Oral History Interview with Pee Wee King

[Looking at a 1920 post card of downtown Milwaukee] We used to go to the movies at this theater — saw "It Happened One Night.” It's changed a little. I was going to show you a picture of me with a moustache — that's when I had the King's Jesters. That was 1933. I smoked Old Gold cigarettes. Used to keep a pack on the bandstand all the time. I've quit smoking, but I started about the time I was a bandleader, I thought it was fashionable. About the time I grew the moustache, I looked like Bruno Hauptmann. My sister said, “you remind me of that German guy who stole Lindbergh's baby.” And then I quit smoking when Lydia got pregnant, and we had our apartment, and she said, “do you have to smoke?” I says, “no.” She says, “I tell, you it bothers me and carrying the baby isn't helping it.” I says, “Okay, here it is.” So. I flushed them down the toilet and never bought a pack of cigarettes since then. I quit cold turkey unless I'd ask for a puff on somebody's cigarette now and then. I smoked about five years. It shouldn't have done much damage but look at all the joints we played — the NCO clubs and big dance halls. And I told Red (??) recently, you're about two tones down from where you used to be. He had a high-pitched voice but now he's down low in a bucket. It's all that smoking. And he smoked cigars — Panama cigars. But he quit, too.

[Discussing bad habits] A lot of the time I'm late and it's due to the fact that people recognize me, and they'll talk a little while, and the first thing I know, “while you're here, let me call my neighbor.” Then I get home late for supper. When I smoked, me and the boys would go through a whole pack in one evening. I didn't smoke in the daytime — didn’t have time. I was a sociable drinker but never got addicted to it. The bad part of it — the era I played the army camps, Zero clubs and Officers' clubs — they'd ask you to come to their tables at intermission and sign their napkins — autograph them — and they'd say, “you do drink Scotch?” I'd say, “well, how'd you find out?” They'd say, “well, I asked the drummer what you liked.” And years ago, I used to drink Scotch.

Then, more in Tennessee, Jack Daniel’s] whisky, which is tough — the toughest — you really get

the bourbon when you drink that. When I had my stroke about '78, I said to heck with this bourbon, I want to switch to vodka. I said, “it's smoother and it’ll probably taste better.” And since then, I usually have one before dinner or maybe two. Vodka, lemon, and lime. But, I never had a drinking problem. Lydia and I have had our ups and downs. We've arguments and--but nothing we couldn't solve by ourself. We didn't have to go to a counselor or [anything] nothing like that. She never left me, and I never left her. That's one thing I was always taught — when you're married, you're married for life. And that's the way it has been. I remember my dad saying, “don't you ever strike Lydia because every man who's ever struck a woman, his arm fell off.” I says,” how do you know?” He says, “you read about it — wait and see”. He got his point across to me, he never hit my mother. That's the way I was brought up.

I can see our kids as we were in our younger married life. The closeness. How else can you have a 78th birthday party and not have three people but 28! And we could have more, but a few couples had to visit some hospital patients.

That was held on the Sunday before my birthday, which was on Tuesday. It started about 5:30 and the last one left about 1 a.m. All but my son and daughter-in-law up in Michigan, and they called us about 8 that night to say they wished they could be here but couldn't. The three that live here — Dean, my daughter Marietta and her husband, Larry and his wife Shirley and their daughter. Dean had his two sons and their wives and children. And some others and friends. We just sat around and talked and visited. We hadn't seen each other since Christmas. There was no time to talk then because we opened all the gifts at the Christmas party. We watched the children play. I enjoy my grandchildren — oh, man. I go up and see my grandson every couple of months. We have six grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and four of own. I'm proud of them; they're all doing well.

And they didn't have to follow in their dad's footsteps and hate their business. I always

remember that about Justin Tubb. Tubb and I got to be very good friends after Mr. Frank became his manager. And of course, Justin being the oldest boy, in fact, the only boy, he and I got to be friends, and he and Marietta got to be friends, and he used to come out to the house once in a while and visit her. And he said one of the things that bugged him was his dad said he wanted him to follow in his footsteps if possible. And I said, “do you have other aspirations — what do you want to be?” He said, “I’m too young to know what I want to be.” He was in high school at the Military academy in Columbia, Tennessee. His mother and dad sent him down there for disciplinary reasons, I guess. He did become an entertainer.

The same thing happened to Marty Robbins. Marty was one of the finest people in the world. His son knew what he was going to do — he was going to follow in his dad's footsteps. And he took over the business. His name is Robin Robins. And Faron Young — his son stayed in the business. But they never became as big as their fathers. Johnny Cash's daughter, Roseanne— she became big. But she and her husband divorced and that kind of huts because two people successful in their field should stay together, I thick.

I don't believe in divorce. There's got to be a way to figure out where the trouble is. I think there is. I'm grateful — Lydia and I have had 55 years together, never left one another or even talked about divorce. And I think if they'd stop and think of the cost and troubles of divorce, they shouldn't consider it. Today couples live together before they get married — to try it out. In our day, we didn't. We went together but didn't live together.

I never wished I had married anybody else but Lydia. That's an honest answer. I was also very fortunate to have a father-in-law who was my manager and he taught me many things because this was the only business I wanted to be in, the music business. I tried to follow in his footsteps, and I marvel at some of the deals he made. When one of his stars was falling down a little bit, he had to boost him up to get on top again. And Mr. Frank managed a lot of pretty good artists — Grand Ole Opry artists.

We were together on the road all the time. And Lydia was in the business, too. And she traveled with us, and when we started raising a family, she decided to devote all her time to her family. Once or twice after that, when her sister came down from Chicago, we tried to put them on the air but they wouldn't go, but they'd sing around the house, and it sounded so good. Lydia had a perfect ear and she could sing any part harmony you gave her. If she ever regrated giving up her career, she didn't say

Nothing [anything] about it — she loved her kids.

Her mother was the same way. As I told you, she took Gene Autry's pants and cut them down. She took an interest in the people Mr. Frank was managing and he had some good acts on the WLS Barn Dance, and also Fibber McGee and Molly, and Gene Autry, for instance. The first time I ever saw Lydia, I was in Mrs. Frank's house — she invited two of us guys in the band to come up and have Creamettes (??). German food. For a quick lunch, you'd fix a pot of Creamettes.

