The Goodwill Family

 

Let's start at the SHSM - State Historical Society of Missouri  [LINK]. The few images I can find of the Goodwill Family all seem to originate there. On one post card they stand in a row: Uncle George, Little Eddit, Slim, Aunt Martha, and an unnamed person titled merely "yours truly." In another picture, they pose with a couch, with a note from the Busy Bee Department store of Springfield, IL. The text at the bottom reads "Heard over KWTO every Monday - Wednesday - Friday 6:45 - 7:00 AM." This one is a smaller group: Martha, Slim, Junior and George. In that one Junior looks old enough to drive, it's maybe 5 years later or so.

Springfield News-Leader 2019

Little Eddie, grew up to become Herschel "Speedy" Haworth Jr., a cast member of ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee from 1955–1960. He died in 2008. More here. From George's biography we can learn more about the more obscure Goodwill Family. George was an Earle and was no relation to Slim and Aunt Martha. Martha was not his Aunt, but his mother, Vancie Martha Haworth (née Wilson). Slim was her brother, Clyde aka Slim Wilson. Yes, that Slim Wilson. Slim appears in the first issue of the KWTO Dial in August of 1941, playing with a trio, the Hoakum Boys. But the Goodwill Family appears on the schedule, Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 6:15 AM.  [SOURCE]

George Earle and Speedy were the first to get on the radio. Speedy played guitar and George read the funny papers aloud. It was a thing back then. Martha, Speedy, and Slim formed the first Goodwill Trio and began performing on KGBX-AM in 1932. KWTO-AM had the same owner at the time and they moved to the more powerful station after it signed on in 1933. In 1935, Guy Smith joined the trio as "Uncle George." With that addition, the Goodwill Trio became the Goodwill Family. Rev. Guy Smith didn't fit the musician model though, he was a  fundamentalist minister and he didn't stick around long. More here. He later turned up at KCKN and KANS, Cactus Jack Call got him a gig in 1963. More here.

Sources conflict sometimes. Little Eddie was also called Junior at one point which is confusing. Some sources clearly say that Junior grew up to be "Speedy." But the Springfield News-Leader says the "little boy" in that image above is Speedy. They cannot both be him. Speedy (Hershel) was born in 1922. If that image was taken in 1934 then he'd be 12 years old. Little Eddie is not 12, Junior might be so let's go with that theory and assume the image is just poorly labeled. This is consistent with another solo image of Speedy at the age of 12 that calls him a "Yodeling Cowboy." He's a little young to herd cattle but he'd already won a yodeling contest at the age of 10 so he was on his way.

That hymnal at the top has a single page of background on the troupe. It cites the 1932 date, but it makes some claims I find dubious. Firstly it states "...it's personal, with one exception remains the same as the day it first sang over the air on radio station KWTO..." Just between the two images we have an extra member and we know it began as a trio, not a sextet. Confusingly it describes them as "four people, a brother, sister the sisters son and a friend." That should be Martha, Clyde (slim), Junior and probably George (Guy) at that point in time. But it goes on to name them "Clyde "Slim" Wilson, "Aunt Martha" Baty, Junior Haworth, and George Rhodes" A PBS documentary on KWTO also cites Rhodes, specifically as a bassist. [SOURCE] But I'm lost again. Martha was a Wilson, like her brother Clyde (Slim). Her married name was Haworth. Where does the name "Baty" come from?

Let's go back to George for a moment. George was George Earle when the story started and was Guy Smith in the middle. That skips the third George, George Rhodes. That George played on KWTO’s Ozark Farm and Home Hour going back to at least 1944. Prior to KWTO he played with a band, Lonnie and His Cornhuskers. In 1947 he was part of the "RFD Round up" with Ozark Red and Goo-Goo Rutledge. He was performing at KWTO at least until 1951 with Buster Fellows. But he is the George most often remembered in print. They all played together on the barn dance program "Korn's A-Krack-in'." Those barn dance style programs were happening as early as 1946, and there was at least one in 1949. A general article about Ozark county musicians [LINK] casually mentioned that George Rhodes became part of Slim Wilson’s family group, the Goodwill Family during the 1940s.

Martha opened a restaurant Aunt Martha’s Cliff House in the late 1940s. It was destroyed in a fire in 1958. By the time of the fire, she was married to the chef, Charlie Hicklin. It was her second restaurant. In 1948 Martha operated the Corn Crib Cafe at 302 South Jefferson in downtown Springfield, and after the fire, she ran Aunt Martha's Pancake house. Martha died in 1966. [LINK]  The obituary names numerous family members and in-laws, but not the date of her marriage to Hicklin. More here.

But a contemporary description of the old Cliff House restaurant property, the Springfield News-Leader again refers to her as Aunt Martha Baty. [LINK] I had thought this was a typo, or bad AI. But even the original 1958 article about the fire referred to her as both as "Aunt Martha" and "Mrs Baty."  I found the answer in the June 1949 issue of the KWTO Dial. Mrs T.M.D. of Birmingham Alabama wrote in to ask "How long has Aunt Martha been married to Mr. Baty?"  The answer was "A little over a year and a half."  Mr. Baty was pictured in the May issue and named as Everett Baty. His story arc is short. The October 23rd, 1954 issue [LINK] of the Motion Picture Herald includes a small obituary.

