Oral History Interview with Pee Wee King

[Looking at pictures] This is my mother-- Frankie, when he was 3 years and he got that bicycle. That picture was taken in 1917 at 6th and Beecher where the tavern was. The tavern is not in the picture. Those are old cottages they used to be build — one next to the other. That's my dad and mother, and her sisters and part of my dad's orchestra and some of the relatives. Now that's a concertina I learned to play - on that one. And I learned to play on my dad's fiddle. Now my brother's got it [the concertina]. He's improved it so much this looks like a harmonica next to the one he built. He worked in the concertina and accordion shop.

That's my sister and my brother Irvin. Gene wasn't born until 1926. This was I'd say, 1922. Here is my little grandson and I'll tell you what he's doing — he's pounding on the piano. Mother's singing "Jingle Bells" so he can sing it with her. And he can't suing it so he's pounding on the piano — she's a fine piano player. And I said, “where are you — about here on there?” And he said, “yeah.” I said, “what are you singing?” And he said, “Mom?” And she said, "Jingle Bells." And by God, he was looking at the music, and I told him to keep it up and he looked at me and started to laugh. And that's his laugh — when he really gets gung-ho. And the other grandparents love him as much as we do; he's just a vivacious kid, he's--I take credit for Gene's son Bobby — Robert — who collects stamps, and his dad adds to it all the time.

[Discussing baseball card collections] I don’t see any reason for a bsaeball player who gets a big salary to charge money for kids to come up and sign autographs. And we did it for nothing — on the stage. That's the difference. I knew Wayne King in Milwaukee. He was one of the most popular band leaders of his time. And he was known as the Waltz King, and he had a program on radio then--there was no television in those days — called "The Lady Esther Serenade," every Sunday.

There was a radio announcer in Chicago who had a tremendous voice and he would come

into the studios and overdub a recitation that would go with the song. His name was Franklin McCormack (??). And being a popular announcer in Chicago, he helped

Wayne with the crowds at the Aragon and Trianon.

The Aragon and Trianon ballrooms in Chicago. I always thought he came from Wisconsin; when I met him the second time, he was living in a beautiful home in Silver Lake above Green Bay — he, his wife and his daughter — they were all in the studio outside and he was editing his records and taking out the Franklin McCormick voice and just featruing his band and his music because after “The Lady Esther Serenade" went off the air, Wayne King still had his records to sell on the road. "Lady Ester" was on WBBN or WGN in Chicago. He was very popular.

The boys in the band and I met him when we were playing the lakes in Milwaukee. There are about 20 different lakes around Milwaukee. We were playing this one evening and we didn't have anybody and the manager said, “don't worry about it — Wayne King's got the crowd.” — So, he said, “why don't you boys just sack up and go on and meet him.” And that's how we met him. I met him the first time in 1930 or '31. And the second time he was in Milwaukee playing at the Eagles Ballroom.

We had another big ballroom called the Mode Mistic, but it wasn't for Wayne King's type of music — Jan Garber (??) played it and Guy Lombardo played it. And these all became friends of mine through Wayne King.

Ted Favian in my band introduced me to Wayne King in his dressing room. He didn't know him either. He said, “excuse me, Mr. Wayne King, I've got Frank Pachinski (??) here to meet [you]. And that's where we changed it to The King's Jesters. He was very cordial, very wonderful in conversation. The band had to go on stage, and he said, “go ahead and do one set and I'll take to this guy— he's on the wrong track. If he’s going to play novelty music, he should have a novelty name.” He says, “are you on the radio?” I says, “we're going to be.” He says,” then remember, K-I-N-G. Nobody can mispell it, you can’t mispronounce it, so there's your hook.” He says, “you say your name is Frank Pachinski? Say Frankie — it gives it a better ring. Frankie King.”

I legalized the name change when Lydia and I got married. But before I changed my name, I bought a car and my brother-in-law co-signed with me — Bruno Sidkski (??) and Frank Pachinski — and the guy who sold it to us was Warchowski (??).

