Inventor of the Orange Blossom Special
Ervin T. Rouse
Among the old-time folk and country music performers in the Miami-Dade area, Ervin Rouse was possibly the earliest known, the most famous nationally, and one of the most bizarre. He is best remembered for writing "Orange Blossom Special", a fiddle tune that developed a life of its own, though Rouse was not instantly recognized with the fame.
Ervin Thomas Lidel Rouse was born on September 19, 1918, to Ernest Haywood and Eloise "Ella" Rouse near Cove City, Craven County, North Carolina. One of 14 children, the family probably went through hard times in a rural area during the 1920s and certainly suffered even more when the Great Depression hit the United States. Among his brothers were Earl Bryan (born in 1911) and Ernest Gordon (born 1914), who eventually performed music with Ervin.
Rouse took up the fiddle as a child and left the family at a very early age - when he was eight years old - to perform with vaudeville shows around New York and Boston. He joined his brothers on the RKO Vaudeville Circuit in 1928 and remained with that outfit until 1933. At one point, he and his brother Gordon also traveled the country with an evangelist, supporting his preaching with their fiddling. Ervin even appeared with Glenn Miller's orchestra as a vocalist for a brief time later that decade. In June 1936, the Rouse brothers, consisting of Ervin and Earl on fiddles and Gordon on guitar, made their recording debut in New York City for the ARC label group. Several titles were cut in two sessions but only one disc was released on the infrequently used ARC imprint, "Pedal Your Blues Away" b/w "I'm So Tired" (#6-09-54).
Rouse settled in Miami in 1938, when he bought a house there, and continued to perform regionally. A year later, Rouse witnessed the christening of a new train that was operated by the Seaboard Air Line Railway. That train went from New York to Miami and back and was called "The Orange Blossom Special". It was the inspiration for Rouse's fast fiddle piece, originally titled "South Florida Blues" but then renamed it in honor of the train, and imitated the sounds of the Special and its speed. Rouse never rode that train actually but the song eventually became linked forever with his name.
In 1939, the brothers worked the infamous "Village Barn" in New York City, worked as songwriters for Bob Miller's publishing company and, that year in June, Ervin and Gordon, accompanied by brother Jack, recorded again, this time for RCA Victor's Bluebird label. At least six songs were cut that day, again in New York City, all of which saw release on Bluebird as well as the Montgomery Ward chain label. Among them were traditionals like "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" (made popular by the Carter Family) but also originals like "Craven County Blues" and, of course, "Orange Blossom Special". It was the beginning of a long list of recordings in the years to come. Rouse copyrighted the song in 1938, though, according to Kip Lornell in the book "Capitol Bluegrass", the first (though unreleased) version was recorded by Roy Hall's Blue Ridge Entertainers for Vocalion in November that year, followed by fiddler Walter Hurd (as "Train Special") for Bluebird in February 1939.
In the late 1930s, Rouse had met another young fiddler originally from Lake City, Florida. Robert Russell "Chubby" Wise had been born there in 1915 and met Rouse while living in Jacksonville, Florida. According to Wise, he helped Rouse to compose the melody, though other artists have uttered the theory that Rouse simply taught Wise the tune. Bill Monroe and his newly formed group, the Bluegrass Boys, recorded "Orange Blossom Special" in October 1941 with Art Wooten on fiddle. Bluebird released the result with "The Coupon Song" on #B-8893 in December that year. Monroe's frequent appearances at the nationally known Grand Ole Opry surely helped to boost the popularity of the song. Rouse himself was once invited to the Opry but turned down the offer in favor of staying in Florida.
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| UK sheet music cover of "Orange Blossom Special" |
After World War II until the mid 1950s, several more artists recorded their version of "Orange Blossom Special", including Sleepy McDaniel & his Radio Playboys (D.C./Paragon, 1947), Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith (Capitol, 1947), North Carolina Ridge Runners (Security, ca. 1947), Jerry & Sky (MGM, 1949), Preston Ward (Kentucky, 1952), Tommy Jackson (Dot, 1953), the Stanley Brothers (Mercury, 1955), among others.
Moon Mullican recorded Rouse's "Sweeter That the Flowers" for King Records in 1947 and it became another standard with nearly 30 different versions, including those by Shorty Long, Esco Hankins, Carl Story, the Stanley Brothers, or Bobby Bare. Rouse never recorded an own commercial version. His only surviving recording is a home tape from the 1970s, on which he played the song with his ex-wife's brother Virgil.
Maybe due to Mullican's hit version on King or maybe not, Ervin Rouse and his brothers became affiliated with the King label themselves in the early 1950s. They got to know Henry Stone, originally a record distributor who had turned to producing records. He owned a small record label, Rockin', on which the brothers' "Loan Me a Buck" and a new version of "Orange Blossom Special" was released in the fall 1953. When King Records bought out the Rockin' label, Stone became an A&R scout for King's DeLuxe label and headed its Miami office. He transferred the brothers to DeLuxe and reissued the single. The Rouse Brothers held a few more sessions for DeLuxe (engineered by Bob Miller, who worked as King exec bny then) until 1954 and two more singles resulted.
DeLuxe's flirtation with country music ended in the mid 1950s and the triumph of rock'n'roll sidelined the popularity of "Orange Blossom Special". It was not until Johnny Cash recorded his version of the song for Columbia in 1964 that the song started a second life. Cash recorded the song on December 20, 1964, at the Columbia Recording Studio in Nashville, Tennessee. Although it was a fiddle tune, Cash's version did not feature a fiddle but instrumental breaks by Charlie McCoy on harmonica and Boots Randolph on saxophone. Released in early January 1965, it peaked #3 on Billboard's C&W charts.
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| Sheet music cover of Johnny Cash's version |
After Cash recorded it, he wanted to know the man who wrote it and made the connection to Rouse via Miami country DJ Cracker Jim Brooker. When Cash played a concert in Miami, he invited Rouse to come on stage and perform "Orange Blossom Special" with him. "I brought Ervin up to play the fiddle, and he absolutely killed it" remembered Cash decades later.
By then, Ervin and Gordon were living in the swamps in a small community in Collier County outside of Miami, keeping music as a sideline and performing locally at rough bars for the local fishermen and gator hunters. It was a stark contrast, from living in suburban Miami and working the city's resort hotels, to the hard, sweaty life in the Big Cypress swamps and its small though venues. In the 1970s, a few local journalists and just as few music scholars set out to visit Rouse in order to interview him, which failed in most cases as Rouse, although surely entertaining, rather told exaggerated stories and hokum instead of reliable facts.
Rouse had to battle declining health and alcoholism in later years. He passed away on July 8, 1981, in Miami-Dade County, Florida, at the age of 62 years. He is buried at Southern Memorial Park in North Miami. His brother Gordon died in 1995.
Recommended reading
Sources
• NCpedia
• Randy Noles: "Orange Blossom Boys - The Untold Story of Ervin Rouse, Chubby Wise and the World's Most Famous Fiddle Tune" (Centerstream Publishing), 2002
• Tony Russell, Bob Pinson: "Country Music Records" (Oxford University Press), 2004, p. 815
• "The Encyclopedia of Country Music" (Rouse brothers biography by Charles K. Wolfe) (Country Music Foundation), 1998, p. 460-461
• Kip Lornell: "Capitol Bluegrass - Hillbilly Music Meets Washington, D.C." (Oxford University), 2020, p. 32
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