Nashville Rediscovers Its 'Harmonica Wizard'
Published: Jul 1, 2007
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NASHVILLE, TENN. - He was known as the "The Harmonica Wizard" in the early days of the Grand Ole Opry, and DeFord Bailey didn't disappoint.
He'd hop his 4-foot frame onto a wooden crate and play country and blues tunes that incorporated the sound of chugging trains, baying hounds, cackling hens - all the things he heard growing up in rural Tennessee.
Despite his talent, Bailey suffered the same indignities as other blacks in the Jim Crow South and became known as the "lost legend of the Grand Ole Opry."
Now, 25 years after his death, he's getting the recognition many say is overdue.
On Wednesday, the DeFord Bailey Tribute Garden was dedicated in a community park south of downtown. The rose garden is the latest honor for the influential harmonica player from Middle Tennessee's Smith County.
Rows of the thorny bushes with brilliant red and pink blooms lined the raised beds as Bailey's three children unveiled a tall green arched trellis. His son, DeFord Bailey Jr., played his father's trainlike hit "Pan American Blues" on harmonica, and several spoke of Bailey's legacy and the hardships he faced.
"He did not give up. The most important thing for him was to perform his music," said Kathy Conkwright, a documentary filmmaker who produced and directed a show about Bailey for Public Television.
In those days, Grand Ole Opry stars went on the road together. Bailey, who was born in 1899, couldn't eat or socialize with the white performers and often had to sleep in the car. Fellow member Uncle Dave Macon would tell hotel clerks that Bailey was his personal valet to get him inside.
"He suffered great discrimination that would have made most folks give up," Conkwright said.
Bailey, who was crippled by polio when he was a child, was fired from the Opry in 1941 after 15 years. The circumstances remain hazy, but most say his dismissal stemmed from a dispute over licensing fees and the songs he could perform.
After leaving, Bailey gave up professional music and made his living shining shoes and renting rooms in his home. He'd play for his customers and appeared on the Opry a couple more times as a guest before he died in 1982.
His family and country music legend Roy Acuff began lobbying for Bailey's inclusion in the Country Music Hall of Fame in the '80s. He was finally inducted in 2005.
"It took so long," said his daughter, Dezoral Bailey Thomas. "They said he had to be dead 10 years, but after 10 years it still didn't happen. We kept pushing."
DeFord Bailey Jr. said if his father was alive to witness his induction and the memorial garden "we'd probably have to pick him up. He'd be very happy."
The rose garden is a joint venture by a pair of community groups - Earth Matters Tennessee and the LifeWorks Foundation - and is in the George W. Carver Food Park, a neighborhood plot with compost piles and vegetable gardens pinched between a busy roadway and streets of older bungalow-style homes.
Each rose is a special variety named after a country singer or a song. There are flowers for Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell, Reba McEntire, Elvis, Minnie Pearl, Pam Tillis and - perhaps most appropriately - Lynn Anderson of "Rose Garden" fame.
Soon, there will be one for DeFord Bailey as well.
"More people need to know about his legacy, and this garden is a step in that direction," Tillis told the small crowd, many of whom gathered in the shade of oak trees. "We can't care about what we don't know about."
