Peruna Presents: Crockett's Kentucky Mountaineers

 

They were all there.
Albert was on bass,
Allen and George on fiddles,
Pauline, Christine, and Elnora looking very pretty,
and Johnny and Clarence on guitars. 

Little Dorothy and Sonny joined in the show

along with Glen Hardy,
and, of course,
Ma and Dad, too.

They played some snappy music
and sang a couple of old-time songs.
You should have seen them dancing.
They were the Crockett Family Kentucky Mountaineers.
They were swell!

This battered card, a half-tone print, is captioned:

Greetings from The Crocket(sic) Family, K.N.X.
and Peruna

What makes it a special souvenir is that someone wrote  the names of each member of the band onto the card. The Crockett Family were a country string band who called themselves the Kentucky Mountaineers. This card is a souvenir from when they performed on KNX, an AM radio station in Los Angeles, California, a very long way from their origins in Kentucky. This family band was started by John Harvey "Dad" Crockett, who was born in 1877 in Wayne County, West Virginia, but as a young man moved to Bath County, Kentucky. The University of Kentucky archives keeps a collection of the Crockett family papers and has the best biography of John H. Crockett with a history of his string band, which I will reprint here.

John Harvey Crockett, Sr. was a musician, music teacher, and maker of musical instruments who taught fiddle, banjo, shapenote singing, harmonica, and guitar in communities throughout the mountains of West Virginia and Kentucky. He married Admonia Jane Patrick of Tennessee, with whom he had eleven children, seven of whom lived to adulthood: Ethel (1898), George (1900), Clarence (1905), Albert (1907), Johnny (John Harvey Crockett, Jr, 1909), Alan (1915), and Elnora (1920).

In 1916, the Crockett family moved to California, where they lived for several years near Fresno. The Crockett children performed for their schools and at local dances throughout their youth. In the mid 1920s, the Crockett brothers were an early hit on the Fresno Bee radio station KMJ. The brothers sang songs written by Johnny, popular songs, novelty tunes, cowboy songs, songs from minstrel shows, and old-time songs that the boys learned from their grandfather, George A. Crockett.

The Crockett Family Kentucky Mountaineers was formed in 1926 and included all of the Crockett children except for Ethel. Earlier names of the group included The Crockett Minstrels and The Crockett Family Orchestra. Albert, Johnny, Alan, and Elnora, who grew up mostly in California, gravitated towards modern music and old-time music that they learned from elder family members. George and Clarence, who were rooted in Appalachia, always preferred the music of the hills where they and their parents were born and raised.

Following their success on Fresno radio, John Harvey Crockett, Sr. and his five sons played for stations in Los Angeles and southern California. In 1927-1928 the group signed with the Keith-Orpheum Vaudeville Circuit and became a headline act on that nationwide circuit. They toured vaudeville theatres throughout the United States and Canada, played regularly over the radio, and broadcast nationally from New York station, WABC. The Crockett Family Kentucky Mountaineers returned to California after their WABC stint and became the lead act on The Hollywood Barn Dance, a program on Los Angeles radio station, KNX. The Crockett Family Kentucky Mountaineers' final tour was of the west coast in 1936-1937. Family addictions to alcohol led to the downfall of the group, with George Crockett's death from alcohol poisoning (1941) and the suicides of Clarence (1936) and Alan (1947).

Before we go any further
in their story let's listen to 
Crockett's Kentucky Mountaineers
playing Buffalo Gal's Medley
in a recording made in 1931.

Though my picture of the Crockett family is the size of a postcard, instead of the usual stamp box on the back there is a small calendar for the year 1935. It has a title:

TRY PERUNA
TO HELP BUID UP
—COLD CHASING—
—COLD FIGHTING—
RESISTANCE

The band was led by John Harvey Crockett, Sr., "Dad", on fiddle and banjo, and accompanied by his wife, Admonia Jane, "Ma", and their five sons, George (fiddle), Johnny (banjo, guitar, vocals), Alan (fiddle, bones), Clarence (guitar), and Albert (bass, tenor guitar) and daughter, Elnora (vocals). The two other young women in the photo were sisters, Pauline and Christine Stafford, reportedly neighbors from Tennessee. The two children, Dorothy and Sonny, and the young man, Glen Hardy were likely extras used to add more youth to this family entertainment.  

