Oral History Interview with Randy Atcher

Wade, this is Randy. I’ve been doin’ some thinkin’ about all the tapes we’ve recorded and I know that they were pretty general in nature. And every once in a while, something will come to mind that I think might be better used. And what I have in mind is something like this. You know, when my brother Bob left Louisville and went to Chicago in 1936. I decided that I was gonna get out of the music business and I went to Western Kentucky State Teachers College–it was at that time–at Bowling Green in the fall of ‘36. Then the Ohio River Flood–the ‘37 flood-washed our house down the river and I quit school and came back to help Dad put the house back and came right back into Louisville and joined WHAS. And this is more what I had in mind: I joined them with a program called the Early Risers’ Round Up. The people were Happy Morris who played bass fiddle, Casey Jones played fiddle, Curly Bradshaw played harmonica, I played guitar and we had a girl singer named Millie Baynam [sp??]. And we played shows throughout the state. I think I did mention the fact: the only automobile accident that I was in during all the traveling and so on–shows we played over a period of five, six, seven years–was with that group when Happy Morris drivin’ the car fell asleep and rolled off the road–turned the car over on the side and I think I mentioned the fact that the only person hurt was I stepped in the face of the fella on the bottom on the back seat when I opened the door that was open on top.

Anyway, I worked with them for a while and then joined Uncle Henry’s Kentucky Mountaineers. During the time with Uncle Henry’s Kentucky Mountaineers I did a comic character named Lemuel Q. Sputterfuss. And I did comedy with them for oh, about a year, and Uncle Henry’s band was composed of Uncle Henry Warren who was–really didn’t play anything–he just sort of talked, emceed and uh, led the group. And his wife Sally and the Coonhunter was his brother Grady Warren who played five-string banjo. And a fella named Rufus played bass fiddle. And a boy named Johnny Ford played the fiddle. Anyway, it was a pretty good country music outfit and I worked with them for quite a while.

And then–one of the things that’s bothered me a lot about the country music business–happened during that time. I was 19–I’d written a few songs and I wrote two or three in the gospel type of songs. And one of them I wrote was called “The Golden Key.” It became very popular with us–people were requesting it frequently–and Uncle Henry asked me if I wanted to get it published. I said, Well, yeah, I’d like to ‘cause maybe we could make some money out of it selling music or something. Anyway, this is what got to me: He went and made a couple of calls. When the first copy of the music came out, it said: By Randy Atcher and Henry Warren. Well, Uncle Henry or Henry Warren had nothing whatsoever to do with it other than calling and making the contact with the publisher. Uh, that really bothered me–really bugged me. But of course, I learned at that time–and even since then–but particularly at that time–THAT HAPPENED A LOT.

The leader of the band, when music was recorded by someone within his organization who had written it, always placed his own name on there as one of the writers of the song. And then that seemed to hold throughout the recording and music publishing. But in any case, I thought that was something I wanted that we hadn’t talked about.

And after that, I got a little, well, upset with Uncle Henry’s Mountaineers and that’s when I joined Sunshine Sue and the Rock Creek Rangers who were more a Western swing kind of group, or Western outfit. Sue played the accordion, her husband John played bass, and his two brothers George Workman and Sam–George played fiddle and Sam played guitar. So I joined them and a lot of that was because of the comedy routine. I sang with them and learned a lot of my Western songs that I liked so much while I was with them. But I worked with them mostly as a comedian as I said called Lemuel Q. Sputterfuss. And I thought maybe the people might be interested in some of the old, old terrible gags we did at that time. One of them that I remember quite well was the emcee of the program--in the case with Sunshine Sue it was Sam Workman. Anyway, I would be talking to him and I talked in a kind of a cracked voice–uh, this a little prior to Pat Butram–to ever having heard of Pat Butram–but kind of a cracky voice. And he would say, How are you? And I’d say, Well, I had a date last night. A date? With who? With Bureau. And he’d say, Who? Bureau. Nah, you don’t mean Bureau–you mean Beulah. Naw, Bu-reau. No, no, no–uh Beulah–a bureau’s a thing about this so wide–and he would hold his hands out like about three feet wide–‘bout this wide with long drawers. And I’d say, That’s my Bureau.

Pretty bad but those were the kind of jokes we told on the shows back in those days. We couldn’t say the many things that are said today.

Now chances are I will think of a few other things that have occurred that I am not sure we talked about at all. Maybe go into them just a little bit more to get across the flavor of some of the things. But I hope this is gonna be of some help to you by the time I get it finished.

