Riley Puckett was born on this day in 1894
George Riley Puckett (May 7, 1894 - July 13, 1946) was a blind American country music pioneer mostly known for being a member of Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers and his work with fiddle virtuoso Clayton McMichen.
An accident during infancy left him blind. He had his formal education at the Georgia School for the Blind in Macon, Georgia.
His vocalizing was a regular feature at the Georgia Old-Time Fiddlers Conventions. Newspaper reporters covering these events referred to him as the "Bald Mountain Caruso" in admiration of his renditions of such songs as "When You and I Were Young, Maggie" and "Sleep, Baby, Sleep".
His dynamic single-string guitar playing, featuring dramatic bass runs, earned for him an enviable reputation as an instrumentalist. Many aspiring guitarists who followed him have studied and copied his style. Although he was an accomplished musician on several instruments, his singing was most responsible for establishing him as an important figure in the history of country music.
Puckett was a charter member of the influential string band Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers and continued to record with the group through their last session in 1934. Puckett recorded as a solo artist into the early 1940s, creating a discography of more than 200 records on such labels as Columbia, Decca, and Bluebird. His repertoire included novelty songs, religious songs, traditional folk songs, cowboy songs, and ballads from the field of popular music.
Riley Puckett was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1986. He died of blood poisoning on July 13, 1946. His most famous songs were "Ragged but Right" and "The Darky's Wail".
*source: Wikipedia
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