Coos Bay, OR The World
7 May 1935

The group pictured on the card has 13 members but they usually toured with 10, as pictured here in a 1935 theater promotion in the Coos Bay, Oregon newspaper. By 1935 the Crockett family were seasoned entertainers having played on both vaudeville and radio. In January 1928 the Crockett Family (Kentucky) Mountaineers appeared at the Orpheum theater in Oakland, California as one of a half-dozen acts arranged around a featured film. A reviewer in the Oakland newspaper said "One of the greatest novelties which has ever played the circuit is the act of the Crockett Family Kentucky Mountaineers, whose old-time music and square dances are something really out of the ordinary."  

Oakland CA Tribune
13 January 1928

The film was "Show Girl", starring "Hollywood's newest sensation", Alice White, as "the hottest little hotsy-totsy that ever shook a scanty at a tired businessman." I don't think she did square dancing. The "Show Girl" was a semi-silent film with caption cards for the drama and no audible dialog, but it did use a new audio technology with a synchronized musical score and sound effects that used the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process.

One tune was not enough.
Let's have an encore!
Here again are the
Crockett's Kentucky Mountaineers
in a rendition of that great old-time classic
 Little Rabbit (1931).

In around 1927 the Crockett boys got their start on radio in Fresno, California at station KMJ. This station was one of oldest in America having secured its commercial license in March 1922. The first radio stations used an amplitude-modulated (AM) signal which, with enough power, could be picked up by listeners who were hundreds, or even thousands, of miles from the radio transmission antenna. Performances of radio plays and music concerts were broadcast live, and not pre-recorded. Over the next decade, as the technology of microphones, amplifiers, and receivers improved, radio shows were produced in front of a studio audience, which allowed performers like the Crockett family to appear dressed in costume. 

After some local success, the Crockett Family Kentucky Mountaineers were taken up by larger stations and then national networks. As more and more people around the country began purchasing radio sets, their infectious music quickly created a sensation in the new medium. This opened up opportunities for the Crocketts to tour the vaudeville theater circuit.   

Fresno CA Bee
2 September 1929

The Crockett's home in California was in Fowler, a little farming town in the San Joaquin Valley about 12 miles southeast of Fresno. On 2 September 1929 the Fresno Bee, which now owned the KMJ radio  station, published a front page feature and photo about the meteoric rise to fame of the Crockett family.  The popularity of the Kentucky Mountaineers was bringing them new bookings in major cities like New York City. They were publishing their own songbooks, starting a nationwide tour of vaudeville theaters, and planned to release new recordings. They were now reputed to earn $2,000 a week. Not eight weeks later, on 24 October, also known as Black Thursday, the American stock market crashed, marking the beginning of the Great Depression.

The people of Fresno seemed just as proud of the Crocketts as the folks back in Kentucky. The writer of the article explained their success this way:  

"The high praise that is accorded the Crocketts throughout the country is evidenced in the following review of their act, printed by a Denver, Colorado, newspaper: "In this sophisticated age, when there is consorted effort upon the part of the the majority of performers to be arty, Crockett's Kentucky Mountaineers offer such a startling contrast that they all but caused a riot. 

   "The parent Crockett and his five sons present such a picture as has not been seen here in ages. That they are authentic is plain to be seen. Without any flourishes they fiddle away at the old tunes familiar to every one, keeping time with their swinging feet. 

   "Then to disclose their versatility two of the boys sing 'Sipping Cider'—and how they can sing it. The baby of the family then fiddles a tune accompanied by his brothers. 

   "But the riotous feature is when one of the boys calls off the old fashioned dances and trips about the stage showing this generation how it is done, while the rest of the family provide. the melody. 

   

   "The family also have a. priceless possession, huge, shy smiles that will win an audience no matter what they do. Really, no one should miss this troupe if for no other reason than to be convinced that people can, in this day and age, be so ingenuous and present their talents with such disarming simplicity." 

The following summer in 1930 the friends and fans of the Kentucky Mountaineers learned that they would get a rare treat courtesy of the Fresno Bee. Albert Crockett, the bass player with the big grin, was to be married to Miss Josephine Phillips of Pineville, Kentucky. The wedding ceremony was to be held in New York City, but it would be broadcast live over the CBS radio network which included the Bee's KML station.

Fresno CA Bee
8 July 1930

The audience demands more!
So here again is 
the Crockett Kentucky Mountaineers
in Sweet Betsy From Pike.
It was recorded in New York City
in either January or February 1931

The Crockett family's national tour in 1935 followed a route familiar to many family entertainers over previous decades. It was a trail of theaters in cities and towns linked by America's railway lines. Early vaudeville in the 1890s had all live performers of course. Change was coming though and after 1910 entertainers shared the stage with a new fade—movies. The actors may have been mute, mouthing their words, but the films were certainly not silent as there was always an orchestra, a pianist, or organist to provide accompaniment. And as early feature movies were usually short, theaters still depended on live acts to keep audiences entertained while the film reels were changed. But by the mid-1930s movies with full sound and exciting cinematic action forced theaters to give up on house orchestras and quit booking live acts altogether. Vaudeville struggled along in smaller towns but it would soon disappear.

