Movie clip, Light Crust Doughboys, Oh, Susanna/Tiger Rag 1936 with Gene Autry

From the Texas State Historical Association
The Light Crust Doughboys, founded in 1931, have had the greatest and longest success of all the western swing bands in the Fort Worth-Dallas area. The group’s history covers more than three quarters of a century. In 1929 James Robert (Bob) Wills moved from West Texas to Fort Worth and formed the Wills Fiddle Band, a rather unimposing aggregation made up of Wills as fiddler and Herman Arnspiger as guitarist. In 1930 Milton Brownqv joined the band as vocalist, and in 1931 the Wills Fiddle Band-Wills, Arnspiger, and Brown-became the Light Crust Doughboys.
With help from friends and fans in Fort Worth, Wills persuaded Burrus Mill and Elevator Company to sponsor the band on a radio show by advertising the mill’s Light Crust Flour. After two weeks of broadcasts, W. Lee O’Daniel, general sales manager of Burrus Mill, canceled the show because he did not like “their hillbilly music.” However, a compromise, inspired by Wills’s persistence and the demands of thousands of fans who used Light Crust Flour, brought the group back to the air in return for its members’ agreement to work in the mill as well as perform.
People listened at noon each day for a couple of licks on Bob Wills’s fiddle and Truett Kimsey’s enthusiastic introduction: “The Light Crust Doughboys are on the air!” Then the Doughboys sang their theme song, which began: “Listen everybody, from near and far if you wanta know who we are. We’re the Light Crust Doughboys from Burrus Mill.” This went over so well that it became the permanent salutation of the Doughboys.
In 1932 the original Doughboys began leaving the band. Brown left the show that year to form the Musical Brownies, and in 1933 O’Daniel had to fire Wills for missing broadcasts, especially because of drinking. In 1933 Wills organized the Playboys in Waco. Of all the early Doughboys, Wills was the most influential. The Light Crust Doughboys never departed from the fiddle-band style that Wills established in the band’s formative years.
In October 1933 O’Daniel took a new and talented group of Doughboys to Chicago for a recording session with Vocalion (later Columbia) Records. O’Daniel, who deserves much credit along with Brown and Wills for the initial success of the Doughboys, continued as manager and announcer until the mid-1930s. In 1935, when Burrus Mill fired him after a series of disputes, O’Daniel formed his own band, the Hillbilly Boys, and his own flour company, Hillbilly Flour. O’Daniel used this band in his successful bid for the governorship in 1938.
The years between 1935 and World War II were the most successful in the long history of the Doughboys. By 1937 some of the best musicians in the history of western swing had joined the band. Kenneth Pitts and Clifford Gross played fiddles. The rhythm section consisted of Dick Reinhart, guitar; Marvin (Smokey) Montgomeryqv, tenor banjo; Ramon DeArman, bass; and John (Knocky) Parker, piano. Muryel Campbell played lead guitar. At various times, Cecil Brower played fiddle.
Almost from the beginning, the Light Crust Doughboys enjoyed a successful recording career; their records outsold those of all other fiddle bands in the Fort Worth-Dallas area. Their popularity on radio had much to do with their success in recording. By the 1940s the Light Crust Doughboys broadcast over 170 radio stations in the South and Southwest.
They were inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame in 2000 and continued to release material including the CD Doughboy Rock (2000).
The Light Crust Doughboys were inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame in 2006. The following year their release, Light Crust Doughboys 1936-1941, received enthusiastic reviews from western swing fans. The year 2011 marked eighty years of performances for the Light Crust Doughboys.
Complete original article found here:
www.tshaonline.... is from a 1936 Gene Autry picture. His rope tricks are kinda lame.

[@michaelklein5242]

Just saw this in the film itself. Amazing!

[@grizzlycomrie]

This is so superb, thanks for uploading.

[@radiobob805]

Steel Guitar player began his career as a teenager with this group. He was hired about by Bob Wills in 1935. This group has no steel guitar, so he played bass. He was gone before this video was made, but he did record with them.

[@radiobob805]

The boys play, Oh Susanna and Tiger Rag from the 1936 Gene Autry movie.

[@alandesouzacruz5124]

I love Tiger rag country version

[@DavidSchneiderIP]

👍🙂👣