J. E. Mainer
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J.E. Mainer’s Mountaineers were a mountain string band in the early 1930’s that achieved considerable popularity. J.E. maintained a musical group with various personnel changes for nearly forty years. Although the Mainer band moved in the direction of Bluegrass, most observers have placed them in a category that technically falls a bit short of that definition, at least in the pre-WWII period. J.E. Mainer played a respectable, albeit somewhat rough, Old-Time fiddle and many of the musicians who worked with him including, Snuffy Jenkins, George Morris, Leonard Stokes and younger brother, Wade Mainer, all played key roles in the transition of Old-Time string music toward the Bluegrass sound. The Mainers came from a North Carolina mountain family that resided several miles from Asheville, eventually settling near the community of Weaverville. J.E. left home at age 12 and spent the next dozen years working in cotton mills in various locales. In 1922, he came to Concord in the Piedmont region, got married and settled down on a more or less permanent basis. J.E. had already learned to play a bit of banjo so he could accompany his fiddling brother-in-law Roscoe Banks at dances and he went to work at mastering the fiddle as well. When his younger brother, Wade, came to Concord, the two finally got to know each other and to play music together. With the addition of guitarist-vocalist "Daddy"John Love along with Lester and Howard Lay, the Mainer’s Mountaineers began winning local fiddling and other talent contests. They also began to appear on radio at WSOC Gastonia and from 1934, on the Crazy Barn Dance at powerful WBT Charlotte. Later, Hubert Fincher of Crazy Water Crystals (a laxative and mineral water product) sent them to WWL New Orleans for three months and to WWNC Asheville for a briefer period. They then returned to WBT. Meanwhile, the Lays departed and Claude ("Zeke") Morris, then 18-years old, took their place. The two Mainers, Love and Morris constituted the Mountaineers at the time of their first Bluebird session at Atlanta in August, 1935. These recordings resulted in 14 fine numbers, but by far the hit of the day was the Mainer rendition of Maple On The Hill, a Victorian sentimental song to which they put a new tune. J.E. fiddled prominently on that particular piece while Wade and Zeke sang a duet. By the time of their next session, in February 1936, Wade and Zeke recorded by themselves while J.E. used Clarence Todd, Ollie Bunn and Howard Bumgardner as a band. That June, J.E., Wade and Zeke with some additional musicians worked together again. Soon afterward, they parted company as J.E. remained with Crazy Water Crystals at WPTF Raleigh and Wade and Zeke went on their own as Sons of the Mountaineers. J.E. put together a new band comprised of Snuffy Jenkins, George Morris and Leonard Stokes. They worked for a time on radio at WSPA Spartanburg and for a longer stint at WIS Columbia. While there, the band had two additional sessions for Bluebird. When J.E. eventually left, Byron Parker took over the band. In 1939, after J.E. had split from the band, he had another session for Bluebird, at which time, he borrowed Clyde Moody and Jay Hugh Hall from Wade’s entourage to help him record. In 1940 J.E. got still another band together that included Price Saunders, Mitchell Parker and Gurney Thomas. This group worked on radio in Greensboro and Birmingham and with slight personnel change, on the Mexican border stations and at KMOX St. Louis. During WWII, J.E. returned to Concord and for the better part of the next two decades, he confined most of his playing to the Carolinas, Tennessee and Virginia. He recorded again for King in 1946, with a band whose most prominent members were his sons J.E., Jr. (usually known as "Curly") and Glenn, who developed into a quality Bluegrass banjo picker. Fifteen years later, J.E. Mainer’s Mountaineers cut two singles and an album for King. In 1962, Chris Strachwitz of the El Cerrito, California-based Arhoolie label visited J.E. in Concord and subsequently cut a new album, The Legendary Family From The Blue Ridge Mountains.
This led to the re-discovery of Mainer’s Mountaineers by a new generation of fans across the U.S. Beginning in 1967, J.E. cut a series of albums for Uncle Jim O’Neal’s Rural Rhythm label, guested on the WWVA Jamboree and played numerous festivals while continuing to live modestly in his country home, on the outskirts of town. Two re-issues on Strachwitz’s Old Timey label of early material, along with J.E.’s King album from 1946 and a pair of albums that J.E., himself, put out, helped keep his earlier material in print. In his later years, a banjo picker named Morris Herbert became the main vocalist in J.E.’s band. J.E. Mainer stayed active in music until his death in 1971, as he prepared to leave home for a festival appearance in Culpepper, Virginia.
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