The Skipper Hunt Combo

The Skipper Hunt Combo was a Nashville based Rock & Roll group that started in the late '50s.

History[edit | edit source]

Starting around 1957 as the Skipper Hunt Quartet when Skipper was still in high school at Father Ryan, the group went on to play Nashville clubs and eventually up thru Kentucky and into Indiana playing swing, boogie-woogie and ealy rock n roll with a rockabilly influence. Touring thru Indiana put them in contact with the Glenn Records label out of Hammond, Indiana. A subsidiary of Mar-Vel' that specialized in rock n roll and rockabilly, Glenn released the Skipper Hunt 7" with A-side "What am I Gonna Do" b/w a raucous instrumental "Scalded." With only moderate continuing success and just the one release the group disbanded around 1962, when Skip joined The Clefs, led by Leon Martin, that toured extensively. Afterward he and sax player Gayle Whitfield continued on in The Messengers Combo until the late 60s, when Skip joined the army and eventually settled down in South Carolina.

Rockabilly historian Jesus Martinez recounts that: "William Hunt, from the US state of Tennessee, was a great and charismatic musician who began to lead so many bands of young people with less experience than him, that he earned the nickname Skipper. He eventually recruited Joe Gleaves and Ray Hepburn of the local band The Sliders, specialists in playing frat parties and high school dances, to form what would become his most serious and successful band: The Skipper Hunt Combo."

After Skip moved on, both Gleaves and Hepburn continued to play with The Sliders, backing soul singers, such as Carla Thomas, around town in the 1960s, and recording for Decca.

Drummer Roy Hepburn also performed with The Sliders. He recorded a soul 7" for Desiree records, "Loving Lies."

Bassist Joe Gleaves later performed in the Chris Kelley Combo as well as The Sliders, and would become a member of Glazier Local 1184, (Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators and Paperhangers of America, AFL-CIO). He passed away in June 2005.

Saxophonist Gayle Whitfield and piano player Bill Aikins went on to play for a group called Bobby Williams and His Nightlifters, the house band for the King of Clubs, a 2-story roadhouse just outside the Nashville city limits on the Clarksville Highway. Thru that connection Aikins would later join Charlie McCoy & the Escorts. Gayle Whitfield, who provided much of the horn-heavy sounds of the single, including the upfront performance on the mostly instrumental B-side, would continue to play on numerous Nashville releases as a session musician, including the self-titled and only LP by Jubal (run by Dennis Linde, who composed "Burning Love" for Elvis) and "Ol' Blue Suede's Back" by Carl Perkins.

Skipper Hunt and Gayle Whitfield in the Clefs

Gruhn Guitars luthier Lin Crowson repaired a vintage guitar, 1961 Vintage Gibson ES-335, of Skipper Hunt and recounts: "It was owned by William Darryl Hunt. His friends called him “Skip” and he played this guitar from brand-new all the way until he passed in 1995. He was born and raised in Nashville and worked in a little music store here in town, and on Sundays they would close down and they would have people come in to play and some of them were stars, and so that's where he got one of his first starts playing around with people. Then ended up being in a band called the Skipper Hunt Combo Band and they had a record on the Glenn record label in 1959. He eventually went on to play in another band called the Clefs and in that band is when he got this guitar. He played it all the way through.They played all the way down the Eastern seaboard and they played all the way over to Louisiana and played all over the place. They played some good old blues and some rock and roll and just good old music. He eventually married, settled down a little bit but, you know, joined army had three kids, and eventually settled down in Lexington, South Carolina. From there he started another band called Side Track and he played and managed and operated a couple of nightclubs in the area. He was playing a show somewhere in South Carolina and the owner didn't like the crowd that he brought in because he was a white man that could really play the blues, as they say, he brought in the “wrong crowd.”Skip wasn't happy about that so he ended up starting his own nightclub called Skip's Cabaret because he believed everybody should be able to come and attend, listen to some really good music.His very last gig was in 1995 and he played for the governor of South Carolina and then he passed soon after that of pancreatic cancer. "