by David Cross

It’s strange how some things happen. Two of the most talented musicians that Clinton County ever produced died last week, on the same day.

Many of you have never heard of them, but you’ve surely heard them, and should hear about them.

If just one of them had passed, this article would probably never have been written, but with the passing of two of our county’s musical giants, their joint passing cannot go unrecognized.

The two men are Cecil Pryor, raised on Speck Ridge, and Howard Perdew, who lived on Perdew Road on Gap Creek, the edge of Clinton County, the same place where he grew up.

I’m sure they played together on a stage sometime, somewhere on this earth. They are now a part of The Angel Band.

Arthur Cecil Pryor was a great musician. He could play anything, but was most noted for his work as a keyboardist. He used to be “Art Pryor” as a DJ on WANY in the late sixties, when I first got to know him.

When his “Teenie Weenie” show came on at 3:00 p.m., the country music was over and WANY, to the delight of teenagers, played Rock and Roll.

A low-key, kind and multi-talented man, Cecil backed up a lot of great artists on tour, performed for years at the Lincoln Jamboree in Hodgenville, and in later years, with his wife Johnetta, owned a night club in Bowling Green.

Mel Tillis and Leroy Parnell, who sang at Cecil’s son’s funeral, were two of many he backed up often.

He did a bit of recording on his own, notably the single that adorned the jukebox at both Smitty’s and the J & K Drive-In, “Crazy Going Slowly”. Remarkably, he couldn’t read a note of music.

Howard Perdew went to school in Wayne County, because, as he told me, “The Clinton County bus wouldn’t pick me up on Gap Creek”.

He later owned a jewelry store in Monticello and is more identified with Wayne County than Clinton, but he was a Clinton County boy.

The story is that Howard and a co-worker at Bald Rock Sand Company made a quick trip south to the Tennessee border for unspecified purposes one day, and a great country song came on the radio.

“One of these days they’ll be playing a song of mine like that” he said.

“Sure,” his co-worker thought.

Around 1990, he decided to take the plunge and move to Nashville where he began pitching his songs and writing with some talented co-writers. Three of the songs he co-wrote were huge hits, all for Joe Diffie: “Prop Me Up Beside the Juke Box” and “Pickup Man”, and “So Help Me Girl”.

Howard never penned another big hit; health issues slowed him down and several years ago he moved back to Gap Creek, low-profile, but a man who knew all the great Nashville songwriters on a first-name basis.

These two men would certainly be in a Clinton County Music Hall of Fame if such a thing existed. Clinton County has turned out so many outstanding singers, songwriters, and personalities.

One of the most famous names among them is June Stearns, born in Clinton County in 1939, but raised in Franklin, Indiana.

She was a member of Roy Acuff’s band (the “Smoky Mountain Girl” of the “Smoky Mountain Boys”) for five years and had several chart songs in the Sixties.

Her biggest album was “River of Regret”. She charted a single off that album, “Where He Stops Nobody Knows” by a young – then unknown songwriter named Kris Kristofferson.

She is the only female singer to record a duet with the great Lefty Frizzell. June retired from the music business many years ago and is living in Nashville.

The multi-talented Darrell Speck, or “Big D” as he was often known, had more potential talent than any Clinton Countian who ever went on stage.

It seemed that Darrell, at one time or another, played everywhere, with everybody.

He could croon a love song or play rock and roll with the best of them (he is actually in the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, with some pretty fast company).

Most folks remember he, Sid Scott, and Ray Mullinix as “The Singing D.J.s”, who recorded “What’ll I Do If My Baccer Don’t Sell”, a regional novelty hit of the early 1970s.

Darrell was also a gifted songwriter. He and Gene Coulter (yes, the stale cake man who drove a beat-up 1963 Chevrolet convertible with holes in the top) co-wrote together.

Their songs included “Crazy Going Slowly”. Their most noteworthy work was “Big Singing Day”, the title of a 1968 album by The Singing Speer Family, who were huge in gospel music.

Darrell also co-wrote “I Love Country Music (And I’d Rather Fight Than Switch)”, which hit #21 on the Cashbox charts for Jack Barlow in 1965. I always thought Ricky Skaggs or Dwight Yoakum should have covered the song.

There was always music in Clinton County.

Churches were where most folks learned to sing, or play, and in the days before every house had a radio and television set, when folks had to learn to entertain themselves, every community had its own musicians.

In the southeastern part of the county it was “Beard’s Nubbin Ridge Runners”, led by fiddler Delmer Beard and including Doug and Gene Byers, Bill Looper and Hobert Flowers.

There were so many gospel groups: The Egypt Hollow Four, The Clear Chapel Trio a/k/a The Gospel Servants (Darrell Speck again, with his sister Patsy and Libby McWhorter Mullinix); but the most notable group was The Crusaders, a/k/a The 76 Radio Quartette.

This group was the group led by Rueal and Flossie Thomas of Seventy-Six, Ky. (Of course all Thomases can sing). They performed on the Renfro Valley Barn Dance for many years, and Rueal became Barn Dance owner John Lair’s right-hand-man for several years.

There’s a reason the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame is at Renfro Valley, as it was widely popular and for a time was broadcast coast-to-coast on the radio by NBC.

Also widely popular at Renfro Valley were three pretty school teachers from Clinton County, Marie, Bess and Hazel Farmer. The Farmer Sisters were daughters of Senator Cloyd Farmer, who sang his way across the 16th Senatorial District and was elected to four terms in the State Senate serving from 1934-49.

They appeared prominently in the Renfro Valley movies, and were as popular with audiences at the Barn Dance as the more widely known Coon Creek Girls.

Other Clinton Countians involved with Renfro Valley included Ann Honeycutt Riddle and Elmer Goodman.

Elmer, another WANY DJ, hosted at Renfro for several years, was a fine musician in his own right, and was an expert on old-time music. When he died, an encyclopedia of musical knowledge died with him.

There was a group of young musicians in Albany who had a string band in the 1930s known simply as “The Albany Band”.

Its members were Stanley Bertram, Lloyd Cross, A.B. Gibson, Frank Abston and Dan Robinson.

We have a card of another group also known as “Albany Band,” which consisted of Wendell Upchurch, M.A.(Crow) Brummett, Ruperr Long, James O. Brummett, Joe Conner, Cordell Albertson, Clarence Upchurch, Hoy Dickerson, Gordon Dickerson and Bob Chilton.

Another group was Ben Dyer’s “Hep Tets”. Ben played piano and Bob Chilton played trumpet. The other members were Edwin Campbell (later the Circuit Court Clerk), Archie Lee, and Rupert Long.

When Rock and Roll arrived, several groups popped up around town including The Martyrs, and Department of Sound.

David Pennycuff fronted for several of the bands and was a marvelous singer and showman of the highest ability. Junior Byers was usually on the drums.

There were many other local groups, with some excellent musicians. We wish we could mention them all, but we just can’t.

Clinton County has a wonderful musical heritage, and a good portion of it is owed to a pair of musical jewels, and good fellows, Cecil Pryor and Howard Perdew.

My thanks to Clinton County musician, author, DJ and fellow historian Randy Speck for his assistance with this article.

David Cross