Radio varieties (Sept 1940-June 1941)

Let's Look at WLS ART JANES HAS RETIRED from the Maple City Four, to get a rest and regain his health. This is the first change in personnel of this act in more than 10 years. The new tenor is Charles Kemer. HARRIET HESTER, MR. HESTER, WLS Sales Manager William Cline and some others decided to get some winter fishing at a lodge in Northern Minnesota some time ago. The first blizzard of the year snowed them in; so it was catch fish or starve for them. They caught plenty of fish, and with one onion, a little molasses and short lots of a few things, they made out well until the snow plows got to them three days later. Oddest thing about the trip was the book Harriet took along to read in spare moments. It was titled "You Can't Go Home Again." JOHN BROWN, PIANIST AT WLS, used to be on the Chautauqua circuit with the famed William Jennings Bryan . . . One of the first signs of winter at WLS is the black derbies sported during cold weather by Singers Mac and Bob. MARGARET SWEENEY, HARPIST IN the WLS and National Barn Dance orchestras, studied in Chicago, Berlin and Leipsig. She has played at civic receptions for many famous people, including Mrs. Roosevelt, the late Italo Balbo, and Marconi . . . Herb Wyers, control room engineer at WLS used to be a streetcar motorman and conductor. When he first came to Chicago, he lived in on apartment house on the very place where the WLS studios and Prairie Former Building ore now located. CY HARRICE, ANNOUNCER AT WLS, was married on November 2 to Yvonne Morris, a social worker in Evanston, Illinois . . . Joe Rockhold, announcer and actor, doing such roles as Honey Boy and Great Orrie Hogsett, also plays guitar and sings; in fact, that's what he first did in radio. SOME BIRTHDAYS AT WLS you may wish to note: Reggie Cross, April 27; Howard Black, February 4; Rusty Gill, June 10; Evelyn Overstoke, December 20; Page U Honey Boy, comic colored janitor on WLS Homemakers' Hour and the WLS National Barn Dance, is the same man as the Great Orrie Hogsett — Joe Rockhold. A new comic at WLS, Jimmie James amazes the theater audiences at the WLS National Barn Dance as he defies all laws of gravity, playing his trombone while slanted at about a 30 degree angle over the footlights. Jimmie is also heard quite often playing the electric guitar for Smiley Sutter. Bill O'Connor, August 8; The Williams Brothers — Bob, Jan uary 1, Don, October 9, Dick, June 7 and Andy, December 3. Ted Morse (Otto and Little Ger. evieve) August 12; Chick Hun May 11; Salty Holmes, March 6. Alan Crockett, August 2; JacV Taylor, November 4; Red Foley/ PRAIRIE FARMER, WHICH O^ June 17 and Hal Culver, March B ERATES WLS, will celebrate itb 100th birthday with a special, giant issue on January 1 1 , reviewing advances, particularly in the farm field, in the 100 years since John Stephen Wright founded America's first farm paper — Prairie Farmer. For the past several months, WLS has been dramatizing life among the farmers 100 years ago, including the founding of the magazine. The series, "Mid-West in the Making," is heard as part of the WLS National Barn Dance. WHICH BRINGS UP THE founding of WLS. The Prairie Farmer Station first went on the air on April 12, 1924, with a list of celebrities as long as your arm on the opening program. Some of them took part by broadcasting over a direct wire from New York; that was before networks. Among the names on the show were: Jane Addams, Grace Wilson, Gloria Sv/anson, Arthur Brisbane, H. B. Warner, William S. Hart, the Duncan Sisters as Topsy and Eva, and George Beban. Ethel Barrymore was to make her radio debut on the broadcast that night. Accustomed as she was to audiences, she couldn't face the microphone. She stepped up to it, gave one look and exclaimed in fright, "Oh, my God!" She couldn't say another word. RAY FERRIS, MUSICAL DIRECTOR at WLS, used to be a member of the act Chuck and Ray. The two of them and another man were the original 3-man minstrels in radio, an act they later expanded to include six endmen and a 25-piece orchestra; you'll remember them as the Sinclair Minstrels on NBC. Ferris was in the aviation branch of the U. S. Navy in the last war . . . Chick Hurt of the Prairie Ramblers has been called "Chick" so long that a lot of people don't even know his real name — it's Charles. RADIO VARIETIES — FEBRUARY