A few months back I purchased a guitar from the family of the late country music singer/songwriter Penny Jay. I decided to fly to Nashville, Arkansas, to pickup the guitar, meet her family and get more information about Penny. What I learned was that a lot of 1960's country music is tragically undocumented in the internet age. It's almost impossible to find information on folks like Penny who had hits in the country charts back then. When I arrived, Penny's son-in-law, guitarist Bobby Chambers, was waiting for me with about a dozen scrapbooks filled with great old photos and clippings. So here goes:
Penny Jay (born Helen Glasco in 1925) hailed from Knoxville, Tennessee, and began performing with her mother at church functions at the age of 10. Cas Walker, a Knoxville merchant and host of a radio show on local WROL (which is also credited with helping launch the careers of Dolly Parton and the Everly Brothers) featured Penny performing under the name "Little Miss Helen" when she was 12. Penny played stand-up bass and guitar, and became a fixture on the show during the late '30s and early '40s. Here's Penny (sitting on the bass, in hat):
And here she is several years later, with Cas Walker (third from right) and his radio show band:
And another incredible photo of Penny from this era:
In the early '50s, a grown-up Penny began performing as part of a duo with a friend named Marie Wilson. The pair were billed as "Jenny & Jill", and they recorded several original sides for OKeh Records, including "A Million Other Hearts". Here's Penny, left, and Marie:
In 1953 Penny was involved in an automobile accident and was seriously injured. She spent months in the hospital, and to help her recovery her step-father bought her a brand new Gibson J-50 at a music store in Knoxville. Here's a photo of Penny with the guitar:
Penny moved to Nashville in the early '60s, and began performing and writing songs for other artists. She was signed to Republic Records, but her contract was picked up by Decca Records, home to Patsy Cline, Kitty Wells, Ernest Tubb, etc. She ultimately released eight singles on Decca, including "Just Over The Line", "Lonely And Unwanted", and "Those Kinds of Girls". She also bleached her hair. Here's a great photo of now-blond Penny, with the J-50 and a custom strap by Nudie.
None of Penny's recordings are in print or available online (which is a real shame). But Penny had her greatest success as a professional songwriter, and in 1963 she scored a #1 hit on the country charts when Carl and Pearl Butler recorded her song "Don't Let Me Cross Over". The song has become a country music standard, and was covered by over 30 artists, including George Jones, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Dolly Parton. Other songs Penny wrote include Skeeter Davis' "Set Him Free", Jimmy Martin's trucker ode "Widow Maker", and many more.
In this era Penny performed several times at the Grand 'Ol Opry. Here she is on stage at the Ryman with the J-50. The guitar was also played at times by Roy Acuff, Carl Smith, Faron Young, and Jimmy Martin.
And on Roy Acuff's "Midnight Jamboree" radio show at Ernest Tubb's record shop:
Penny eventually stopped performing in the 1970s, and moved to Nashville, Arkansas to live with her daughter and son-in-law. She passed away in 2006, and her family decided to part with her J-50 this March. The family had Greg Nunley at Mainstreet Musician Supply do some work on it, re-gluing braces and repairing a pickguard crack.
Here's the J-50 now, which of course I've nicknamed "Penny":
It's in good shape, consistently played but never mistreated over 57 years. It's got some volume too, probably as loud as my banner '45, but with a little more subtle tone. And when people ask why I didn't just have the guitar shipped to me, well it's just not the same as meeting the people involved and hearing the stories. Again, it's amazing how much American music history has been forgotten now, even reasonably successful artists of their day like Penny. The stories, the music, and the instruments are the artifacts of that history, so I feel it's up to us to keep it alive.
Cheers,
Gary