Novelty songs — we'd make up lyrics to melodies — popular melodies of the day,

— "When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain,” "I Met Kansas City Kitty.” In those days, I'd have to refer to libraries, but we carried for spotlights we used Eight Bros Tobacco cans, and then we'd put the cellophane on top to color it with the bulbs in [the] back of it. And drummer Fat Mike had about three switches and he'd turn them on for mood music. This was for dances, parties, taverns and they had fish frys on Fridays that were out of this world, and then on Saturdays they had Polish sausage and fries. On the south side of Milwaukee, there were 3 or 4 big taverns we'd play. We’d play music for dancing, for background and for entertainment, for dedication. For example, “here's a song for the couple who just got married the other day.” And then, “we'd like to dedicate this song to Mr. and Mrs. who just got married” — "It Only Hurts for a Little While." And I'd say, “they got their 22-year-old son with them.” They'd love the jokes — just one after another.

Lenny Shaw is the proud father of a bouncing baby. Lenny would stand there and make believe he didn't know nothing about it — boy — “would the father please stand up and take a bow,” and the boys in the band would all stand up and take a bow, saying, “thank you, thank you.” Those were the silly things we used to do. We were entertainers more than we were musicians. We'd do as long a floor show sometimes as we did a dance set. People enjoyed the show just as much as they did the dancing. We played Italian music, German music, Polish music, so we satisfied a lot of people. When we rehearsed the tunes, we learned them from the sheet music and after that, we didn't need them no more [anymore]. We did requests, they'd sign their names on napkins and bring them up, or waiters or waitresses used to do it. After we got on radio a while, I thought the good gimmick would be stump the band--and they did a lot of times — ask us for requests we didn't know. We didn't have an audience in the studio but people would write in for requests and call in. There were a fellow who ran for councilman or some political office in the city, and he had heard our music, and he said, “you know what you should do __ let[s’] talk to the radio manager” — “WRJN Racine, Wisconsin. He said , “your being Polish and there being so many Polish Groceries, butcher shops and department stores in our territory between Milwaukee and Racine.”

Just a short distance from Sharpshooters Park — Veteran's Park it was orginally calied because the veterans had a sharpshboters club. And then we'd have picnics on Sundays — they 'd give you homemade bread, smoked eel and beer. Anyhow, he talked to the radio man. He said, “can they play all the types?” He said, “believe me, they can. Just tell them to hold the jokes — no jokes — just play music.” So, we'd advertise toilet paper 6 rolls for a dollar — and we'd do an English song, and the announcer would do the commercial in English. Then we'd come back with a Polish song, and he'd do the commercial in Polish. That was in Racine, Wisconsin, which isn't far from Milwaukee. And then the guy downtown was the most popular man in the whole state — Heinle Grenadiers — and when the war came on, that was the end of Heinie Grenadiers.

No German music allowed on the radio. And today, you go down to Florida, and they've got the Mexican and Cuban radio stations everywhere. I was on the radio in Racine for about 6 months. We always took off in the summer because we wanted to play those ballrooms and dances. But I lived in Milwaukee with my sister who had just gotten married. We were not paid for the radio show because we didn’t belong to the union. There was no union at that time.

We played on radio for the exposure so that when we did engagements people would know who we were. I had three of those big music stands — Frankie King and the King Jesters — all that sparkling stuff on there — I had a painter fix up the fronts for us. We had three cardboard fronts. And we'd play southern Wisconsin, Janesville, Monroe — the biggest cheese center in the world — as far west as Madison — Green Bay, Oshkosh, Appleton, Kenosha, Sheboygan. Then it was pretty straight. We played popular songs rather than novelty songs (??) on—it was ASCAP [ the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers] — the first one to charge for ballroom and radio and television. About 1940 in Nashville, the BMI [Broadcast Music, Inc.]-ASCAP war came on, and "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" was being played all the time on radio. It was a BMI song, unpublished, public domain, they called it and that's what we used to do when we were on Grand Ole Opry, we took off songs that belonged to ASCAP.

[The] Radio station would have to pay broadcasting rights. They disregard the fact they were paying royalties--- performances on record. You had to send in a list of all the tunes you played that week to ASCAP, and they'd cross them off and they'd give credit to say, Irving Berlin and all the writers of those songs would get their money from ASCAP people. What radio stations do now, they figure actaul gross -- whatever they make because they play all types of music. They make a list of the records they play and then they're sent to BMI and ASCAP and everybody, and then they take a percentage.

