ROOTS of Country Music

Mr. Twang: The Don Helms Story

(Feb. 28, 1927 ~ Aug. 11, 2008 )

It was the beginning of a new era in American music; the transition from traditional hillbilly music to country and western and the forerunner of contemporary country music. It was a period known as "The Golden Era of Country Music."

A major contributor to this important evolution in American music was steel guitar legend Don Helms.

Pictured right, Don Helms 1961

Don Helms put the twang in the Hank Williams songbook. Helms piercing, forceful steel guitar helped define the sound of nearly all of Hank Williams’s hits and he performed and recorded with a long list of other country greats.

Mr. Helms played on more than 100 Hank Williams songs and on ten of his eleven No. 1 country hits. He provided the dirgelike, weeping notes in songs like I Can’t Help It and I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry and added a catchy, propulsive twang to up-tempo numbers like Jambalaya and Hey, Good Lookin’.

After Hank Williams died in 1953, Mr. Helms embarked on a long career as a performer and songwriter. His guitar can be heard on the Patsy Cline hit, Walking After Midnight, Stonewall Jackson’s Waterloo, the Louvin Brothers’ Cash on the Barrelhead, Lefty Frizzell’s Long Black Veil and Loretta Lynn’s Blue Kentucky Girl.

Donald Hugh Helms was born in New Brockton, Alabama USA and grew up on the family farm. As a boy, he listened to the Texas swing music of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, whose steel guitar player, Leon McAuliffe, was a big influence, as was a local player, Neal McCormick.

At fifteen, Helms got his first steel guitar, a Sears Silvertone that was held flat on the lap, unlike the table-style steel guitars he would later play. Since the farmhouse had no electricity, he played the instrument over a washtub to make it resonate.

While still a teenager, Mr. Helms became a member of the Drifting Cowboys, the backup band for Hank Williams, then a local radio star who performed in small clubs and roadhouses. Mr. Helms enlisted in the Army in 1945 and by the time he was discharged two years later, Williams had signed a record contract and was on his way to perform as a regular on the Louisiana Hayride, a Shreveport, Louisiana, radio show broadcast all over the South.

After Hank Williams joined the Grand Ole Opry in 1949 and created a sensation with his first No. 1 hit, Lovesick Blues,  Helms became part of the new edition of the Drifting Cowboys that Williams put together in Nashville, Tennessee.

Pictured left, Don Helms playing a Fender 8-String Doubleneck

Initially, Mr. Helms played a Fender eight-string double-necked guitar, but in 1950 he acquired the Gibson Console Grand that most listeners associate with Williams’s hits. Later he would play a pedal steel guitar, but he kept the Gibson for special occasions.

The rough-hewn sound of the pre-pedal steel guitar suited Williams’s bluesy vocals. At the suggestion of the record producer Fred Rose, Mr. Helms favored the treble strings and played high on the neck, producing a penetrating sound that could cut through the background noise of the bars, honky-tonks and roadhouses where Williams’s records were most often heard

The Helms sound helped move country music away from the hillbilly string-band accompaniment popular in the 1930s and toward the more modern electric style that took over in the 1940s.

Don Helms played on Williams’s last recording session, in Sept. 1952, which generated Kaw-Liga, Take These Chains From My Heart and Your Cheatin’ Heart, released after Williams’s death in January 1953.

After recording an instrumental record with the Drifting Cowboys, Mr. Helms and several of his fellow musicians worked with Ray Price, who renamed them the Cherokee Cowboys. Mr. Helms went on to record with a host of country music stars, including Jim Reeves, Webb Pierce and Ferlin Husky. He also played on Johnny Cash’s early albums for Columbia Records.

Pictured right  Gibson Console Grand

In 1957 he joined the Nashville Tennesseans, the backup band for the Wilburn Brothers, touring with them for years and performing on their syndicated television show. After performing with Hank Williams Jr. and Ernest Tubb in the late 1960s and ’70s, Mr. Helms reunited with the Drifting Cowboys in 1977.

