Breakfast at Sardi's

September 1948 was a pivotal moment in the career of Jack McElroy, and it didn't go well.  But let's start there at the peak, the ABC-TV report on 1948 mentions McElroy and he gets a half page headshot on page 49 between Erwin Canham and Louella Parsons. [SOURCE]  

"All radio was saddened early last year by the sudden death of Tom Breneman, beloved host of Breakfast in Hollywood. A radio institution, Breneman had gained a reputation as a premier showman and it is in the same tradition of show business that his program continues on the ABC network as a cooperative feature with Jack McElroy at the helm."

The New York Times wrote about the change on September 12th that year with more detail and invoking a third name. 

"Jack McElroy, who has been singing on the show and helping out generally, will step into the top position as successor to Garry Moore in running "Breakfast in Hollywood," the program of the late Tom Breneman on WJZ-ABC at 11 A. M. daily. Mr. McElroy will take over on Tuesday. The program will move into the 2 P. M. time with the broadcast of Oct. 4, when Kay Kyser's new program starts in the morning period." 

Breakfast in Hollywood was a morning radio show created and hosted by Breneman. He hosted it from 1941 to 1948 but on three different radio networks at different times: NBC Blue, ABC and Mutual (kinda). When it debuted in January of 1941, newspapers referred to the program as "Breakfast at Sardi's", named for the working restaurant from which the program was broadcast. That first version of the show also two regulars who were staff the hostess, Nell Olson and Bobby Batuga, the Maitre d'. This first version of the show was only 30 minutes long and broadcast from KFWB. 

After it got going, there were two shows every weekday at Sardi's. At 8:00 AM they did a live broadcast to the East Coast, airing at 11:00 AM EST. Then breakfast was served and a second show, heard live in the West, began at 9:30 PST. There was no script, just Breneman asking everyday people questions and taking in the occasional celebrity guest. It was so popular it spawned a copy cat program on Mutual "Luncheon at Sardi’s." That broadcast on WOR from a different, unrelated Sardi's in New York City with a different different, unrelated host, Bill Slater. (More on that another day.) That original building still stands today but it's been a strip club since 1971.

On August 3rd, 1942 the program was picked up by NBC Blue and the program moved to Radio City at 1539 North Vine Street. This site, [LINK] claims that Breneman bought the building and the Hollywood Roof Ballroom next door in 1938, converting them into a radio studio and Tom Breneman’s Hollywood Restaurant. There may be something to it, but 1938 is before the radio program even started at Sardis. (Breneman was also only the "honorary" mayor of Encono. Nice try AI.) I think they just have the year wrong. I also remember that address coming up once before in reference to the Radio Room, cafe. [LINK]  (If you look at this 1948 photo you can see both signs.)

1539 North Vine Street in 1948

These sources are all slightly wrong. The Hollywood restaurant opened initially at 1525 N. Vine St. [SOURCE] In 1945, the Blue Network rebranded as the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). Then in December of 1947 The Hollywood restaurant expanded next door to 1539 Vine, the former Empire nightclub. Four months later in April 1948, Breneman died of a heart attack. There are pictures of the line out front on April 28th learning there would be no show that day. He died 2 hours before show time. [SOURCE]  His name was replaced on the marquee with the words: American Broadcasting Company. You can use these signage changes to date pictures. 

Tom Breneman was born in 1900 and raised in Wayneboro, PA. He later attended Columbia University. He started in vaudeville, and in 1927 he became program director at 1020 KFVD-AM in Culver City, CA. In 1929 he starred in a radio comedy series called
Tom 'n' Wash in which he played three characters. From 1931–1932, he used the on-air name Tom Brennie, and hosted "Laugh Club of the Air" on NBC in New York. A 1931 issue of Radio Digest lists the syndication: WJZ, WBAL, WFAA, WIOD, WGN and KOA. That expanded from there. You can listen to a souvenir album with Breneman hosting here.

