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John McGhee
and Frank Welling


About The Artist

Note: Portions from Mr. Tribe's 1981 article in the JEMF Quarterly were included in this article.

Frank Welling and John McGhee were a Huntington, West Virginia team who made numerous recordings-usually together, but sometimes solo or with others-in the 1927-1932 era. In Huntington, they performed a variety of music including Gilbert and Sullivan operettas and Hawaiian music. After the recording business was crippled by the Great Depression, Welling moved to Charleston as an announcer and sometime performer at WCHS. As Tony Russell said recording over 200 sides for four companies, they "were major league record stars in the old-time market."

Neither Welling nor McGhee were Huntington natives although both lived in that river city from an early age. McGhee was born in the Lincoln County village of Griffithsville while Welling was born on the opposite side of the Ohio River in Rome Township in Lawrence County, Ohio. Exactly how they met cannot be determined with certainty, but John McGhee's daughter Anna thinks they worked together in a Knights of Pythias minstrel show as early as 1917. Thereafter, they performed in a variety of amateur theatricals in and around Huntington. Somewhere along the line, Welling became enthralled with the Hawaiian guitar and seemingly even traveled in vaudeville with such a group ironically called Domingo's Filipino Serenaders.

By the time Welling and McGhee began the recording phase of their career, McGhee usually played a regular guitar and harmonica singing with a strong bass voice while Welling favored a Hawaiian style guitar and a lead voice. Hymns and other sacred songs were their main forte, but they also did numerous Victorian sentimental songs. Their repertoire was laced with a few humor-oriented numbers including those that concerned Prohibition like "Sweet Adeline at the Still" and "Old Kentucky Dew" (respective parodies of "Sweet Adeline" and "Darling Nellie Gray"). A few topical numbers (e. g. "North Carolina Textile Strike") and fiddle tunes on harmonica (e. g. "Beech Fork Special") were also among their recordings.

Brunswick 272 - Have Thine Own Way Lord - John McGhee and Frank Welliing - February 1928 - Ashland, KY

Promo Ad - JEMF Quarterly - Summer 1981 - Frank Welling Hawaiian Studio Sometimes other musicians assisted them on recordings. One was John McGhee's daughter Alma (B: September 3, 1913 — D: January 18, 1973) when they became the Welling and McGhee Trio. Another was when Welling's wife, Thelma (B: January 3, 1907 — D: June 16, 1994) joined as The Welling Trio. In one instance when they had sessions scheduled too close together in 1928, McGhee took Tom Cogar as a duet partner to the Gennett studio in Richmond, Indiana while Welling took Bill Shannon to the Paramount studio in Chicago. In ordinary circumstances back in Huntington, Cogar and Shannon worked with Welling and McGhee in a quartet. On two other occasions Miller Wikel, a McGhee relative, went with them and recorded a few songs on his own.

One of the problems in researching John McGhee and Frank Welling is the pevalence of pseudonyms on their many recordings. Gennett releases used their real names, but since their budget label Champion usually sold more copies, they were known as the Hutchins Brothers, or if Alma McGhee was also on them, they were the Hutchins Trio. Later Champion releases used their real names, but by 1931-1932 few records were selling. Contrary to some claims, this was not so much to avoid paying royalties, but since budget labels sold for less (35 cents for a Champion vs. 75 cents for a Gennett), their royalties were less. They were even lower for records on Supertone and Superior where the names became Harper & Turner or Harper & Hall. In at least one instance McGhee became Roy Deal and Welling became Joe Summers (on opposite sides of Conquerer 7273; later Conquerer releases were from American Record Corp. masters).

Information currently available on McGhee and Welling record sales is fragmentary, yet just enough information exists to be somewhat ambivalent. While some comparative figures suggest that their discs sold fewer than those of other Calaway discoveries like Cliff Carlisle and Martin and Roberts, other comparisons hint that they may well have held their own. In five quarterly periods, Welling and McGhee 's best sellers for ARC were "Picture on the Wall" / "Where is My Mama" which sold 4,792 records, followed by "There is Sunshine in My Soul" / "Haven of Rest" with 4,288. By contrast, Carlisle's cover of the Jimmie Rodgers's song "Desert Blues" / "Birmingham Jail No. 2" sold 11,329 copies in nine quarters. However, if one compares sales for the same periods for which figures are available, Welling and McGhee's number one record sold 1,082 more copies. Welling and McGhee's best single quarter was 1,350 sales of Conqueror 7978. "The Old Account" / "Sweeping Through the Gates," in the first three months of 1934, hardly compares with Martin and Roberts' "Ninety-Nine Years" /"Prisoner #999" which sold 4,818 in the same quarter with 2,977 of them on Conqueror 7967. In the final analysis, until more sales data are uncovered, one must simply assume that those companies marketing McGhee and Welling must have been encouraged or they would not have persisted in continuing to record and release their material. Also, one needs to recall that in those Depression years, all recordings sold poorly. As Norm Cohen points out, Charlie Poole's classic of "Milwaukee Blues'V'One Moonlight Night" sold only 800 copies. Even combined Victor and Montgomery Ward sales of Jimmie Rodgers's "Old Love Letters" / "Somewhere Down Below the Dixon Line" totaled only 5,400. Recordings simply did not sell well during the Great Depression. (Material on ARC record sales from microprints of W. R. Calaway Collection at the John Edwards Memorial Foundation, University of California, Los Angeles, California; comparative data on sales come from Norm Cohen, Long Steel Rail: The Railroad in American Folksong (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981), pp. 33-34; and Johnny Bond, The Recordings of Jimmie Rodgers: An Annotated Discography (Los Angeles: John Edwards Memorial Foundation, 1978), p. vi.)

