Riddle and Phelps

Riddle and Phelps were an American musical duo.

They were regular cast members in Hee Haw, almost always appearing together.

Jimmy Riddle
James Lawrence "Jimmy" Riddle (3 September 1918 – 10 December 1982) was an American country musician and multi-instrumentalist. He was primarily known for the vocal art of eefing.

Riddle was born in Dyersburg, Tennessee and got into show business in Memphis, Tennessee at age 16 by passing the hat in a local beer joint. He moved to Texas in 1939 where he later met Roy Acuff. He joined Acuff's Smokey Mountain Boys group in 1943 and became a regular member of the band. playing harmonica, piano, and accordion, until his death.

Riddle was a featured performer on Hee Haw in the late 1960s and early 1970s. One day in 1970 he and guitarist Jackie Phelps were fooling around backstage, Phelps doing the rhythmic knee-slapping known as hambone while Riddle eefed. Co-star Junior Samples was so impressed he encouraged the two to perform the routine for the producers. "The Hambone Brothers" became a semi-regular feature of the show. In the early 1980s Riddle joined Boxcar Willie's touring band, playing the harmonica solos, but remained in Acuff's band on the Opry.

Riddle died of cancer in Nashville in 1982, aged 64.

Jackie Phelps
Claude Jackson "Jackie" Phelps (25 October 1925 - 22 April 1990) served as both guitarist and banjoist with Bill Monroe as a member of the Bluegrass Boys. When banjo honcho Earl Scruggs and his new sidekick Lester Flatt disrupted gravity on earth by leaving the Monroe band in 1947, Phelps came in as replacement guitarist, flanked by new banjoist Don Reno. In 1954 he put in another stint as a Bluegrass Boy, utilizing a two-finger banjo style and leading to the following assessment from fiddle whiz Benny Martin: "That sumbich could play 'Little Rock Getaway' on a jew's harp!"

As a guitarist, Phelps was greatly influenced by the sophisticated, uptown but still twangy guitar instrumental records of Chet Atkins. When Phelps first started making a name for himself in Nashville, he played quite heavily in the Atkins style, parlaying this into a regular gig on the Grand Ole Opry. In the mid-'50s, Phelps joined Roy Acuff's Smoky Mountain Boys when Acuff, wincing at the new popularity of rock & roll, finally relented and tried integrating the dreaded electric guitar into his band. The idea bombed for Acuff, who was hardly the rocker type, but did nothing to hurt the reputation of Phelps in Nashville.