"Everett Baty, Jr., 62 years old, identified with theatres at Springfield, Mo., and husband of Martha Baty, radio entertainer, died recently in a resort cabin at Kissee Mills, Mo., just after he had returned from a fishing trip on a lake."

It's hard to say when the show was over for the Goodwill Family. Their time at KWTO wrapped up in the mid 1950s and Martha became a restaurateur. They recorded a few 78s, and a few 45s. But that pancake house outlasted everyone. It didn't close until October of 2015, lasting a full 55 years. That's longer than the Goodwill Family program, Aunt Martha and all three of her husbands, her famous brother Slim Wilson and even her most famous son, Speedy Haworth, who passed in 2008.

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.

DJ Chet Atkins

Born in 1924, Chester "Chet" Atkins is known today almost entirely for his country guitar picking.  He was also a lifetime radio man and that is no exaggeration. He was an ARRL member, and earned a Ham Radio General class license in 1998. His first call sign was WA4CZD, but he traded that in for a vanity call sign contianing his initials W4CGP in 1998.  That's a radio man.

He was born in  Luttrell, TN on the distant outskirts of Knoxville. He landed his first radio gig on WRBL-AM at the age of 17 in 1941. It was a 30 minute Saturday morning program at 10:00 AM, hosted by Parson Jack, a local preacher. Parson Jack had actually heard Atkins playing on at a farm and spontaneously invited him to perform on the program.

He next appeared on the radio closer to home, at WNOX-AM on the Bill Carlisle program. He played for Jumpin' Bill Carlisle regularly and became a studio musician for the station. There he met the Carter Family and became their guitarist.  In 1945 he relocated to Cincinnati to play on WLW. His reasons for leaving are unclear but one biography said he lost his job to "cut backs." In his autobiography he just flatly said he was fired. Regardless, he lasted only six months and moved on to Raleigh in 1946 and WPTF-AM. That was short lived as well and he moved on to WRVA in Richmond and played the Old Dominion Barn Dance. He lost his job too, this time due to missing work over asthma attacks.

He auditioned in Chicago, for Red Foley, and later made his first appearance at the Opry in 1946 in Foley's band. The Opry gig wasn't a stayer so Atkins moved on to KWTO-AM in Springfield, Missouri.  There VP Si Siman nicknamed him "Chet." Apparently it stuck. In 1947 Chet went back to Knoxville and had a regular slot on the WNOX programs the "Tennessee Barn Dance" and the "Midday Merry Go Round". Two years later he left

WNOX to re-join the Carter Family back on KWTO. He was briefly fired there was well and ended up playing with Saddle Rockin' Rhythm on KOA-AM in Denver. The Carter Family, then including Chet, relocated to Nashville in 1950. Atkins began performing on WSM-AM regularly and became a member of The Opry thereafter.  In his later years he went back to radio, appearing on Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion radio program, and other public radio programs. He died of cancer in 2001.

The Thinking Man's Hillbillies

 They were called the Thinking Man's Hillbillie. I'm not making that up. That's their actual marketing lingo from the 1950s.  Does a thinking man needed a different  kind of hillbilly than anyone else? Henry D. Haynes and Kenneth C. Burns performed as Homer and Jethro just to keep up appearances. In reality they had more in common with Weird Al than Bill Monroe. Their career was largely built on twangy parodies and original silly tunes. My personal favorite is "She Was Bitten On The Udder By An Adder."  You don't get tunes like that any more. Chet Atkins produced many of their recordings.

They were the same age, both born in 1920 with Haynes being a mere month older. They first met at WNOX-AM during a 1936 audition. (Yes, they were both only 16.) They were paired up with the house band, the String Dusters, and earned their nicknames when Program Director Lowell Blanchard forgot their names. By 1939 they were regulars on the Renfro Valley Barn Dance which was broadcast from the Memorial Auditorium in Dayton, Ohio. It was carried locally on WLW-AM. It was a good year to make the leap. Late that year the show relocated to a venue in Kentucky and was picked up by  NBC. Homer & Jethro missed out on some good years there as they were both drafted. They returned to the US afterward and found work at WLW, but were mercilessly purged by new management at WLW in 1948.

 They went on tour for a year and then relocated to Missouri for a year performing regularly on "Corns a Crackin" with Chet Atkins on KWTO-AM. That show eventually evolved into the ABC TV show "The Ozark Jubilee" but they left before it made the leap. They jointed the cast of "The National Barn Dance" on WLS-AM  in 1950 and stuck around  playing silly songs dressed in night gowns for 2 years. They later toured with Spike Jones, which if anything made them even zanier. They had a string of parody hits in the 1950s mostly on RCA.

Haynes died of a heart attack in 1971.  Burns tried to carry on with a new partner but the magic was gone. He started a solo career embracing his longtime love of jazz mandolin. He died in 1989 of prostate cancer. Homer & Jethro were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001. With some irony I must point out that the man who forgot their names Lowell Blanchard was inducted in 1977, over 20 years before them.