Tag Archive for: Gordon Tanner

As I glanced up from the worn linoleum floor, the air thrummed with the pulse of strings. Three fiddlers, two guitarists, and a banjo player surrounded me in their ladder back chairs, their notes weaving a spell that held me captive. I was a young fiddler then, hanging on every phrase from Gordon Tanner, Paul Jordan, and Dallas Burrell, desperate to steal a lick or two to spark my own playing.

In my North Georgia hills, these men were more than musicians—they were torchbearers of a fiddle tradition that helped birth hillbilly music, a sound that echoed from porch swings to the world’s stages. Gordon Tanner’s legacy loomed largest. As a teenager in 1934, he recorded the million-selling “Down Yonder” with his father, Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers, a band whose raw, joyful energy defined early country music. Their records, cut in makeshift studios and broadcast through crackling radios, carried Georgia’s red clay soul to listeners far beyond the Appalachians. Gordon’s Gold Record was proof of their reach, a testament to a family that turned fiddles into time machines.

The Skillet Lickers and Paul Puckett add their historic flair with Randall Franks

Last week, I stepped into that history, recording with Gordon’s son, Phil, and grandson, Russ, alongside Paul Puckett in Dacula, Georgia—the Skillet Lickers’ hometown. Our studio was no polished soundstage but the Tanners’ old chicken house, transformed into a shrine of musical heritage. Faded photographs, yellowed posters, and framed 78s lined the walls, each artifact whispering of Tanner legends and others like Fiddlin’ John Carson, Riley Puckett, Clayton McMichen, Lowe Stokes, and Anita Sorrells Mathis. These pioneers dominated Georgia’s music scene in the early 20th century, their bow strokes and guitar runs shaping a sound that flowed through my mentors into my own fingers, like a river carving its path through time.

Though the Skillet Lickers’ commercial peak faded by mid-century, their music never dimmed. It lived on in the hollers and hamlets of the South—at raucous fiddle contests, folk and bluegrass festivals, weathered pickin’ barns, and late-night living room jams where players swapped tunes until dawn.

As a boy, I’d sit cross-legged at these gatherings, my fiddle resting on my knee, watching weathered hands coax magic from strings. Those moments forged my love for the music, passed down not through sheet music but through calloused fingers and shared stories, generation to generation.

Recording in that chicken house felt like stepping into a dream. As Phil, Russ, Paul and I traded notes, our music became a bridge across decades, blending the Skillet Lickers’ fire with a band I fiddled for, Doodle and the Golden River Grass. We were laying tracks for “A Zippedy Doodle Day,” a charity album to fund Appalachian music scholarships, uniting Georgia’s first fiddle band with its last. Each pluck and bow stroke was a brushstroke on a rhythmic canvas, painting a sound we hope will resonate for years, just as the Skillet Lickers’ records still stir my soul. The Tanners’ keepsakes—framed record sleeves, a worn fiddles, a concert poster —surrounded us, grounding our work in their legacy. I thought of my younger self, a boy mesmerized by flying bows and rosin dust swirling in the air, dreaming of touching the magic of my heroes. Now, here I was, not just chasing their sound but adding my own notes to their story. It’s a humbling honor, one that carries a responsibility to keep this music alive for the next generation.

The Skillet Lickers’ spirit reminds us that music is more than sound—it’s a living thread, connecting past to present, heart to heart. Our project aims to ensure that thread endures, supporting young musicians who’ll carry the fiddle’s voice forward. In that chicken house, we weren’t just recording; we were keeping a promise to the music that raised us and the people who inspired us. Learn more about the Skillet Lickers at www.SkilletLickers.org. For a preview of our charity project, visit www.RandallFranks.com/A-Zippedy-Doodle-Day.