The Left-Handed Guitar Players That Changed Music By John Engel
DEFORD BAILEY


guitar
Plays Guitar Left Handed Upside/Down.


DEFORD BAILEY
DeFord Bailey’s name seemed relegated to a footnote in the history of country music until recently, when his standing as a pioneer of the genre was finally restored with a well-deserved induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Picking left-handed upside down, Bailey was a deft banjoist, a skilled guitar player, and a singer. But, most of all, he was the definitive, jaw-dropping ‘Harmonica Wizard,’ so-named back in the 1920s. A quintessential folk-blues musician, Bailey was the man who actually inspired the Grand Ole Opry’s name and was one of its first performers.

If Bailey’s life and times have come to light in recent years, it is chiefly thanks to his friend David C. Morton, who recorded and interviewed him many times over a period of ten years. Morton, who first met Bailey while pursuing his graduate degree in history at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, lobbied for two decades – along with Bailey family members and loyal fans – to get Bailey inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame. He wrote Bailey’s biography with Charles K. Wolfe, DeFord Bailey: A Black Star in Early Country Music (1991, University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, TN) and also compiled and released Bailey’s only solo album, The Legendary DeFord Bailey: Country Music’s First Black Star (1998, Tennessee Folk Society).

© LFV / John Engel all rights reserved.

Read all about DeFord Bailey's life and music in John Engel's Uncommon Sound book.