Some stations are so small they can't afford them, so they take out a flat-rate license and pay them, so they don't have to make out that list. Stations like Shelbyville, Bardstown, Bowling Green. When the band was playing around southern Wisconsin, we had no microphones in those days. We opened up the show with the same song each time. We'd have a set of three songs and take a short break and then start with another set and take a break. At intermission, we'd take 30 minutes, and then we'd call it our floor show, and from 12 to 1 we'd play the rest of the dance songs. One hour straight right at the end. A typical engagement would last 3 hours. Say 9 to 1 with breaks. We could get paid as much as $60 or as little as $25, depending on how much they took in at the gate. I'd ask for $3 for the boys, and $5 for me.

And we'd get additional amounts depending on the size of the crowd. And they fed us, the little taverns. They'd have fish frys. Mr. Stark, a Jewish boy, to us, had one of the classiest taverns in towns. And he was a [the] neighborhood— we didn’t have to go way out of town that way. He used to hire us every Friday if we could make it, and if we couldn't he brought us a different (??) and we'd go out to the lakes every Sunday to dances out there. He'd feed us, fish frys and Polish sausage. After the show. One of the things that helped me was my aunts would come with their boyfriends just around the neighborhood or close by. Aunt Anna or Aunt Kelly — if they wanted to come out. When we'd be playing for a fish fry, they'd bring some friends to listen to the band play. It was a big help [in getting us on our feet].

I Was playing on WIGN in Racine, Wisconsin, and Mr. Frank was looking for an accordion player. That's when I got my f irst big break. He had had a wreck; he got side swiped by another car; the tire was rubbing the car, so they found a service station where he got the tire bubed and bent fender off the tire so it wouldn't sound like a siren going down the road. And the radio was just going off — we were playing two or three songs -- and Mr. Frank said, “that's a good band. See who the accordion player is.” So, he called the radio station and as luck would have it, I picked up the phone, because I was sacked up already. He said, “this is Mr. Frank, manager of Gene Autry.” I said, “yes, sir, who's Gene Autry? He said, “he's the singing cowboy of the WLS Barn Dance.” I said, “I remember seeing his books, but I never met him or never heard him.” He said, “well, we're looking for an accordion player. “I said, “that's me.” He said, “can you double on another instrument?” I said,” I used to play [a] pretty good violin but, I don't anymore.”

He said, “have you got a bass fiddle with the band?” I says, “no — the boy doubles on tuba.” He says, “what the hell is a tuba”? I said, “it's like a bass fiddle, but it's got a big horn on it.” He says, “I don't want that. You got a guitar player?” I says, “yeah.” He says, “I thought I heard the saxophone or something”. I says, “well, he doubles on clarinet and that.” He says, “we’ll just take you—and what about the drummer?” I said,” the drummer's there.” He says, “you four boys come on; we're playing Port Washington at the theater. It's about 20 miles north of Milwaukee.” He said, “you got anything to do this afternoon?” I said, “nope — we're free.” He said, “can you be there in time for a 3 o'clock matinee?” I said, “we'll be there. “And so we come [came] out there.

And I had a pink accordion at that time. It was funny — I says, “it was first sister's accordion, now I got it.” And he says, “well we lost about 15 minutes,” and that's the way we did the show.

He was calling on a telephone from a service station in Milwaukee. He had picked up the Station in Milwaukee. While the car was being repaired, Mr. Frank was listening to us on the radio at the service station — to our music and all our silly jokes. And the service station man told him, “this is one of the most popular guy in Milwaukee — with the accordion.” I drove by one day to thank him for it! But the irony was we were all through playing and I picked up the telephone.

I met Mr. Frank and Gene Autry that afternoon. Then, I didn't see him for two weeks and he come [came] by and I went on tour with htm — I was the accordion player in the band. Two of his men had gotten hurt in the automobile accident, so that's why he took three of us, 'cause I didn't have a bass fiddle player. He needed players to back him up in a hurry. Then when his two players came back, he didn't need all of us. Then, when we came here to Louisville, after the tour, Mr. Frank called and said, “how about you and the drummer coming down here?” I said, “I don't think he can make it.” He said, “well, then, we'll get a drummer from Chicago to come down to Louisville, 'cause Gene Autry is going right to Hollywood from WHAS in Louisville.” He says, “when he leaves, I've got the Log Cabin Boys to come in and take his place.”

