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Donald Lee 'Chubby' Anthony

1935 - 1980

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Ralph described Chubby Anthony as: "...one of the best (fiddlers) and it's a shame he ain't better remembered. His 'Black Mountain Blues' was every bit as good as Leslie Keith's, and some will tell you it's better".^[1]

Chubby was born on 20th Dec 1935 in Lincolnton, Nc. and was raised near Cherryville / Shelby, Nc. He started playing at about the age of 6 helped by his father, Woodrow Anthony, B.L. Lindsey and a fiddler called Roy Husky from Brison, Nc.^[2]

In an interview with Don Rhodes in 'Bluegrass Unlimited' Chubby described his upbringing:-^[3]

"I grew up near Cherryville, North Carolina (not far from the area where Earl Scruggs was raised), and I lived there until about 1951. It was more or less a cotton mill part of the world. I worked in a cotton mill for a year-and-a-half, but I wanted to play music for a living. My father, Woodrow Anthony, was a back porch picker. He played what I call a violin and had a habit of playing (that) I got from him. In the old days, a fiddler would tuck his instrument under his arm when he played, but a violinist tucked it under his chin. My dad called what he played a fiddle, though. He started teaching me the fiddle when I was five or six."

"My dad worked in the spinning room of the cotton mill as a doffer. That's a person who takes the empty bobbins off the frames and puts full ones on. My mother (Edith Anthony) worked in the winding room keeping the frames running. She wasn't a musician, but she just loved to hear music. She was the one who pushed me to practice when I didn't really want to practice. She'd tell me it was for my benefit. Generally, though she didn't have to hunt for me to get me to play. I would most often be out in the yard with a guitar or a fiddle."

"I learned early in life it was easier to get a job playing a fiddle than a guitar. Every time I started looking for a job. I found people wanted a fiddle player. My daddy had a band made up of people who lived in our area. Back then, we used to compete with other bands a lot, and we often won first prize. Many times that was $100, and in those days that was a lot of money."

"The first big thing I went to was an old-time fiddler's convention. I went to local fiddle contests at Morganton, Mooresville and Shelby, but I never went to Union Grove. At the age of 13, I won the North Carolina State Fiddling Championship. The award was presented to me by Jim Shumate, a fiddler who worked with Lester and Earl. That meant a lot because I used to listen to Bill Monroe on Saturday night over the Grand Ole Opry and to Lester and Earl weekdays over radio stations in Raleigh, North Carolina and Bristol, Virginia/Tennessee. I also listened to The Stanley Brothers over the Bristol station every day at 12:15."

In 1953, sixteen year old Chubby was introduced to The Stanley Brothers by John Shuffler and Lester Woody.^[4][5]

"I stayed with them three months until I realized I had to go back home and learn more. I knew breaks, but I didn't know how to do background music - fill in music when the singers take breaths. So I went back home and got a job sweeping the spinning room of the cotton mill. Naturally that got old. It wasn't what I wanted to do. I worked night times, slept part of the day and listened to all the records I could find."

Here the story gets a bit fuzzy, as according to Charlie Moore, Chubby worked in Cousin Wilbur (Westbrook)'s band on his daily lunchtime WLOS-TV show in Asheville, Nc. Wilbur, who was an early Blue Grass Boy, heard Charlie Moore jamming with his band and subsquently recruited him.^[5]

According to Chubby however:- "Carter Stanley called me in 1955 and asked me if I was still fiddling and if I had practiced. He then asked me if I'd meet them in Danville, Virginia that night, which was about 360 miles away."

"I went to Danville, and they took me behind a building prior to the show to see what I know. As soon as they would call out a tune, we'd let it ride. When we got ready to leave after the show that night, Carter said, 'You're hired if you want the job.' They wanted me to go out on the road with them from that night on, but I told them I had to get some stuff back home."

