Bill Carlise dies

[BK]

I just saw where Bill Carlise died today,March 17th,after suffering a stroke.Another one is gone.

He was the oldest member of the Opry,too.

[Wildrider]

I just read the news, myself. "Each time one slips away, we say 'Man, they were great.'" At least he had a good, long life and was active and performing right to the end.

[mike]

i had seen him on the opry a couple of times, and thuoght ,what energy that man has. i also bought his "no help wanted" tape from etrecordshop.com
it is great, as great as all of the others at the opry.
sad to see him go. mike.

[tcb]

Always learning something I didn't know.....this is a real nice piece that was done in the Tennessean by Peter Cooper with Tom Roland

Country Music Hall of Fame member Jumpin' Bill Carlisle, whose music and comedy made him a Grand Ole Opry staple for the past half century, died yesterday at his home in Goodlettsville after suffering a stroke last Wednesday.

The vivacious Mr. Carlisle, 94, was among the last links to the professional country music scene of the 1920s and '30s. This November would have marked his 50th anniversary as a member of the Grand Ole Opry. He joined that esteemed radio show as leader of The Carlisles.

''I been in show business ever since they come out with it,'' he'd often say.

Longevity wasn't Mr. Carlisle's most impressive achievement, though he made sure to play his age for every laugh, hoot and holler he could muster from Opry audiences. Above all, Mr. Carlisle was an entertainer.

''He was a product of another era,'' said WSM-AM disc jockey and Grand Ole Opry announcer Eddie Stubbs.

''Today, someone can win an Entertainer of the Year award and do very little other than say 'Thank you' in between songs. When Bill Carlisle got into this business, entertaining meant making an audience laugh, making them cry, then bringing them back up again.''

In recent years, Mr. Carlisle concentrated on his comedic side, often using a walker to make his entrance at the Opry, singing signature numbers such as No Help Wanted and Knothole and then raising the walker above his head before exiting. Yet, as evidenced by his induction last year into the Hall of Fame, his influence and import went well beyond such weekly chuckles.

Mr. Carlisle gave Chet Atkins one of his first jobs in music, employing the now-legendary guitar picker as a fiddler in the early 1940s. He often referred to Atkins by the nickname ''Smaggy.'' Mr. Carlisle's own prowess as an acoustic guitar player was notable, and he was an early favorite of rock 'n' roll guitar hero Duane Eddy.

Gone Home, a song Mr. Carlisle wrote in the 1930s, was popularized by Flatt & Scruggs and recently recorded by Ricky Skaggs. In addition, Mr. Carlisle was the first performer to record Wedding Bells, which later became a hit for Hank Williams.

''It's a safe bet to say Hank learned his version of Wedding Bells from a Bill Carlisle record,'' Stubbs said.

Some also credit Mr. Carlisle with influencing rockabilly. Mr. Carlisle used paper under the strings on the bass and guitar in his only No. 1 single, 1953's No Help Wanted, providing a fuller, buzzing sound to the instruments. Elvis Presley began recording for Sun Records the next year, and the technique was borrowed by many musicians who have since been classified as rockabilly.

''I really did think it was a joke when I first put that paper under my guitar strings, but it turned out to be progress, of a sort,'' Mr. Carlisle said in his biography, Not Too Old to Cut the Mustard.

''I added the new sound to my act, but at the same time, I kept doing the old Jimmie Rodgers yodel. It is a fact that human beings are blessed with an intellect that gives 'em the capacity to simultaneously embrace progress and cling to the past.''

Mr. Carlisle demonstrated that belief in his approach to entertainment, with a style he developed during a past era, although it continued to pay dividends even in his final years.

Kentucky native with family ties

His career started on radio in 1929, when a Vaudevillian mix of music and comedy still ruled entertainment. He developed an alter-ego — a comedic rube in overalls named Hot Shot Elmer, noted for gags that included a pet skunk, a shock box, and ducks in diapers. Later in life, he used comedy to downplay a major operation, convincing fellow Opry members that he was going to the hospital for cosmetic surgery.

Mr. Carlisle now bequeaths the title of oldest Grand Ole Opry member to Hank Locklin, born Feb. 15, 1918.

Born into poverty in Kentucky, Mr. Carlisle benefited from family ties in creating his venerable career. He began playing guitar and harmonizing with six siblings on Louisville radio station WLAP in the late-1920s on The Carlisle Family Jamboree.