Ted Fabian went with me. We both were single, I was 21. Her sister was here at that time for a short while and then she went back to Chicago and married. Lydia also had two brothers — and a total of three sisters. So, five children altogether. It was just a friendship thing. Lydia and Marie were together constantly. And Marie talked about leaving sometime in the future because she was going to get married. When she came back down and got married at the Walnut Street Baptist Church, Lydia and I stood up to the wedding. We weren't married then — about a year later, I'd say.

I began to get serious about Lydia when we were in Knoxville, Tennessee, when the Golden West Cowboys started to get organized. And her partner Sally went back home to Pittsburgh with this guy called Curly Miller. And then we started dating. We'd go to the movies or out somewhere to eat. I didn't propose to her in a proposal way — I wasn't that romance. We just hit it off from the beginning — companionship together — and then the winter of '36, we were still in Knoxville. And we came here in '37, and Marietta was born here that fall. And Easter Saturday and Sunday, we went to the Grand Ole Opry and did our broadcast down there and that's when they offered us a job--— as an auditions. (??) And I says, “well, you can stay if you want. And we said, “Mr. Frank told them that we are booked on the way back at Horse Cave, Kentucky, at the theater.” So they said, “can you come back next Saturday?” That was when the Opry was at the tabernacle on (??) Street out In the East End. So, when we came back, we had to live somewhere so there was a little complex — I'd say about three houses together— and we lived at 13 S. 13th St. in Knoxville.

We ran away to Sevierville — in the Smoky Mountains — to get married. Dolly Parton is from there, but I don't think she was around then. But the preacher who married us was still around and she looked him up one time for us and she said, “please, stop in Sevierville when you go down to Pigeon Forge and see Preacher Fox — he's still living. 94 years old.” When we got there, I inquired about him and they told me he lived further in the country, and we had some people with us and had limited time to see Gatlinburg. I tried to call and didn't get an answer, and they said, “he is pretty feeble,” and 94 years old, I figured, well, maybe he was sick or something. So, we didn’t see him. I don’t think he’s still living because this was years ago.

I told Dolly: we were married by a preacher named Fox. She said, “I know him. And the church is still standing.” A typical little small-town church, it was a white church. I don't remember what denomination it was — I didn't even ask! It was a two-ring ceremony, and it was the first time the preacher had performed a two-ring ceremony. And my fiddle player Abner Sims and his wife Alice stood up to the wedding. And we're still friends — Alice and I and Lydia talk to each other on the phone — but she's so bent up with arthritis. And her husband passed away several, years ago.

We had to crawl through a window to get in the church. He didn't have the key to it. We called him at home, and he came there and said, “oh my God, I'll have to go back home.” Abner says, “watch,” he raised the window and he went in — he was a tall, lanky, skinny kid — and he opened the door and the preacher performed the ceremony. There were just the five of us.

A lady friend of ours who was a fan — she lived in Sevierville — she used to

come to the "Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round" — she says, “I'll get you the preacher,” but they

didn't come to the church.

It will still light. We had been on the air from 12 to 1 in Knoxville on the "Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round" — the barn dance in Knoxville. Sevierville was about 30-35 miles away. The roads weren't too good — for a long time there, there was just a two-lane highway.

We didn't take a honeymoon until later. We spent our first married night together right there at the motel in Knoxville where we were living, on the north side of Knoxville. An old-timey cabin or motel with single rooms — we had 3 rooms. About a week later, we went back to Sevierville and had our honeymoon at the hotel there. That was a Sunday, so we had no barn dance.

We went to Knoxville because Mr. Frank got that call from Mr. Joe Pearson who as working at WNOX at that time. He was leaving WHAS which was a CBS station in Louisville and applied for a job at WNOX which was a brand-new station opening up in Knoxville. And a man from Iowa, Mr. Westerguard (??), he was the owner. And he was the one who hired Joe Pearson to come there. And Mr. Pearson called Mr. Frank and he says, “Frank, I'll tell you what — I've got a perfect set-up for you and your group. Bring them down here.”

And the name of the barn dance we had here in Louisville was the Crazy Water Barn Dance on Saturday nights. Crazy Water — that was a medicine — they sponsored us. A medicine like Hadocol— a tonic. Mr. Frank combined 3 or 4 acts. The Log Cabin Boys were still together — Freddie and Frankie - but two of our people went (???) to the Barn Dance and left, and then he got the Callahan Brothers, they didn’t like the setup either, so they left. Mr. Frank got Bob Atcher and the Atcher family — and the name of the act was Bob Drake (???) and he called his puppets the Jackson family. He would be on the radio and the people who'd come to see him at WHAS — he'd have a little screen and all that. I remember the alligator was the mean guy, and he had a name for him. Mr. Drake could take those little puppets and do the voices with them. And he got so popular Mr. Frank hired him to go on the road with us. And he put him [in] for about a 10-minute act on the show. And it would break up some of the singin’ and pickin'.

Audiences wanted a variety; at dances they wanted a floor show too. Even the big Bands, they did too. That's the way I learned it. We weren’t playing country music then; it was novelty stuff. Freddie and Frankie were the ballad singers. "There's A Big Rock Candy Mountain" and things like that. Folk songs, and then he put out a book and I've got a book of Log Cabin Boys right there downstairs in my file. And I've got the first book Mr. Frank and I — he found[ed] a publishing company back in 1943, and we had about 12-15 songs and we put them in a songbook with my picture, holding an accordion. Pee Wee King and the Golden West Cowboys — 25 songs for 25 cents and we were selling that on the road. Sold them in school auditoriums, which is where we usually played on the road, and once in a while in a big auditorium like the one in Bowling Green, or a theater like the one in

Owensboro.

Country people were playing country music back then like the Atcher family; they lived out in the country at West Point. When they played with us, they played the country songs. When we played our part of the show — the Log Cabin Boys — Ted Fabian played the clarinet and sax, and I played the accordion, and our drummer — he was a comedian; Chuck Hertle (?) played a fiddle tune; so it was variety more than it would be in a country-music show. We were a back-up (??).