Tom "Brennie", Radio Digest Jan 1932

His earlier program, Laugh Club was a show with audience participation, and even Billboard called it "one of the very first." So in that way it prefigures Breakfast at Sardi's. I found a 1932 entry in Broadcasting magazine which refers to his latest program the “Tom and Wash Laugh Club.” I don't think that was a formal name, just a confused press release.  [SOURCE] Breneman's obituary reports that he later returned to Hollywood and managed two radio stations and then went to San Francisco in a similar capacity." Those would have been KFVD again and it's sister station KFAC. Those stations were part of the CBS/Don Lee network at the time. In 1937, Breneman he became the host of "Secret Ambition" at KNX. 

Breneman was only 46 years old. Before that fateful day in 1948, the ABC radio series had gone by the name “Breakfast In Hollywood”. After the death of Breneman, Jack McElroy took over.  The format remained largely the same, with a lot of Q&A with the general public. I know it's weird but I suspect that ABC didn't understand why the audience loved Breneman, and picked McElroy because he looked like Breneman; a friendly Lou Costello figure.  Sadly, it didn't work, but you can hear a continuity between the program and later television talk shows like Steve Allen, Jack Paar, even Letterman. 

July 12th 1949 Promo

Without Breneman the chemistry didn't work, and the ratings dropped. I know that ABC booklet says that Jack McElroy took over directly but it's not true. Garry Moore stepped into the role first, and he quit by July 1948. Moore was doing six shows a week for "Breakfast in Hollywood" as well as his regular spot on "Take It or Leave It." When the New York Times reported the change on July 13th, they had not even named a successor. [SOURCE] Consequently the pictures of Garry hosting the program are few. One AP News feature on Moore stated "Unlike Breneman, Garry doesn't kiss the ladies or wear their hats. He has his own line of gags." Cliff Arquette took over briefly followed by John Nelson, Nelson left to host the TV version of Bridge and Groom. Then they tapped Jack McElroy.  Supposedly Arch Presby was also host at one point but I've never been able to corroborate that. 

Jack McCoy NBC Radio Trading card #3 (1953)

McElroy's tenure lasted until the program ended on July 6, 1951. ABC attempted a revival as "Welcome To Hollywood" which debuted on NBC in 1952. Jack McCoy hosted the attempted Saturday morning reboot. Don Rickles was the announcer. Sometimes that's erroneously cited as McElroy again. I found one source that reports George Jessell was the host, in 1953. that might have been a fill-in.  It wrapped permanently in 1954. McCoy died in 1991.

Before Breakfast in Hollywood, Nelson and McElroy were probably best known for an ABC program, "Bride and Groom" where Elroy was a singer and announcer. John Nelson was the program's host. Bride and Groom had an audience participation component which is probably what made NBC think it would work. It ran from November 26, 1945, to September 15, 1950. An obituary in the Circleville Herald says that McElroy was a singer in his hometown of Pittsburgh, KS. His career ourtide these two shows is not well documented. He was born in 1913 and died in 1959 of lung cancer at the age of 45. Arquette later went on to a strange type of fame on Hollywood Squares. He died in 1974 at the age of 68.

DJ Laurence Cockaday

Laurence Cockaday, about 1931

Laurence Marsham Cockaday, what a name. (Sometimes it was written incorrectly as Lawrence.) That poor guy must have been picked on as a kid. He was born in 1894 in Greenville, NJ. So he would have been about 28 in 1922 and 37 in the image above where he looks oddly nervous. Cockaday was an engineer but also a writer, teacher and inventor. But there is one event in his history which raised his profile to the national level. He was a key person behind a 1922 live radio concert broadcast which was heard by likely more than a million people, helping to popularize the medium. More here.

We have mostly general biographical information on Cockaday. Around 1917 he was an electrical engineer for the New York Interborough Railroad (IRT). A 1923 issue of Popular Radio states that Cocakday instructed in radio theory on the U.S. Training ship Granite State in 1918. He filed his first patent in 1919.  In 1921 he was involved in the broadcast of a Jack Dempsey title fight [SOURCE]. That prefigures his later, more notable broadcast.