Dobro and steel player Cliff Carlisle — almost five years Bill's senior — took off on a yodeling solo career, but by the mid-'30s, Cliff and Bill Carlisle had created The Carlisle Brothers, a duo that ranked among the genre's most popular for more than a decade.

In an era when radio stations featured live musicians, rather than recordings, the act worked in nine different Southeastern cities, gaining its largest following during a stint on The Midday Merry-Go-Round on Knoxville's WNOX that lasted more than 10 years. The station was a breeding ground for country talent. Future stars who emerged from WNOX included Roy Acuff, Don Gibson, Cowboy Copas, Chet Atkins, The Louvin Brothers, Pee Wee King and Kitty Wells.

From 1932 to 1947, the duo recorded more than 100 sides for six different labels, peaking with the 1946 single Rainbow at Midnight, which hit No. 5 on the Billboard country singles chart. As was common practice at the time, Rainbow was re-made in subsequent hit versions by Texas Jim Robertson and by Ernest Tubb, who took the song to No. 1.

In addition to their recordings, The Carlisle Brothers' shows gained strong attendance, much of it engendered by the Hot Shot Elmer character. The barefoot Hot Shot was notorious for hurdling chairs in the audience, and leaping from the stage, bringing Mr. Carlisle his ''jumpin''' nickname.

Hot Shot Elmer forms a new group

Brother Cliff effectively retired from the music business by the end of the '40s. Mr. Carlisle, who had made solo recordings concurrent to the duet's success, formed a new group, The Carlisles, and specialized in novelty releases. Too Old to Cut the Mustard, on which Cliff Carlisle and Martha Carson provided backing harmonies, became a Top 10 hit in 1952, spurring interest from the Grand Ole Opry.

That interest, however, soon became fruitful adversity. After Mr. Carlisle had tendered his resignation from The Midday Merry-Go-Round, he discovered the Opry was not quite ready to bring him on board. Several other Saturday night shows turned him down when he sought work elsewhere, inspiring him to write No Help Wanted. He recorded the song in Nashville, then went to Shreveport, La., to join The Louisiana Hayride. As fate would have it, No Help Wanted reached No. 1 in January 1953, just weeks after Hank Williams' death. Ten months later, the Opry had added Mr. Carlisle to its roster.

The family theme continued to weave its way through his career. He remained married to the former Leona King for 62 years, and both of their children—Bill Carlisle Jr. and Sheila Carlisle, who died in 1991 — performed in Mr. Carlisle's ensemble.

He continued to mix music and harmony throughout his tenure at the Opry, and, appropriately, after the 1998 death of Grandpa Jones, he used the same Opry dressing room once reserved for the banjo-playing comic.

Refusing to let surgeries hinder him

Mr. Carlisle endured six major surgeries during the 1990s, which limited his jumping but did not end it altogether. He had a heart bypass operation in 1993, two hip replacement surgeries within the following two years, and had a pacemaker installed in 1998.

Invariably, he laughed them off. Before his '93 heart surgery, he joked that the attention would benefit his career. After the hip replacements, he began performing with a walker; even after he no longer needed it, he continued to use the device on stage, getting sympathy from unwitting patrons, only to fling it over his shoulder at the end of his set and walk away.

When he had the pacemaker installed, he returned to the Opry just three nights later, and told Little Jimmy Dickens he might be transformed from Jumpin' Bill to Pacin' Bill.

''It's different,'' Mr. Carlisle acknowledged to The Tennessean in 1998, ''but I just keep on shuckin' the same old corn.''

For the past year, Mr. Carlisle's health had forced him to slow his pace. His inability to get around was a nagging concern, as he often related to band member/caretaker George Riddle.

''He loved being right in the middle of people,'' Riddle said. ''If you had a party going on, he wanted to be part of it. He told me time and again here lately, 'I just wish I could do something.' My stock answer was, 'Bill, you've already done everything. You've done it all, and you've done it well.'''

Survivors include a son, Bill Carlisle Jr.; and three grandchildren, Robin Ott, Bill Carlisle III and Spence Carlisle.

Visitation will be 6-9 p.m. tomorrow at Cole & Garrett Funeral Home in Goodlettsville. A memorial service will be at 2 p.m. Thursday at the funeral home.