I was a converted country musician. I'll compare it this way, If Kitty Wells would sing "How High the Moon," and recorded it, she wouldn't sell a record. If I tried to do a hillbilly song and talked like they do out in Virginia — about and house — it wouldn't go for me. And I wouldn't feel right, so I played what I thought was Western music. And then when the solemn old judge told me that accordion wasn't a Western instrument, I said, “well, if you remember Western movies, there was always somebody there with an accordion or harmonica. And a fiddle.”

I' in the Country Music Hall of Fame. If you read the plaque, it'll say: “for his accomplishments in the progress of country music.” The original Golden West Cowboys weren't really dance-minded at that time because they came from Kentucky. all except

(??) and Curley. And Milton was from Middlesboro, Kentucky, and Red Penn was down from Georgia. But by putting the two together, we melded so good it was a different sound completely. And when fee went to the Grand Ole Opry, we were an organized group. And we played harmony, and we knew when there was a dull spot and have one of the instruments back them up with music. And then play an instrument, a violin playing a single note, maybe. And maybe an accordion playing two-part harmony. Well, it was just a well-rehearsed band, that's all.

We were more of a modern Western band. When I first heard Bob Wills ‘band, I thought that was one of the greatest Western bands — I tried to copy him. And when I heard Spade Cooley, he was even better — classier. Bob Wills doesn't have an accordion, and the leader of our band was Pee Wee King, so we always included an accordion solo of some kind.

Some of the solos I played, a novelty tune, "Dream Train" I used to do and would imitate train sounds; then "Tiger Rag" was very, very popular; that was when I worked a deal out with the guitar player. Every time he pulled on my accordion in "Hold That Tiger, Hold That Tiger", I'd smear across the keys on the right side and that would make the sound. So, we would work up novelty stuff.

We formed the Bolden West Cowboys in Knoxville in the latter part of 1936. That was the original Golden West Cowboys. And we played on WNOX Monday through Saturday, 12 to 1 on the "Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round." There were others there, too — Archie Campbell, Homer and Jethro, Albany (???) Musko and his modern band — a four-piece combo — all on the same program. Everybody had to do one number and be sure it was something they remember you by, because there was no television — it wasn't visual — and people had to Imagine what you looked like. Pee Wee they thought was a great big heavy-set guy. Archie Campbell used to tease me all the time — “do you ever have people mistake you for somebody else?” I said, “Sure. Some of them think I'm Tiny, I don't know who Tiny is.” They said, “well we had a Tiny on the barn dance a long time ago. “

He used to do a funny line. We had four 15-minute portions in the hour-long show. One portion was sponsored by Red Ash Charcoal Co. — Red Ash Coal — and he made a mistake always and he wouldn't say it with "ash.” He said, “get your hot coals while they’re here, you know where to get them, good ol' Red Ash Coal,” and that became a little monicker of his. I believe Planters Peanuts sponsored our portion of the program. They always had that peanut man. I think somewhere in my scrapbooks I got a program of the whole thing and got them to autograph.

Archie was the emcee. Lowell Blanchard was the announcer; he was from that territory, and he made a good emcee, well, he was assistant general manager. The townspeople were mostly the only ones who'd come to the afternoon shows. They were close by, and they'd have their lunch break or dinner break. We had people coming to the studio every day to hear us.

The first time we parked there and started unloading our instruments, WNOX looked like a funeral home because it was purple and black. And I thought, wow, Mr. Frank, what did you get us into now?! But we managed to have a good time down there, and that's where I met Roy Acuff. The audience could come to the show each day, and it was free. There were benches like at a church. It seated about 400 people. But it was packed on Saturday night — it would go three hours. It was broadcast, too. That's where you make your reputation — on the radio. The stronger the radio station, the farther out you get to play the dates.

That's what Mr. Frank was always looking for — a 50,000-watt station. That's WHAS. We'd play schoolhouses. We used to have matinees at 3 o'clock and then a night show — right in the same town - in the high school. Three o'clock for the kids was 10 cents, and 15 cents, and 25 cents at night for the show. We'd do it for our own posters. A lot of times, Mr. Frank would fix if so if we were going to play up to Bristol, Tennessee, or Virginia, and we knew we were going to go up in that territory, he'd book two or three schools. And we'd put up our posters. We'd put up posters all the time or leave them in grocery stores or hardware stores. This would be a day or two or three before the concert. You could script in the date.

Before we were billed as Pee Wee King and the Golden West Cowboys, it was the individual names. We didn't have a name on there when we went down there [Knoxville] because we dropped the name in Louisville. Crazy Water Barn Dance — that was a tag. And [when] we got there [Knoxville], we were individuals.

We had not formed the Golden West Cowboys at that time. I went to Milwaukee one time when we were in Knoxville and contacted Curly and Daisy and they came to Knoxville. And Jack — the three of them. In the meantime, Mr. Frank got Milteo Estes (??) and made a comedian out of him. And he became the emcee because he had a hell of a brogue — one of those Georgia-Alabama brogues. And he said it would be better for him to emcee the shows. He sounded more country. I couldn't have done that —"sure 'nough and "here you all now." I used to say "tirdy-third" and "fordy-fourd." And he says, “we're going to play three musics tomorrow over to the dance." It was strange for me; it took a long time for me to get used to it.

But, lot of the people who listened to me on the radio in Knoxville were country people. They listened at home or at work. Farmers came in a lot of time in the afternoon and would come to the show, or they would come from the fields and listen to us while they had lunch or dinner at 12 noon. The middle of the afternoon would have been a bad time because they were back working, and supper time wouldn't have worked either because they had to be in the barns, and they went to bed early on weeknights. In Kentucky, they'd be working in their tobacco fields.

We were in Knoxville in 1935 and 1936. In Dec. of '36, I got married. I think before ’36, we started getting ready to leave there. It was in Christmas and New Year's we were going to be back in Louisville. We left Knoxville because we didn't like it no more [anymore] — we had burned out with the territory. And we were offered a job back here again — at WAVE. I had been at WHAS earlier. WAVE didn't have as strong a signal, but they offered us a job and paid us for it. We had a sponsor then called Peroona (??) Medicine. Mr. Frank went to Chicago and got Harry — he talked him into putting us on WAVE. He’d talked to the sponsors, Peroona Medicine, about putting us on. It was a tonic; the country people who’d listen to our shows seemed to be the kind who would buy the patented medicines at the drugstores.

