The Bismarck Tribune Newspaper, August 5, 1930, Page 6

¥ : TN WU) CT Wi 4 ate 7 ae ev ae Many unseen stars who entertain audiences of millions are not city born and bred, . but self-made geniuses from Main Street Words By GILBERT SWAN Sketches By GEORGE CLARK ’ AIN STREET has found its voice. Metropolitan sophisticates and near - sophisticates. who crowd around their cabinet radios of an evening, usually speak of the small towns in the sticks with lofty contempt. Yet the chances are several to one that the radio artist whose voice keeps them so enthralled is a product of a town so small that the city dweller never even heard of it. ; To be specific, one of the biggest of big time radio stars was an orphan lad from Woodland, ° Cal. Another was a cow-town prodigy. Still another began as a choir singer in a tiny church. One was born in a town called Oolagah, and perhaps the greatest popular favorite of them all was born in a hamlet called Island Pond. But here are a few stories of some of the air folk who broadcast from NBC and Colum- bia and the other big stations. Take, if you wish, Jesse Crawford. If and when you are in New York, you'll find Crawford and his wife at the organ of the Paramount Theater several times a day. IDAY Jesse Crawford has the choice of dressing rooms in one of the most ornate of the film cathedrals. His in- come runs into thousands a week. He has an expensive apartment on Park Avenue. He was one of the first to make phonograph records of organ music, and the sale of these alone would keep him comfortably quartered. When his theater routine is finished he can run up to a little studio on an upper floor. There he has his private broadcasting room, one of the few such in America. In this room is another organ, specially provided by the broadcasting company. Yet Crawford came from an orphanage. Twenty-three years ago he was turned over to the home of our Our Lady of Lourdes at Woodland, Cal. It was part of the routine of the orphanage that the children take a daily lesson on a none- too-sturdy piano in the practice room. “And I can thank Sister Antonia for my start in life,” he narrates. “After she had taught me all the simple pieces one gives a youngster, she knew she had less all she personally could. She told me one day that I knew more than she did, and that I must go on—I must not stop. “*My time at the orphanage was up. I had to go out and make a living. And I rarned to the piano. I started wandering on foot from town to town until I came to a little suburb of Spokane, Wash., and I got a job in a little nickelodeon. I got $5:a week. But I kept the job three years. In those days I could just about live and eat on that, but it gave me a chance to do the . practicing and study that I needed. “And it was a great chance. For I could follow the’ action of the pictures with music; I could learn the technique of synchronization which latet came in so handy.” He quit his job and took one at $10 a week. But this theater had an or- gan, and not a piano. He had no training in thi instrument. He had no instructor. He had to figure it out for himself, and for two years he labored. T the end of two years he had mastered it. Theater producers in the larger cities had heard of him and one day he found a golden offer of $250. a week to gd to Los Ante plum id was ie asylum kid was doing pretty ll Ae ‘well, you. About seven years ago he happened to drop in at a dance given by an organists’ society. And there he met Helen—who six months later became Mrs. eee Like Hoel me had struggl for years to get ahead. Since her fourteenth birthday she had been Playing in the movie theaters. here was a real novelty in a hus- band and wife doing their duets on the same organ. “But it was fog! hard on pleasant married life at first,” he admits, “You know how it is with a husband and wife who have been soloists and sud- denly start teaming. We disagreed and sae and had our own opinions for a long while. But that’s all over now. We've playe together so long that it's pretty close raed Up Park Avenue, in one of those swanky, expensive apartment belts, you'll find a tiny organ in the Crawford nursery. There Jessie, Jr., thumps and pounds to her heart's content, with her mother giving her daily instructions. 7 oe of t yea there ay be the first ‘amily trio in organ playing history. Mary McCo gttad i pals eto in the NBC concerts, is the ittle girl that Mme. Schumann-Heink discov- cred out in the town of Great Bend, Kan. , who can be heard in “Metro- | Mary McCoy was discovered in Great Bend, Kan. ... when Mme. Schu-, mann - Heink heard her sing out there... . She went to New York as | the protege of the grand old | German singer. | Jens Craw- ‘ ford... was an orphan in ea end Woodland, Cal. er es To Sister Antonia Meath thie of the €rphanage nd “ery he owes his success ped: Also + +» for the nun started h ig cnuld him on a career which 82° Her brought him to the cae hen peta was ‘Laura McCoy, but years later the Shuberts talked her into changing it to Mary, for stage purposes. umann-Heink, traveling through the mid- dle west, had announced that she would give auditions to promising youngsters. She decided that Miss’ McCoy was particularly gifted and took her as a protege. When the grand old diva came on to her New York home, Miss Nay came with her. She lived in the Schumann-Heinl apartment for a winter, studying and practicing. While the great singer was away on a con- cert tour, her protege received an offer to ap- ar in musical comedy. Her chance came in "My Maryland,” in New York and on the road. ' and taught scl give musical instruction and along connected with a home. station in 1 snfealll : Peale Saal" 1} ~ Small Towners Cra ie cM VTE AR ono oa Gad 4 con ge Gia