Haywire Mac (Harry McClintock, 1884-1957) cleaned himself up for that photo above. Normally you see him in cowboy or hobo gear, and it wasn't really a costume. He was a folk singer not unlike Woody Guthrie or Burl Ives though rougher and plainer and more prototypical than those entertainers. He really was of the "folk", i.e. the singing and songwriting was just what he did for fun and self-expression (and sometimes getting workers riled up). The rest of the time he worked at a million other things: railroad worker, labor organizer, merchant seaman, itinerant laborer, deputy sheriff. Born in Ohio, raised in Tennessee, he ran off with the circus and minstrel shows as a kid and literally began a life of adventure that took him to far away places like China, Africa, and the Philippines.
His best known song is "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" -- surely you know that one! Over time it became a popular children's song (usually with the word "cigarette" changed to "peppermint" or something equally harmless). He also wrote the IWW marching song "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum" (though the tune was an old Presbyterian hymn). You may recognize that as the title of a strange movie from the 1930s, clearly inspired by it on some level, if only by the title. Mac first recorded these and numerous other songs you may know in 1928. "Fireman, Save My Child" -- there are numerous movies named after that one, too. There's "Circus Days", "Goodbye, Old Paint", "Get Along Little Dogies", and many songs about "bums" and "hoboes". If you called him a "houseless individual" or whatever I'm sure he'd paste you one in the eye.
The recording project came about because by then McClintock had made it big on radio. He'd won a radio talent content on KFRC, San Francisco. This was very early in radio history and he became one of the medium's first stars. He was on the show Mac and His Gang with his "Haywire Orchestry" where he sang cowboy songs to kids; and one of the very broadcast variety shows, the Blue Monday Jamboree, with Bea Benaderet, Meredith Willson (who created The Music Man), Jess Oppenheimer (who later produced I Love Lucy), and Edna Fischer, "San Francisco's First Lady of Radio". He was also a regular on Al Pearce's show The Happy Go Lucky Hour.
Hard-boiled writer Jim Thompson met Mac working in the oil fields of West Texas, and based a character in him named "Strawlegs Martin".
For more on show business history, please see my book No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous; and keep an eye out for my upcoming Electric Vaudeville: A Century of Radio and TV Variety.
No comments:
Post a Comment