No one gets to choose the circumstances, time, or place of their birth, but I do believe that, had I been given a choice, I would have picked Nashville, 1952, all over, again. I mean, good grief, what’s not to like? How lucky can a kid (that loves country music) get? Then again, maybe that’s why I love country music—so, I guess you have to ask yourself, which came first, the chicken or the pedal steel?
I was born on a hot, hot summer Sunday late afternoon/early evening in a downtown Nashville hospital, a few blocks from the Ryman (sounds like a country song, doesn’t it?) where only the night before, the stage had been occupied by Hank Williams, Hank Snow, Bill Monroe, Ernest Tubb, Cowboy Copas, the Carter Sisters, and Roy Acuff.
That Sunday, the Nashville Tennessean complained about it being the longest period of drought and record heat for the region in June. Truman was still president and, meanwhile, Ike was busy stumping across Texas, trying to shore up his chances in the upcoming 1952 Presidential election that November.
The folks took me home from the hospital to our little house on Vultee Blvd., named after the Vultee Aircraft Plant that was built during the war to manufacture Vengeance dive bombers, which were initially supplied to England’s RAF in their air war against Germany. My first memories are from that little house, and they’re mostly foggy glimpses of the bottom of chairs and tables. The one piece of furniture that does stand out, however, was our old Motorola cabinet black-and-white TV. I couldn’t see under it, but I do remember the cloth covering the speaker (that would have been eye-level to a crawling Nashville tot). What I loved most of all were the cartoons that jumped out of that old TV screen and into the hot living room on Vultee Blvd. And, the cartoon character that immediate comes to mind was not a Disney, Warners, or MGM cartoon star. Rather, it was the Rockabilly Pig, the spokesman (or should I say, spokespig?) for Jacobs Preferred (hot dogs, sausage and ham).
Jacobs Preferred was a brand produced by Jacobs Packing Company, a meat-packing company founded in the ruins of the civil war in Nashville, in 1870 by William Jacobs. Jacobs, originally from Wittenburg, Germany, was able to convince the posh Maxwell House Hotel (as in Maxwell House Coffee) to add his special Spice Round ham to their winter menu. That, in turn, encouraged a number of meat-packing companies (from Germany and other European nations) to relocate to America and Nashville in particular, all hoping to emulate his success.
If you fast forwarded eighty years, that same sleepy Tennessee town on the Cumberland River was the musical landing zone and melting pot of pickers coming west from Appalachia and east from Texas and Oklahoma. The mountain pickers from the east were fueled by the high lonesome songs of musicians like (the afore-mentioned) Roy Acuff, Bill Monroe and the Carter Family; the western swingers rocked to the beat of band leaders like Bob Wills and Spade Cooley. The resulting high-octane, hybrid mix of these musical influences began taking shape in the early ’50s in Memphis and became known as “rockabilly,” a portmanteau of “rock” (from “rock ‘n’ roll”) and “hillbilly.” Led by young upstarts such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Johnny and Dorsey Burnette, to name a few, it quickly spread to Memphis’ sister city, Nashville, and to the rest of post-war America, as well as the world at large.
Enter the Rockabilly Pig. He had sideburns, pegged pants, a T-shirt with rolled-up sleeves and low-slung guitar.
At least, that’s how I remember him as he danced his way across the screen of our old Motorola. There’s one thing I am sure of—he was ecstatic to be the voice of Jacobs Preferred, happily offering up his friends and relatives for the culinary enjoyment of Nashville’s citizens in their kitchens and dining rooms and in restaurants and diners throughout the city and state. It had been less than a decade since our fathers (and mothers) had defeated the Germans and the Japanese, and, looking back, I believe that the children who had been born during that war (who were then teens) were blissfully ignorant of what their parents had endured. In fact, they were happy just to
rockabilly the night away at their high school hops, and maybe stop by the drive-in on the way home for a shake and a Jacobs Coney, an outstanding wiener manufactured by the descendants of that ol’ German meat-packer, William Jacobs. One newspaper ad described a Jacobs Coney as being a special blend of the best pork and beef, seasoned with honey, butter, and imported spices. I’m guessing that description was created by the same Nashville advertising genius who thought it would be cool to have Elvis Porcine peddling pork (say that quickly three times).
And so, you may ask, whatever happened to the Rockabilly Pig? The only mention of him I could find (while browsing through old Nashville newspapers) was in a Jacobs Preferred ad from a 1957 issue of the Nashville Tennessean. “Name the Pig!” it cried, and the winner would be eligible to win “a German Volkswagen Automobile” (if only I had been old enough to suggest “Elvis Porcine”). I just hope he somehow escaped the frying pan. I’d like to think he’s relaxing in a chalet, high in the (German) Alps, living off his royalties, oblivious to the ever-changing fickleness of our societal whims and the constant ebb-and-flow of our so-called culture.
To hear “Rockabilly Pig,” click here: http://equilt.com/RockabillyPig.mp3
David Ray Skinner 