The Mary Lee Taylor Show

It's difficult to find information on Mary Lee Taylor which is unusual for an NBC syndicated program carried on 200 radio stations. There was a time her name was as well known as Betty Crocker. A  December, 1948 issue of Billboard lists the sponsor as Pet Milk Sales Co. and the program as a renewal. The producer was Al Chance; writer, Ben Adams; Announcer, Del King; and the cast just Mary Lee Taylor... who was a fictional character. My first encounter was a KSCJ mailer from September 1950 listed Mary Lee Taylor's "Radio Recipes" which gave me some idea the program ran for at least a few years. It turned out to be one of the longest-running cooking shows in history. Yet the book Pot Roast, Politics, and Ants in the Pantry by Carol and John Fisher is one of the few sources to even describe the program in print.  

"Through the decades, additional Pet Milk cookbooks came off the press in St. Louis. Erma Proetz tested recipes for Pet Milk Company and developed the radio personality Mary Lee Taylor. The “Mary Lee Taylor Program,” a fifteen-minute radio show for the homemaker, “featured Pet recipes and meal plans, promoted cookbooks and offered household hints” with the first show airing just before Thanksgiving in 1933. Her first recipe was pumpkin pie filling using Pet Milk."

Mary Lee Taylor was a fictional character created by Erma Proetz. I learned that she was not a chef but in real life, an Executive VP at Gardner and Company advertising where Pet Milk Co. was her biggest account. She graduated from Washington University in 1910, with a degree in Liberal Arts and she was first hired at Gardner Advertising in 192 as a copywriter. The marketing description of Mary Lee as a "nutritionist and home economist" was pure marketing hoopla. The real Proetz was the first woman to be inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame in 1952 and somewhat of a feminist figure because of her success in business. More here and here.

PET Milk cook booklet 1960

PET was a brand of evaporated milk first made in Illinois in 1885. Born in 1891, Erma Proetz (née Perham) was barely any younger than the product. But the radio program, in focusing on nutrition, was hitting the mark during the Great Depression. Proetz first took on the account in 1924 for print advertising in the magazine Ladies Home Journal. In was in May 1927 that she created the "Pet Milk Test Kitchen" and began developing recipes. That's right, the recipes predate the radio program. Mrs. Susan Cost (née Lovitt) began voicing the character on CBS in 1933 and continued through the entire run of the series; all 21 years. More here. The 20th anniversary was acknowledged in an NBC trade release.

"Susan Cost, better known to her vast audience as Mary Lee Taylor has conducted the program from the Midwest since its inception for the same sponsor, the Pet Milk Company. The series has been on NBC radio since Oct. 23 , 19^8.  On her program of Nov. 7, Mary Lee will be congratulated by radio and TV performers Dinah shore, Ralph Edwards, Jimmy Durante, Ted Mack, and Eddie Cantor..." 

The bi-weekly radio show first launched in 1933, and the word nutrition in that era wasn't yet misused a pseudo-scientific scam. In the Great Depression nutrition was focused on getting enough calories not to literally become ill or die. Shelf-stable, affordable, calorie-dense foods were an absolute necessity for millions. [When you look at the economy in late 2025, these ideas resonate.] It's better than to think of Proetz work to be less like RFK and more like the USDA, biased about dairy products but not actually grifting per se.

In 1943 the program changed format, it was extended to 30 minutes, but the first half was a soap opera called "The Story of The Week." It featuring a young couple, Jim and Sally Carter. The show moved to NBC and KSD in 1948 and continued into 1954 outliving it's creator by a decade. Proetz died in 1944 at the age of 53 after a long illness. Susan Cost may have taken over the "Pet test kitchen" at this time. Some contemporary articles refer to her creating recipes. NBC changed the name of the program to The Pet Milk Show. More here.

The Mary Lee Taylor Show ran for 21 years on KMOX in syndication. Proetz died in 1944 which means that first advertisement I found for Radio Recipes on KSCJ is for a fictive Mary Lee Taylor, not a pseudonymous one.  In the 1940s the Mary Lee Taylor show began giving away free cookbooks. Over time, dozens off different ones were created, though with some recipe repeats. The name Mary Lee Taylor and the face of Susan Cost continued to appear on cook books into the 1960s. Cost passed in 1967 at the age of 77, outliving Proetz, her own husband Walter, Erna Proetz's husband Arthur and the program itself. More here.

