wemburywaves

Hill-Billy from Devon

The Wembury trio who took old-time music onto the wireless

On Tuesday 12 October 1937, the Western Morning News carried a small but fascinating story under the headline “Hill-Billy from Devon.” It told of three young Devon musicians who had just made their way onto the British Broadcasting Corporation airwaves with a style that, at the time, still felt fresh, unusual, and faintly exotic to British listeners.

They were not from the Appalachian mountains, the American South, or the backwoods of Kentucky. Two of them were from Wembury, and the third from Plymouth. Yet together they had formed a “hill-billy” trio and were good enough to be broadcast nationally.

The group consisted of Zeke Winter, the leader and violinist; Bert Bennett, who played accordion; and Don Pearsall, who played saxophone and clarinet. The report says that Winter and Bennett were Wembury men, while Pearsall came from Plymouth. Their programme had gone out from Plymouth, and the reaction was strong enough for them to be offered further appearances around the country, including Portsmouth, Brighton, Newcastle, Scotland, and London.

That detail matters. This was not just three lads doing a novelty turn at a village concert. They had crossed from local entertainment into professional broadcasting.

The article paints a lively picture of their sound. It describes a group taking American “hill-billy” material and giving it a Devon twist. The word “hill-billy” in 1937 did not mean quite what it might suggest now. In British entertainment circles it usually referred to old-time American rural music: fiddle tunes, comic songs, sentimental ballads, close harmony choruses, and lively dance rhythms. It sat somewhere between country music, folk music, music-hall comedy, and radio variety.

That makes the Wembury trio especially interesting. They were performing this style long before American country music became a familiar part of British popular culture. This was before rock and roll, before skiffle, before the folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s. In 1937, this sort of music would have sounded colourful and unusual: quick fiddle phrases, accordion chords, clarinet or saxophone fills, and perhaps comic spoken interjections or rustic vocal effects.

The instrumentation also suggests that their version of “hill-billy” was not a strict imitation of American mountain music. A traditional American string band might have used fiddle, banjo, guitar, mandolin, or harmonica. This Devon trio used violin, accordion, saxophone, and clarinet. That points to something more theatrical and more British: a radio-friendly variety act using American rural flavour, but shaped by dance-band musicianship and local performance traditions.

In other words, they were probably not trying to sound like a field recording from Appalachia. They were creating entertainment: cheerful, rhythmic, humorous, and immediately understandable to a British radio audience.

The names themselves have a touch of show business. “Zeke Winter” sounds almost made for the stage. It has the flavour of a comic rural persona, exactly the sort of name that would fit a “hill-billy” act in the 1930s. Whether it was his birth name or a performing name still needs to be pinned down. That may be why tracing his later life is difficult. Stage names, nicknames, and spelling variations can easily hide people in the records.

The later trail is uneven. Don Pearsall appears to have remained active as a musician into the war years, with evidence of him playing professionally in 1945. Bert Bennett can also be traced in 1938 in connection with Carroll Levis and his radio discoveries, again suggesting that the broadcast opened doors. Zeke Winter is harder to follow, and his wartime fate remains unconfirmed.

But the 1937 report captures them at a bright moment: three Devon musicians stepping onto the radio stage with a sound that linked Wembury and Plymouth to a much wider musical current.

For Wembury, this is a lovely little cultural footnote. The village is often remembered through farms, cliffs, church, coastguards, war, fishing, and estate history. Here, though, we get something different: Wembury as a source of popular music. Two local men, with a Plymouth colleague, were not just playing for neighbours or dances; they were part of the early broadcast entertainment world.

Their story also sits neatly within the wider history of British musical borrowing. Long before teenagers picked up guitars after hearing American rock and roll, British performers were already adapting American styles: jazz, blues, cowboy songs, minstrel tunes, and hill-billy numbers. The Wembury trio belong to that earlier wave. They were local musicians looking across the Atlantic, taking a fashionable sound, and making it work with the instruments and humour available to them. Then came the War.....

I tried to recreate the spirit of “One, Two, Button Your Shoe” and “Tiger Rag,” the two pieces mentioned in the 1937 article about the Wembury Hill-Billy trio. Because of copyright issues, the lyrics had to be changed rather than copied directly, but the aim was to respect the original performance style: a jaunty romantic counting-song, lively fiddle, bouncy accordion, playful clarinet, and a short burst of hot-jazz “Tiger Rag” energy.

Lyrics

One, two, polish each shoe
Straighten your tie and hat
I’ll make a game of that
Till you come smiling through

Three, four, knock at my door
Do not be late tonight
I count the lamps alight
Till you come smiling through

Come smiling through
Come smiling through
The fiddle plays a tune for two
While I am waiting here for you
Come smiling through

Five, six, the clock still ticks
I keep watching down the lane
Seven, eight, do not make me wait
I hear your step again

Nine, ten, hold me again
Say that your heart is true
That is the thing to do
When you come smiling through

Hold that tiger!

One, two, tap with your shoe
Three, four, turn on the floor
Five, six, quick little tricks
Seven, eight, do not be late

Nine, ten, round once again
Laugh like the old songs do
Every little number brings me
Closer, dear, to you

Come smiling through
Come smiling through
The squeeze box swings and the clarinet too
The fiddle plays a tune for two
Come smiling through

Come smiling through
Come smiling through
Hold that tiger, bright and true
The Wembury boys play for you
Come smiling through