Williamson Brothers and Curry

The Williamson Brothers and Curry were a string band that lived and played in the Logan County area in the 1920s. William Ervin Williamson, his brother Arnold Williamson, and Arnold Curry. The band made its way to St. Louis in 1927 and recorded six songs that are well-known in today's traditional music circles.

On the morning of 26 April 1927, Logan County string band The Williamson Brothers and Curry stepped into an OKeh Records studio in St. Louis and recorded six songs that have been recognized as major contributions to “old time” music. With accompanying guitar, fiddle, and ukulele (probably a banjo ukulele or tenor ukulele), they sang Cumberland Gap, Warfield, The Fun’s All Over, Lonesome Road Blues, The Old Arm Chair, and Gonna Die With My Hammer In My Hand, a version of John Henry that has become a classic of American rural music partly because it is a truly unique rendition and partly because of its inclusion in the 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music, a collection of eighty-four 1920s and early 1930s recordings that provided a major impetus for the folk revival. Like those of Frank Hutchison, their recordings exhibit significant African American influence.

They had made the connection with OKeh Records through their friend and fellow Logan Countian Frank Hutchison who had previously recorded for OKeh in New York on two separate occasions, and he accompanied them to St. Louis and recorded eight songs of his own there.

The Williamson Brothers and Curry were Ervin Williamson playing guitar, his brother Arnold playing fiddle, Arnold Curry playing the ukulele, and a Mr. Kirk who occasionally performed with them.  Apart from their 1927 recording session, the band was active in playing at dances and for audiences in the coalfields, traveling at least as far afield as Bluefield in Mercer County. They also knew and played with many other well-known Logan County musicians, such as Dick Justice and Aunt Jennie Wilson. 

William Ervin Williamson was born in Wayne County in 1900 and his brother Arnold was born there in 1904. Their father Charles Williamson and grandfather Moses “Preacher Mose” Williamson spent much of their lives as farmers in the Grant district of Wayne County, though occasionally turning up at Harts Creek in Logan County. But sometime between 1917 and 1920 Charles moved his family to the Mud Fork coal camp of Shamrock in Logan County, where for many years he and his sons worked in the coal mines there.  Ervin died in 1972 at the age of seventy-two. He is buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Logan, WV. Arnold Williamson died in 1998 at Mount Gay and was buried in the Highland Memory Gardens Cemetery in Chapmanville.

Arnold Curry was born in 1906 in the Logan Magisterial District, near Mud Fork. In 1910 his father was a farmer there but by 1920 Mr. Curry and his father and older brother were working with him in the mines; in 1930 he was still a miner at Mud Fork. In 1935 he passed away and was buried in the Baisden Cemetery on Mudfork in Logan County.

*On June 20, 2021, the identify of Mr. Kirk was clarified. Chris Haddox was engaged in a conversation with Leila Gore, a relative of Arnold Curry. Haddox asked if she had any idea who this Mr. Kirk might be, and she replied that she had Kirk’s in her family line. It occurred to Haddox to ask fellow researcher, Brandon Ray Kirk, if he could identify the Mr. Kirk in the photo. The above photo was shared with Brandon Ray Kirk, who identified him as his great-uncle Albert Kirk. Albert’s daughter corroborated the identification.  Below is a picture of Albert Kirk (center face) as he appeared in a 1932 gathering of Deputies for Sheriff Joe Hatfield of Logan. This image is on display at the Chief Logan State Park Museum in Logan, WV.

—Gloria Goodwin Raheja, February 2021, with additions on Mr. Kirk by Chris Haddox in June 2021. 

-Raheja’s research for her book Logan County Blues, Frank Hutchison in the Sonic Landscape of the Appalachian Coalfields.  

-Haddox, Chris. Discussions with Leila Gore and Brandon Ray Kirk as noted above