By 1922 he was one of the three founders of Popular Radio Magazine with E.E. Free and K. Banning. At the same time the L. M. Cockaday & Company sold radio components out of his Bronx apartment at 2674 Bailey Ave. It was renamed Superadio Corp. around 1921. [SOURCE] Then he went on to authorized Silver-Marshall and Precision Coil to make is radios like the LC-26 and LC-27.  Rich Post (kb8tad) wrote a feature on Lafayette Radio in 2012 which mentions Cockaday. [SOURCE] More here.

I also discovered that in adition to his magazine articles, Cockaday authored several books: Radio-Telephony For Everyone (1922) and 23 Lessons in Radio (1931) Radio Experimenters' Handbook (1932) and two others he co-authored Short-Wave Handbook with Walter Holze (1933) and How To Build Your Radio Receiver with Kendall Banning (1924).  The latter two there were reprinted in the 1990s by Lindsay Publications. He also wrote many pamphlets on the assembly, operation, and repair of his own and other makes of radios.

K. Banning, L.M. Cockaday with QSL cards

Cockaday even appears in the Library of Congress (LOC) photography catalog in four images [SOURCE] These images are poorly labeled. Three identify some of people and a rough date of between 1920 and 1925. He poses with Banning (above) and or Dr. Edward Elway Free. One however specifically states August 1922, and that it's of the first live radio broadcast of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra from the stadium of the College of the City of New York. 

The image titled "Radio At Stadium" taken in contest with the one from 1922 it can only be from the same event at Lewisohn Stadium. It's clean doric-style columns are very identifiable. Built in 1913 it hosted thousands of free concerts. (It's a damn shame they let it rot) The New York Philharmonic left the venue for Lincoln Center in 1964 and the building  was demolished in 1973. The New York Philharmonic website repeats the 1922 claim but without a precise date. [SOURCE]

"In 1922 the Philharmonic was one of the first symphony orchestras to broadcast a concert over the radio, and in 1930 became the first American orchestra to broadcast regularly coast-to-coast. Many of these radio broadcasts still exist in the Archives today and are available to visitors."

These images in the Library of Congress (LOC)  all appear to be from the George Grantham Bain Collection. I've also found other Bain collection images of Cockaday which seem to be missing from the LOC. They may have been omitted deliberately, or just mislabeled. 

Radio At Stadium

The New York Times lists regular broadcasts from Lewisohn in 1926 [SOURCE] on WJZ and WRC. But it also notes that Willem Van Hoogstraten has been the main conductor  since 1922 which corroborates his presence on that first 1922 broadcast. The book The Mighty Music Box also states August but not a date. The book On The Spot Reporting does as well. Many websites cite the date of the broadcast as occurring on August 12, 1922 over WJZ in New York, with Hoogstraten conducting but cites no source. The book History of Radio to 1926 by Gleason Archer gives the date as August 24th. Presumably there are conflicting sources. However, they are all wrong and/or incomplete. 

As Free, Banning and Cockaday were all editors at Popular Radio you might expect good coverage of their own event.  [SOURCE] Well, let me tell you... The feature article was huge. It was in the October 1922 issue and stretched from page 130 to 137 and even includes diagrams of the telephone exchange system. (below)

Telephone exchange for WJZ broadcast

The feature specifically states that the concerts were broadcast for five evenings, starting Friday, August 11th, skipping Sunday then resuming on Monday the 13th, continuing Tuesday 14th, through Wednesday the 16th, of 1922. Using a single Westinghouse microphone set up by Harry Hiller and William Frazier they picked up the audio and piped it to WJZ across the river in New Jersey who broadcast it on 833 kHz. WJZ had only signed on in September of 1921, so this was only weeks before it's first anniversary. Supposedly more than a million people tuned in. 

Cockaday and Banning, 1924

On Nov. 14th, 1924 he gave a lecture at the Annual Detroit Radio Show. By 1927 Cockaday sat on the advisory board for WGL. [SOURCE] He was the Technical Editor of the New York Herald Tribune around 1930.  The Journal of the Acoustic Society of America lists him as a member in 1935 with the address 461 Eighth Avenue, New York, NY; this may not have been a real residential address. That same address is used by many publications, labs and businesses. Today it's a Brooklyn parking lot.

