Though an octet at its fullest, the Texas Rangers were a talented ensemble and could be trotted out by KMBC management in various configurations – all the way down to individual acts – to meet audience demand.
Category: Kansas City Radio
Texas Rangers Promotional Portfolio pg. 5
Frequently known as The Midwesterners, the quartet portion of the Texas Rangers was comprised of Robert Crawford, Rod May, Fran Mahaney, and Edward (Tookie) Cronenbold. The quartet appeared on KMBC’s long-running Happy Hollow as The Happy Hollow Barbershop Quartet and sometimes the Lamp Post Four. The guitarist was Herb Kratoska.
Texas Rangers Promotional Portfolio pg. 4
As mentioned in the Texas Rangers book, none of the original Rangers musicians were actually country – or hillbilly, as the genre was frequently called at the time – musicians. Accordianist Paul Sells had had his own nightclub orchestra and fiddler Gomer Cool was classically trained. They practiced a lot to get a more Western sound but their repertoire over the years was very diverse, with ballads, spirituals, hymns, folk, and even patriotic tunes finding a spot in their recorded catalog.
Texas Rangers Promotional Portfolio pg. 3
This page suggests the whole portfolio was made up for a company called Swift, possibly the Swift & Co. Packing Co.
Texas Rangers Promotional Portfolio
I am always on the lookout for memorabilia for Kansas City’s KMBC from the Arthur B. Church era, 1920s to about 1953 when he sold it. I was beyond thrilled to win this item on Ebay earlier this year. Some background on this item. The University of Missour – Kansas City has some of the Arthur B. Church KMBC archival material. In their collection are six of these oversize promotional portfolios for different series and artists that the station tried to sell on a transcription basis with mixed results. You can view scans of these portfolios here on the left-hand side of the page.
This is a seventh portfolio that is different from those in the UMKC collection though its content is the Texas Rangers who are also the featured content of the two above-linked portfolios “Gentlemen in the White Hats” and “Life on the Red Horse Ranch.”
These portfolios appear to each be unique items created by KMBC ca. 1940. Each one contains photographs, telegrams, letters, and blown up copies of trade magazine reviews. As you can see, these items are all glued to the pages so each portfolio appears to be a prototype that would then be copied and distributed to potential sponsors. In years of looking through different KMBC archives I have never seen a replica of these portfolios so I suspect either they never moved beyond the prototype phase or they were only used for in-person promotions. They are in such good condition, however, that I can’t imagine they were handled much.
Because of the location of this item’s seller I believe this portfolio likely came from the Arthur B. Church family at some point; why it was not donated with the other materials is unknown.
There is no new information in this piece that is not in my book on the Texas Rangers but the pictures sure would have been a priceless addition to it. At least they can be viewed here, better late than never.
Here is the cover; I can’t tell which member of the band that might be.
W9XBY
W9XBY was an experimental station located near the upper end of the AM band that was on the air in the mid-1930s. It was connected to Kansas City’s KMBC, which I have researched quite a bit over the years. Though documentation exists about W9XBY, I have not had a chance to review it and write it up. I stumbled on these ads and posted them both as a reminder of this short era of Kansas City broadcasting history and to myself to dig further into the history of this station. There’s much more to the story but here’s another site that will give you some basic information on the station.
Howard Dean Fitzer – WDAF, 1938
My Kansas City radio research focuses on KMBC but I’m definitely interested in any information about the city’s radio history that I come across. Here’s a profile of WDAF’s Howard Fitzer from Broadcasting magazine ca. 1938.
Wistful Vistas 