Hadacol was Hank Williams' sponsor. When they had it here, Bob Hope was with it — the Hadacol people paid him to be the star of the show. And heck, they couldn't even get rid of Hank Williams — he was the star of the show. So, Bob put on one of those comedy hats — a big, tall cowboy hat — and come out there and then started his gag routine. But I mean Hank Williams was IT. Hank Williams filled that ballpark — Parkway Field — on Eastern Parkway by U of L [University of Louisville] He was so popular.

I formed the Golden West Cowboys about November of 1936 while I was still in Knoxville. We played down there for a short while as the Golden West Cowboys. I think they extended our contract for 7 or 8 weeks and Mr. Frank said, “well, let's sweat that one out and we'll leave after that.” And he came to Louisville and we were still down in Knoxville doing our broadcasting. Once in a while we'd get to play a party or a dance, but we were not a dance band. But we played what we thought were songs they danced to. When you do that, you're limited to what you can do.

Mr. Frank named the band. When he was managing the road show in Chicago, there were two girls who were very popular on the barn dance called Millie and Dolly — the Girls of the Golden West. And that name stuck in his mind. So, he said, “well, kid, you want to lead a band — we'll call it the Golden West Cowboys. “I said, “it's all right with me. Get a couple of other guys to come down here. I know the ones who'll leave the Badger State Barn Dance because they're good friends of mine, and they're from Wisconsin.” He said, “are they going to talk like you — deese, dem and dose!!!!” I said, “no, they don't sing that way — they sing right.”

The members of the original/Golden West Cowboys were Abner Sims on fiddle, Curly Rhodes on bass — he's still living — he's the only member left. Texas Daisy, his sister, she was one hell of a yodeler and a damn good ballad singer, she played the guitar while she was singing. Jack Skaggs from Brownsville, Kentucky, on guitar; and I played the accordion, five altogether.

Milton Estes was emcee; he played the guitar also. He was from Middlesboro, Kentucky, so that made six. There were two Kentuckians out of the six. Abner Sims was from Indiana, and the rest of us were from Wisconsin.

We didn't have anybody west of the Mississippi — I didn't know anybody west of the Mississippi River. My friends were limited. I don't think I had been west of the Mississippi myself. In the early days at WHAS, they took us as far as Paducah and Evansville but not further west, I don't believe.

The first time I saw the Goden West was in 1938. We did the movie with Gene. We performed Western songs like "Gold Mine in the Sky" — it was one of the hits because of the movie with Gene Autry, and there were many Carson Robinson songs — "Bury Me Out on the Prairie" (??) and "Red River Valley."

We were trying to write our own songs — attempting to — but we couldn't quite make them popular, so after we came here and rehearsed at WAVE and the flood, and we had a lot of time on our hands, so we'd sit together and go through some of the books we had. And we'd start getting ideas and start writing some more songs. From then on till we come [came] out with the songbook.

We were writing songs — "Singing as I Go" — that's a religious song; "Lilies of the Field.” Mr. Frank and I wrote these. He'd think of a title — "My Cowboys are Riding Out for Uncle Sam" — a little girl singer — when the wartime came, she wrote songs for her boyfriend going to the Army. Becky Barff (??).

With the Golden West Cowboys, I started writing songs seriously because I knew then how commercial it was to be able to write a song and publish it and play it on the radio. And have a songbook and sell it. We had a regular pattern where we opened up with a fast fiddle tune, a square dance number or a shout number. Shout number is gang style — all the musicians sing it together. "Wait for the wagon, wait for the wagon, wait for the wagon, we'll all go home." And ballad singers did a nice song. And then Texas Daisy the cowgirl would do a yodel song. And the comics — two or three of them — we had three of them they used to call the Bardstown Buckle Busters; they did comedy songs. And then I'd probably do an instrumental with the accordion — a solo. Then we'd come back with a religious song.

So, when he played a half-hour show, you'd mix a few jokes. One of the things I learned a long time ago — Mr. Frank taught me — he says, “now here's Texas Daisey — got a cute little cowgirl. She sings and yodels and while she does, she does a little dance once in a while. That is because you want to present an image in the people's mind.” Like he used to do for me, he says, “well, hare’s little Pee Wee King — we're going to get that Coca-Cola box for him to stand on and put on his big heavy accordion. And the people would feel sorry for you if they knew you were a little-bitty guy. And then like Cowboy Jack — here's a tall, lanky cowboy — it looks like he just got out of a saddle — he'll sing one of the fine Western songs for you.”

Mr. Frank never served as emcee. He wanted no part of it. He was always behind the scenes. We learned from him that there's one person who's the principal and he's at the microphone. As long as he's there, don't detract from him in any way. I mean, like, “hey you, what key are we in?” Or something like that. He said, “you don't do that — on stage or on the air.”

When you go down to the Grand Ole Opry and the first thing you see is the solemn old judge, he is the master of ceremonies because he started the barn dance. And everybody's on the stage at one time, and you sit there and that gets tiresome. And somebody will say, “hey, did you hear about Joe Blow - he's sick in the hospital. You want to go see him?” Well, that guy’s at the microphone, or that girl is at the microphone, and you're detracting from her doing the best she can to become popular, 'cause when you come up there, they can do the same thing. If you're on stage, you pay attention to the principal — he's the star, — the person who's performing at that time.

In those days, they had more string music than singing. Fruit Jar Breakers, the GullyJumpers (??) and the Dixieliners — and two boys who were very popular is the Delmore Brothers — and Uncle Dave Macon, he was the star of the barn dance. We were taught tea never to try to take away from the star of the show.

I met Roy Acuff when I was still in Knoxville. He was playing the radio station down there. But not "The Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round" — they got a separate deal. Dan Stacey used to play honkey-tonks and that in the Knoxville area, and they were called the Crazy Tennesseans because they did a lot of comedy — crazy comedy. It was Roy Acuff and his Crazy Tennesseans. He — Roy Acuff — was the one who got the recording contract with Columbia Records — it was his voice; he got the contract for the whole group. Their radio program — they come [came] on more or less in the evening — about 5 or 6 o'clock. So, it didn't interfere with us at all.

