Down memory lane. No lessons in this essay. Just nostalgia.
July 14, 2007 (Saturday) – I’ve included a link to a photo of the original Chuck Wagon Gang, which includes a copy of the song they sang as they came on the air each day (“Bewley Mills is here again..”). I always loved to hear them sing. I have a few of their 33 1/3 records, which I ordered many years ago from the radio station in Del Rio and Acunya that used to power up at night and overpower the other stations. Remember, “Keep them cards and letters comin’ friends?”
The Calvary Baptist Church of Rockport had a pastor in the mid-nineties whose wife was a grand daughter of the lead singer, Rose. He told me that Rose was in her eighties and living in Azle, Texas at that time. Azle is near Fort Worth, between Lake Worth and Eagle Mountain Lake. Wanda and I lived in that area a few years when I was still in the seminary. Wanda taught school at Azle.
Another group from Fort Worth that was sponsored by a flour mill was “The Light Crust Doughboys.” They came on the air each day with their theme song, “”Listen everybody, from near and far if you wanta know who we are. We’re the Light Crust Doughboys from Burrus Mill.” Their boss, W. Lee O’Daniel, president of Burrus Mill, became their announcer in 1935. Fired from the company in 1938, O’Daniel started his own flour company, “Hillbilly Flour,” and his own band, The Hillbilly Band. People liked it so much they elected him governor of the state of Texas. He and his band are parodied in the movie, ‘O Brother Where Art Thou.” O’Daniel later became a United States Senator from Texas.
He was known as Pappy O’Daniel, and on every broadcast, someone would say, “Pass the biscuits, Pappy.” He had a daughter named Molly, and my grandfather always had a cat named Molly. It was no coincidence.
The leader of the Lightcrust Doughboys was Bob Wills, who started his own fiddle band in Waco, near his birthplace of Kosse, where I was pastor in 1959-1961. Pappy split with Wills, the “King of Western Swing” because he drank too much.
There is no moral to this little treatise, just an attempt to stir up memories for all of us from an earlier era. Oh, yes, the Chuck Wagon Gang became famous in Fort Worth, but they originated in Lubbock, where some of the pioneers of Rock Music later started out. Who would have thought?
Oh, one more thing. The Chuck Wagon Gang recorded with a couple of acoustical stringed instruments, that’s all. And an old microphone that would be in a museum today. When they made personal appearances around the state, there was no electric sound system. Wonder how they made music without all the fancy stuff we seem to need today?