So Ted — sax and clarinet — and I came down and we got a trumpet player locally here — Buddy Brock — who joined the Log Cabin Boys and we were able to play dances around here. And Chuck Hurt on fiddle; Frankie Marvin on steel guitar; and others.

He called them the Range Riders — they were Gene Autry's back-up band. When Autry went to Hollywood, the Range Riders were disbanded, and we went to work with the Log Cabin Boys.

I played with Mr. Frank and Gene Autry in the Range Riders. We toured. I remember we opened at a park in southern Illinois, and then went to the Des Moines area of Iowa and came back again through Illinois and Chicago, and that's when I came down to Louisville from Milwaukee.

I didn't think it was such a great opportunity because I thought it was part-time. He said, “I'll be seeing you — I want you to come down to Louisville.” So, when the tour was over, I thought, what the hell. I toured with him about two weeks. Just me — nobody else frm my band. Because his by that time, his musicians who were hurt were back with him. [My players had played with him only one engagement — Port Washington.] But he asked me for the (??). He liked having an accordion in his band. He said, “this is different.” The other instruments in his band were bass fiddle, steel guitar and fiddle and straight guitar and my accordion was added to it. The playwrs with Gene, Frankie Marvin; Chuck Hurta (??) and--

I didn't play with them on National WLS Barn Dance because they worked Saturday nights, and we were always booked Saturday nights. But, the two weeks I toured with them, it was Lent, and people up there didn't go to dances druing Lent. So, I came back, and I figured I wouldn't hear from him again. And his group [Mr. Frank's] continued to play on the Barn Dance until he came to Louisville. I was on the Badger State Barn Dance, but that comes later. Mr. Frank was based in Chicago, but Gene had a contract to go to Hollywood to make a picture and he wanted to put him on a 50,000-watt station. He wanted Gene to have exposure around here — on the 50,000-watt WHAS. Louisville was a stopover for Gene until the time came for him to go to Hollywood. Mr. Frank was Gene's manager. Through his contacts, he got him the Hollywood contract. But Mr. Frank didn't go to Hollywood — he had no eyes for California. In those days, he knew he was going to make it--and it was tough at that time, too.

Gene Autry was likeable, a nice guy. Mrs. Frank took his Panama suit and cut the legs down to fit the boots. And he put a few decarations on his shite suit coat. And he come [came] out and said to Lydia, “what do you think of your mom's work — how do you like my cowboy suit?” And she said, “you look like a sack of oats tied in the middle.” Autry was just starting to wear Western. I didn’t know him then.

In the Western stores, you could buy Levi’s and cowboy shirts, but nothing fancy —There was one in Dallas and one in Fort Worth, a chain of stores, they made regular Western wear for the cowboys and bronco riders. What Mrs. Frank made was Gene's first dressy Western suit . Gene Autry was a Westerner — from Oklahoma. He was also a telegrapher. When I first met him, he was billed as '"The Oklahoma Singing Cowboy.” I don't know if he had a cowboy background. He had a contract with Sears Roebuck and was on the air for Sears Roebuck in Chicago on WLS. They sponsored the show and paid him for that and then he played the dates around there. I guess he rode horses [— in his youth] but until he made pictures with them, I never did see him with horses. He wrote his own songs — "Silver Haired Daddy" and stuff like that. And then sung standards made famous by other Western singers.

We had a pattern we used to do on radio shows. First of all, you do your--them song whatever you choose. Then you let one of the artists do a solo — you always had a girl singer all the time. And then you'd sing a trio. And then come back with the star singing a song and then do an instrumental and close with a religious.

The first song we used to use in the background as we signed off was "Singin’ as I go,”— it was a religious song. That’s when I was on the radio in Knoxville. When we first came on the air, we were playing square dance fiddle tunes. That was our theme song — anything you wanted to play — "Old Joe Clark" or "Fire on the Mountain" or "Eighth of January" or whatever the fiddle player decided to play. And do a happy interval — as we went on the air, we'd do a hoop-de-do.

I don't think there are any recordings for those early radio shows. We didn't do any and I don't think the stations did them. Now we used to sit at home on a--or in the studio — when we practiced up here later on — and we'd make acetates to send to NY to the A & R man (I had a record contract then) "listen to, but that was the only thing we used to do.