"Carter said, 'As insurance you will be joing us, we'll take your fiddle.' So I went home, loaded my stuff and caught a bus to Bristol where they were doing the Fun 'N' Farm (sic) show over WYCB. It was there - the announcer for the show said it took too much to call me Donald Lee Anthony - that Carter said on the air 'We'll call you Chubby'. At the time I weighed about 215 pounds. I haven't weighed since 1961, because my weight never bothered me."

Chubby's first recording to surface with The Stanley Brothers was in June 1956, and can also be heard on several live recordings between then and July 1957, as well as two sessions for Mercury on 16th July 1956 and 27th Feb 1957.

Chubby:- "I was with The Stanleys on and off for about 11 years. I'd take a vacation once in awhile and would later go back with them. Somebody would get their feelings hurt. Maybe I'd get my feelings hurt. With me, it's tension."

In late 1958 or early 1959, Chubby helped record five tracks for Mike Seeger's Mountain Music Bluegrass Style compilation LP. Around the same time, Chubby also cut at least one session with Ken Clark, with three tunes appearing on the Starday V/A - Fiddlin Country Style LP and another on 'V/A - Country Express'.

At the end of 1958, The Stanley Brothers had moved to Florida and started performing on the 'Suwannee River Jamboree' radio show. Carter, returned home over Christmas and had a chance meeting with Chubby. Paul Mullins, who was on fiddle at the time recalled: "Carter had come back home to see his family and ran into Chubby Anthony in Bristol. He was hungry and broke and didn't have a job, and Carter knew I could play the bass. I didn't want to play the bass, but I worked until January of '59".^[6]

Further Stanley Brother sessions followed for King on 10th - 11th Feb 1959 and Starday circa March 1959 and July 1959, plus one for Blue Ridge sometime in the summer.^[7] At the July 1959 session, The Stanley's recorded one of Chubby's songs, Highway Of Regret.

Live recordings in this period include eight tracks from the Newport Folk Festival from 12th July and several Radio show transcriptions that were later released as 'On Radio'.

At the next King sessions on 14-15th Sept. 1959, studio boss Syd Nathan refused to let the band use a fiddle, so Chubby found himself restricted to keeping time by taping on his fiddle.^[8] The following month he married Daisy Pearl Allen on the 18th October 1959.^[9]

By May 1960, Bill Napier and Chubby had left The Stanley Brothers, as Charlie Moore recalled:- "We had worked a date with the Stanley Brothers in Swainsboro, Georgia and Bill called me the next week and said he wanted to leave Ralph and Carter. How Far To Little Rock had just been released and it was the hottest thing going at the time. They (Stanley Brothers) had Bill Napier and Chubby Anthony with them then and we were carrying four or five members. But when Bill called me, I told him to come on up and we would work him in someway. When he got there he had Chubby Anthony with him too but we couldn't use both of them. Chubby went on to Boston and worked with the Lilly Brothers and Don Stover. This was around 1959 or 1960 I guess."^[5]

As Chubby isn't present on the Lilly Brothers 1961 recordings for Folkways ('Folk Songs From The Southern Mountains'), he presumably must have moved on fairly quickly... He did rejoin The Stanley Brothers, playing on sessions for King on 20th July 1961 and 22nd Sept 1961, but is absent from a live recording in August.^[10]

Around 1965/66, after Moore & Napier took over a TV show in spartanburg from Don Reno, Chubby joined Charlie Moore and Bill Napier, and stayed with them until they split up c1967.^[5] As far as I can tell, Chubby didn't get to record with Moore & Napier at the time, although there is a live recording from December 1966 at Zebelean's Lounge, Baltimore, Md. which included Chubby Anthony and Henry Dockery.^[11]

When Moore & Napier split, it looks like Chubby dropped out of the music business. He'd settled in Willborn, Fl. in 1962 and gave up music until a friend, Johnny Norris of Lake City, Fl. encouraged him to start performing again.^[2]

Chubby:- "I got disgruntled with it for awhile. There wasn't a lot of bookings, and I felt like things weren't going as they should. I was kind of at a standstill and wasn't getting anywhere. From 1969 through 1974, I was out of the business. I had a job driving a laundry truck."

