in person—at a dance, a gathering, a fair or around a fiddle player sitting in a corner.  Nearly eight decades later, the same fiddle tradition had traveled with him all the way to New York City. 

On June 30, 1922, an elderly fiddler from the Southern Plains stood beside a much younger musician and played into a recording horn.  The music that had once disappeared as soon as the last note was played could now be preserved.  A sound from another era had been captured.   And among the people who helped make that possible was Henry Clay Gilliland of Granby Missouri. 

His story is more than the story of an old fiddler. 

His story is more than the story of an old fiddler it is the story of a frontier musician who lived long enough to witness the birth of a new age in American music—and whose bow helped carry the sound of an earlier America into the modern world. 

Sources: Bill Caldwell-Joplin Globe, Oldtimeparty on wordpress-henry Gilliland,  Texas State Historical Society,  Oklahoma Historical Society, Oldtimeblues.net henry-c-gilliland

*All pictures have been enhanced through photo shop and other software. Text has been run through editing software.