Frank Floyd was born in Toccopola, Mississippi, the son of itinerant parents who separated without giving him a name,[2] though he is recorded in the 1910 census as Shankles Floyd.[3] He was raised by his sharecropping grandparents, who died while he was a teenager. He taught himself to play harmonica when he was 10 years old, and he eventually learned guitar. He gave himself the name Frank Floyd,[2] and began performing in the 1920s for traveling carnivals and medicine shows
The eccentric Southern tradition of "eephing" is best described as the hillbilly equivalent of the hip-hop human "beat box" vocal style — a kind of hiccupping, rhythmic wheeze that started in rural Tennessee more than 100 years ago.
Jimmie Riddle photographed in 1978, about four years before his death.
Ron Newcomer/CountryWorks.com
Just like human beat-box artists of the 1980s rendered perfect imitations of drum machines with their mouths, the original eephers of the 1880s imitated the hogs and turkeys living in their backyards.
The odd music genre — variously spelled "eefing," "eeephing" or "eeefing" — appealed to a young Memphis producer named Sam Phillips, who recorded "Swamp Root" as one of his first singles. It didn't really catch on, but another of Phillips' offbeat performers — a fellow named Elvis Presley — would.
Frank Floyd was born in Toccopola, Mississippi, the son of itinerant parents who separated without giving him a name,[2] though he is recorded in the 1910 census as Shankles Floyd.[3] He was raised by his sharecropping grandparents, who died while he was a teenager. He taught himself to play harmonica when he was 10 years old, and he eventually learned guitar. He gave himself the name Frank Floyd,[2] and began performing in the 1920s for traveling carnivals and medicine shows
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thtxnq7pMZc
The eccentric Southern tradition of "eephing" is best described as the hillbilly equivalent of the hip-hop human "beat box" vocal style — a kind of hiccupping, rhythmic wheeze that started in rural Tennessee more than 100 years ago.
Jimmie Riddle photographed in 1978, about four years before his death.
Ron Newcomer/CountryWorks.com
Just like human beat-box artists of the 1980s rendered perfect imitations of drum machines with their mouths, the original eephers of the 1880s imitated the hogs and turkeys living in their backyards.
The odd music genre — variously spelled "eefing," "eeephing" or "eeefing" — appealed to a young Memphis producer named Sam Phillips, who recorded "Swamp Root" as one of his first singles. It didn't really catch on, but another of Phillips' offbeat performers — a fellow named Elvis Presley — would.
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