Rosalind Green... started out to be a school teacher ina little town out- side Troy, New York. you'll find play on a elter audience. ‘OW she’s a regular broadcasting feature. And -her daddy, once_a judge in Great |, now runs the ribune there. _ One small town girl who made good on the "Or turn to Rosalind Green. She started out to be a school teacher. She had lived les outside of Albany, N. Y., Albany. But the scouts heard her in New York. And here she is! began to ool in Troy. radio came And there's no more romantic story among broadcast performers than that of Astrid Feldje, another most promising singer. Her first first audience was constituted stage was the open prairie and her it of a couple of cowboys who happened to be riding past while she was singing. ing z If you've never heard of Valley City, N.D. —neither had we when we first hear tioned. The | stor; Feldjes had it men- ry goes something like this: the begun by living in ‘a city. Minne- Up in Park Avenue, in a.swanky apartment . . . fessie Crawford, aby organ. . instructor. Obie Pickard . . . had béen a travelit ° salesman, making the small towns and . entertaining on the harmonica and jew's-harp . . . until the microphone proved a he was scarce able to puff BTNONTTUNUTIUNITNU OULU LAT gl Jr... learning to . with her mother as apolis, if I remember correctly. But the fa- ther died, leaving a mother with a couple of children to rear. She staked out a government claim in North Dakota, and anyone who has tried it will tell you that this is a direct chal- lenge to: luxury. trid was reared there—reared in a land where meadow- larks wak her in the morning. And as a child she tried_to imitate the birds. The family had had an artistic background, Her father had been a sculptor and his fa- ther an artist before tions of a prairie claim, the mother tried ~ to give the daughter a musical education. ° When she was a slip of a girl she would mount an old soap box and sing to an audi- x ence of prairie dogs. The cow-punchers ca im rode by came to applaud her and, as she grew older, she was sent in from the land claim to the Valley City Normal School. There her voice attracted \attention. She sang in the school glee club and was a soloist at concerts. She sang in the local churches and went to the bigget cities. ‘And, again, came sudden — very. -First concert tours in the smaller cities and New York. She's one of the concert features of NBC today. ERLE JOHNSTON, the saxophone star, was the son of a Salvation Army captain. His particular Main Street, in Galt, Ore., as known to:him literally. For when it his cheeks he was part of the small town “Army” band on the sidewalks of Galt, playing under a wind: blown gas torch. « Ih 1822 he had 15 cents in his pocket. To- day his salary would match that of a United States president. For many years he went about in orchestras and finally wound up with Paul Whiteman’s band. He graduated from that post into radio, ally to (Copyright, 1930, By EveryWeek Magazine—Printed in U.S. A.) \ \ t , IWQULMUUVUUAUUDUD ALDER : se ANU , \ : SMMC UIUC CUIULN, UZ -covered Within the limita-/ Ann Pickard . . . was a real, honest- to-goodness Hill-Billy. . . 4 With the rest of her family, she came out of the hills... to Nashville, and radio fame. where he both conducts and- appears in solos. And everyone has heard of the “Hill Billies.” Or has heard them at one time or another. They .are, in case there's any argument, the Pickards from the hills. One day old Obie and Ruth and Ann and the rest of the family jumped into the family Ford to take a vacation in Nashville. They all came down out of the hills, with a program of hill-billy songs, and .they never went back. ‘ Obie Plyed the jew's-harp and the harmon- ica. And how he played them was, seemingly, ° something to stop traffic about. He had been a traveling salesman, making the smaller Tennessee towns, and entertaining . as he went. Everyone knew him—that is, al the small towners knew him. For 25 years he parts of the south. The bailiwick of the Pickards was High Point, N. C. HEREAS Boly MacGinsey, who can whistle several notes at once, insists that he was the envy of all the lads of Pine- ville, La., which was his particular small town ome, because of his whistling ability. one day turn out to be a very. fat meal ticket. For he lee secretary to Senator Ransdell. le went to New Orleans, took the bar exam-- ination there ran across Gene Austin, the actor, who was playing a vaudeville nt. _ Austin, hearu ‘MacGinsey’s whales ged him to return to New York to make phonograph records, Within a relatively short time the re- corded results of the Austin-MacGintey efforts reached a sale of two millions. And it wasn't long before the big broadcasting programs were after him. ‘Will Rogers is the gentleman who was born in Oolagah, Indian aT emitory, » and always roudly claims Claremore, Okla., as his home. great Roxy Rothafel himself was the son of poor parents in a little Minnesota town called Stillwater. Perhaps the radio attraction of them all, Rudy Vallee, was born in Island ‘ond, Me., the son of a small, town druggist and Rudy was brought up in Westbrook, which is re hoe a big a Be rom heal the name. ‘ 4 By this tie, most of the nation knows that “Andy,” otherwise Charles J.-Correll, came from Peoria; that Harry Reser of the “Eskimos” was a railroad clerk in Piqua, O., long before e ly an to thump-a piano and join up with aul But the it — ade is long and, after a time, a i into the romantic rise oy eee ve lea sthall towns could produce; Fredaced sent the voice of Main Street over the whole nation. MW It didn’t occur to him then that this would fescr aie ttiaag tally, oery . \ = — => = = ~ ¢ | ve ¥ « jer 7 XN « * 1. ry ’ ' ’ TT TT 4 = , = 7=y. s == =