Halsey Institute

Would the music we know as Western swing exist without a Fort Worth, Texas radio figure, flour promoter, and politician named W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel?

Probably, but Daniel nonetheless has to be acknowledged as a guy who was there at the very beginning, hiring a group that featured the two musicians — Bob Wills and Milton Brown — generally acknowledged as the fathers of Western swing.

In 1931, as sales manager for Burrus Mills in Fort Worth, O’Daniel hired fiddler Wills, vocalist Brown, and their band to appear on radio and in personal appearances as a promotional tool for the mill’s Light Crust Flour. (Keep in mind that the flour market was a much bigger deal than it is now, because lots more baking was done at home.) Daniel would appear on the broadcasts and at the live shows as well, reading poetry and indulging in fundamentalist and patriotic oratory. O’Daniel’s often autocratic ways, coupled with his disdain for dancing and drinking and his unwillingness to let the band moonlight, led Brown to leave the Doughboys in ’32 and Wills in ’33.

While they went off to form their two seminal Western swing bands, Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies and Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, O’Daniel brought in new Doughboys and continued with the broadcasts and regional tours. That lasted until 1935, when O’Daniel left Burrus Mills and created his own flour company, which gave the world — or at least Texas and its environs — Hillbilly Flour. He also put together a new band, W. Lee O’Daniel and His Hillbilly Boys, to promote the product, just as the Light Crust Doughboys had promoted Light Crust Flour.
Two of the Hillbilly Boys were O’Daniel’s actual sons: Mike (on fiddle) and Pat (banjo).

The Hillbilly Boys and their music also promoted O’Daniel’s career as a Texas politician. In 1939, he became Governor of Texas, and from there won a special election to the U.S. Senate — beating out another politician named Lyndon Johnson, who would later suceed him in the job.

Saturday on SWING ON THIS, I’ve got O’Daniel and his boys (including one of his actual boys, Pat) doing a famous jazz tune that first appeared in 1921. This version was released on the Vocalion label a year before O'Daniel moved into the Texas Governor’s Mansion. Our playlist this week also includes another famous song by a politician, this one written by a Louisiana governor. And, listen for numbers from the two Western-swing greats who parted ways with Pappy early on — Bob Wills and Milton Brown.

All that and lots more awaits you Saturday at 7 p.m., when the latest edition of SWING ON THIS airs over Tulsa’s NPR affiliate KWGS, 89.5 FM, and live-streams everywhere at publicradiotulsa.org. So Please consider this your invitation to join me and our worldwide group of listeners for an hour of Western swing, cowboy jazz, and, probably, a surprise or two.