Claude Casey

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Claude Casey (Enoree, South Carolina, September 13, 1912 - June 24, 1999) was an American country singer, guitarist, songwriter and actor. Claude Casey came from a long line of Carolina musicians. His grandfather, father, and mother played fiddle and his aunt played banjo. "This is how my mother and father first met, playing for a dance," remembered Claude. "So I was around music back in my younger days; that's what gave me the bug." His first instrument was the harmonica and before long he learned to accompany his father at square dances. When the family moved to nearby Whitmire, Claude met Lawrence and Carl Boling who introduced him to guitar playing. In his early teens, Claude moved with his family to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and then into Danville. He was impressed by the music around his home. The Danville area in the late 1920s teemed with influential stringband musicians including banjo player Charlie Poole, fiddler Charlie Laprade, and guitarist Elton Biggers. While in Danville, Claude began playing guitar with local stringbands the Piedmont Serenaders and the Schoolfield Woodchoppers and gradually took up singing. In 1929, at the age of sixteen, he made his first appearance on radio over WBTM in Danville. He landed a fifteen minute program on Saturday mornings billed as the Carolina Hobo and soon began broad­casting on WBTM with friends Jake King, Tex Isley and Marvin Fowler as the Pine State Playboys. Casey was just eighteen and had worked intermittently

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