It is somewhat galling that there is more written about the The Pet Milk Orchestra than Cost or Proetz. In the book Radio Program Openings and Closings, 1931-1972 by author Vincent Terrace. There are detailed descriptions about the entire cast and crew of the NBC era. He records the 1948 orchestra being directed by Bob Crosby and Gus Haenschen, Warren Sweeney is host, the "star" is Vic Damone. The talent includes singer Kay Armen and the obscure Emily Coty Singers. In 1950 the program was rebooted and comedian Jack Pearl played host; the new "regulars were Mimi Benzell, Cliff Hall and Russ Emery. The new announcer was Ed Herlihy, and conductor Gus Haenschen was working without Bob Crosby.  Somehow Terrace managed not to mention Cost or Proetz whatsoever. Sounds like the show took a budget cut in the revamp, but you'd hardly know it was a cooking show from the entry. 

There is also very little in the usual encyclopedic sources: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio by Dunning, and both the American and Women in radio Encyclopedias by Luther Sies have little more than a sentence. The book A Portrait of Progress: A Business History of Pet Milk Company by Martin Bell barely mentions Proetz. The Jay Hickerson Ultimate History of Network Radio Programming lists one recording from 1933, and a set of 49 from the NBC years. It's unusual that a 20+ year program has so little research available. It is hard not to come to the conclusion that it has something to do with it's creator being a successful feminist figure.

DJ Shorty Fincher

I bumped into Shorty Fincher before, reading about Lucky Lang. Shorty was actually named Luther Clark “Shorty” Fincher and he was born in 1899 in Iukia, MS according to his biography in this song book. I am aware of one other Fincher song book and it's dates with a signature to 1941. [SOURCE] At that time he was on WORK in York, PA. I suspect my song book is the older of the two, being more plain, having possibly a 1937 or 1938 publication.

As is often the case his obituary reveals more information than any other source. He died in 1958 and was 58 years old so his year of birth is accurate. Had he lived to the following November he'd have been 59. At the time he was operating Valley View Park in Hallam, PA. He was also a DJ on WGCB in Red Lion. The obit is probably the source for the alsobooks.com information stating the following

"Fincher came to York county in 1940, and his large car with steer horns on the radiator soon became a common sight. For a time he had a music group called Shorty Fincher and his Prarie Pals. He was heard on WORK and WNOW radio in his early years."

It gives the town he was born in as Iuki, MS which is not what the song book says. I am assuming they're both spelling variations of Iuka, MS. Regardless the family moved to Anniston, Alabama, when he was one year old. He was survived by his wife Alexandra "Sallie" Fincher, four sons: James, Fred,  and Donald; and a daughter Nellie named for his mother. the obit goes on to name all his siblings but hiding his sisters names behind their husbands as a Mrs. so they're not worth including. it was more interesting that many still lived around Anniston, AL but some were local to York or Philadelphia. More here.

One of 14 brothers he and two others started a band, The Cotton Pickers, in 1932. The Cotton Pickers included Shorty, his brother Hamilton (who performed as the comedian "Rawhide"), Alexandra Kaspura as "Lonesome Valley Sally," Florence "Yodeling Flo" Morosco, Dolph Hewitt and Ted Buchanan on guitar.  The Cotton-pickers relocated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where they had a regular program on KQV-AM. Around then he recorded four sides for Columbia records as the "Crazy Hillbillies Band". [SOURCE] That name is due to a sponsorship from Crazy Water Crystals. He also recorded under the name Colonel Jack [Brinkley] and Shorty's Crazy Hillbillies, as well as six other sides for Okeh. 

If you didn't know, crazy water crystals were a laxative. It was disturbingly popular. The company sponsored radio programs all over the South. The Crazy Mountaineers, Dick Hartman's Tennessee Ramblers, The Crazy Hickory Nuts, The Lone Star Quartet, Shorty's Crazy Hillbillies, The Crazy water Crystal Gang, [SOURCE]  and the Crazy Water Crystal Program itself. Their ads and sponsored programs were aired on WBAP, WPTF, WBT, KRBC and several border blasters as well.

From that 1932 group Dolph Hewitt (aka Adolph Edward Hewitt) went on to a career of his own. He got into WWVA at the age of 16, over a year before Fincher. His first performed with Frankie More and his Log Cabin Gang. In the 1940s Dolph moved to St. Louis and performed at KMOX. That went well and he graduated to an ABC Radio Network slot with Pappy Cheshire’s Ozark Champions. In 1946 he joined Radio Station WLS with the Sage Riders on the National Barn Dance. He recorded several sides for Kapp and Victor records. More here.

