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| Mallard STRINGER homeplace -
Brock's Chapel Rd Submitted by Jane Pope Note: The Stringer Homeplace was
located right next to where the Waste-water plant is now
built......Sandra Kay Chapman Stringer
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| see 2 photos of
Mallard
STRINGER & family below |
| The Greenfield Guardian - date
unknown MALLARD STRINGER OLD TIME FIDDLER by Richard Ward Old timers around Greenfield say that Jim STRINGER was the best fiddler they ever heardd. Jim died in 1961 at the age of 71. I only got to hear him play once, and that was when he said he was "out of practice;" but even then I thought I could hear a touch of genius. Jim and Etta STRINGER had five daughters and two sons. Theirs is the story of a large Greenfield family trying to make it through hard times in the late 1920's and early 1930's, the depression years. All of the children were musical one way or another, traveling all over the area playing as a family band at annual picnics so popular during those times. Mallard STRINGER, the only child of Jim and Etta's that "kept on fiddling", even to this very day, remembers the GRADY SNEAD picnic at McKenzie, J. D. SULLIVAN'S picnic at Sullivan's Grove between Sharon and Greenfield, and other such affairs at Sulfur Wells, Kentucky, Bacusburg, Kentucky and Milan, Tennessee. Mallard says, "Why back then all the real talent showed up." He added, "We played with ig names like Dave MACON, Peewee KING, Lonnie GLOSSON, Lulabelle and Scotty and Roy ACUFF." "I remember when Eddie ARNOLD would come to the picnics at DOWLAND'S Grove near Skullbone. He was from Bemis, south of Jackson and only a teenager back then." The Jim STRINGER Band included Jim as fiddler, Etta "on the guitar," and Mallard started playing when he was nine years old, but recalls that he didn't like it, that "Mother made me play." Mallard is often asked why he didn't go full-time professional with his talent. He did flirt around the with idea of trying out for the Grand Ole Opry - was encouraged to do so by many friends and even some music promoters. A booking agent named Bob EVANS once offered Mallardd a teaching job for two hours a week at $75 an hour, but that fell through when Mrs EVANS found out that Mallard couldn't read music. During the late 1930's when the big thing was life radio performances, Mallard played with the Smiling Cowboys from Harrisburg, Illinois. The Pet Milk Cowhands of Mayfield, Kentucky, The Golden West Cowboys from Memphis, Texas Daisy of WREC also in Memphis, and Arizona Lou at WTJS, Jackson, Tennessee. Mrs Ruby WHITE couldn't say which was best. "Jim played smoother and softer than Mallard does, but he couldn't play fast like Mallard can." Mallard STINGER is today a man with many fond memories of the happy times during the hard times. He can recall names of people he met decades ago, of places "Mother and Poppa would take me," 40 and 50 years ago. But for Mallard there is also the present. He's not making a living at it, as usual, but he still fiddles whenever folks invite him. Every third Thursday he plays with the Tumbleweeds - Ray PERRY, Willard ADAMS, Barbara ALLEN, Ervin BLACKBURN and Ludene SHARP - at the Weakley County Rest Home. And every fourth Friday he entertains folks at the rest home in McKenzie. There is a difference between fame and greatness. Some entertainers who are famous are not truly great. And some who are great, master musciians, never bedome famous, at least not far beyound their own neighborhoodss. In my opinion, Mallard STINGER is of the latter class - a man with a God-given talent who has brought moments of great pleasure to those around him and in the process has derived great pleasure for himself as well.......... |
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| Mallard STRINGER |
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The "JIM" STRINGER Family.
abt 1930
Left top: Aultie Mae, Marie,
Myrna, Claudine, Lorriane
bottom: James Richard, Mary Etta & James "Jim"Egbert STRINGER and Mallard. This is taken at the old home place in Greenfield. submitted by Sandara Kay Chapman
Stringer
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