Later on, there was a guy who had a big department store, Caswell Walker. Everybody knew Caz Walker. He got so popular running that department store he ran for mayor, and he made it. And he became so popular he could have run for governor, but he didn't — he didn't want the job. But Caz Walker was just a household word. It was just like saying, “I'll meet you down at K-Marts.” He had his own radio show — he sponsored Roy Acuff. Roy was the emcee, but Walker did the commercials.

Roy Acuff and I worked the dance together. Riddle Springs, I think it was — it was a golf course. And they wanted to do a Hillbilly Jamboree, they called it. And they hired both bands — ours and also Roy Acuff. And that's how we got to meet each other.

But I had heard him play on the radio, and he had heard me play on the radio. That's how he and Mr. Frank got together. So, when we were in Nashville, Joe contacted Roy right away. He said, “Roy, you're missing the boat.” He said, “man, you come here — you won't have to be stuck in a little town like Knoxville. Especially with your record.” He said, “your contract now — you can go national.” Acuff already had a contract with Columbia when he was in Knoxville.

The kinds of songs Roy Acuff sang then were folk songs — I mean real country, tragic. The songs he wrote had religious tendencies — "The Great Speckled Bird" — I think he wrote that. That and "Wabash Cannonball" are kind of his trademark songs, but he didn't write "Wabash Cannonball. “That was written before his time.

Acuff is 11 years older than I am. He had tried out for the ballpark, and he said after that sunstroke, that would be the end of his ballplaying days. He couldn't take the sun. He was playing ball in Knoxville, but he wanted to go to the big leagues — not just sandlot. He might have tried out for the big league — I don't know. He had had his sunstroke before I knew him. He was like I was — just hellbent for music. I mean, if somebody had offered me a job, I wouldn't have taken it anyhow. Still, there was very little money to be made in the music business. Of course, nobody made any money in it back then — it was pretty hard times. Middle '30s — just getting over the crash at that time.

I didn't understand Acuff's music, to keep singing sad songs all the time, I'd have to learn to cry! [chuckles] It wasn't detrimental — it's just that it wasn't my cup of tea. His sound was so different from mine. Well, he had the steel guitar, and we had the accordion. His singing had a country twang — he was a Tennessean after all. He was a great guy. And Mildred, his wife, and Lydia and I, when we found out we got married at the same time, every year we'd swap cards. We celebrate our anniversaries at the same time.

to I remember Archie Campbell from those days who went on to the Opry. He's not considered a singer, but he has got a good voice. And from 'The Mid-Day Merry Go Round," we had the Carlisle Brothers. Gil Carlisle and his brother, they were on. And they all stayed with country music and his brother went to precaching' — became a minister. And Homer and Jethro; they were on the "Mid-Day Merry Go Round.” They were Tennesseans too. There was an accordion player, Tony Musco, Italian, and he formed a group called something like the Harmonaires. Out of the whole Mid-Day Merry Go Round,” I’m trying to think if there was a girl singer at that time.

Kitty Wells — she and I would cross paths a lot of times playing different communities in Tennessee. They'd be going one place and we'd be going to another. We'd stop in a restaurant and have a cup of coffee and a sandwich, and visit. Johnny, Jack, and Kitty — they used to have the Tennessee Valley -----something. They were popular down there.

Back in Louisville during the flood, we didn't have nothing [anything] to do so we rehearsed all the time — rehearsed, rehearsed and rehearsed. Mr., and Mrs. Frank got an apartment at Third and St. Catherine and we lived at the Chelsea Hotel, and we rehearsed at the Franks'. And we rented an apartment from Mr. Dawkins, and about three or four boys lived here at that time.

We didn't go out during the flood. We tried to hitch a boat that was going to the grocery store or something, but we didn't get it. The boat came right down by Third and St. Catherine. But we managed somehow to get food — to get out for food. We were not evacuated — there was no reason because everybody was comfortable. But we were prisoners.

When we played at WAVE we had a noontime show — 12 noon to 1 p.m. It was called "Pee Wee King and the Golden west Cowboys,” or "Pee Wee King and his Golden West Cowboys” — and “The Original Golden West Cowboys." Mr. Frank wanted to stress that it was an original band. So that was the first name — “Pee Wee King and his Original Golden West Cowboys.”

We were booked in the Elks Theater when the flood hit. Then we couldn't get out to do dates anywhere because of the flood. Some of the cars at Third and St. Catherine were underwater. I remember Lydia's brother going down and turning the gas off so it wouldn't explode.

When we were based in Knoxville, before Lydia and I got married, I had no girlfriends. She had no boyfriends. We were there working together every day, so I know. When we weren't working, we were rehearsing for the next day's show or something like that. And she and Sally lived together, and I lived with one of the other boys.

You know the old saying — psst, psst, your fly's open. That's happened to me. That's about the most embarrassing thing to happen during a performance. We messed up in the middle of numbers. One morning at WAVE — we had two radio shows to play back then — Patterson's (??)/Fruit Trees. This was our sponsor at 6 o'clock in the morning. We had a 6 o'clock show and a 12 o'clock show on WAVE. You sent in your money for your trees and if you'd buy 6 apple trees, you'd get 14 other trees free if you act immediately. They'd send you a little twig! It was a radio show and we got paid for it, so it didn't make any difference.

On WHAS, we always got paid. On WSM — the Grand Ole Opry — they didn't pay. [The] Union dictates if you’re sponsored on a half-hour show or anything, there's a certain [pay] scale that you get. And I was a member of the Musician’s Union. The Louisville Musicians Protective Association or whatever it was. I'm still a member, it's an official union — affiliated with the AFL [American Federation of Labor]. At one time, the musician’s union — we were the strongest in the world. That—beside[s] the coal miners — John Lewis. I've got a 50-year-pin from the union.

I've been a member of the Louisville union for fifty years. All the people in our band were union members. And if we went somewhere, they'd ask to see your union card. Say if you play union--play a union theater. That comes later because we also had to belong to AFTRA [American Federation of Television and Radio Artists] when we did TV and radio, that's another union. And then when you made movies, you had to belong to the Screen Actors Guild — SAG. So, if you made movies and worked on television, you had to belong to two different unions. But then there were two different [pay] scales.

