Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round Music Analysis
WNOX’s Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round, which aired from 1936 to 1961, was a pivotal program in the history of country music. Wildly popular throughout East Tennessee and bordering states, the show’s legacy outside of Knoxville will likely remain as something of a farm team for acts who would go on to make it big in Nashville. A few off-air and studio recordings from the 1950s have been found, but it’s long been thought that no recordings of the show’s earliest days survived. Turns out a recording of the Merry-Go-Round from Friday, November 11, 1937 has been in the Radio Archive of the University of Memphis for years, and it reveals a vastly different Merry-Go-Round than most might expect.
The Bensman Radio Program Archive was started in 1969 when Dr. Marvin Bensman, a University of Memphis professor, began collecting recordings of American radio programs. The …show more content…
archive contains more than 1500 hours of recordings, and the catalog is available online, where one can request a copy of a particular program. Local disc jockey Dave Young had a CD of the 1937 show, which was one of several items his wife donated to TAMIS after he passed away. Running around an hour, it was copied from four 15-minute transcription discs, a common and easy way to record in the days before magnetic tape. The audio isn’t ideal, but given the source and date, we’re lucky it sounds as good as it does.
Judging by the recording, the 1937 Merry-Go-Round was a much different kind of show than oral histories, books and photographs have led us to imagine.
Of the dozen or so songs performed, only a few have a distinct country or old time sound. Instead, the dominant style is jazz. The Dixieland Swingsters were something of a house band at the time, and in this show member “Haywire” Dave Durham, an accomplished trumpet player who host Lowell Blanchard introduces as “the hottest fiddle player on the air,” blazes through two jazzy fiddle tunes. Accordion player Tony Musco plays two numbers that have more jazz and polka inflection than country flavor. Even a group singalong of old time tune “Back to Old Smoky Mountain” is more swing than western. After a series of corny jokes, the performer referred to as Monk sings the equally corny “Oh Susanna, Dust Off That Old Pianna” a saloon song recorded by jazz artists such as Fats Waller and the Harlem Hot Shots. “Looks Like I’m in Love Again” is performed as a show tune, and toward the end of the program Blanchard himself takes a crack at crooning with “At the End of the
Road.”
Though he tells Blanchard his throat feels “like a piece of raw beef steak,” Huckleberry delivers the most country song of the show, “The Convict and the Sweetheart.” After his gender is questioned by a listener who writes in, 12 year old Little Frankie Turner, declares “I’m a boy but I sing like a girl,” and proves it with a country number. The show ends with a ramshackle “Skip to the Lou,” and those three songs are about it for country music. It’s well known that the Swingsters were a popular band around town at the time, and that many jazz and even classical musicians frequently played the Merry-Go-Round. But it’s quite a surprise to hear so little country music on the show.
What’s more expected is the cornball humor and sales pitches throughout the show. In fact, there’s more talking than music during the hour. Blanchard acknowledges dozens of birthdays, anniversaries and listeners who write in from Knoxville and Maryville, but also from Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina and Virginia. He read ads for Indian River Medicine Company and Standback Headache Medicine. We’re informed many people who used BC Powder for headaches have also learned it’s also good for general nervousness. There are spots for Miller-Jones Family Shoe Store at 14 Market Square,
Kerr Motor Company at 508 N Broadway, Glenmore Clothing Company at 314 Wall Avenue, “just opposite the St. James Hotel,” and Fielden Furniture Company at 208 West Vine Avenue, “just 77 steps from Gay Street.”
A new feature is introduced from the Education Department, presenting the “candid opinions of the Merry-Go-Round.” “These boys express their opinion of their own violition [sic],” Blanchard explains. “They are not being paid for what they say, they merely say what they think.” Tony Musco, affecting a Chico Marx-esque exaggeration of his Italian accent, says “I like-a the girls with blue eyes. And green backs.” Huckleberry tells us, “ There are two kinds of men. Those who do what their wives tell them to, and those who’ve never been married.” There’s much laughter and chatter between the host and musicians, giving a sense of casualness and ease, but Blanchard keeps the show moving swiftly. It’s a lot of fun, probably especially for the live audiences who packed the WNOX auditorium at 10 cents a head.
