[Charles teamed up with his brother Danny to form the famous duet team, the Bailey Brothers. They worked on several radio stations including WWVA, the home of the World’s Original Jamboree in Wheeling, West Virginia.  I had the pleasure of working with this fine duo on the show in the Fifties.  Unfortunately, both Charles and Danny died within a week of each other in March 2004. – Dusty Owens, TCM Radio News]

The Bailey Brothers were among the few traditional brother duets that made the complete transition from Old Time musicians to a full-fledged Bluegrass band. As a radio team, the brothers gained a near legendary status in such locales as WNOX Knoxville, WPTF Raleigh and WWVA Wheeling. Unfortunately, the Baileys never had a really good opportunity to record for a major label in their prime years and the material they did record never had adequate distribution.

They hailed from the community of Happy Valley (later known as Pressmen’s Home), in Hawkins County, Tennessee. Charlie and Danny came from a large family that had gained local renown for its members singing abilities.

Around 1936, Charlie began singing professionally when he and Charlie Cope (of the Cope Brothers) took an extended tour. After his return, Charlie and Danny formed a duo and soon began harmonizing on local radio stations in Bristol, Johnson City and Kingsport. In 1940, they moved into full-time entertainment with programs on WNOX and WROL Knoxville under the sponsorship of the Cas Walker Super Markets.

They were doing quite well and drawing large crowds to their shows, when Charlie was drafted into the U.S. Army in August 1941. This caused the brothers to miss a Bluebird recording opportunity that fall. Meanwhile, Danny continued in Knoxville, forming a group known as the Happy Valley Boys, which included the Brewster Brothers. In 1944, they switched over to WSM Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry.

When the army took the Brewsters, Charlie and Lester Cope came over from Knoxville and worked in Danny’s band. Charlie Bailey came back from the war in 1946 and the Copes returned to WNOX. Dissatisfied with WSM, the Baileys soon left Nashville for Albany, Georgia, where they remained for only a few months before returning to the Cas Walker shows in Knoxville. Here they took on the trappings of a full Bluegrass band with the addition of L. E. White on fiddle, Wiley Birchfield on banjo and Jake Tullock on bass.

This quintet of Happy Valley Boys, augmented by Carl Butler on rhythm guitar, cut six sides for Rich-R-Tone in the fall of 1947, including the first recorded versions of J. B. Coates’ “The Sweetest Gift” and the Louvins’ “Alabama.” Later they did two more sides on Rich-R-Tone. In January 1949, Charlie and Danny moved to WPTF Raleigh, North Carolina, where fiddler Clarence “Tater” Tate and banjo picker Hoke Jenkins joined their band.

The Baileys started their own Canary label while in Raleigh, recording nine more sides in the next three years. In January 1952, the brothers relocated to WDBJ Roanoke, Virginia, for three months and then in April they moved to WWVA Wheeling, West Virginia, where their career reached its peak. Don McHan picked banjo for their band at the Wheeling Jamboree. In addition, Tullock and Tate remained with the group. Tate once remarked that no group, with whom he worked, including Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys, could draw crowds like the Baileys.

The northern climate adversely affected Danny’s health and after some two years in Wheeling the brothers stopped performing together, except for a few months in Knoxville later in 1954 and again in 1957-1958. Danny remained in Knoxville more or less permanently from 1954, usually working for Cas Walker on radio and TV until the Walker program, “Farm and Home Hour,” ended in mid-1983. Danny’s tenor part on the show’s theme made an unforgettable impression.

Charlie worked briefly at WRVA Richmond and then returned to WWVA, where he initially had a band built around some members of the McCumbee Family of Morgan County, West Virginia and later the Osborne Brothers. Later, Jimmy Elrod, Chubby Collier and Ray Myers (the Armless Musician) worked in a unit with Charlie until the latter part of 1957. This group cut a few recordings at WWVA and also had a session for the Event label in Maine.

After the Bailey Brothers split again in early 1958, Charlie went to Canada and spent six months touring extensively in the Maritime Provinces. Charlie retired from music in February 1960 and eventually operated an exterminating business in Wilmington, Delaware.

In 1970, he and Danny had a reunion concert at the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife. Twice in the 70’s, the Bailey Brothers recorded albums for Rounder, a company that also reissued most of their early Rich-R-Tone and Canary sides. They played at the 1975 old-timer reunion at Fan Fair and at a few other special events, including the 1992 Knoxville World’s Fair. After Charlie retired, he moved back to rural east Tennessee, while Danny continued to reside in Knoxville.

Ivan M. Tribe
Century of Country