''Saturday Night Jamboree'', also referred to as the ''NBC Jamboree'', was an early American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

series on

NBC-TV The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

from December 4, 1948–July 2, 1949. The name was originally given to an NBC Saturday night radio show in the 1930s, which was broadcast on the WEAF station in New York City. The TV series aired live from New York City from 8–9 p.m.

Eastern Time The Eastern Time Zone (ET) is a time zone encompassing part or all of 23 states in the eastern part of the United States, parts of eastern Canada, the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Panama, Colombia, mainland Ecuador, Peru, and a small por ...

on Saturdays for three weeks in December 1948, with

yodeler Yodeling (also jodeling) is a form of singing which involves repeated and rapid changes of pitch between the low-pitch chest register (or "chest voice") and the high-pitch head register or falsetto. The English word ''yodel'' is derived from ...

Elton Britt Elton Britt (born James Elton Baker; June 27, 1913 – June 22, 1972) was an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. Biography Britt was born on a farm near Marshall, Arkansas. His father was James Baker, and he had two si ...

as host. Beginning in January 1949, the host was Boyd Heath and the program aired from 8–8:30 p.m. until April, when it moved to 9:30–10 p.m. through July 2. The cast included comedian "Chubby Chuck" Roe; Sophrony Garen, vocals; Ted Grunt, fiddle; Eddie Howard, banjo; John Havens,

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

; "Smilin'" Edwin Smith, accordion and Gabe Drake,

bass fiddle The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar i ...

. The show's competition included '' Stand By for Crime'' on ABC, '' Spin the Picture'' on DuMont'', and sports on CBS.

Other ''Saturday Night Jamboree'' programs

Other programs named ''Saturday Night Jamboree'' included the following: *A program that ran for more than 10 years on

WSAZ-TV WSAZ-TV (channel 3) is a television station licensed to Huntington, West Virginia, United States, affiliated with NBC. It serves the Charleston–Huntington market, the second-largest television market (in terms of geographical area) east of t ...

in Huntington, West Virginia. *A program that debuted on

WFMY-TV WFMY-TV (channel 2) is a television station licensed to Greensboro, North Carolina, United States, serving as the CBS affiliate for the Piedmont Triad region. Owned by Tegna Inc., the station maintains studios on Phillips Avenue in Greensboro, a ...

in Greensboro, North Carolina, on April 4, 1953. *A radio program on WOPI in the Bristol, Tennessee-Bristol, Virginia market in the 1940s. *A radio program on WMAQ in Chicago in the mid-1930s.

References

External links

* NBC original programming Black-and-white American television shows 1940s American variety television series 1948 American television series debuts 1949 American television series endings American country music American live television series Country music television series American English-language television shows {{US-music-tv-prog-stub