Mr. Frank was born on the Tennessee Alabama border. Sand Springs was the name of the town, I believe. He was born in 1900. The story I always heard was that he left his house in Tennessee and went to Birmingham, Alabama to work in the steel mills, or foundries. After working there for a long time as a young man, he somehow got to Chicago. And he was a bellhop in a downtown hotel in Chicago. And that's where he met Mrs. Frank. He had never played a musical instrument at all.

He [was] raised on a little farm where they raised cotton. His father was a farmer. I went down there with him one time to visit. I was introduced to 2 or 3 people. They were relatives but we've never seen them since. And then one time, when I was playing Bensinger's (??) Furniture Store, a young couple came in there and introduced themselves to me, and they said Mr. Frank was his uncle, and I couldn't argue with them 'cause I says I didn't know. But I'm sure he was from a poor family, because in those days you couldn't raise an umbrella on some of that property down there. A lot has been written about him. In the Hall of Fame book, it tells you all about Mr. Frank, but it doesn't give you anything about how he got from Birmingham to Chicago.

Mrs. Frank was a private investigator in Chicago. She watched department stores and would go stop shoplifters. She and Mr. Frank probably met at the hotel. Mrs. Frank knew performers — they were friends of hers in the neighborhood where she lived — and being they were show people, he started booking them in. In other words, she introduced to him some acts like Fibber McGee and Molly — they were her personal friends. They were from Illinois but not Chicago. There was another couple just like them — the Zohrers (??) — they were just Chicago people. And so, she was responsible for him going into the entertainment business. And he began booking them around Chicago. Most of the theaters there had entertainment of some kind. In the bigger towns — like the one we’re going to play — the Rialto.

Mr. Frank met Gene Autry when Gene was coming into Chicago for an audition with

the barn dance. Mr. Frank was booking acts there for the National Barn Dance on WLS. Gene was without a manager when he auditioned there. And they had a talent agency, but Gene didn't want a talent agency — he wanted a personal manager. He was [at] a radio recording store when he got to WLS; he was from Oklahoma and had played at other radio stations. He knew he was going to be a singing cowboy. That was Gene's idea, not Mr. Frank's. He already was a singing cowboy then, but he wasn't a singing cowboy in the movies. And Gene said, “I'm going for the movies.” He said, “you make movies in Hollywood, and they’re played in theaters all across the United States —

you can't beat that. It's just like your records — you make them in Chicago and

they're played all over the world.” Gene was a pretty smart businessman and still is. He owns a lot of real estate in California, and still, he's not one of the richest guys in the world. But he won't have to sing another song — he's got it made financially.

It's not hero worship but it's borderline. It's like if you try to pattern yourself — it's like Colonel Sanders said, “you start imitating somebody, you're just making him bigger all the time.” Autry is older than I am, he's 86. Roy is two years older than Gene, so Roy is 11 years older than I am. I'm 78 now, so Gene is 86. I still stay in touch. We had a very fine conversation on our anniversary — he called to wish us a lot of luck, and his new wife — she's a pleasant lady. She was the manager of the bank that he owned in Hollywood.

Mr. Frank became Gene Autry's manager and booking agent. It started about 1932(?) and ended when Gene left WHAS to go to Hollywood in 1934 (??). He was asked by Gene Autry to go to Hollywood, but he said, “I don't see how I can help you in any way going there, so I'm going to bring Freddie and Frankie — the Log Cabin Boys from Chicago — to take your place here.” When Gene went out to Hollywood to make a picture, he co-stared with another cowboy. The other cowboy went to oblivion and Gene just went up the ladder. And then they had John Wayne trying to sing. And they had one guy called the singing cowboy, but he never rode a horse. But Gene Autry had everything going for him. He set out to create an image and he did. He wanted to be king of the

cowboys.

When Roy came to Nashville, the first three shows he did was on my weekly (??) 9 o'clock show — was my last show to play on radio. On Saturday night, sponsored by Royal Crown Cola. He sang two songs on it and a healthy round of applause, and the following Saturday, he came back and did two more songs, and about the third time I think he came to stay. And Mr. Frank has suggested that he move to Nashville. And Mr. Frank said, “there's no use [in] you commuting between Knoxville and Nashville. You might as well come here and find you a home, and I'll book you out from here.”

And the next person he brought in was Ernest Tubb. He discovered Ernest Tubb in San Antonio. We were playing a date down there, and I had a hell of a toothache, and I was going to go upstairs to the dentist. I got on the elevator — I got off the elevator, and Mr. Frank came down, and he said, “I'll come back and see how you’re doing.” So, after that, the dentist (??) my tooth, and Mr. Frank came up and both of us came down with Ernest Tubb. And on his back, he had Ernest Tubb, the Texas Troubadour. He had his case with him (??), and we met Ernest in the elevator. It was in an office building where the radio station was. Ernest had just finished a radio show. We weren't playing at the station; we had made a personal appearance in San Antonio.

Mr. Frank said, “I just hired Ernest Tubb.” I said, “Really?” I knew who he was; he was popular as can be. That "Walking the Floor" was a national hit. He had already recorded that song. But he had never been to Nashville. And on the way to Nashville, when he said he was going to come in the following week, he had an old rickety Chevy that broke down in Brownsville Tennessee. He called and said, “Mr. Frank, you got to send somebody 'cause my car is broke down.” So Mr. Frank drove to Brownsville, Tennessee, about 70 or 80 miles — and I [a] wrecker come down there and towed him in to Nashville. He was by himself.

He was married and had children then. His wife stayed back in Texas to see if he liked Nashville. See, he had a pretty good thing in San Antonio, sponsored by a brewery down there, a beer company. And he was playing dates around there where all [of those] them honky-tonks were.

He gave me the same answer later on in years when he said he hired Eddie Arnold. The funny one was when he said, well, “Copas (??) is coming to work with you.” I said, “what are we going to pay him?” He said, “promise him $100 and give him $50.” Then Grandpa Jones [came] come in, at that time we were going out on a tent show, and Ernest Tubb— and Mr. Frank said he had two worries— two acts to worry about, including — 'cause Roy was set already and now Ernest was coming in and building up. And it didn't take him long to build up either — six or eight weeks went by, and he was getting bushels of mail. And his ambition was always to own his own record shop, and he wanted a big guitar right there with Ernest Tubb on it. And finally, he got it — about the second year he worked.