Back in Pittsburgh, Hamilton Fincher was hired by Doc Williams as a comedian for his band, the Border Riders. Williams and the Border Riders went to Wheeling, West Virginia, along with Hamilton. Shorty Fincher followed them shortly thereafter with the Cotton Pickers and joined the WWVA Jamboree, which was broadcast on Saturday nights over WWVA from Wheeling. Through WWVA, Fincher also co-hosted his own show, the Shorty & Sally Fincher Jamboree Show, with Lonesome Valley Sally. 

 Some sources report that Shortly was operating an amusement park at Dreamers Beach in Delaware in 1949. But a 1949 issue of Billboard reports that the first Wisconsin folk music park began operation that May in West Bend, WI.  That's about 30 miles from Milwaukee. The issue specifically says that "Valley View Park, which was operated last year by Shorty Fincher, will run this year with Nemo Lippert, of the Range Riders."  That note would put Shortly in Wisconsin in 1948. Nemo Lippert was another country artist from PA. His range Riders performed on WNOW in York. He was later on WTPA-TV in Harrisburg.

 In this part of their career, Shorty and Sallie operated their own amusement park in Hellam, PA. Purportedly the park became more of a flea market in the 1960s after Shorty died. In 1953 The Emmitsburg Chronicle of Maryland puts Shorty Fincher and Sallie at a Firemen's carnival and ox roast. The York Dispatch has them at another Firemen's carnival in July of 1954. They were playing the country version of the oldies circuit, but I'm sure they had a good time. I found one obituary that stated Shorty was a disc jockey and salesman for radio station 1440 WGCB-AM in Red Lion, PA. The station signed on in 1950 so that narrows down the time frame. While Shorty died in 1958, Sallie lived until 1987 operating the park for decades after his passing. Joan Concilio of the York Dispatch has been writing a series of articles about the park's history that are highly recommended. [LINK]

Booger Brothers Broadcasting System

Almost everyone knows what a Les Paul guitar is, but history seem to be forgetting Les Paul the person. Firstly, his real name was Lester William Polsfuss, He never legally changed his name. Les Paul was a stage name he started using in the mid-1930s. It wasn't even his first stage name. Paul didn't start buildings guitars until the 1940s. Before his guitar era he was a radio performer, a recording engineer, a music director and for a time ...a pirate radio operator. Whole books have been written about the mans many storied accomplishments but I'd like to focus on radio and one pirate station in particular. More here. Paul was a genius engineer his ability to build a transmitter, or even an entire radio station is not in doubt —only the details around this particular tale.

The story is fabulous, who doesn't like a tale mixing wild house parties with pirate radio and hot jazz.  But it's main problem is that his biographies skip over it. The biographical reference is admittedly brief. It appears in his 1993 biography Les Paul: An American Original, by Mary Alice Shaughnessy. Les Paul was still alive when it was published, he died in 2009. That overlap also gives it more credence, but contemporary references were hard to find.

So let's start with his early radio experiences. He received some engineering training as early as 8 years old by an unnamed engineer from WTMJ. He became a musician as a teenager. He played with Rube Tronson's Texas Cowboys, and played with Sunny Joe Wolverton's Radio Band in St. Louis, MO, on KMOX. The book The Mighty 'MOX by Sally and Rob Rains identifies corroborates that early KMOX program. It is otherwise very obscure.

A young guitar player known as "Rhubarb Red" was part of The International Oil Burner Show between 4:30 and 7 AM from 1927 to 1930."

Les relocated with Joe Wolverton's band to Chicago and started playing on WBBM with them, and then solo as Rhubarb Red. He was performing as both a country artist and a jazz solist. As Red he started recording with Art Tatum which is when his career really took off. The book Famous Wisconsin Musicians by Susan Masino also has him performing at WISN in Milwaukee, WRJN in Racine, and both KBGA and KWTO in Springfield, IL and of course WJJD and WIND in Chicago. This is further referenced in the book Encyclopedia of American Radio 1920 - 1960 by Luther Sies

"Rhubarb Red. A CW tenor, guitarist and harmonica player, Rhubarb Red appeared daily at 6:30 A.M. and again at 9:00 AM. in an all request program WJJD, Chicago, IL; and WIND, Gary, IN, 1935-1937."

