DJ Lucky Lang

Above is a scan of the cover of the Lucky Lang Original Song Folio. My copy is in poor, maybe even vile condition. It's been stored in a moist place, it's biodegrading at the spine and bears strange brown and purple stains related to the moisture. It could be mold, possibly Stachybotrys leprosus. The staples are even rusted and have further stained the pages. It's a tad gross really. But the hand notations on the cover make up for all that. I had to soak it in bleach to proceed.

This copy is  Book #1, and I've seen that there actually is a Book #2. Interestingly it's cover is identical except for the "No. 2" text. Both editions list the following radio stations: WLS, WSBA, WSAL, WDBJ, WAPO, WSB, WJAX, WNAX, WGST, and WAGA. My copy continues with hand notations: WORK, WHBB(?) WHHB, and WLBR. I was able to corroborate the WLBR reference from January copies of the Harrisburg Evening News, and the Lebanon Daily News.

He appears to remain in the music biz through about 1959 and then he disappeared. In this songbook is a very short biography. I'll paraphrase: Lucky was born in Georgia on January 27th 1913. He's 5 foot 9 inches tall, and has brown hair and brown eyes. He didn't finish medical school but did take music lessons from Bob Burns in his home town.  The first radio station he played on was 740 WSB-AM in his home town where he teamed up with Chuck Swain.

So we can infer from this that Lucky is from Atlanta, or at least near Atlanta. Chuck Swain is much better known Lucky. Swain also played on WLS with Langdon L. Howe on the Smile-A-While program, and the National Barn Dance as the Blue Grass Boys. In the folio Lucky refers to it as the Blue Ridge Boys. One may be wrong, or perhaps both are right. But it's clear that Langdon L. Howe is Lucky Lang.  After they parted ways, Swain later played on WZIP in Covington, KY back in 1948.  He was a member of the Fiesta gang which also included Shorty Hobbs.  An October 1943 Billboard article notes that Swain had come to WLS from WLAV in Grand Rapids, MI, and Lang had come from WAPO in Chattanooga, TN.

Also notable about the song book; Lucky isn't listed as the author on all the lyrics. Some are unattributed, but the last few are by Mary Jean Shurtz. She was a well-known another country song-writer, and poet, but more importantly one of the earliest journalists in country music. So in addition to writing songs for performers such as Webb Pierce, Hawkshaw Hawkins, Cowboy Copas, and Hank Snow. In 1948 she signed an exclusive deal with Hill & Range Songs Inc. You may not know the name but they also controlled much of Elvis Presley's early recorded material. She has a short bio at Hillbilly-music.com HERE.

Excluding their mutual levels of concurrent fame, the only connection I've found between them is radio station WORK-AM. WORK is a very annoying station to research as it's one of those rare call signs which is a common word. 1000 WORK-AM signed on in York, PA on March 17, 1932. After NARBA in 1941 they moved to 1350.  Shorty Fincher and His Prairie Pals of WORK-AM played Shurtz's songs and even published her poems in their song books. When Lucky Lang's folio was printed he was playing with the 101 Ranch Boys who were also based in York PA and reputedly played at WORK-AM twice daily in 1947.  But their publicity photos usually bear the  900 WSBA-AM calls around the mic.  But WSBA didn't sign on until 1942.  It appears they played both stations at different times in the 1940s. (WORK changed calls to WOYK around 1983).  It's also possible that WORK is a red herring, and  Lucky thought it was just good business sense to score points with columnist Mary Jean Shurtz.

But back to 1946 and my folio: There is a notation on an interior page from 1946 that Lucky was playing in December with "Coco." The August 3rd, 1946 issue of Billboard does reference Coco...

"...Golden Valley Boys featuring Ray Myers, the armless wonder boy, headlined show at Mount Gretna (Pa.) Park, together with Mickie McKay, Pop Melchor and Marie, and The Blue Ridge Boys and Coco."

The Lebanon Daily News on August 30th also mentions Coco with the Blue Ridge Boys. Lucky Lang is on that same bill, so it's possible Lucky ran off into the sunset with Coco, whomever or whatever it was. But as far as the rest of Lucky's career, I see he played the West Coast Shows carnival in 1955 and again in 1959, then he disappears.
As for the folio, I've uploaded all 25 pages HERE

DJ Ray Myers

Raymond Robert Myers was born in 1911 in Lancaster, PA. He was steel guitar player who performed on radio around the region. He was the fifth in a family of nine children and started in music in high school with the trombone then harmonica, only later transitioning to a Hawaiian steel guitar.

He began playing it at local events in churches and amateur contests. With the toes of his left foot he held a steel bar to note the frets and with his right foot he held a custom pick to strum the strings. Did I mention he had no arms?

Playing guitar with your feet has a certain way of attracting attention and though his mother had avoided putting him on a side show,  in 1933 he contacted Robert L. Ripley and in short order Ray was performing at the World's Fair in Chicago, IL. More here.

He returned home to where his family now lived in Paradise, PA. Local radio station in Lancaster, WGAL-AM gave him a slot where he continued to do programs remotely for Ripley which were nationally syndicated on NBC. At the time Ripley was the host of The Baker's Broadcast from 1935 to 1937. A performer from the WWVA-AM Jamboree named Cowboy Loye Pack heard Myers and wrote him a letter. Two weeks later Ray sang his first song on WWVA in Wheeling, VA.

His performances on WWVA spread his fame as a novelty musician in ways that the side-show Ripley program couldn't.  Next year, 1938 found Ray playing on WEEU-AM in Reading, PA with Uncle Jack Nelson into 1940. In 1939 he had a short stint at WHAS-AM in Louisville, KY but returned to Reading within months. But he went on to perform on WSVA-AM in Harrisonburg, VA, WKBN-AM in Youngstown, Ohio and WCHS-AM in Charleston , WV. Some of those dates he played with Radio Dot and Smokey. IN 1943 he had his own show again, this time on WHIS in Bluefield, WV. He remained there less than a year before returning to Pennsylvania. His own mother gave an account of his touring and is the primary source for that information here.

The trail goes cold for almost a decade but Myers had a daily show over radio station WPDX-AM  in Clarksburg, WV as a trio with the Mays Brothers and Cindy Coy. It is probably the same group known as the "Cindy Coy Trio" on WILE-AM in Cambridge, OH in 1949. They signed to Donnett Hit Records that year and were never heard from again. Myers is known to have been playing on WLAC in Nashville as late as 1963. He died in Gordonville, PA, in May 1986.