I didn’t play with Gene Autry in Louisville. He was already in Hollywood and I came to Louisville to play with the Log Cabin Boys. Gene played here only a couple weeks — 1934. Mr. Frank had called me and said, “the Log Cabin Boys would be on WHAS [at] 5:45 in the morning till 7 o'clock, and you open the radio station,” — our program would. It was all live. Then, after our program, they had Ash (??) and Little Jimmy Sizemore, then they had Clayton McMichen at 9 o'clock in the morning. Then he had Monk (??) and Sam — two comedians. And of course, that's how I met Foster Brooks who announced for Gene Autry and I.

I came from Milwaukee to Louisville. I brought a drummer — Al Mee (??) was the drummer and Ted Fabian. The three of us drove down to join Frankie and Freddie — Frankie Moore and Freddie Orn (??) were the Log Cabin Boys. Gene Autry didn't take the Range Riders with him to Hollywood — he only took one and that was Smiley Burnette — and Frankie Marvin (??) Autry had made records with Marvin, and Gene had known Smiley Burnette--had worked with him on some dates up in Illinois, but not in Louisville. Smiley became his sidekick In Hollywood.

There were three left here. First thing we knew, Mr. Frank was booking high schools and grade schools around here by mail. He'd write to the graduating class and say, “how’d you like to sponsor — you take 30% and we’ll take 70%.

Gene Autry was going to leave Chicago. And at that time, Mr. Frank didn't care about booking any acts up there because his aim in life was to get back to Nashville, get back to Tennessee. He was a Tennessean and he heard of the Grand Ole Opry. Well, Gene wouldn't fit the Grand Ole Opry — not with his Western songs and his costumes. So, they said WHAS was the best place. They could have just as well gone to Cincinnati.

Louisville looked more promising as a music center — recording, etc. because you had the Pickard Family, the Keenes were here from New Hampshire — and they were here during the flood — they were the only contact we had with America. They had a battery-operated transmitter for radio shows; it was tough. WHAS was a big station — 50,000 watts. There were a lot of musicians performing on WHAS when I came there. And then Mr. Frank conglomerated (???) on Bob Atcher

they'd come down here — and then he got the Callahan Brothers, who were like the

Everly Brothers, in the '30s. He brought them to Louisville, and he called them the Town and Country Boys; they came from right out of Ashville — Black Mountain. Bob Atcher and Randy Atcher were right here at West Point — they were a very popular group. And Monk and Sam — I don’t know where their home was — but they were very popular. And then we had another guy mimicking. He gave it a name — some kind of a barn dance session. Every Saturday night, we'd go to Bowling Green or Frankfort or Versailles or somewhere like that and put on the Saturday Night Barn Dance.

I played on WHAS every morning Monday through Friday from 5:45 to 7 when I first came to Louisville. The show was called '"The Log Cabin Boys." We are the Log Cabin Boys — hello, hello hello — that was it. The two boys sang, and I didn't sing. The MC was Freddie and Frankie — they owned the act — I was just the accordion player. Red Blanchard was the bass player.

Saturdays we took the show on the road, we called it a barn dance. I remember the strangest barn out in Shelbyville. I remember when Lydia and I were invited by Mr. George Johnson and his wife to go to the auto dealers' banquet and award night, and a man put his arm around me and says, “look at me just as close as you can and see if you remember me.” And I says, “do you know me?” He says, oh, my God, everybody knows you. I was a little boy when I first met you.” I says,” I probably will know you when you mention your name.” He says, “well, I'll keep you from guessing — my name is Strange— does it mean anything to you?” I said “oh, Lord, my God, we used to get there early in the evening so we could eat dinner with you all and stay there and play the dance for you.” That was Strange's Barn in our territory around Shelbyville. They wanted us to come eat with them. He was a tobacco man. It was a real barn where he stored his tobacco and hay. He built a dance floor in the middle of the barn; there were haylofts on both sides. It was principally a hay barn. There were a row of benches inside or you could stand outside. And he had great big wash tubs full of soft drinks, or beer.

The people who came were round dancers. A good square dancer can do either round or square dancing. Round dance is waltz and two-steps and that. With a square dance, the caller has to direct traffic. Mr. Strange was the caller; that's why they called it Strange's Barn. I 'd say 40, 50, 60 people would attend those dances. These were farm people mainly in their 30s. These were on Saturday night from about 7 to about 10-got to go to church on Sunday.