Just in case I haven’t talked about ‘em I’m just gonna name two or three things that I might have missed talkin’ about and if so, you can let me know and we can go into those further. One of ‘em was our trip to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Santo Domingo for the State Department in 1965 and the trials we had on that trip. And that’s just one of the things that came to mind. I think we did talk–I did talk–about out trip to the Arthur Godfrey Show in New York and our trip to the Garry Moore Show. And of course, I guess I talked quite a bit about many of the people who were guests on Crusade for Children. Many of ‘em Hollywood stars and lots of ‘em musical stars–and we’re back to some of that again and that’s really interesting to see the acts come in and how well they do. The differences in the way we did when they were here early in the Crusade’s life and the way it is now.

Another thing I’m not sure we talked very much about was the Savings Post down at Greater Louisville First Federal Savings and Loan–it was in those days. And we had–Cac and I were down there every Saturday morning from 9 to 1, and they had built on the fourth floor of the old building a mockup Western town with cattle in the fields and a bank just tall enough for the kids to come in and open an account with $200 and they received a little bank–most of ‘em were a little log cabin bank–and then they’d come back down and bring their money–they had money counters and they’d count it out and add it to their account. We did this for quite a few years and at one time had over 25,000 children saving at the Savings Post. Ever’ once in a while I run into someone who still has the bank and remembers well the Savings Post.

I wrote songs for the Savings Post, too. But they are copyrighted by Greater Louisville. But we could probably talk about those if you want to at a future time.

Also, there’s a possibility–I didn’t talk about how we formed the High, Wide and Handsome trio–the result of being asked to come to the Speed Museum and do an evening of Western music for a Buffalo Bill Cody exhibit that they had there and how that led to High, Wide and Handsome–and we did–several years we did a lot of work and even today, if I can feel like it, July 20th will be with High, Wide and Handsome over at St. Agnes Church Festival. We’ve done this–this will be about the 10th year in a row and it would be nice if y’all could come over for that.

Another thing I can’t remember, Wade, is whether I talked about the old Kentucky Barn Dance radio programs. You’ll know we had radio programs. And at one time were on CBS with a half an hour of our barn dance when they called the program “Saturday Night Country Style.” I wrote a song–our theme song for “Saturday Night Country Style”–and still sing it once in a while today. But that’s just another thing I wasn’t sure I talked about.

Uh, I hope I can get around to a lot of things that I did miss–if I missed ‘em. ‘Course, right now I’m in the throes of this doggone cancer and though I’m feelin’ pretty good, I’ve got to fight it and maybe I’ll talk to you later on. Thanks. Bye.

Well, I’m back again. Another thing I thought of that I don’t think I talked about was we were invited to play in the jazz festival at French Lick Hotel–oh, this was back in the–about 1962 I think it was. And we were there–Don Gibson who I had previously told I couldn’t use on “Hayloft Hoedown” was there–‘course he’s the fella who wrote a lot of songs chiefly “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” And uh, but at the time he called and wanted to be on the “Hoedown,” I told him we couldn’t use him. You can tell how smart I am. Anyway, that was one of the things that I don’t think I talked about.

And then they had–kind of a jazz festival at the park–no, at the uh, the uh, Tower–the Water Tower–with High, Wide and Handsome. We were invited to be there and sing along with people from the symphony, some of the pop groups and so on. And enjoyed that very much and were pleased to get a good reception. And there have been quite a few things of that sort that we have done that might be worth talking about just depending on how far you want to go into this.

That’s all for the moment. Thanks.

CALL FROM AN ADMIRER WHO LEFT A MESSAGE ON THE ANSWERING MACHINE AT THE ATCHER HOME: I just wanted you to know my wife and I’ve been watching the special [the WHAS 50th anniversary special–probably] they had on you on the news. It brings back wonderful memories. You just don’t know how much that show meant to us and to people our age. You and Cactus–I knew Tom Brooks a little bit–but I gotta tell yah–it was a great time–it meant so much to us–you were so nice and gentle with the children. And uh, we were just so enthused about being on “T-Bar-V” and meeting you guys. It was awesome and so we just wanted you to know that uh, you meant a lot to us and we really do VERY MUCH appreciate everything you’ve done for this community over the years. Have a very nice day, sir, and someday–I never got a chance to shake hands with Mickey Mantle–hopefully, someday I’ll get to shake your hand, sir. Uh, Mickey was one of my heroes also. Have a nice day.