''Town Hall Party'' was an 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, ...

program, firstly broadcast on

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

and then

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

The first radio broadcast was in Autumn 1951 by stations KXLA-AM in Pasadena, California and

KFI-AM KFI (640 AM) is a radio station in Los Angeles, California, owned and operated by iHeartMedia, Inc. It began operations in 1922 and became one of the first high-powered, clear-channel Class A stations. It was the first U.S. station west of Chi ...

in Los Angeles, California The television series was broadcast over Los Angeles network KTTV.

Founding and synopsis

Promoter William B. Wagnon, Jr., had been booking such acts as Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys in ballrooms between Bakersfield and Sacramento for several years when he decided to extend his operations to Los Angeles. Burt "Foreman" Phillips, himself a bandleader had been promoting

country and Western A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while the ...

barn dance programs at the old Town Hall building, situated at 400 South Long Beach Boulevard in Compton, near Long Beach. Wagnon acquired Phillips' lease and commenced promoting a combined dance-and-show, featuring any and all country & western recording artists working in the area and available on Saturday nights. An estimated 3,000 patrons could be accommodated in the Town Hall Ballroom. Wagnon instructed the performers to play only music which could be danced to, and to keep individual songs short and plentiful, in order to satisfy everyone's tastes.

NBC radio broadcasts

A Friday night radio version of ''Town Hall Party'' was heard on KXLA, and Wagnon approached KFI with a proposal for a Saturday night broadcast. The latter was carried by portions of the

NBC Radio The National Broadcasting Company's NBC Radio Network (known as the NBC Red Network prior to 1942) was an American commercial radio network which was in operation from 1926 through 2004. Along with the NBC Blue Network it was one of the first t ...

network. Country singer Wesley Tuttle was hired as director/musical director of the series, and

Johnny Bond Cyrus Whitfield Bond (June 1, 1915 – June 12, 1978), known professionally as Johnny Bond, was an American country music singer-songwriter, guitarist and composer and publisher, who co-founded a music publishing firm, he was active in the musi ...

was contracted to write the scripts for the KFI/NBC series. The cast featured

Tex Ritter Woodward Maurice Ritter (January 12, 1905 – January 2, 1974) was a pioneer of American country music, a popular singer and actor from the mid-1930s into the 1960s, and the patriarch of the Ritter acting family (son John, grandsons Jason and ...

, Buddy Dooly, Wesley and Marilyn Tuttle,

Tex Williams Sollie Paul "Tex" Williams (August 23, 1917 – October 11, 1985) was an American Western swing musician. He is best known for his talking blues style; his biggest hit was the novelty song, "Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)", which held th ...

, Roy Klein,

Joe Maphis Otis Wilson "Joe" Maphis (May 12, 1921 – June 27, 1986), was an American country music guitarist. He married singer Rose Lee Maphis in 1953 and they performed together, later referred to as "Mr & Mrs Country Music". One of the flashiest co ...

, Rose Lee Maphis, Jenks "Tex" Carman, Eddie Kirk, Jim Pruitt,

Merle Travis Merle Robert Travis (November 29, 1917 – October 20, 1983) was an American country and western singer, songwriter, and guitarist born in Rosewood, Kentucky, United States. His songs' lyrics often discussed both the lives and the economic expl ...

, Fiddlin' Kate (Margie Warren),

Freddie Hart Frederick Segrest (December 21, 1926 – October 27, 2018), known professionally as Freddie Hart, was an American country musician and songwriter best known for his chart-topping country song and lone pop hit "Easy Loving," which won the Cou ...

, Mary Jane Johnson, Les "Carrot-Top" Anderson, Pee Wee Adams, Shirley Adams, comedian Texas Tiny, and other prominent country entertainers. TV and radio announcer

Jay Stewart Jay Stewart Fix (September 6, 1918 – September 17, 1989), known professionally as Jay Stewart, was an American television and radio announcer known primarily for his work on game shows. He was probably best known as the announcer on the long r ...

, who had worked with Bond on an earlier West Coast country & western show, '' Hollywood Barn Dance,'' was hired as master of ceremonies.

Television program

From 10:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. PT on Saturday nights, Los Angeles television station KTTV carried the live ''Town Hall Party'' series. By September 1953 the show was "a regional NBC TV'er," and "the longest c.&w. West Coast TV'er, with net plans in the works. The Armed Forces Television Service made 16mm

kinescope Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program on motion picture film, directly through a lens focused on the screen of a video monitor. The process was pioneered during the 1940 ...

s of the shows and broadcast them on stations throughout the world, from Greenland to Saudi Arabia to the Canal Zone. As the show expanded, new talent joined the cast - with

Lefty Frizzell William Orville "Lefty" Frizzell (March 31, 1928 – July 19, 1975) was an American country music singer-songwriter and honky-tonk singer. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1982. Frizzell released many songs that charted ...

Skeets McDonald Enos William McDonald (October 1, 1915–March 31, 1968), better known as Skeets McDonald, was an American country and rockabilly musician popular during the 1950s and 60s. Best known for the Slim Willet-penned song "Don't Let the Stars Get i ...