There was a place down there right out of Owensboro — later on we played the theater there — the Seville Theatre — a movie theater that played Westerns. And they had stage shows. They'd have live shows in addition to the movies. That would be a concert, not a dance.

You could burn out. You didn't want the same dance halls [time after time]. In Bowling Green, we played the big auditorium that was named for the general. We were called to come put on a program in memory of (??) at a big armory. They had barn dances in Bowling Green, too. There were barn dances all around the territory we traveled. We played Kentucky and Indiana as far north as Indianapolis, A little town called Kotus (??). South of Indianapolis, we played Columbus and Seymour, Scottsburg, Crothersville. Crothersville was a tavern. And west we'd play Goss’ Moonlight Gardens — a slab wall around where 60, 70, 80 people could dance. Greenville, Indiana is where Goss' Moonlight Garndens was.

That's the town where we had the wreck. Eddie was driving and fell asleep. That was back in the days when we' come back [that night after a gig], and we'd played the theater in Vincennes and had do an extra show, so we didn't get away until about midnight. Eddie said, “I don't feel like any of you guys can drive — let me drive.” I said, “Okay.” We had an--Chevy then — Pee Wee King and the Golden West Cowboys. Eddie got behind the wheel and drove from Vincennes to Greenville, and he said, “I saw that light” — there was only one light in the town — and he says, “if I can just make it to that one, I'll give somebody the wheel.” Texas Daisey was sitting in the middle, and I was sitting in back, and Milt and Estes were sitting in front. And all at once, it went Woah! He went down a bank and hit the basement of a house and jarred it, and we flew out the car. They tell me I was so raddled I was saying, “hello, operator,” as I grabbed ears of corn. I was trying to call Mr. Frank in Louisville to tell him we were in an accident! I said, “you can’t tell me that. “ He says, “go wipe the blood off your face.” I said, “why, have I got blood?” He said, “you were leaning against the seat there and Speedy Mac on the other side — he's got it on the other side of his face.” That humor! And Daisy slipped under me — the mirror — and Milt got hit — he went straight up — and the corner of the windshield— he got his nose cut like this.

Two days after that, we had a date in a little town in southern Indiana — Warsaw, I guess, or something like that--or a theater. And Mr. Frank says, “I want you to change the name on the marquee. The Golden West Cowboys aren't going to be there — it's going to be The London Refugees,” because Milt was on a crutch, and I had bandages on my face. Daisy, too, she cut her forehead. But, we played the dates.

So, Eddie Arnold just went to sleep. He had another one in Asheville, North Carolina. He was going around a mountain with Mr. Frank. He says, “by God, I'm going to pass this truck if it's the last thing I do.” And Joe says, “it might be.” And he says, “Eddie drive careful.” As he passed the truck, he saw a car coming right toward him, so he drove into the mountainside, and he just bent the wheel with his elbows and fell on it, and Mr. Frank said, “oh my God, oh my God, and he shook Eddie. “He said, “I really thought Eddie was dead.” He was just unconscious for a few seconds. But he wasn't hurt at all in the first accident in southern Indiana — like he said, I just scrunched up against the floorboard all the way then; no one was seriously injured. We walked into the theater with our bandages on and said, “here we are folks — what's left of us!”

There [are] many humorous times like this. Many. I first came to Louisville in '34, and we came back in '36. After Lydia and I got married in Knoxville in December, she came home with Mr. Frank. And then the boys in the band and I had to play a big function for a politician in Knoxville. So, that was another funny thing happened — it was one of these swank parties — and they brought us egg nog. The colored boy come around with five or six glasses of egg nog, and Ab says, “here, you like this stuff?” He says, “yeah.” The little guy says, “that's got whiskey in it.” He says, “well, take the whiskey [out] of it and you[‘re] drinking your ice cream”. He says, “I don't drink whiskey that way— I'll have whisky and water.” He put the egg nog down and went and got him a straight shot of whiskey and he was happy. Abner Sims was our fiddle player. That was the Golden West Cowboys.

