Pat O'Daniel and his Hillbilly Boys was a

Texan Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by bo ...

Western swing Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the Western United States, West and Southern United States, South among the region's Western music (North America), Western string bands. It is dan ...

band with its own radio program during the mid-1930s. Pat O'Daniel, the son of "Pappy" O'Daniel, was the band's leader. The Hillbilly Boys, associated with Pappy O'Daniel's flour company which produced Hillbilly Flour, helped catapult Pappy O'Daniel to the governorship of Texas (although this is often credited to Pappy O'Daniel's earlier band, the

Light Crust Doughboys The Light Crust Doughboys is an American Western swing band from Texas, United States, organized in 1931 by the Burrus Mill and Elevator Company in Saginaw, Texas. The band achieved its peak popularity in the few years leading up to World War II. I ...

Background

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,

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, and at various times, Kermit "The Love Bird" Whalin, Jim Boyd, Wallace Griffin, Curley Perrin, Bundy Bratcher and Kitty "Texas Rose" Williamson."The Light Crust Doughboys are on the Air" by John Mark Dempsey and Art Greenhaw To keep his singers' individual fame from eclipsing the band's as a whole (as had happened with

Bob Wills James Robert Wills (March 6, 1905 – May 13, 1975) was an American Western swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader. Considered by music authorities as the founder of Western swing, he was known widely as the King of Western Swing (although S ...

), 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)."Please Pass the Biscuits, Pappy: Pictures of Governor W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel" by Bill Crawford 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. The band's theme song, an adaptation of "I Like Mountain Music", a popular fiddle song, included the line "Pass the biscuits, Pappy!" which gave the elder O'Daniel his nickname."Sketches from the Five States of Texas," A. C. Greene He announced his Texas gubernatorial campaign in 1938 on the radio during the Hillbilly Boys' radio show and make "Pass the biscuits, Pappy!" his campaign slogan. As he had done earlier with the Doughboys, O'Daniel fitted out a bus with placards advertising Hillbilly Flour and took his band on the road, but this time to mount a political campaign. O'Daniel, his son Pat and the other Hillbilly Boys drove more than 20,000 miles in their bus promoting O'Daniel's political ambitions and his flour. By most accounts, the band drew rapt crowds in even the smallest town. When the tour bus hit

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, it drew an estimated 26,000 people, the largest crowd ever for a political rally in Texas at that time.

Radio show

The Hillbilly Boys had a 15-minute daily radio show, which was immensely popular in

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

-era Texas. It featured Western swing music and preaching by Pappy O'Daniel. The show extolled the values of Hillbilly brand flour, the Ten Commandments and the Bible. O'Daniel's biographer credited the Hillbilly Boys (and the Doughboys)' radio shows with O'Daniel's gubernatorial win. The counties where O'Daniel won a plurality of votes were the ones that received the Doughboys' and Hillbilly Boys' broadcasts. O'Daniel would record individual shows for each radio station on Presto 16" acetates and then ship them to the individual stations. The largest pluralities were recorded around

Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. According ...

, where the radio stations that broadcast their shows (KTRH-Houston, KTSA-San Antonio, KRLD-Dallas and WBAP) were headquartered. There is little documentation on the show in major radio directories. It is however, covered extensively within Texas. (accessed October 18, 2008)

References

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External links

W. Lee O'Daniel at Texas Handbook Online

Recordings of show at archive.org
1930s American radio programs Western swing musical groups

Background

Radio show

See also

References

External links