That same book has Les relocating to New York in 1937. The official Les Paul website puts it in 1938, but close enough. But 1938 is definitely when he began performing with Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians on NBC radio.  In 1941 He returns to Chicago and becomes the music director for radio stations WJJD and WIND. So from his career history we can say definitively that his pirate station existed for a period of time between 1938 and 1941.

Here we have the pirate station boxed in my context. As the legend goes... in Jackson Heights, NY, Les created his own local radio station and broadcast jam sessions. His makeshift studio full of professional musicians. The station operated at low wattage and was only receivable locally, but due to the proximity of LaGuardia airport that included aircraft. Yes, the claim is that the airplanes flying into LGA would get scrambled signals of jazz music mixing with coordinates from the tower. Purportedly he solved that engineering problem with a "wave trap."

How much of that is true? Well, Jackson Heights is a neighborhood in the northwestern part of the Queens in New York City. Les Paul and his wife Mary Ford had an apartment in 40-15 81 St. That address is only about 2 miles from LGA. Most sources describe that as a studio apartment. But Les Paul in an interview said "Getting union cards jumped our pay to $150 a week and allowed us to take furnished apartments at Electra Court." Advertisements for the units described it as "The House of to-morrow, ready to-day!" The developers ran ads for furnished apartments in Down Beat magazine, specifically advertising to musicians —just as Les described. So here was have a plausible reason he had such access to professional musicians; his building was full of them!

Different versions of the tale claim that he set up his studio in the building’s basement, near the furnace room. His friends came over and they played together. But his friends at the time are now enormously famous musicians: band members from the biggest big bands of the era. Not the band leaders but the working union card musicians from Benny Goodman's band, Glenn Miller’s band, Artie Shaw's band, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey's bands, Fred Waring’s band, Bob Crosby’s band and Lionel Hampton's band. It's almost too fantastical to be real. How many of them lived at Electra Court?

I did eventually find a contemporary reference in the July 1940 issue of Popular Mechanics. I think that's Ernie Newton on bass which might make that band some iteration of the Les Paul trio. Did the FCC pay him a visit? Did he really take the  mic and announce the station name as "Booger Brothers Broadcasting?"

The Popular Mechanics article is missing the "Booger Brothers" connection but everything else is there. The general location, the famous musicians, and the broadcasting equipment stretching from the apartment to the basement. A 1953 issue of the Atkinson's Evening Post claims that Les gave the station ID as "The Booger Brothers, The Pink and Yellow network, top of your dial."  But Les went on to say "It was a good station... but the law would have caught up with us if an accident hadn't beat it to the punch." What accident? The Booger Brothers came to an abrupt end in 1941. While jamming in his apartment basement in 1941, Paul was nearly electrocuted to death. [SOURCE]

Paul describes it himself in the book The Early Years of the Les Paul Legacy, 1915-1963 by Robb Lawrence. "I stuck my hand in the transmitter when I shouldn't have..." Bassist Ernie Newton knocked him free but he was seriously injured. After an ice bath they took Paul to the hospital. It took him two years to recuperate according to some sources. This is not entirely true but Booger Brothers was still off the air.

In 1941 or 1942 he moved to Chicago where he became the music director for radio stations WJJD and WIND. A promotional photo dated October of 1941 puts him in the Chicago CBS studio. Newspaper radio schedules still show his trio playing on local stations: they were as on air at KLZ and KVOR in May of 1942. A November schedule has him on WEOA, WCKY, WGAR, WHIO, and KMOX at different times. Some biographies have him moving to "Hollywood" in 1943. That's partly true. The only radio he did after that was for the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) because he got drafted. Though he did do some films. The Bing Crosby radio show that gets connected to this move was Kraft Music Hall and he didn't appear on that program until 1945. He got his own eponymous radio show in 1950. It was a 15-minute slot on NBC with his trio now composed of himself, Mary Ford, and rhythm player Eddie Stapleton. His career never stopped but I think that's the last major radio milestone on that long and storied career I mentioned.

The Novelty Boys

Jimmie Pierson and Richard "Dick" Klasi were the Novelty Boys,leaders of a touring and yodeling old time country music troupe. I say troupe because their group grew to include a number of other members including Cora Deane, Cleora Cooper, Johnny Buffington and others. Dick and Jimmie were farms boys that first met in 1931 working at the Henry Field Company.

