Jane Phillips: People who once walked the streets of Kinston - The Claude Casey Story
Claude Casey is part of an elite group of early country & western performers associated with the Charlotte, NC broadcasting scene and singing cowboy movies. Kinston was one of his stepping stones to success.
Claude Casey was born in South Carolina to a family of music-loving people who played the fiddle and banjo in local bands for dances in their community. During his early teen years, the family moved to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. His first instrument was the harmonica and then the guitar.
He was so good he began accompanying his father at square dances. It wasn’t long before he was playing with other bands and took up singing. When he was 16 years old he made his first appearance on radio over WBTM in Danville, Va.
He landed a fifteen-minute program on Saturday mornings and soon began broadcasting on WBTM with friends Jake King, Tex Isley and Marvin Fowler as the Pine State Playboys. Casey was just eighteen and had worked intermittently as a mill hand, apple picker, and plumber’s apprentice, but his heart was set on music.
The early thirties were lean times for most Carolina musicians and for Casey as well. The Pine State Playboys broke up and reformed several times during the thirties. Casey earned his stage name “Carolina Hobo,” hitchhiking, playing music on street corners and on the radio around the country. But when jobs ran out, he returned to the Danville area where his family still lived.
In 1936, Casey set out again with guitar hitchhiking for New York. He won an appearance on Major Bowes’ Amateur Hour in New York and toured with the Bowes organization throughout the Southeast. When he returned to Danville from his successful debut with Major Bowes, even the mayor came over to greet the hometown boy.
1938 found Claude in Kinston, North Carolina where he was employed as a disc jockey for a local Radio Station WFTC. He also had his own program singing and entertaining. While performing on radio shows at WFTC in Kinston, Claude Casey and the Pine State Playboys began recording for Bluebird Records. He remained in Kinston for almost a year and came to love the town.
In October of that year, an opportunity in Charlotte came for Claude Casey and the Pine State Playboys. They went to Charlotte where they continued to record for RCA Victor on the Bluebird label. Perhaps it was then that Claude wrote and recorded the song called Kinston Blues. The song tells of the pretty girls he left behind in Kinston: “I have traveled the world and been all around but good old Kinston has the prettiest girls around. I got the Kinston blues, the good old Kinston blues”.
Casey’s polished vocals and fine yodeling made him known in the southeast as a talented country performer. One day in 1941 Claude walked into the WBT, one of the most important radio stations in southeastern United States. It was here in Charlotte he flourished.
He was there at the same time as the famed Carter Family and Arthur Smith. He was a member of the famed “BRIARHOPPERS” cast of performers. Claude also had his own program. He stayed with WBT for 12 years.
Claude met his future wife Ruth while employed at WBT Radio. As the years passed it proved to be a good match. They had two sons.
While at WBT Claude became a musician with the Tennessee Ramblers. They soon answered the call of Hollywood to perform in the rising popular singing cowboy motion pictures. Their first movie was “Swing Your Partner”. It was doing that time he struck up a friendship with Dale Evans that continued the rest of their lives. It was also Dale’s first movie appearance.
As the years passed he played small parts in several “B” movies including one with Robert Mitchum with scenes in North Carolina. It was about that time that Claude lived in Ellenboro, NC where he managed and operated Capri Park, a music venue. During that time, he was moonlighting on the Mitchum movie. After appearing in a number of movies he became a member of the Screen Actors Guild.
Claude was a songwriter. His most well-known is ”Send Me the Pillow You Dream On.” Another singer sometimes gets credit for the song but it was Casey who wrote it. Over the years many performers have recorded it. He was a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers.
What might have been his last recording session was done in 1952 for MGM, and with a first-class budget. Fred Rose, early country trail finder in the studios, was producing and Chet Atkins is on the logs as the session guitarist.
By the late 50s, Claude found it was time to settle down. His family did this in Johnston, South Carolina where he became founder, president and general manager of WJES-AM and WKSX-FM radio stations.
His career fulfilled the dreams of his youth. Singer, musician, songwriter, radio personality, and movie star. He was an original. He was inducted into the Country Hall of Fame in 1982. The Claude Casey Collection is housed at the University of South Carolina. Before he died at age 86, he received the prestigious Heritage Award from the State of South Carolina.
I‘m proud to say the talented Claude Casey on his way to success in the world of country music, once walked the streets of Kinston, the town where I live and love.
Compiled by Jane Phillips
SOURCES:
Kenny Heath, Assistant to the Station Director, WFWM-FM, Frostburg State University
Claude Casey Collection – University of South Carolina Library
Billboard Oct 7, 1957
Country Music Hall of Fame
The Charlotte Country Music Story