He worked with us about six months or so, and then they called in a couple of boys called the Short Brothers, because they worked with him at the honky-tonks and that, in San Antonio. Jimmy and Leon Short. I always thought this is where Bob Wills got his saying, "Take it away, Leon." I don't know though. I used to kid Ernest and say, "why don't you ever say take it away, Leon.'" He said, “that belongs to Bob Wills because Leon McCauliffe (??) was his steel guitar player. But Ernest proved to be a tremendous hit with honky-tonk music; he was before Hank Williams and boy, [the] Grand Ole Opry was set afire when Ernest come [came] in. I'd call Ernest's music honky-tonk because people dance to it in the taverns — the honky-tonks. I've always said privately that the name honky-tonk could have come from the fact that black people call whites "honkies."

Mr. Frank was also responsible for bringing Eddy Arnold in. But Minnie Pearl her came on her own. She drove with her dad, mom, her sister — came to Nashville and she auditioned for the solemn old judge, and he thought she played a guitar — insane! And when she come [came] in there, she had that makeup on and everything — he says, “I don't know, Ophelia [Colley], how you're going to do it.” She said, “I've tried this act for many months with Mr. Seward's tent show — [a Chautauqua that we were on] — and even indoor places. And I did Minnie Pearl,” which was a character on the road time. And they started dressing her with the hat and the tag hanging dawn a real country woman — of course, she wasn't really a real country woman. She always told me, “now, Pee Wee, Minnie Pearl's the one who gets me in trouble all the time — Ophelia Colley wouldn't think of doing anything like that!” And later on in life, I remember what Flip Wilson said, "The devil made me do it!" So that's what I say.

Mr. Frank never managed Minnie Pearl in the sense of being her personal manager but she went with us so much. First, he put her on the road with Roy Acuff, and Roy didn't care too much for the arrangement — it didn't work with his type of band. And Minnie said she needed more work so Mr. Frank — we were playing a string of theaters up and down the East Coast at that time from Virginia all the way to Massachusetts — the Shine Circuit and Kemp — this was a chain of theaters. I had contracts with both of them — all the theaters — about 17, 18, 19 theaters. And then right from there, Mr. Frank signed her (??) with Mr. Sudicum (?). He owned all the Tennessee, northern Alabama, northern Georgia, some in Kentucky, all the way to Memphis, but Memphis had its own chain. In other words, when Mr. Frank signed for theaters, that meant you could work ALL of them. And sometimes you'd work them twice or three times a year — that was good because you had a circuit.

These were movie theaters that showed Westerns and we did the live shows in them. I remember the guy in Owensboro when we played the Seville Theater, he didn't want us to go back to Nashville. There was a Franklin, Tennessee, — it's only 18 miles between Franklin and Nashville — so we'd play a matinee show and go back and do the radio show, go back and do an hour [on] their show, go back and do the Grand Ole Opry, and come back and close the theater from 11 to 12. And the guy says, “Mr. Frank, those boys are not going to come back — I'm telling you.” He said, “don't tell me what my boys are going to do; they're going to be there, and you can count on that.” And we didn’t miss it by 2 or 3 or 5 minutes — we were there ahead of time.

And then we sometimes booked two towns in one night. We called that bicycling because you got to be there in a hurry — get on your bicycle. We'd book one town like Kosciusko, Mississippi and then another town. And they'd run the Western Gene Autry movie. His movie ran about 80-90 minutes, so then we'd drive up to this town and do our stage show for them and then drive back again to Kosciusko And we'd do three shows a night Six years a night [six nights a week]. Six o'clock, eight o'clock, ten o’clock. Mr. Frank didn't usually travel with the show — once in a while he would. He'd have several troupes going out at one time so he couldn't. He was a busy man.

Pee Wee King and the Golden West Cowboys was traveling at that time. Early on, Minnie Pearl didn’t travel with us but she did eventually. We worked many dates together — oh my God. She was almost a regular with our group because when Minnie Pearl first came there, right away Mr. Frank already had the contract for the Camel Caravan. Him (??) and the manager of radio station WSM — they went to New York and got the William Estey( ??) Agency to start the Camel Caravan — called it the

Grand Ole Opry Camel Caravan. That was to identify it because there was another pop show going to USO camps and playing the Camel Caravan. There was a comedian.

I always say that was the beginning of us realizing how strong the Grand Ole Opry was. Because when you play Army camps and you've got New England boys together with

Jewish boys and Georgia corn crackers and Tennessee hillbillies — and they all mingle in the same barracks. And those guys say, “hey, we heard the Grand Ole Opry Saturday night — you going to sing this song? You going to do this song?” And at that time, "You Are My Sunshine" everybody was singing, and "Walking the Floor Over You.” When our girl singer San Antonio Rose started singing "Walking the Floor Over You", that was just when Ernest was at his peak, and she was with me singing. Of course, she got killed in a bad accident; her name was Eva Nichols, and she was from Kansas City. She was the girl singer in the Camel Caravan.

When we came back to the Grand Ole Opry, Eva Nichols worked some theater dates with me. And she decided she was going to go home — she was married — and she was going to try to get a divorce and come back to Nashville and marry somebody in Nashville and live in Nashville. She was very popular — a husky type, healthy girl. When she got home, her sister was working a couple of honky-tonks at the time. I guess she wanted Rose to go with her to a couple of places to watch her work and when she did, her boyfriend — there was a ramp coming off the expressway — they had just started doing expressways at that time — and he ran up the ramp — he was going to a club — about 60-70 miles an hour. And somehow, there was no warning at all — one of these big concrete mixers was right there and he went up the wrong side of the ramp — it was an exit ramp and he shouldn't have been on it. He went up there and smack — killed both of them, this was her boyfriend she wanted to marry after her divorce.

Mr. Frank died in 1952. He was booking me in Detroit at the time. Eddy Arnold had just played the theater, and then he had Louis Armstrong the trumpet player--played the theater after Eddy got through. He was staying at the Wolverine Hotel. I had another act with me from Nashville — Dot and Smokey — a married couple who sang country songs. Mr. Frank got me the date in Detroit. He called me and it was right before the [Kentucky] Derby, and he said, “when the Derby goes, I'm going to be watching you. I'm going to see that you're right there close to the finish line.” Right then we had box seats at the finish line, but Mr. Frank didn't know. And in the studios, it was on television, but they had a picture of the crowd at the race track and he couldn't see me because it was a painting — a drawing.