The Depression hit the chief sources of income for old-time musicians very hard, but McGhee and Welling kept trying longer than many of them. John Max McGhee remembers selling records for a dime each, going door to door and hauling them in his coaster wagon. He did this in order to make extra money to go to the movies . John and Frank did their final session together in August 1932, for Starr, and Welling went back again the following April with WSAZ staff pianist Harry Sayre and cut his final session with a different type of accompaniment.

Conqueror 7712 - Are You Washed In The Blood? - Wellings and McGhee Trio - 1931

Paramount's Broadway releases used the name Frank Wilkins & John Moore. Some of McGhee's later releases used the name Billy Whoop. The Welling & McGhee Trio was the Christian Harmony Singers augmented by an organist, while the Dixie Sacred Trio is simply the Welling & McGhee Trio. Less complicated was the tendency of Gennett, Brunswick and Vocalion to place McGhee's name first while Paramount and the American Record Corporation labels (Perfect, Melotone, Banner, Oriole, Romeo) used Welling's name first.

Frank and John made their last recordings together for Champion in August. Frank did two sessions for that label in 1932-1933, but sales were poor Welling also recorded in 1932-33 with teenager Richard Cox. Afterwards, McGhee remained in Huntington until he died in 1945. Welling was in Charleston by 1937 where he became best known as a solo vocalist and announcer. After he died Thelma moved to California and lived into the 1980's.

Both McGhee children have fond memories of those childhood days when "Dad and Frank" would go away to make records and return with gifts for them. They have a few of the original discs and a pile of Gennett test pressings as mementoes of those times and possess an increasing awareness of the role played by John McGhee, Frank Welling, and their friends in the early years of the development of both country and gospel music. Some years ago, Mrs. Schrule tried to interest West Virginia folklorist, the late Patrick Gainer, in researching her father's historical role, but to no avail. However, they, like most others—including myself until recently — lacked an awareness that McGhee and Welling had made more records than any other country musicians except for Vernon Dalhart, Riley Puckett , and the Martin and Roberts conglomeration in that first decade of hillbilly commercialization.

Credits & Sources

  • Hillbilly-Music.com would like to express its thanks to Ivan M. Tribe, author of Mountaineer Jamboree — Country Music in West Virginia and other books that can be found on Amazon.com and numerous articles in other publications for providing us with information about this artist.
  • John McGhee and Frank Welling: West Virgnia's Most-Recorded Old-Time Artists; Ivan M. Tribe; pages 57 - 74; JEMF Quarterly; Vol. XVII; No. 62; Summer 1981; John Edwards Memorial Foundation; Folklore and Mythology Center of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA); Los Angeles, CA

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Recordings (78rpm/45rpm)

 
Banner
Rec. No. Side Song Title
  32428 A Sweet Hour of Prayer (as Welling and McGhee Trio)
  32428 B The Beautiful Garden of Prayer (as Welling and McGhee Trio)
 
Brunswick
Rec. No. Side Song Title
  222 A Hide Me
  222 B He Abides
  251 A I Would Not Be Denied
  251 B There's Power In The Blood
  257 B Old Account Was Settled Long Ago
  258 A Dwelling In Beulah Land
  272 A Have Thine Own Way
  272 B I'm Coming Home
 
Champion
Rec. No. Side Song Title
  16479 A There's a Great Day Coming
  16479 B My Burdens Rolled Away
  16511 A I Am Thine O Lord
  16511 B Leaning on the Everlasting Arms
  16542 A He Abides
  16542 B Just Over in the Gloryland
  16569 A Go By Way of the Cross
  16569 B Standing on the Promises
  16585 A This World Is Not My Home
  16585 B The Hallelujah
  16598 A Nothing But the Blood
  16598 B I Heard My Mother Call My
  16660 A Face to Face
  16660 B Ring the Bells of Heaven
 
Conqueror
Rec. No. Side Song Title
  7712 A In the Garden (as Welling and McGhee Trio
  7712 B Are You Washed in the Blood (as Welling and McGhee Trio)
  7841 A Where Is My Boy Tonight
  7841 B Sweet Bunch of Daisies
  7978 A Sweeping Through the Gates
  7978 B The Old Account Was Settled Long Ago
  8638 A Maple on the Hill
  8638 B solo by John McGhee
 