In 1935 the book Making a Living In Radio by Zeh Bouck, Cockaday was listed as the Editor of Radio News. A 1938 issue of Radio & Television gives his Ham calls as W2JCY.  Those calls appear to have been assigned in 1936. The Radio Amateur Callbook put it in bold print with the address 547 Second Ave. Pelham, NY. But it also lists his old calls as 2AAK, 2AE, 2OG, and 2XK. The last reference to his W2JCY call sign was in 1966, [SOURCE] though the Radio Amateur Callbook puts it in the hands of Murray Goldberg by 1953. Cockada may have give up ham radio as early as 1941. I don't see entries between those dates. His 2OG calls go back to at least 1913 at the address 227 Audubon Pl, Brooklyn, NY.

From 1930 to at least 1937 Cockaday taught at New York University. One source reports that he enlisted in the US Navy in 1940, but Radio magazine calls him a Lieutenant Commander in 1937 as does the 1925 Yearbook of American Military Engineers. A U.S. Naval Academy register lists him as a Captain in 1947 in the department of Electrical Engineering. He retired with that title in 1957. There the record stops: no DXing, no teaching, no lecturing, no new patents, no writings. Cockaday died in 1986 in Rockville, MD. In a 1924 article by Don Herold he was asked "What do you like best about radio, Mr. Çockaday?" He responded "The bedtime stories..." 

The Midnight Jamboree WEVD (part 2)

Gene King, left. very camera shy.

In 2012 I wrote an article about the Midnight Jamboree which debuted on 1300 WEVD-AM in 1936. I did not expect I would need to write a Part 2 at the time. I used the sources I had available at the time and it felt fairly complete. A recent comment from a reader [HERE] pointed out that personal letters between Ev Suffens (stage name for Raymond Nelson) and writer Ayn Rand, describe Suffens as the host of Midnight Jamboree. The problem is that multiple sources also name Gene King as the host. Someone on the internet was wrong, and it might be me; so I revisited the subject.

Back in 2012 I rarely cited sources. It seemed unnecessary with informal writing like a blog.  It was my readers questions (and even researchers questions) which drove me to cite sources initially for my own use. I think my original source was the Arnold Passman book The DeeJays. [SOURCE] It does not specifically say that King is the host but Passman refers to the program as Gene King's; full apostrophe S. In 1942 the Ohio state University Monthly [SOURCE] specifically stated:

"...[King] started announcing for WEVD, became after a time, chief announcer and conducted the tremendously popular "Midnight Jamboree," New York's all-night recorded music program, to which an estimated 300,000 turned for nocturnal entertainment."

The Chief Announcer claim is corroborated in the 1939 Radio Annual. [SOURCE] The book Music in the Air also lists him as the host. "New York contemporaries of Symphony Sid included Gene King, whose Midnight Jamboree on WEVD (Eugene V. Debs) featured
current bands and vocalists..." [SOURCE]

Gene King, probably U. Ohio grad pic

The earliest I can place King by citation, at WEVD, was August of 1937. He's named, alongside Bill Resnick as station staff in an issue of Billboard. [SOURCE] This aligns pretty well with the date from that Ohio State publication stating that he was in Spain "..when the Franco revolt broke out..." that would be July 1936. That's a good source but I had more.  The UC Law Journal of Race and Economics [SOURCE] mentioned King at WEVD in a foot note referencing a New York Daily News article in November of 1939. Maybe the most important citation I found is Broadcasting Vol. 19, No. 8 of October 1940 [SOURCE] which specifically states:

"Gene King has resigned as conductor of the daily program Jamboree on WEVD, New York, from midnight to 4 a.m. to preside over a daily record series on WOR, Newark, entitled Danceland, which started Oct. 14, 3-3:30 p.m"

 

So it's clear that Gene King was the host of the Midnight Jamboree for a period of time, starting in 1936 and ending in 1940. But we also know the program ran into 1942, so clearly King was not the only host. Was he the first? 