When I first came to Louisville, I lived at the Chelsea Hotel, next ot the Salvation Army. And one of the ball players with the Louisville Colonels lived next door to me. He said, “why don't you guys get yourself a steady room — don't just come in for a couple of nights like that.” So I always did, and our rent was $7 a week. It was on Chestnut--Third and Chestnut. I think it's a parking lot now.

During the 1:00flood we lived there. Each member of the band had his own room. We'd eat at a restaurant next to the hotel (No, it wasn't the Gorgodas Hotel — that was next to the Savoy Theater.) I've still got a snapshot of Gene Autry at the Savoy Theater with the Golden West Cowboys, and he pulled that great big truck in there with those two horses in it. And had blocked the damn alley and the fire department come [came] in and says, “get rid of that damn van.” He says, “where am I going to put my horses” He said, “put them on stage.” He says, “yeah, but they ain't on stage all the time, they[‘ve] got to rest somewhere.” (That was later at the Savoy on Jefferson St.) The restaurant was run by an Italian guy. We used to play the pinball machines, so did all the others, the Callahan Brothers.

Daring the day when we weren't working, we'd walk around town with nothing to do. We used to rehearse just in time for radio. But we used to rehearse at Mr. and Mrs. Frank's house. They lived at Third and St. Catherine, across from Walnut Street Baptist Church. And Clayton McMichen lived right next door to them. So, when the flood came, Buddy Frank with his baby bother — one of the twins — he'd go down in the water and tighten the gas lines so they wouldn't have explosions.

The Log Cabin Boys, the Atcher family, and this ventriloquist — that was our show that we put on on Saturday nights. But five days a week we were on [the] radio with our individual acts. The ventriloquist was one of the most popular acts — everybody knew him. He had a puppet show, and he would do the ventriloquist part and the voices and he'd run the puppets, too. There were three characters — I think one was an alligator. He was very, very popular but of course, at that time there was no television.

We had Lydia and her sister specialty act with the Log Cabin Boys and then they went to work for Clayton McMichen Clayton McMichen was a fiddle player from Georgia. He was revered by all fiddle players because he set the style of doing good square-dance fiddle, but also novelty tunes — like “The Old Gray Mule," you know, he'd hee-haw and do imitations like that. Curly Fox did the best — he did McMichen better than McMichen. McMichen had a band--in Louisville, he owned the town. The band was called The Georgia Wildcats. And he had all-Georgia boys. He was from Georgia, McMichen. I'd go out with him once in a while when I didn't have nothing [else] to do because I didn't want to sit in the hotel by myself, and I was glad I did because I got to know the boys that well, and later on, as we were progressing, I got away from the Chelsea Hotel and we had a room upstairs next door to Mr. and Mrs. Frank. And we came back the next time to Louisville and the Georgia Wildcats — Slim, Loffie (??) and I and Jumpin’ Joe (??), a buck and wing dancer, we all roomed together and took turns making beds, buying groceries and all that.

This was a rooming house — at Third and St. Catherine — Dawkins Rooming House. He owned the whole corner and the hardware store across the street from it. Druing the flood, that's where we were. We didn't have to leave — we were on the second floor, third floor. The water came up even with the bottom of the kitchen floor. You could put a broom handle in a knot in the floor and touch the water.

We didn't have to evacuate. We saw the boats going by our place all the time, and they brought us beef in little milk cans — 5 or 10 gallon milk cans — and dippers. Now, when you got around Broadway, it was getting deeper up there, but where we were at St. Catherine, it was just deep enough for the boats to go through. I got pictures of that.

In the Log Cabin Boys, I played accordion, Frankie, and Freddie — the stars of the show; Frankie played guitar and Freddie played mandolin. Frankie Moore and Freddie Owens; they weren't brothers; they were partners; they started in Chicago singing duets together and that was their act; they were on the Barn Dance also. Chuck Hurd, a fiddle player; and Red Blanchard, bass player. The girl singers were Lydia and Marie; they were with the group then. That’s how I met Lydia, Marie was her sister. I got pictures of both of them. That's when I first came down to Louisville and joined the group.

