"Rubber Dolly" - Harry Choates

Facts about Harry Choates' early life are lost to the sands of time, though it’s likely that he spent his early childhood in Rayne and New Iberia before his family moved to the booming oil town of Port Arthur, Texas in 1929. Beyond his birth certificate, the first concrete evidence of Choates’ existence came in the form of his first recorded appearance with Happy Fats’ Rayne-Bo Ramblers in 1940. Harry was now 17, and he emerged from childhood with two fully developed talents, the yin and yang that would define the highest and lowest moments of the rest of his life: the ability to drink most dedicated booze-hounds under the table and the musical genius to blow just about anybody off of the bandstand.1

Austin American
Oct 4, 1947

His 1947 instrumental, "Rubber Dolly" (#1331), for Gold Star records came to south Louisiana from the American hillbilly musicians of the Appalachian region. It became a marching song during WWI.  Quoted in the book “To the Last Ridge” by WH Downing, first published in 1920, he writes about hearing a wounded man out in no-man’s-land at Fromelles, singing it in his delirium.2,3,4  

Rumored to be the origins of an English nursery rhyme, it was later popularized by Woody Guthrie, Bill Parsons, Ella Fitzgerald and the Light Crust Doughboys.4  Earlier Cajun musicians such as Angelas Lejeune borrowed the melody for his popular "Bayou Pom Pom One Step".  Other derivatives of the melody found it's way into Joe Falcon's "Osson One Step", Adam Trahan's "Waltz Of Our Little Town" and Amede Ardoin's "Tortope d'Osrun".  Post-war Cajun versions can be found in Iry Lejeune's "Bayou Ponpon Special" and Austin Pitre's "High Point Two Step" and his "Janot Special".



Record producer, Bill Quinn, had such a large following of Harry Choates' music, he licensed out several songs from this session to Modern Records Hollywood of Los Angelas.  Listeners can hear Harry call out steel guitarist Ronald Ray "Pee Wee" Lyons. Among the other musicians were Joe Manuel on banjo, Eddie Pursley on guitar, B.D. Williams on bass, Johnnie Ruth Manuel on piano and Curzy "Pork Chop" Roy on drums.  Banjoist Chester "Pee Wee" Broussard, who played with Happy Fats at some of the same places Choates performed, related to Kevin Coffey:

[Harry Choates' Melody Boys] liked to drink, liked to smoke, and money just burned a hole in their pockets. We’d play a dance and get back to Rayne, and they’d go find a slot machine. Before we finished eating our breakfast, which was usually three in the morning, they were already broke and trying to borrow money from somebody else.1  

1. http://www.offbeat.com/articles/harry-choates/
2. http://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=4030
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clapping_Song
4. https://www.mamalisa.com/blog/did-you-sing-the-rhyme-rubber-dolly/

Release Info:
1331 Rubber Dolly | Gold Star 1331
1326-B Fa-De-Do Stomp | Gold Star 1326-B

528A Rubber Dolly | Modern 20-528A
528B Cajun Hop | Modern 20-528B


Find:
Western Swing, Vol. 1 (Old Timey, 1966)
Harry Choates ‎– The Fiddle King Of Cajun Swing (Arhoolie, 1982, 1993)
Devil In The Bayou - The Gold Star Recordings (Bear Family, 2002)