The first Ayn Rand letter to Ev Suffens is dated April 6th. [SOURCE] Notably this is before King returned from Europe. Dismuke.org cites this as well. [SOURCE] But the answer is back in those Ayn Rand letters. In her June 10th letter [SOURCE] she complains about the new announcer of the Midnight Jamboree. She does not name him, but does criticize his playing of Jazz. (Gasp!)  So Ed Suffens was only the host prior to June of 1936. How much earlier did the program begin?

The Daily Worker reported the radio schedule of WEVD, WEAF, WOR, WABC, and WJZ daily from 1924 through 1936. So in reviewing those schedules, we can say with confidence that February 20th, 1936 was the first episode of the Midnight Jamboree. [SOURCE] Prior to that time, the midnight slot was held by a dance program, and usually preceded by an opera program. Ev Suffens was only host from February to June of 1936, a period of about 6 months. 

The DJ name Ev Suffens only appears rarely outside in the letter of Ayn Rand. The name appears in Variety in October of 1933 as the former director of the Provincetown Playhouse, then launching a drama and Opera studio. [SOURCE]. Then in the 1938 Radio Annual he's listed as the chief announcer at WEVD. [SOURCE] He seems to stop using the name after that. But a Raymond E. Nelson starts directing TV programs in the early 1940s and that may be him. That Ray Nelson later became the VP of the NTA film network. 

But who then was hosting the Midnight Jamboree after King left in 1940? There is a little disambiguation. There was a Gene King at KCTO in Columbia, LA in the late 1960s and another at WPCH in 1932. [SOURCE] Neither of these is our Gene King. King went on to WOR, and then WCOP as reported in Part 1. After King left the program, it's profile declined significantly. You might think it ended but for two references... 

One of the last references to the Midnight Jamboree was in a September 1942 issue of Broadcasting Magazine. [SOURCE] It does not name the host. It's also mentioned in Radio Daily. [SOURCE] They both probably got the same press release for Carl Post's piano gig on the show. But a 1941 issue of Billboard lists the host as David Niles.

 "Those stayer-uppers who tune into Station WEVD here for the nightly dance music kicks offered by the titularly swing-tinted Midnight Jamboree must think they have the wrong wave-length, unless they're used to the clever introduction given the show by its conductor, David Niles, who is also the station's chief announcer."

I had thought that was the end of it but a 1958 issue of Downbeat lists the show still on air. [SOURCE] The formerly 4-hour weeknight program had become just a 3-hour Sunday special. In1947, Ernest Tubb's Midnite Jamboree on WSM had overshadowed it, absconding with the name. David Niles obituary in the New York times [SOURCE] states that he started his career on WMCA in 1933 after a career in the stage and silent movies. He was the chief announcer at WEVD for 37 years. Sources confirm his presence at the station well into the 1960s. Billboard describes him as the News Director in 1966. [SOURCE]

You can hear Niles voice on a transcription disc from 1948. [LINK] Billboard confirms Niles was the Jamboree host, as early as 1940. [SOURCE]  Note that it's absent from this radio schedule [LINK] which otherwise places Niles on a talk program.  I suspect he took the Jamboree over from King directly. But there could have been a gap, and the earliest reference I can cite is this very critical July 1941 quote in Variety. [SOURCE]

"Manhattan has five stations on the air 'till 4 a.m., WHOM, WHN, WEVD, WNEW and WOR. After four o'clock just WNEW and WOR fight it out; WHN quits at three. But it plays the loudest records, positively. If a disk is just wild that's not enough for WHN, it's got to be frantic... Sunday nights David Niles (WEVD) has New York to himself from three to four. And what does he do with it? Nothing. Davey ought to change that maudlin paragraph Introducing his final 15-minutes in which he 'rests, relaxes, and reminisces.' Hear it twice and it starts to take on a comedy angle, But Davey must like it because he serves it regularly at 3:45."