By the mid seventies he'd moved to Gainesville, Fl. In 1974, some of his friends persuaded Chubby to start playing again at a jam at White Springs festival in Florida.

"I got it back in my blood, and I went to another Florida festival with a group. We won the second spot in the band contest, and I won the top fiddle spot. I decided right then to go back to music professionally."

Between 1974 and 1978, Chubby led Tall Timber Bluegrass, who released one album The Best Of Bluegrass in 1976. In 1975 he also reunited with Charlie Moore to play on one cut from the Charlie Moore & Bill Napier - Collectors Edition LP, and in 1976 on Charlie Moore's Wheeling album.

Also in July 1976, Chubby got to record his splendid Fiddlin' Chubby Anthony album, which was eventually released in 1978, credited to 'Chubby Anthony with Big Timber Blue Grass'. The name change from 'Tall Timber Bluegrass' came about after he learnt about an act from Seattle, Wa. with the same name.

In November 1978, Chubby and Big Timber recorded Love And Life, which shows off Chubby's songwriting and lead guitar work. While professionally things were picking up for Chubby, his personal life was perhaps another story. Shortly after Love And Life was recorded, Chubby and his wife of 18 years were divorced on 1st Dec. 1978.

Shortly afterwards, Chubby married Linda Ann Miller on 12 Dec. 1978, but was divorced again by the 12th Oct 1979.

At the end of the seventies his health began to fail, and in 1979 was forced into taking kidney dialysis treatments with three days a week in hospital.^[12] In June 1979 he was hospitalised due to kidney and eventual liver failure. He died on 5th February 1980, aged just 44.^[13] He is buried in Cherryville, Gaston County, Nc.

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Raw handwritten notes by Chubby Anthony:

Here's a scan of a set of notes which Chubby Anthony wrote many years ago as raw material to be used in liner notes for a record sleeve. I haven't had chance yet to update the article above, but from a quick scan, it looks like there's many interesting tidbits - such as Chubby being paid $30 for his first week's work!

Chubby Anthony's Handwritten Notes (13.5 Mb)

Many Thanks to C.P. Heaton for sending these notes in, and allowing us to reproduce them here.

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^{[1] Eddie Dean and Ralph Stanley's book 'Man Of Constant Sorrow' (p. 191)
[2] John Morris' liner notes to Chubby Anthony - 'Fiddlin Chubby Anthony.
[3] 'Making That Fiddle Sing! Chubby Anthony' interview by Don Rhodes, 'Bluegrass Unlimited' Feb. 1979 (p. 30-33)
[4] Mike Seeger's liner notes to Mountain Music Bluegrass Style
[5] Pete Kuykendall's interview with Charlie Moore in Jan. 1973 issue of 'Bluegrass Unlimited' (p. 5).
[2] Mike Seeger's liner notes to Mountain Music Bluegrass Style and Gary B Reid's book 'The Music Of The Stanley Brothers' (p. 58)
[6] Bluegrass Unlimited, Dec. 1975 'Paul Mullins: Musician, Disc Jockey And Bluegrass Influence' by Frank and Marty Godbey. (p.20-25)
[7] Gary B. Reid's liner notes to 'The Early Starday King Years 1958-61' 4xCD box set (Starday King KBSCD-7000) 2003 and Gary B. Reid's 'The Music Of The Stanley Brothers' book (p. 98-99)
[8] Gary B. Reid's liner notes to 'The Early Starday King Years 1958-61' 4xCD box set (Starday King KBSCD-7000) 2003.
[9] searches on www.ancestry.co.uk
[10] No fiddler is present on the live recording from New River Ranch, Rising Sun, Ma. 26th August 1961, released by Ralph as 'Ridin That Midnight Train' (Stanleytone ST-5002) 2001.
[11] See https://youtu.be/CYiBctm0j3s
[12] Obituary in 'Bluegrass Unlimited' Mar. 1980 (p. 7)
[13] Liner notes to 'Love And Life'.}