I seem to remember a blind whistler who'd I'd hear when I'd walk around L. A.'s Westwood Village when I was a teenager. I've also come to understand that blind, whistling beggars were actually fairly common in the good old days...or was it the bad old days? Or is it just an overused cliche you come across in old movies?

Interesting about blind whistlers. I suppose it makes sense that back when visually handicapped people could not work for a living in the mainstream way, they had to come up with interesting ways to beg. Pretty demeaning...I'm glad now people with various challenges and disabilities can just jump in there with the rest of society...at least I hope they can and I know it could stand improvement.

But anyway, I didn't know about that. The Blind Whistler that my our old lifelong friends talk about is a fellow from North Carolina who circuited through high schools back in the early-mid 60s and put on a single-handed whistling show...some talkin', pep talks for teengaers and a whole lot of whistling. Daggone he was good too...he whistled, among many other things, the Andy Griffith theme song, and did the harmony part at the same time as he was doing the melody part. He could whistle harmonies along with his melodies...so cool. Anyway, he said he was the whistler on the Andy Griffith theme song, which was written by Earle Hagen specifically for the show.

Since maybe baby boomers aren't responding much, I'll go ahead and tell the controversy...since I am a big B & W Andy Griffith fan, and have been my whole life...since high school I thought I knew who was whistling that theme song. But I've read on the net that it is supposedly Earle Hagen himself doing the whistling. I'm sort of in the disbelief mode on this, myself. Because I've known so many just folk musicians who don't perform much or earn much if any, who have been invited to play on some show or documentary or whatever...they are so proud and happy to do that, and then get no mention, no credit, even refusal of the people who produced it to acknowledge that the person actually did do it. So...to me, the usual thing the big pros do is to wipe out the memory of the fact that the little nobody did that part...for whatever reason. I'm inclined to believe this is another situation of that happening. The guy did it in our high school exactly as it sounds on the theme...and I will say Earle Hagen seemed so "in tune," so to speak, with the culture of Andy and Barney and Mayberry, that it is certainly easy to believe he wrote this great ol' tune for the show. But from what I've seen, most people cannot whistle good enough to be able to just suddenly pull off a good whistling for such a tune, not to mention he would have had to go back and do another track for harmony, when the Blind Whistler from N. Carolina could have done both parts expertly in a flash and get it over with and sounding great.

So...as to the controversy...I am believing that the Blind Whistler, who did it perfectly and just as it sounds on the TV show, easily and both parts going at once, would have no reason to make up that lie as he circuited the high schools to earn his living as best as he could. And I don't understand motive here, with the pros, but I've seen it myself many times...the guy off the street is invited to do his thing for them, he does with great pride and even most of the time happy to do it for free, but gets no mention in the final cut. So...I love Earle Hagen the composer, love the show, but the protocol seems to be to cut any mention of the old guy who can do what they want out of the final thing. The Blind Whistler was very impressive in my high school gym with terrible acoustics...very impressive and good, and did Andy Griffith exactly as it sounds, and it would seem crazy to make up that lie.

There we go. Any thoughts?

Ya know, I simply have no idea who the Blind Whistler was or where he practiced his trade. That ever brilliant Google, however, tells me it was Fred Lowery, who released several 78's and lived during the early and middle 20th Century.

Peggy, I was born in '63 so that puts me in with a year to spare.

When I was in elementary, there were several shows that we were congregated to--like magic shows and such as that. I definitely remember a whistler show along those lines. We paid a dime or whatever it was to get in the cafeteria to go see him whistle on the stage that every school had back then. I don't recall if he was blind, though.

Regarding Andy music, I'm dogged that I am not as expert at it's music as you. We watch it every night on MeTV, and just saw the Otis car episode. I'm just not as responsive to it, though I understand the difference between the "Lets go down to the fishin' hole" original and the "Mayberry March." I will have to go get our DVD set and review the Otis car music.

If you see this post in time, I'll say tonight is another Darling's episode, in which I always get picking and grinning pointers out of. Have a good weekend!

I watch it on Me TV too...lol. Gotta just go to Mayberry every night just to chill out a little.

I just looked it up and yeah, seems his name must've been Fred Lowery. He was good!

I love The Andy Griffith Show! All of it. Funny as all get out, wholesome and comedically salacious at once. I think of Ernest T Bass and Darlings episodes immediately. There are dangerous situations too. I remember as a kid being glued to the TV when it was on. I catch it when I think of it.

Don't think we had a whistler perform - being forever drawn to musical things, I would have remembered that. My grandpa was the best whistler I've heard.

I remember I show called Family Affair. Brien Keith and Sebastián Cabot starred. Looking back, their situation was unlike anyone's in the middle-class Midwest.

Ooh Petticoat Junction! I loved steam locomotives. Still do. I finally got to see the pilot for that show. Explaining why they still had a steam engine, etc.

I've watched some Petticoat Junction during "sick days," when I was too sick to do anything and bored to death...they were pretty cute episodes and characters on that show. I haven't watched it a lot but I did like it when I saw it.

With Mayberry, it's strange...it both reminds me of the way it was where our family farm was when I was little, and the area we lived in later in my life...the characters are almost the same as some of the people I've known my whole life...and Mayberry is almost the same as the town we lived near. It makes me feel like I can take a trip back home to be in the places no longer there, and the people no longer living. It's very nostalgic with me. It's the only way for me to ever get back home.

quote:

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Originally posted by groundhogpeggy

Question number 2: for the ones who grew up and still love to go to B & W Mayberry when it's on the TV

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https://www.visitnc.com/story/DvHg/beyond-the-guidebook-mount-airy-the-real-life-mayberry

Thanks, Carl. We used to have family that lived a little ways down the road from there...we always planned on extending a visit long enough to see that place and also to try to get to the Merlefest...but we never did and they eventually moved back to TN. I'm not a good traveller, myself...so it's just psychologically hard for me to go visit places. Our relatives had been there and said it was pretty much fun. Back then some of the Mayberry actors were still alive. We knew a girl in college who had lived down the street from where Aunt Bee settled in N. Carolina once she retired from acting. Sounds like Aunt Bee was just Aunt Bee, once she retired from the show. Although from what I've read, she pretty much remained anti social with the other actors during the show. She reminds me so much of my great aunt, Aunt Ret. Andy reminds me so much of my uncle Jim...lol. They had no kids and I hung around with them more than I did the rest of the family, while growing up...until we moved to Ohio.

When I was living in L.A. I'd regularly ride my bicycle past the "Beverly Hillbillies Mansion" in Bel Air. Before it became famous for the Hillbillies it was known as the Kirkeby Mansion...the place that local real estate multi-millionaire Kirkeby called home. And yeah, I had to ride a reasonable ways from my modest apartment to get there. Tour buses regularly cruised past it, too.

Did you ever see Granny planting & cooking her soap out front? Just kidding...I know she did that back by the cement pond.

When I was a kid we did really swim in a cement pond...lol...there was a creek that they dammed up and put cement around the sides, carved out shallow edges and let the middle get about 8 ft deep, and then the creek ran on out from there...you had to pay to swim there. The water was always just really, really cold...I never went swimmin' without also turning blue... it was also down in a hole and 100 per cent shady. There used to be an old guy claw hammering his banjo on a log bench while his grandkids swam and ate Moon Pies...lol.

It's cee-ment pond. I watched all of that and I remember my family watching Hee Haw, Wild Kingdom and the Disney show...was that all on Sunday? Been a minute, can't recall those details of my childhood.

I don't know...I just watched Andy and Barney...lol.