Monday, January 27, 2014

Ranch Radio Song Of The Day #1193

Ranch Radio will be dustin' off some 78s this week.  First selection is March Of The Roses by Dick Hartman's Tennessee Ramblers.  Here's a short bio:  Organized by Dick Hartman in the late 1920s, the Tennessee Ramblers transferred to Charlotte from Rochester, New York in 1934 under the sponsorship of Crazy Water Crystals. At that time, the band featured Hartman, "Horse Thief Harry" Blair, Kenneth "Pappy" Wolfe, Jack Gillette and native North Carolinian Cecil Campbell. The ensemble quickly established themselves as WBT's most popular stringband, receiving over one hundred thousand pieces of fan mail by the end of their first seven months of broadcasting here. After a stint of about a year at WBT, the Ramblers moved on to Atlanta to work at stations WSB and WGST. They returned to Charlotte the following year to perform again on WBT for the Southern Radio Corporation. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the Ramblers were in and out of Charlotte, visiting Pittsburgh, Cincinatti, and Louisville for radio work. (Dick Hartman left the band in 1937.) Also during this period the group was beckoned to Hollywood to make several successful western films with cowboy singing stars such as Gene Autry and Tex Ritter. Titles included Ride Ranger Ride, Ridin' the Cherokee Trail, Swing Your Partner, with Dale Evans and Oh My Darling Clementine, featuring a young Roy Acuff. In the mid-1940s, Cecil Campbell took the reins of the band and led various organizations of the Tennessee Ramblers up into the 1970s.

http://youtu.be/wYV1-QjRayc

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