, Dortha Wright, and

The Collins Kids The Collins Kids were an American rockabilly duo featuring Lawrencine "Lorrie" Collins (May 7, 1942 – August 4, 2018) and her younger brother Lawrence "Larry" Collins (born October 4, 1944). Their hits in the 1950s as youngsters, such as "Hop ...

being among the most popular. Guest stars were plentiful, with an appearance by

Gene Autry Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry (September 29, 1907 – October 2, 1998), nicknamed the Singing Cowboy, was an American singer, songwriter, actor, musician, rodeo performer, and baseball owner who gained fame largely by singing in a crooning s ...

breaking all attendance records during a 1954 performance. Other notable guest stars included

Johnny Cash John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American country singer-songwriter. Much of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later stages of his ca ...

, Eddie Dean,

Smiley Burnette Lester Alvin Burnett (March 18, 1911 – February 16, 1967), better known as Smiley Burnette, was an American country music performer and a comedic actor in Western films and on radio and TV, playing sidekick to Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and ...

Jimmy Wakely Jimmy Wakely (February 16, 1914 – September 23, 1982) was an American actor, songwriter, country music vocalist, and one of the last singing cowboys. During the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, he released records, appeared in several B-Western movies ...

Sons of the Pioneers The Sons of the Pioneers are one of the United States' earliest Western singing groups. Known for their vocal performances, their musicianship, and their songwriting, they produced innovative recordings that have inspired many Western music perf ...

and

Jim Reeves James Travis Reeves (August 20, 1923July 31, 1964) was an American country and popular music singer-songwriter. With records charting from the 1950s to the 1980s, he became well known as a practitioner of the Nashville Sound. Known as "Gentleman ...

. The 10-piece ''Town Hall Party'' band featured

, superb steel guitarist Marian Hall, Billy Hill and Fiddlin' Kate on violins, PeeWee Adams on drums, Jimmy Pruitt on piano, and other excellent musicians who created a ''Town Hall Party'' sound also heard on many country sessions produced by

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

in Hollywood in the 1950s. Wagnon's series continued to expand in the 1950s. Billed as ''Town Hall Ranch Party'', Sunday afternoon and holiday performances were held outdoors at Sierra Creek Park in the Santa Monica Mountains beginning in the summer of 1955. A daily version began airing on another Los Angeles television station. Then, in 1957, Wagnon arranged with Screen Gems to film a series of 39 half-hour television shows featuring the ''Town Hall Party'' cast. A close friend of

Art Linkletter Arthur Gordon Linkletter (born Gordon Arthur Kelly or Arthur Gordon Kelly; sources differ; July 17, 1912 – May 26, 2010) was a Canadian-born American radio and television personality. He was the host of ''House Party'', which ran on CBS radio a ...

, Wagnon had named his series after Linkletter's popular radio/television program, ''House Party''. He opted to capitalize on the TV Westerns craze of 1957 by calling the syndicated series, ''Ranch Party''. While many traditional country and Western musicians had been mainstays of the radio and television cast for years, the series readily embraced rock ´n roll and enthusiastically presented singers from the new genre.

Carl Perkins Carl Lee Perkins (April 9, 1932 – January 19, 1998)#nytimesobit, Pareles. was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. A rockabilly great and pioneer of rock and roll, he began his recording career at the Sun Studio, in Memphis, Tennes ...

and his combo were brought in to film guest spots on the Screen Gems series, and The Collins Kids were given co-star billing with host

. Traditional country entertainers, singing cowboys, and rock singers never shared the spotlight in a more harmonious manner than on the ''Town Hall Party'' and syndicated ''Ranch Party'' shows.

1958 to 1961

released a ''Town Hall Party'' LP album in 1958, featuring many of the regular cast members of the series. That same year, however, brought changes to the program. NBC radio had discontinued carrying the Saturday night shows, and rising union scale rates made it impossible for Wagnon to keep the huge cast of recording artists on the Compton stage week after week. The band was made smaller and many regular cast members departed in 1958.

Billy Mize William Robert Mize (April 29, 1929 – October 29, 2017) was an American steel guitarist, band leader, vocalist, songwriter, and TV show host. Biography Mize was born in Arkansas City, Kansas, United States, but raised in the San Joaquin Valley ...

and Cliff Crofford, talented vocalists/instrumentalists/composers, joined the much smaller cast as band members and soloists. The Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team began playing in Los Angeles in April 1958, drawing many ''Town Hall'' patrons to the nearby Coliseum. In 1959, the new Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series. In late December 1958 the newly opened Showboat Hotel in Las Vegas began to put on ''Town Hall Party'' shows featuring Tex Ritter, The Collins Kids, and Town Hall regulars, thus drawing them away from the KTTV Saturday night telecasts. Competition for television viewers was more intense as the new decade began, and KTTV gave notice that ''Town Hall Party'' was to be dropped in December, 1960. The final performance at the Compton Town Hall was on January 14, 1961. Other live country and Western music shows were seen on California television at various points in the 1960s, but none featured the large cast of recording artists which Wagnon assembled in the 1950s, glimpses of which may be seen today on films of the syndicated ''Ranch Party'' series and on DVD releases of the surviving kinescopes of ''Town Hall Party''.Bond, Johnny. ''The Tex Ritter Story'', 1976, Chappell.

Performers

References

External links

Hillbilly-Music.com

{{DEFAULTSORT:Town Hall Party American country music radio programs Country music television series 1953 American television series debuts 1961 American television series endings