Hillbilly Boys – First Song, Washington Reel. ep16, 1939

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:37 — 7.2MB)

Playlist:

1. Mickey Wickey plays, Washington Reel.
2. Pat encourages the use of Hillbilly flour for all your baking needs.
3. Leon sings, Old Yazzoo.
4. All the Boys pitch in to sing, Beautiful Texas. (a poem set to music, written by W Lee O’Daniel).
5. Pat reads a fan letter, a woman who had a successful party, all thanks to Hillbilly flour.
6. Horace sings, Apple Blossom Time.
7. Mickey Wickey wraps up with a fiddle breakdown, Green Fields Over America.

PS: Hey, I just found out that i have either been previously misinformed, or just misunderstood my information. Here’s the burning mystery of why I had claimed that Bob Wills was nicked named Mickey Wickey. Short answer: he wasn’t.

After leaving the Burrus Mill Flour Company in 1935, Pappy O’Daniel created the W. Lee O’Daniel Flour Co., with its Hillbilly Flour brand. In conjunction with his new company, O’Daniel also formed a new band, called the Hillbilly Boys, and installed his son Pat as its band leader. Other members included his other son Mike, Leon Huff, Leon McAuliffe, and at various times, Kermit “The Love Bird” Whalin, Jim Boyd, Wallace Griffin, Curley Perrin, Bundy Bratcher and Kitty “Texas Rose” Williamson.[1] To keep his singers’ individual fame from eclipsing the band’s as a whole (as had happened with Bob Wills), Pappy O’Daniel decided to give band members nicknames (Pat was called Patty-boy, Mike was called Mickey Wickey, and Caroll Hubbard was Little Caesar the Fiddle Teaser).[2] Pappy continued his past success at linking music with advertising. This included marketing ideas like including pictures of his band members on sacks of flour, which moms could sew into dolls for their children.[2]

(a snippet from some documentation from the Old Time Radio Researchers Group.