Him, Dot and Smokey were up in the room, and they were looking, looking, looking, and he said, “no, I don't see Pee Wee there no where [anywhere]. In fact,” he says, “I don't think he's there. “That's the Derby — it looks like a regular scene, a backdrop.” Joe said, “no, it couldn't be because he told me he's going to be there.” So we all come [came] home after the Derby that night, about 8 o'clock. Downstairs we had the jukebox going — we were having a big party. About 4 o'clock in the morning', the phone rang. He says, “is this Pee Wee King?” I says, “yes it is.” He said, “I just want to tell you that your father-in-law died.” Adn, I said, “who the hell are you?” He says, “I'm the manager of the hotel.” I says, “what hotel?” He says, “the Wolverine Hotel.” Then I knew something was wrong.

I thought it was a gag — one of the people there with Mr. Frank having a couple of drinks. So, Lydia says, “who was it?” I said, “some dope.” She said, “well, what did he want?” Oh, I couldn't tell her right away. So, then he called right back again. And he said, “if you're Pee Wee King, I want to tell you that your father-in-law just passed away. And we have to make arrangements for you to come and get him.” And Lydia said, “I heard, I heard.” And we walked over and we broke down. Then [I] had to call Mrs. Frank, she was living in Nashville. Hart Riedlemeuyer (??)— he was the pilot, so Hart says, “come on Pee Wee, we'll go fly up.” So, he and I took off for Evansville, Mrs. Frank flew there from Nashville, we picked her up there and we flew to Detroit. And she went to the morgue and identified him. The coroner said, “Is that your--?” She said, “yes, it is,” and broke down crying.

So, then Lydia said, “the window raised during the night,” and she just wondered if that was some kind of token or sign or something that Mr. Frank had left us. The window at the room we stayed in at the hotel — it went up of its own accord. So that was a sign of some kind. I've always said that.

That was a big shock for all of us. And then when Eddy Arnold found out about it, at the casket he stood — Roy, I and Eddy stood there at the casket — and I put my hand [on him] said, “ain't nobody going to take your place.” I said, “right now, if I could, I'd take your place.” And Eddy said, “you know something, King, I was just thinking — why don't you stay home for a couple of days and let me open with the Golden West Cowboys up there?” I said, “you were just up there for a week, Eddy.” He said, “that's right, you'd make announcements on the radio.” As Mr. Frank would do, he'd buy spots. He said, “I'll figure some way to get it, and I'll open with the boys.”

In fact, we had an Indian group — the Bow and Arrow — shooting rifle group on the show, too. Cowboys and Indians, because it was a big theater, as big as the Fisher. I think it was the Orpheum Theater — I'm almost positive. Eddy says, “I'll just do a couple of numbers with the boys and introduce the Golden West Cowboys and put on the show and let the Indians work, and that'll be the show — I'll close the show.” I says, “Eddy, I wouldn't do it.” I says, “I know if Mr. Frank were standing here, he'd tell me to go to work.” I said, “and you’re doing this for me, after you've been there a week already just a couple of weeks ago." And then he said something like, “I'm back by popular demand!” And Roy said, “you damn, silly-ass King — God damn — we shouldn't be here laughing.” This was at the funeral home in Nashville.

Eddy didn't take my place for a while. I went back. There wasn't anything more I could do — I came to Nashville for the funeral. I came back to Louisville in 1947, so I was living in Louisville when Mr. Frank died.

I moved to Nashville in 1937, and I moved back to Louisville in 1947. When we came back, we lived on Brookfield off Chenoweth Lane about a year and a half, and then bought this house. This house was already built but it wasn't quite finished and had a big white fence around it. There weren't many houses in this neighborhood then. The builder built these three houses together. And I liked the third one down because it had a library downstairs, and this basement wasn't finished yet, but we were eager to move so we went ahead and took this one. It was about 1949 or so.

They told us Mr. Frank died of heart failure. But I think it was emphysema, personally. I had an argument with the insurance company, I think he strangled to death. He ordered a six-pack up to the room and Dot and Smokey were there with him a while. And he asked them if they wanted something to eat. They said, “no”. He said, “well, I'm hungry — I'm going to get me a steak sandwich.” And he had a beer with it, and it probably [got] lodged in his throat. I think that's what it was because we found blood in the wastebasket right by his bed, and it looked like he had threw up the beer and the steak in there. And the insurance wouldn't pay off. He was in the room by himself at the time.

Dot and Smokey said they had left about 2 o'clock and they said, “Joe was in good spirits. We [were] was just going to let him get to sleep because I knew he'd be up early in the morning moseying around.” So, I said, “Smokey, I wish you all had stayed,” but they wanted to get to bed, too. He was 52. He didn't have a history of heart disease, but he coughed all the time. He also had a little heart disturbance — irregular heart [beat] or something. I don't know how they listed how he died in the paper.

That was a big loss to country music. The acts he was booking at that time already had settle[ed] down into a good living, and he put 'em on the pedestal to make the jump in the big time because he booked those theaters and the tent shows and auditoriums. Like Kiel Auditorium [in St. Louis] has got two sections — one that faces the audience on this side, and this one here on this side, and in the middle is dressing rooms and that. If you got this one full, you got about 3,000 people. But then if you've got more than that number, you got to go here because this holds about 5,000 people.

So, if you've got a small show, they put you in the smaller theater. And he had booked both sides, and the manager of Kiel Auditorium said, “Mr. Frank, the biggest shows that come into St. Louis, we have them jampacked.” He says, “well, you'll see. I'm going to pay the rent on it anyhow — you might as well book both of them.” And before the guy even knew it, we had people lined up on the street for two or three blocks. He said, “Joe, you're a son of a gun. You could have never made me believe it. Usually, when we get big acts, they'll come about 1 o’clock and wait for the show till about 2 o'clock, but these people have come in at noon waiting for a 3 o'clock show!” That was about 1945.