Decca
Rec. No. Side Song Title
  5514 A There's Sunshine in My Soul (as Hutchins Trio = Welling and McGhee Trio)
  5514 B There Is Power in the Blood (as Hutchins Trio = Welling and McGhee Trio)
 
Gennett
Rec. No. Side Song Title
  6334 A He Keeps Me Singing
  6334 B I've Been Redeemed
  6389 A Praise the Lord, It's So
  6389 B I'm on the Sunnyside
  6435 A I Am Resolved
  6435 B Meet Me There
  6533 A I'm Free Again
  6533 B I Want to Go There, Don't You
  6657 A Get a Transfer
  6657 B Stepping in the Light
  6671 A I Wants My Lulu
  6671 B Nothing to Do, But —
  6690 A Why Not Tonight
  6690 B I Feel Like Traveling On
  6749 A At the Battle Front
  6749 B My Saviour First of All
  6874 A Will There Be Any Stars in My Crown
  6874 B I Love to Tell the Story
  7083 A Beautiful Garden of Prayer
  7083 B When We All Get to Heaven
  7114 A What a Gathering that Will Be
  7114 B No, Never Alone
  7128 A Old Kentucky Dew
  7128 B Sweet Adeline at the Still
  7185 A Where Is My Mama (as Welling and McGhee Trio)
  7185 B Picture on the Wall (as Welling and McGhee Trio)
  7247 A Down the Lane to Home Sweet Home
  7247 B I'm Drifting Back to Dreamland
 
Oriole
Rec. No. Side Song Title
  8056 A The Lonely Village Churchyard
  8056 B I?m Free Again
  8096 A Don't Grieve Your Mother (as Welling & McGhee Trio)
  8096 B A Flower from My Angel Mother's Grave (as Welling and McGhee Trio)
  8108 A The Crime at Quiet Dell
  8108 B My Little Mountain Home
  8164 A Sweet Adeline at the Still (as Frank and John)
  8164 B Old Kentucky Dew (as Frank and John)
  8175 A Beech Fork Special (as Frank and John)
  8175 B Red Wing (as Frank and John)
 
Paramount
Rec. No. Side Song Title
  3084 A There Is Sunshine in My Soul
  3084 B In the Garden
  3093 A The Haven of Rest
  3093 B Knocking at the Door
  3102 A Are You Washed in the Blood
  3102 B What a Friend We Have in Jesus
  3108 A My Mother's Bible
  3108 B When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder
  3115 A At the Cross
  3115 B There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood
  3157 A Still There's a Spark of Love
  3157 B Too Many Parties and Too Many Pals
  3175 A Pass Me Not O Gentle Saviour
  3175 B I Love to Walk With Jesus
  3194 A The Marion Massacre (as Martin Brothers)
  3194 B North Carolina Textile Strike (as Martin Brothers)
  3196 A The Model Church, part 1 (as Christian Harmony Singers = Welling and McGhee Trio)
  3196 B The Model Church, part 2 (as Christian Harmony Singers = Welling and McGhee Trio)
  3215 A There's a Guiding Star (as Dixie Sacred Trio = Welling and McGhee Trio)
  3215 B We Are Marching Home (as Dixie Sacred Trio = Welling and McGhee Trio)
  3223 A Back to the Harbor of Home Sweet Home (as Welling and McGhee Trio)
  3223 B Don't Sing Aloha When I Go (as McGhee, Welling and Teter)
  3228 A Shall It Be with You (as Dixie Sacred Trio = Welling and McGhee Trio)
  3228 B Don't You Want to Go (as Dixie Sacred Trio = Welling and McGhee Trio)
  3286 A Don?t Grieve Your Mother (as Welling & McGhee Trio
  3286 B Where Is My Mama (as Welling & McGhee Trio)
  3287 A Busted Bank Blues (Welling, solo vocal & steel guitar, plus McGhee guitar)
  3287 B Picture on the Wall (Welling and McGhee Trio)
  3310 A I'm on the Sunny Side
  3310 B Almost Persuaded
 
Perfect
Rec. No. Side Song Title
  12688 A There's Sunshine in My Soul (as Welling and McGhee Trio)
  12688 B The Haven of Rest
  12777 A Take Your Time Papa (as Frank and John)
  12777 B Maybe Next Week Sometime (as Frank and John)
 
Vocalion
Rec. No. Side Song Title
  05241 A God's Love
  05241 B The Hallelujah Side
  05251 A Lily Of The Valley
  05251 B Whosoever Meaneth Me
  05263 A The Nearer The Sweeter
  05263 B Shouting Hallelujah All The Way
  05299 A The Eastern Gate
  05299 B Go By Way Of The Cross


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