Henry Field was a seed company, they still exist today. Like many small businesses of the era, they sponsored tom on their local radio station. In this case that was 780 WJAG-AM in Norfolk, NE.  WJAG was owned by the Norfolk Daily News, so you can imagine there was some reciprocity there. While the station's main studio was at the Hotel Norfolk, the Henry Field Company programs aired daily from a studio built at one of their branch stores.It is there that Jimmie and Dick debuted on air. They later played KSOO-AM for Henry Field as well. First they played as the Nebraskan Trio, then as The Oklahoma Wranglers which they used for about 3 years. 

They went on to play at KFNF-AM near Shenandoah, IA and on KOIL-AM in Omaha, NE.
In was there that they picked up the name "The Novelty Boys."  There they were sponsored by the Aksarben Horse Show and were also able to play WAAW-AM and WOW-AM. In 1934 they played on KMOX-AM.  They also played for a time on WNAX-AM in Yankton, SD. In 1937 Jimmie Pierson's little brother, Melvin "Willie" Pierson, joined the group. He stayed on for a New England tour that included WABI-AM in Bangor.

In WWII Jimmie went into the service, and his brother Willie filled in for him. the group returned to St. Louis and appeared on several stations, then stayed on at KMA-AM in Shenandoah. When Jimmie returned they tried to reunite, but illness struck and many members struck off. Jimmie and Willie played as part of a trio with Willies wife Lois on WIBW-TV, but the good times were over. Willie has a second career as a DJ on KRFM, a radioman at last.

Harold Kayes Mailorder Network

It's almost unthinkable now. In 1950 WGN-AM just handed over night programming to Harold Kaye Mailorder service. The company was very real,  Kay was a former exec from the Olian Ad Agency. the company even appears in the 1950 and 1951 Broadcasting yearbooks simply as "Mail Order Network." According to a 1949 Billboard article they had 50 stations on board. They provided up to 35 hours of programming per week, and were on stations as big as WOR-AM in New York. The "network" was linked by transcription, but provided programming, advertising copy and sponsors. They were headquartered at 1440 Broadway, in New York. The book The Deejays by Arnold Passman described it somewhat grandly:

"So in the fall of 1949, WGN, Chicago, shocked the industry by turning over its midnight-5 A.M. hours to Harold Kaye's Mail Order Network. With Erv Victor spinning pop and hillbilly records between the "per inquiry" spots, plastic Jesus radio, with six pitches per hour, was spewed from WGN's superengineered, wide-ranging, 50-kilowatt mountaintop, where big bands had been beamed to the nation just a few years earlier."

 Their first produced program was "Big Joe," hosted by Joe Rosenfield which was carried by 710 WOR-AM. His program ran from 2:00 AM to 5:00 AM from 1949 to 1954. Joe went on to host Big Joe's Happiness Exchange on 770 WABC-AM in 1959. How long his WOR program was involved with Kaye is unclear. More here. The aforementioned Uncle Erv Victor was a country music DJ formerly of KMOX, where he had been since at least 1946. He left for WGN in September that year. The program ran overnights, 1:00 AM to 6:00 AM, syndicated on 56 stations.  One of them was KHJ-AM. The mail order network had previously claimed to have 50 affiliates with stations in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Washington, Miami, Jacksonville, Tampa, Atlanta, Birmingham, New Orleans, Buffalo, Rochster and New Orleans. I count 15 cities in that list. With 50 affiliates that is either a lot of double coverage or a lot of omitted stations, or a gross over-estimation. The article went to some pains not to name the stations, describing wattage and market but not the call sign... almost as if there were some shame attached...

It was said that NAB didn't like the precedent, but WGN wasn't a member so there wasn't much they could do. For Harold Kaye results were great. the huge coverage area of WGN parlayed into more orders from more customers in more markets. It was the QVC of it's day and as programming it bordered on repugnant, but the sales numbers didn't lie. But in 1951 Kaye told Billboard that his similar programming on TV was "headed for the junk pile."  Kaye credited the two-month drop to "the current economic squeeze, public resentment of phony claims and inferior merchandise, and the fact that mail-order pitches are no longer a novelty to TV audiences." Unsurprisingly Kaye shows up as the new TV department head at the Dorland Ad Agency in June of 1951. I can't be certain that it's the same Harold Kaye... but it fits the story.

MOVIE NIGHT: KMOX Documentary

1220 KMOX-AM signed on in 1925 and it remains the personification of what it means to be a heritage radio station. This video was produced in 2000 for the 75th anniversary of KMOX radio by Pulse Productions, Inc. It include rare air-checks, and interviews with former staffers like Jack Buck, Joe Buck, John Carney. The full video is available on DVD from Pulse Productions.
Part: 1



Part: 2



BONUS: Radio interview with author and radio historian Frank Absher, who literally wrote the book on KMOX.