It seem like Suffens started the Midnight Jamboree, and Gene King built it into a popular jazz-inflected program. Then Niles went back to a very mellow classical playlist. Rand would have been pleased but apparently popular listeners were not.

DJ AJ Fritz

 

Lehigh radio host Alfred Henry Fritzinger Jr., known to many as AJ Fritz. He was the host of the rock radio show “FritzRocks” that began in 1996 on 91.3 WLVR-FM where he won the annual Lehigh Valley Music Award for Best College/Community Radio Personality six consecutive times. More here. 

His program also appears to have been broadcast on WMUH at least in 2023 and 2024 according to Spinitron. At WLVR Fritz had the title "Chief Operator" an unusual title. In 2016 the Radio & cable Industry Guide listed him more simply as Station Manager. Back in 2015 The Lehigh Bulletin [SOURCE] quoted Fritzinger:

“Most college radio stations are run by outside entities, and many college radio stations have sold their licenses... he lifeblood of this station is our students.”

The history of WLVR-FM goes back to 1946, when it was affiliated with the Lehigh student newspaper, The Brown and White. That campus paper, and many other local publications ran Fritzinger's obituary. In 2014 he oversaw tower improvements and a power increase at WLVR from 33 to 200 watts. That increase may not sound like much but it changed the station from a local Bethlehem/Allentown station to one that reached distant suburbs. 170 Meters HAAT can do that.

Born in 1957 in the Lehigh valley, he spent his 20s living in Brooklyn, NY and working at Goldman Sachs.  Fritzinger was on air at the Bethlehem radio stations 1100 WGPA-AM in the 1980s and 96.5 WZZO-FM in the mid-‘90s. But what he was quoted most often about was WLVR. 

 

Fritzinger is a relatively uncommon surname, but I've never found a single trade magazine that mentioned his name, not at WZZO or WGPA or anywhere really other than WLVR. But you can see his Surname in Leigh High School year books from the 1930s. His family has been in the area a long time. Perhaps a distant relative, George Fritzinger owned a dozen radio stations on the west coast including KKOB, KAZN and KFAC. [SOURCE] But I really do hope he's related to George H. Fritzinger, who worked at the "Telediphone Department" under Thomas Edison in the 1930s. [SOURCE]

Fritzinger was a liver transplant recipient in 2013 and died December 31st, 2024.  A memorial was held at Fearless Fire Co. #14 Mach 29th 2026. [LINK]  He was only 67. His family asked that donations be made to The Gift of Life House. [LINK]

 

Sherrif Tom Owen's Cowboys on WMT

 

June 18th, 1953 - Eldora, IA

The first thing you might notice about Tom Owen's Cowboy's is that their leader, and namesake is at least 20 years older than the rest of the group. I'll get to that in a moment. Their first appearance in the Radio Guide is in December of 1938. The 15-minute show aired M-F in the morning. Different Radio Guides have them at 10:45, 11:00 and 11:15 depending, but all times CST. In the 1940s their slot moved around, and they began playing the "WMT News" Program on Wednesdays at 1:45 exclusively. In 1941 they moved around and played more Noon and 1:00 slots, playing a 15 minute spot before :Voice of Iowa News." Joe Doakes appears to have taken the news/music role.

Most of what I know about the line up of Sheriff Tom Owen's Cowboys' starts with three post cards which have hand notes identifying the members. None of them have been mailed, so we have no dates attached to any of the three. But I have some dating conjecture... Let's start with that short discography:

Label	Sides	Year
Mercury	A New Ten Gallon Hat / You Can't Cry Over My Shoulder	1946
Mercury	Down By The Railroad Tracks / The Freight Train Blues	1946
Mercury	Don't Say You Love Me If You Don't / Baby You Done Flubbed Your Dub With Me	1946
Dome	Down In The Sweetheart Valley / Hey! Hey! Ioway Polka	1948
Mercury	Just Because / My Darling Tell Me True	1948
Dome	I Send Back Your Letters / The Trouble With Me Is You	1949
Mastertone	Man, Man, What A Band / The Cowboy's Dream	????