Louisville was a hustle-bustle city in those days, and the farmers' market was up the street, and I thought what a difference this was from what I saw in Knoxville because Knoxville was a laid-back town and old-timey. And they called that "The Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round" and I'll tell you what I thought of it when I first walked in. It was painted purple — light purple and dark purple — and when you turned the lights on, it looked like a funeral parlor. I says to Mr. Frank, I says, “I don't see how you got talked into that. He says, “well, Joe Pearson recommended I call the guy” — he was an lowa guy, Lowell Blanchard was the general manager and Joe Peason was an announcer here in Louisville and just before the flood, he got a call to come work at the CBS station in Knoxville, so he took it. Being there for a while, he liked the town and he was there by himself — maybe he and his wife. And then he called Mr. Frank and says, “there's room for a guy like Pee Wee King and the Log Cabin Boys; you ought to bring him down here.” After the Log Cabin Boys split up — Frankie went to Wheeling, West Virginia, and Freddie went to California, and was an FBI man. Frankie organized the Log Cabin Boys up there in Wheeling then with Cousin Emmie. Cousin Emmie was a star of the Barn Dance at that time.

Those who went to Knoxville were Mr. Frank and I, Lydia, and Coreen Mirror (??) and Sally and--. The Log Cabin Boys split up because they didn’t like the set-up at the radio station worrying about a payroll, and Mr. Frank was paying all the bills and he wasn't making any money. And Mrs Frank would object saying Joe's doing all the work — he not getting enough work to keep them alive, so , she said, “maybe you should take it, Joe. Call Knoxville and see what they pay.” So, they gave us $100 a week for seven people — that was a guaranteed salary. And that was what they called scrip money in those day[s]. They gave you coupons and you could cash them in for regular money; the station paid us in scrip money. We did six shows a week there — six days a week including Saturday. That's where I met Roy Acuff and Archie Campbell antfd Homer and Jethro.

When I was in Louisville playing with the Log Cabin Boys, Louisville was a pretty big town. It was a river town. Waterbugs — all over downtown wherever you'd go — on Main St. and Washington St. I don't [think] guess--they were roaches. It must have been because of the dampness. When I first came to Louisville, the first big school I played at was at about 18th or 19th Street and Main, West High School. I do see the name when I go out there once in a while because my piano player was buried out in that territory, past the school. It's the first date we played, Mr. Frank talked to the principal and he said, “we shall need some money from the graduating class,” and he booked us in there.

It wasn't easy then. It was starvation. It was survival. Especially after the flood, we were booked into the Elks Theater at New Albany. We were booked there for three days, and we were prominent (???) for weeks at a time. Our entire barn dance is coming up there, be sure to come, and Mr. Frank had advertising and films made of the Log Cabin Boys--and that — advance traders, they called them.

And the day we were supposed to go play the date, that's when the flood hit New Albany. Had to cancel. The flood was even with the stage. We got to play there after that [the flood] but couldn't then because the stage was wet, the seats were wet, and we had to wait until they got new seats in and the whole works and It wasn't worth it. I've got that on a poster, too— Elks Theater.

I borrowed money from my mother and dad a couple of times. I had no money at all sometimes until we got a date. And then Mr. Frank would advance us some money. The 30s were bad. People would pay anywhere from a dime to 15 cents to a quarter for our events. So, when we got to the point of having our own songbooks or souvenir albums, that was [an] important part of our income. We’d sell pictures for a dime — photographs of the group. We'd sign them, they were good advertisements — come back and see us. And I've had people send me some of our Log Cabin Boys songbooks. That's where I'll find the ventriloquist's name.

Country music is the way everybody lives every day whether it's sad, emotional, happy, tragic. Western music is about the sky, the land, animals — horses especially, ranches, cowboys. The sounds are different, too. Bluegrass is completely different from Western music. I never understood Bluegrass and I would never recall a Bluegrass musician 'cause I wouldn't play a Bluegrass instrument. And that's one thing the solemn old judge couldn't understand when he says, “what is that you are playing?” And I says, “an accordion.” There were quite a few musicians playing the accordion in country music. I used to listen to a station, KMOX in St. Louis — Frankie Chrysler (???) — he was one of the finest accordion players in the territory up there. But it doesn't fit in with Western music per se — like Bob Wills. Bob Wills could never have an accordion. He met me for the first time when I had the number one Western band. And he looked at me and said, “how in the hell can a Polish boy from Wisconsin be an accordionist on “The Tennessee Waltz” and have the number one Western swing band?” I said, “Mr. Wills, all you got to do is sell records.” And he was a big salesman — Bob was very popular.

[End of Interview]