Photo of The Month – Jun 2012

The Combinators

Picture contributor: Marvin McDaniel

Over his lifetime Dewey McDaniel must have played in a dozen different groups, like this one in the mid 1930’s. Whether the Combinators performed more than once on WBT, Charlotte, we don’t know. Perhaps they joined other performers on the Crazy Water Crystal series. We do know that several other bands, including regulars, were photographed with the same backdrop and microphone. You can see and read about these on our other historical site, BT Memories.

If anyone can identify the other players, we’d like to know who they are. For more about Dewey, do a search (on his name, of course); there are many references on this site to Dewey, his bands and their appearances at various venues.

Update: Ellen Huskey writes,

The person at the bottom right is Handy Plemmons who grew up in Avondale.

My husband, Maurice, has told me that Handy, his dad and uncle played together in Avondale, and that Handy built a radio station of sorts—sufficient enough that neighbors knew which number to turn to on their radio dials and could hear their music. The Federal Communications picked it up but did not know the source. Hearing of this, Handy quickly dismantled the equipment. Handy was a very gifted musician and creative individual. I played with his children as a child.