Their entire known discography consists of seven 78s all released between 1946 and 1949. Some of their 78's attribute song writers, but none that were definitively written by band members. Even the Owen behind (W-1010-A) "Man, Man What A Band" is Harry Y. Owen. That disc is interesting. It is also one of the few items in their historiography which lacks a WMT logo, and Tom Owen lacks the title Sheriff. I suspect it's their first release, and that it came early in the WMT radio program because Mastertone was a local Des Moines, IA label. It did credit some players: Chuck & Johnny on side A and Jim, Chuck & Johnny on side B. So I believe those three belong to the original line up.

But Sheriff Tom Owen's Cowboys' had a few different line ups. The image above looks like Tom (calling), Charles "Chuck" Youtzy (trumpet), Mibs Allen (drums), Johnny Lyons (accordion), Harold "Bub" Goodwick (clarinet), and Jim Pye (bass).  It's similar to the below pose but the bass drum head is different as is the line up. It look more like a candid than a pose because of the gap between Tom and Jim.

The line up below is Tom (calling), Jerry (accordion), Don Wachal (Clarinet), Mibs Allen (drums), Johnny Kettleson (guitar), Bub (trumpet) and Jim (bass).  Supposedly at some point Leo Greco played accordion. (I've added surnames where possible) More here. Tom Owen's sheriff costume was really just a suit and a badge but sometimes he wore two holsters on his hips with pistols.

I found another image (below) with a line up that looks like Tom, Chuck, Don Wachal, Mibs, Bub Goodwick, Gene and Jim. There's also one of them piled in a wagon: Tom, Chuck, Don, Mibs, Bub, Johnny, Jim and Don...  I take this horse carriage promo picture to be the latest one. The band is wearing monogrammed chaps. More here. In January of 1946 they got a write up in Billboard claiming they were booked solid for all of 1946. 

This phenomenal gent was Sheriff Tom Owen and His Cowboys, a six-piece band that does a business which makes other combos envious. Playing in a 100 -mile radius of Cedar Rapids, IA., where the cowboys play a daily program on Station WMT, the band is the hottest thing for box-office receipts to hit the territory. The band will gross $72,000 for 1945 plays 1,400 - 1,600 consistently...

Billboard went on to explain they play the old-time music of 25 years ago with a zip to it, westerns, Hillbilly and some modern. By Modern he means 1940s country. That's a funny thought, today we'd call it all country oldies. Tom Owen's career apparently goes back to WLS where he was a square dance caller where he worked for 13 years. The trio recorded 8 sides in Gennett’s studio, in Richmond, Indiana on February 1926.

Artist biographies are often embellished but Tom Owens recorded previously was the Tom Owen's WLS Barn Dance Trio which whom he recorded 7 discs in 1926 and 1927. [SOURCE] The members of that band are poorly documented but Tom Owen is a given, and Tommy Dandurand is credited as the fiddler player on most of them, something musicologists grant is possible. Those discs were issued on Silvertone, Challenge and Gennett. One article about the WLS Barn Dance Trio reports that Tom Owen is from Missouri.

I don't think that's Tom Own's only bands.  One Gennett discography reports that the band uses the name Uncle John Harvey’s Old Time Dance Orchestra on Herwin. [SOURCE]  I also found an image where Tom Owen is posed next to a group with a bass drum painted with the logo for "Tom Owen's WLS Entertainers." I also found a few Gennetts with the name Tom Owen's Barnstormers, a newspaper listing Tom Owen's Cornhuskers. I think that's the band with Matt Hickey. It's all probably the same group, more or less affiliated with the WLS Barn Dance. (discography below) More here.

The WLS Barn Dance was only debuted on April 19, 1924. So Tom Owen was a very early figure. For his start the book Exploring Roots Music by Nolan Porter told the story. "As a listener that night, I remember that a request went out for a square dance caller and the announcer reported: "Tom Owen, a hospital worker, telephoned that he used to call dances down home in Missouri and he'll be right over." Such things did happen in those early days of radio. The story is canonized in the 1969 book Prairie Farmer and WLS by James Evans.