In his later years, he did recording sessions with younger musicians like Rascal Flatts, Bon Jovi and Kid Rock. At the time of his death he was working with Vince Gill on an album of uncompleted Hank Williams songs.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Don Helms Studio Sessions

Loretta Lynn Recording Session

Oct. 14, 1964

Bradley Recording Studio; Nashville, Tennessee USA

Session Personnel: Loretta Lynn, Jordanaires (vocals), Harold Brasdley (6-stribg electric bass guitar), Floyd Cramer (piano), Murrey "Buddy" Harman Jr. (drums), Don Helms (steel guitar), Harold Morrison, Wayne Moss (guitar), Roy Huskey Jr. (acoustic bass guitar)

1. Happy Birthday
2. Blue Kentucky Girl -1965

Mar. 4, 1965

Columbia Studio; Nashville, Tennessee USA

Session Personnel: Loretta Lynn, Jordanaires (vocals), Harold Brasdley (6-stribg electric bass guitar), Floyd Cramer (piano), Murrey "Buddy" Harman Jr. (drums), Don Helms, Harold Rugg (steel guitar), Thomas Grady Martin (electric guitar), Wayne Moss (guitar), Roy Huskey Jr. (acoustic bass guitar)

1. The Home You're Tearin' Down

Patsy Cline Recording Sessions

Jun. 1, 1955

Bradley Film & Recording Studio; Nashville, Tennessee USA

Producer: Owen Bradley

Session Personnel: Patsy Cline (vocal), Harold Bradley (acoustic guitar), Owen Bradley (piano), Farris Coursey (drums), Don Helms (steel guitar), Tommy Jackson (fiddle), Grady Martin (electric guitar), Bob Moore (acoustic bass guitar)

1. Hidin' Out
2. Turn the Cards Slowly
3. A Church, A Courtroom, And Then Goodbye
4. Honky Tonk Merry Go Round

Jan. 5, 1956

Bradley Film & Recording Studio; Nashville, Tennessee USA

Producer: Owen Bradley

Session Personnel: Patsy Cline (vocal), Harold Bradley (acoustic guitar), Owen Bradley (piano), Farris Coursey (drums), Don Helms (steel guitar), Tommy Jackson (fiddle), Grady Martin (electric guitar), Bob Moore (acoustic bass guitar)

1. I Love You, Honey
2. Come On In (And Make Yourself At Home)
3. I Cried All the Way To the Altar
4. I Don't Wanta

Apr. 22, 1956

Bradley Film & Recording Studio; Nashville, Tennessee USA

Producer: Owen Bradley

Session Personnel: Patsy Cline (vocal), Harold Bradley (acoustic guitar), Owen Bradley (piano), Farris Coursey (drums), Don Helms (steel guitar), Tommy Jackson (fiddle), Grady Martin (electric guitar), Bob Moore (acoustic bass guitar)

1. Stop, Look And Listen
2. I've Loved And Lost Again
3. Dear God
4. He Will Do For You

Nov. 8, 1956

Bradley Film & Recording Studio; Nashville, Tennessee USA

Producer: Owen Bradley

Session Personnel: Patsy Cline (vocal), Harold Bradley (acoustic guitar), Owen Bradley (piano), Farris Coursey (drums), Don Helms (steel guitar), Tommy Jackson (fiddle), Grady Martin (electric guitar), Bob Moore (acoustic bass guitar)

1. Walkin' Afterr Midnight
2. The Heart You Break May Be Your Own
3. Pick Me Up On Your Way Down
4. A Poor Man's Roses (Or A Rich Man's Gold)

Apr. 24 , 1957

Decca Recording Studio; New York City, New York USA

Producer: W.S. Stevenson

Session Personnel: Patsy Cline (vocal), Grady Martin, Hank Garland (electric guitar), Harold Bradley (electric bass guitar), Jack Shook (acoustic guitar), Don Helms, Jimmy Day (steel guitar), Bob Moore (bass), Farris Coursey (drums), Tommy Jackson (fiddle), Owen Bradley (piano), Anita Kerr, Dorothy Ann Dillard, Louis Nunley, William Wright (vocals)

1. Today, Tomorrow And Forever
2. Fingerprints
3. A Stranger In My Arms
4. Don't Ever Leave Me Again

Ray Price Recording Session

On Sep. 3, 1956, Don Helms played steel guitar on a Columbia Records recording session backing Ray Price. The session took place at Bradley Studios, Nashville, Tennessee USA and the producer was Don Law.

Session Personnel: Ray Price (vocal, guitar), Sammy Pruett (guitar), Van Howard (guitar, harmony vocal), Pete Wade (guitar), Don Helms (steel guitar), Buddy Killen (bass guitar), Tommy Jackson (fiddle)

• I've Got a New Heartache
• Don't Do This to Me

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Researched and written by Richard Bell, Roots of Country Music, Dec. 8, 2011.