Ripley Cotton Choppers

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RIPLEY COTTON CHOPPERS - Were a white string band who played together on weekends in venues ranging from country suppers to each other's living rooms. Their style evokes memories of a bygone era and were it not for the presence of an electric guitar their record could have been cut by Ralph Peer thirty years earlier. The group borrowed their name from another Tennessee aggregation which had performed widely during the Depression years and, although they had never recorded, they had broadcast regularly over station WREC in Memphis. The Cotton Choppers group that Sam Phillips recorded was headed by Raymond Kerby, a house painter, rancher, and jack of all trades, from Halls, Tennessee, a small community outside of Ripley. Sam Phillips and the Cotton Choppers caught each other's eye just in time. Within the next two years, Sam Phillips would virtually abandon country music for Elvis Presley and the first wave of rockabillies. Within that same time, the Cotton Choppers would cease to be. One of the Ripley Cotton Choppers Ernest Underwood, was a country music devotee who was openly hostile to the emerging rockabilly music. As a result of the popularity of rockabilly music, Underwood persuaded the group to pressed the group to record. It was Raymond Kerby's uncle, Jesse Frost, who sang lead on many of their songs. This may be the reason that Raymond Kerby rejected later Sam Phillips suggestion that they use Elvis Presley as the lead singer. One of their earliest recordings, "Paint

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