The Daily Iowan 10-10-1952

The National Barn Dace website lists Tom among the early stars. "Early stars of the National Barn Dance included Tommy Dandurand, Tom Owens, Chubby Parker, Pie Plant Pete, Walter Peterson, Rube Tronson and Cecil & Ethel Ward among others." [SOURCE] You wouldn't think a square dance caller was such a big deal but they were re-creating a type of music which was already considered old-timey. As the Barn Dance Trio Tom Owen's recorded the below. You can see the later three are re-releases.

Richard Peterson in the book Creating Country Music claimed that Square dance calling only constituted part of the WLS Barn Dance radio program from 1924 to 1929. That could have also been the end of Tom Owen on the program but a 1935 issue of Radio Guide suggests Tom Owen was still on air. We know he was at WMT in late 1938 so instead of a gap there may even be an overlap.

Label	Sides	Year
Silvertone	Ocean Waves / Kings Head	1926
Silvertone	Stoney Point / Buffalo Girls	1926
Silvertone	Buckwheat Batter / The Irish Washerwoman	1926
Silvertone	Hell On The Wabash / McLeod's Reel	1926
Gennett	Stoney Point / Ocean Waves	*1926
Gennett	Buckwheat Batter / Hell On The Wabash	*1926
Challenge	Ocean Waves / Buffalo Girls	*1927
Herwin	Buckwheat Batter / Hell On The Wabash	????

In 1949 Tom Owen appeared with Pat Barrett, aka Uncle Ezra, Bradley Kincaid, Malcolm Clair, and Joe Kelly to celebrate the 25th birthday of the WLS Barn Dance. In September 1952 Feedstuffs (a trade newspaper for the feed industry" listed Tom Owen and his Cowboys playing an industry event. Then he appeared again in 1952 for it's 28th birthday alongside Ford Rush and Glenn Roswell. In 1952 there's an ad for a dance Tom Owen's Cowboys are playing, it refers to their 16th WMT anniversary. That'd put their start in 1936 or 1937. This may even overlap with Tom's time touring with his Entertainers in 1937 as a "WLS artist" but probably no longer on the air at the Barn Dance.

Tom Owen died in 1956. Variety wrote "Tom Owens, 63 bandleader who headed a western music group known as Tom Owens's Cowboys died May 27th in Cedar Rapids, IA after a long illness. He joined radio station WMT, Cedar Rapids, in 1937 and continued with that outlet until his illness. Surviving are his wire, daughter and son." The Cowboys had been on WMT for about 20 years. Owen's radio tenure included at least another 10+ years  at WLS.

Arlington Heights Herald, 07-29-1932

In January and February of 1958 Sponsor and Broadcasting magazine carried an ads for a country special on WMT, Noontime RFD, which lists Tom Owen's Cowboys. But there the trail ends. Some ads for that Noontime RFD program co-branded Owen and Johnny Kettleson. The group photo no longer includes Owen but they kept his name at least on the print ads. 

Johnny Kettleson played with his own band from the early 1950s into the early 1970s. Their short-lived accordionist Leo Grecco started Leo & The Pioneers, which eventually became the Leo Greco band. He broke into television and started his own WMT-AM radio program on Sunday mornings "Variety Time" which ran for decades. Charles "Chuck" Youtzy might have become an electric utility worker at Jo-Carroll Electric. Harold ‘Bub’ Goodwick had previously been in the Glen Victoria Band and he left Tom Owen's  Cowboys in 1949. In 1952 he started Bub and His Boys in Illinois with his brother Donovan. He continued to perform until his death in 1991. Like with Tom Owen, his band carried on for another few years. [SOURCE] 

But in a strange kind of serendipity Sheriff Tom Owen's Cowboys were mentioned in Billboard in 1995. Mercury released a 50th anniversary Country music box set which included 73 artists who recorded between 1945 and 1995. The first name was Sheriff Tom, the last name was Shania Twain. What a mismatched  pair of bookends.