Transcription Mystery Disc #77

I almost never shell out more than junk-shop prices for transcription recordings. But this one spoke to me. In transferring it I applied a slightly heavier filter than usual. This did produce faint artifacts, but the vocals are so amazing that I really wanted them to be clear enough to discern how fast they are actually singing.The Miccolis Sisters were two sisters from a set of 11 children. Mary and Ruth Miccolis were born in 1922 and 1924 respectively. They became country yodelers of some renown at least regionally in the midwest. They were not bumpkins, they were city girls born right in Melrose Park, a Chicago suburb.

In 1938 they won a local talent show called the Rubins Hour which led to an audition for KMOX. That played out well despite the fact that the older of the two was only 16. At KMOX, they began singing harmonies for Pappy Cheshire's group on he Barnyard Follies show and The Old Fashioned Barn Dance show. They also played on the Ozark varieties Program which was syndicated on CBS. The program was sponsored by Dick Slack's Furniture Co. In 1946 They got their own program sponsored by Grove Quinine tablets.

In 1947, Ambrose Haley invited the sisters to perform on his program at the St. Louis Star-Times owned KXOK. This programming was syndicated on the NBC Blue Network. Working with Haley paid off, when Haley got an offer of a job at WIBW in Topeka, All three of them moved to Topeka and joined the Ozark Ramblers playing the Kansas Roundup Program.When he left in 1949 for WREN they stayed on.

They recorded 8 sides for DeLuxe, and two for King. I've only ever seen one of them and none of them are still in print anywhere, anyhow. They also had a songbook with twenty some songs worth of sheet music. This transcription is from a live broadcast, and the Song is the CowBoy Yodel, a song not in the DeLuxe catalog meaning that until now, it's never really been heard by anyone. That's a damn shame.

**************** UPDATE****************

I managed to Contact Ruth Miccolis now married as Ruth Williams. She is still with us and still performing. I hope to collect her few sides and provide her with digitized versions of her catalog. Please contact me if you can be of assistance.

DJ Les Paul

Les Paul was a gearhead. It's more common to think of his as a guitarist now, but in his heyday, he was a gearhead tried and true. it's a term we often don't use now as the technically includes are off writing computer code and not handing hardware with any actual gears. He was born Lester William Polfuss at Waukesha, WI in 1915. He became a teenager during the rise of radio. that's just about perfect timing for a gearhead.

But since you all know him as a guitarist.. i'll start there and segue awkwardly. He started on banjo but quickly moved to guitar. It's no surprise to anyone that he was a prodigy. he was playing semi-professionally at the age of 13. a local drive-in restaurant at the age of 13. It was as a guitarist that his gearhead inclinations became more pronounced. He wanted his guitar louder. Using a phonograph needle wire and a radio speaker he did it. It was the beginning of the electric guitar. This you should already know. there are other claimants. They are just jealous currs.

He dropped out of high school. He started playing with country & western bands and they played on radio stations throughout the midwest including WHAD-AM in Milwaukee, and WRJN-AM in Racine. He played unnamed station in Appleton, Iron Mountain, etc. The WLS Barndance in Waukesha, WISN-AM in Milwaukee, KBGA-AM and KWTO-AM in Springfield, IL.

In 1931 he met Sunny Joe Wolverton who got him a gig in Rube Tronsons Texas Cowboys. Then he got a gig on the "Farm Folks Hour" on KMOX-AM in St. Louis. In Chicago he began playing under the name Rhubarb Red on account of his red hair. In Chicago they played on WIND-AM and WJJD-AM. He was offered a steady gig at WBBM-AM still as Rhubarb Red but now with the Ozark Appleknockers.

In Chicago he formed the first of the Les Paul trios. They moved to New York where they were discovered by Fred Waring of Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians. They toured together. It gave Les actual connections but Waring and Paul fell out a bit over all the attention that exotic electric guitar got. Les went back to Chicago to MD at WBBM but the office didn't suit him. he moved to the Ben Bernie Orchestra.

During the war Les was recruited into the Armed Forces Radio Service where he made trascription recordings. Even after he was discharged he continued to make AFRS recordings through C.P. MacGregor. After the war he the Les Paul Show debuted on NBC. It was a 15 minute program featuring himself Mary Ford and Eddie Stapleton. I wont rehash all that. I'll let Easy Ace do what it does best. He's got some Les Paul programs from the 1950s posted here.