“Come on folks, listen to us once more. Drink Dr. Pepper at 10, 2, and 4.”
It was 1941, and before 14-year-old David Paramore would grow up to pastor local churches and work in the dry cleaning business, he showed up six days a week at the unairconditioned studio of WFTC (World’s Finest Tobacco Center) in Kinston.
He was born in a Pitt County community between Black Jack and Grimesland known as “Cat Tail.” The band, The Dr. Pepper Playboys, was formed after “Diamond Jim,” a bedazzled snake-oil salesman and on-air personality left town for greener pastures and customers.
Paramore and the other band members, Bob Boyd and Joe Mills, would each be paid $6 a week — more than Paramore’s dad or brother were making working in the fields. They’d arrive at 10 a.m. every day and practice for two hours until it was time to go on air.
“When the announcer introduced us and our sponsor at 12 p.m., I would start playing in the background my own arrangement of our theme song, ’Sweet Bunch of Daisies,’” Paramore explained in his memoir, “To God Be the Glory,” published with his son, Mike, in 2004.
As a young man equipped with a mandolin, Paramore also found himself busking along with Ervin Rouse, the eccentric Craven County fiddler famous for writing “The Orange Blossom Special.”
The Dr. Pepper Playboys traveled locally on a 1940 International pickup truck equipped with a large drink box, entertaining the public with their music and ice-cold bottles of Dr. Pepper, which were sold for 5 cents. They even wore “Dr. Pepper Playboys” shirts.
Paramore’s is just one of the fascinating — and these days little-known — stories behind a few black and white glossy photos that commemorate an era when radio was king, television was about to be birthed, and ordinary locals with extraordinary talent lived out their glory days in eastern North Carolina.
Another musical breadcrumb trail leads to a band that local legend Clyde Mattocks remembers playing in 1954 on WGTM ( (World’s Greatest Tobacco Market) in Wilson, on the Packhouse Jamboree.
He remembered it as the Halifax County Prison Band. Was it made up of prisoners, guards or a combination? Searching newspaper archives produced a photo of “The Halifax County Prison Farm Band,” described as having a regular radio show in 1954 on a Roanoke Rapids station, and pictured playing for a Methodist garden party.
A 1954 newspaper article about a similar band from the state prison, titled “Convicts raise funds for bus in Belhaven” highlights an apparent rehabilitative practice of the time, “designed to make useful citizens of prisoners upon their release.” The show was described as “an amazing variety of talent ranging from a hillbilly band to a fire dance.” The trumpeter who led a swing band was said to have learned the instrument since entering prison.
It is likely that the Halifax Prison Farm Band hailed from what was called Caledonia Prison Farm at the time in Halifax County. It’s the same prison that housed the convict who invented the semi-automatic M1 Carbine used in World War II, inspiring the 1952 Jimmy Stewart film, “Carbine Williams.”
A 1946 Roanoke Rapids Herald article provides colorful commentary of entertainers just one county over, informing the public that “the grocers of Wilson, NC with fat contracts on their rotund persons are now en route to Hollywood.”
Their fame apparently stemmed from a scout spotting their “Mustard and Gravy” act as stars of the Retonga Medicine Program on WGTM radio in Wilson. Described as “lovers of music and fun,” Frank Rice (“Mustard”) and Ernest Stokes (“Gravy”), both ordinary, albeit well-fed businessmen, entered a radio contest “for the sport of it” and never looked back. They broadcast over 50 radio stations for the “gastric tonic” before “having a fling at the movies.”
But there’s more. The Pine State Playboys. The Parrott Brothers (Ray Von and Donald) who played on Greenville’s oldest radio station, WGTC (World’s Greatest Tobacco Center). Art Bowen and the Bar X Boys. The Bright Leaf Boys. Pete Frazier and the Carolina Buddies. Vivian Cribb, known as The Dixie Yodeler, and her husband, Laneau, from Kinston, who played on Kinston’s WFTC.
The Carolina Partners, billed as “WVOT (Wilson’s Voice of Tobacco) Hillbilly Stars” also appeared regularly on Greenville’s WNCT Monday and Thursday mornings and Saturday evenings. Everybody’s favorite morning show host, but also a musician, Slim Short. Jim Thorton, from Johnston County, hosted the “Saturday Night Country Style” live country music show on WTVD-TV and was known as the “Barefoot Boy from Broadslab.” And that’s just for starters.
When it comes to the musical legacy of North Carolina, the state’s bluegrass and blues are as famous as its barbecue. But like the vinegar-based pork product, eastern North Carolina cultivated its own styles and played them live on radio stations branded by the tobacco culture. And that legacy has value too.
The North Carolina Broadcast History Museum (NCBHM), was formed on October 13, 2023 by past and present industry leaders to preserve the memories of innovators, performers and personalities who blazed trails through local lore. Mike Weeks, Board of Trustees chair for the museum, said North Carolina’s broadcast history is “fragile” and “the stories are useless if they are not remembered.”
As in flight, North Carolina boasts an important role in the development of radio. Weeks said that in April 1902, the “father of AM radio,” inventor Reginald Fessenden transmitted a 127-word wireless telegraph from a 50-foot transmitter on Cape Hatteras to Roanoke Island. Greensboro-born Edward R. Murrow reported as an eyewitness to the Nazi annexation of Austria and led a team of “Murrow’s Boys” reporting from London during World War II. John Blunt crossed the color line, becoming one of the first Black anchors at Charlotte’s WBTV in 1970 before becoming a broadcast legend in Philadelphia.
It is worth noting that newspapers have played an important role in history preservation. Performances on early radio and television were often transient, either not recorded at all, or later, recorded over. It’s the stories that made newsprint about bands performing that have helped musicians maintain their indelible mark in history.
Do you have photos and stories of local bands or performers who played live on radio and early television in eastern North Carolina? Contact me at donnadavisdavis@gmail.com so these fragile stories may be preserved. Visit the North Carolina Broadcast History Museum online at https://ncbmuseum.com/.
Most Popular
Comments / 0