I called Dr. Bensman to ask if he knew where the original transcriptions discs were. The 80 year-old professor emeritus told me he retrieved the WNOX discs decades ago, along with dozens of other stations’ recordings from the closet of a defunct Memphis radio station that was to be demolished. He transferred them to reel-to-reel tape, from which compact cassette and CD copies were later made. At some point he had to downsize, and thinks the discs were probably thrown out then. Whether they ended up in a landfill or someone else has them, he doesn’t know. But he’s to be thanked for saving a random Merry-Go-Round show and making a recording, before it disappeared forever.
The Bensman Radio Program Archive was started in 1969 when Dr. Marvin Bensman, a University of Memphis professor, began collecting recordings of American radio programs. The …show more content…
archive contains more than 1500 hours of recordings, and the catalog is available online, where one can request a copy of a particular program. Local disc jockey Dave Young had a CD of the 1937 show, which was one of several items his wife donated to TAMIS after he passed away. Running around an hour, it was copied from four 15-minute transcription discs, a common and easy way to record in the days before magnetic tape. The audio isn’t ideal, but given the source and date, we’re lucky it sounds as good as it does.
Judging by the recording, the 1937 Merry-Go-Round was a much different kind of show than oral histories, books and photographs have led us to imagine.
Of the dozen or so songs performed, only a few have a distinct country or old time sound. Instead, the dominant style is jazz. The Dixieland Swingsters were something of a house band at the time, and in this show member “Haywire” Dave Durham, an accomplished trumpet player who host Lowell Blanchard introduces as “the hottest fiddle player on the air,” blazes through two jazzy fiddle tunes. Accordion player Tony Musco plays two numbers that have more jazz and polka inflection than country flavor. Even a group singalong of old time tune “Back to Old Smoky Mountain” is more swing than western. After a series of corny jokes, the performer referred to as Monk sings the equally corny “Oh Susanna, Dust Off That Old Pianna” a saloon song recorded by jazz artists such as Fats Waller and the Harlem Hot Shots. “Looks Like I’m in Love Again” is performed as a show tune, and toward the end of the program Blanchard himself takes a crack at crooning with “At the End of the
Road.”
Though he tells Blanchard his throat feels “like a piece of raw beef steak,” Huckleberry delivers the most country song of the show, “The Convict and the Sweetheart.” After his gender is questioned by a listener who writes in, 12 year old Little Frankie Turner, declares “I’m a boy but I sing like a girl,” and proves it with a country number. The show ends with a ramshackle “Skip to the Lou,” and those three songs are about it for country music. It’s well known that the Swingsters were a popular band around town at the time, and that many jazz and even classical musicians frequently played the Merry-Go-Round. But it’s quite a surprise to hear so little country music on the show.
What’s more expected is the cornball humor and sales pitches throughout the show. In fact, there’s more talking than music during the hour. Blanchard acknowledges dozens of birthdays, anniversaries and listeners who write in from Knoxville and Maryville, but also from Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina and Virginia. He read ads for Indian River Medicine Company and Standback Headache Medicine. We’re informed many people who used BC Powder for headaches have also learned it’s also good for general nervousness. There are spots for Miller-Jones Family Shoe Store at 14 Market Square,
Kerr Motor Company at 508 N Broadway, Glenmore Clothing Company at 314 Wall Avenue, “just opposite the St. James Hotel,” and Fielden Furniture Company at 208 West Vine Avenue, “just 77 steps from Gay Street.”
A new feature is introduced from the Education Department, presenting the “candid opinions of the Merry-Go-Round.” “These boys express their opinion of their own violition [sic],” Blanchard explains. “They are not being paid for what they say, they merely say what they think.” Tony Musco, affecting a Chico Marx-esque exaggeration of his Italian accent, says “I like-a the girls with blue eyes. And green backs.” Huckleberry tells us, “ There are two kinds of men. Those who do what their wives tell them to, and those who’ve never been married.” There’s much laughter and chatter between the host and musicians, giving a sense of casualness and ease, but Blanchard keeps the show moving swiftly. It’s a lot of fun, probably especially for the live audiences who packed the WNOX auditorium at 10 cents a head.
I called Dr. Bensman to ask if he knew where the original transcriptions discs were. The 80 year-old professor emeritus told me he retrieved the WNOX discs decades ago, along with dozens of other stations’ recordings from the closet of a defunct Memphis radio station that was to be demolished. He transferred them to reel-to-reel tape, from which compact cassette and CD copies were later made. At some point he had to downsize, and thinks the discs were probably thrown out then. Whether they ended up in a landfill or someone else has them, he doesn’t know. But he’s to be thanked for saving a random Merry-Go-Round show and making a recording, before it disappeared forever.