Casper, WY Star-Tribune
22 August 1935

In August 1935 the Kentucky Mountaineers appeared in Casper, Wyoming at the America theater. The local newspaper ran an advert which showed eight members of the "internationally famous" Crockett family onboard a horse-drawn farm wagon. They were radio stars from KNX Hollywood.  The movie feature was "We're in the Money", a romantic comedy film starring Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell in a kind of "buddy" story. 

The Crockett family finished that 1935 season but despite their success, they seemed to have given up the vaudeville circuit and radio too. I could not find their group's name on radio listings or in theater adverts after 1937. Beginning in 1935 another group called "Uncle Henry's Original Kentucky Mountaineers" showed up in several newspaper, mostly in the East. Like the Crocketts it was a mountain string band, but with eight musicians. I suspect this band was produced as a deliberate imitation of the more famous Crockett family. It lasted up to the war years and then disappears.

From John H. Crockett's brief biography we learn that the Crocketts suffered some cruel sadness in their family. Their first loss occurred on 20 August 1936 when Clarence Crockett took his own life. After he had threatened his wife several times with a gun, she took their children and left their house. Shortly afterward Clarence shot himself. Tragically it was his father who discovered his son's body.

Oakland CA Tribune
20 August 1936

Such terrible events are a burden to any family, but for those working in show business, it can be even more stressful to keep performing. But the Crockett Family tried anyway, playing a show in December 1936 and a couple more in 1937. Yet like in all family  bands, the kids inevitably grow up and find other interests, start their own families, and pursue new ambitions. It was also the height of the depression which was affecting every industry including show business. After 1937 Crockett's Kentucky Mountaineers seems to have broke up. Some of the other family members found music work in other string bands and even in Hollywood, too. But newspapers did not record any further concerts of the whole Crocket family. 

John Harvey Crockett, born 1877 in West Virginia died in Sacrament, California in January 1972.

* * *

I don't know how influential the Crockett family string band was to the growth of Country & Western music. The Crocketts called it old-time music,  even though some of the boys wrote new tunes for their band to play. They were influenced by Grandfather Crockett and a family memory of Kentucky mountain songs and dances. At the time some newspapers called it Hill Billy music, or Barn Dance music. What it lacked in sophistication was made up by its infectious toe-tapping rhythms. But I think the real reason for the Crockett family's appeal was that they were authentic. 

This was an era when traditional folk music was still alive and unspoiled by commercialization. The Appalachian mountains, from Alabama to Maine, were home to a mix of many cultures that in the 1930s were still very much isolated from the rest of America. By moving to California the Crockett family managed to take advantage of two new mediums—radio and recording. For a brief few years their genuine mountain music entertained American audiences with a sound that was fresh and novel. Eventually the world would recognize Appalachian music for its roots in Scotland, Ireland, Africa, and other musical cultures. For the Crocketts I think it was all about playing homemade music that kept you dancing on your toes.

  

Readers who have got this far may ask,
"Wait! What's the deal about Peruna?"

St Louis, MO Republic
28 February 1901

Peruna, or Pe-ru-na as it was sometimes called, was a patent medicine concocted by Samuel Brubaker Hartman,1830–1918, and sold to the public at great profit in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Peruna was purported to cure catarrh, a general purpose word for inflammation that covered all manner of ailments in the human body. Hartman was a trained physician and surgeon but his true talent was as a quack doctor. 

When his patients complained that their pharmacists were not preparing his prescriptions correctly, Hartman decided to manufacture his own special cure-all medicine. He called it Peruna and began selling it in 1885. He claimed it was beneficial for anyone suffering from pneumonia; tuberculosis; grippe – influenza; the common cold – catarrh of the lungs; canker sores – catarrh of the mouth; appendicitis – catarrh of the appendix; chronic indigestion – catarrh of the stomach; mumps – catarrh of the glands; Bright's disease – cattarh of the kidneys; and Yellow fever. It could also help people gain weight.

This wonder drug became a miraculous tonic, a magic elixir that was advertised in thousands of newspapers and magazines. Peruna was endorsed by hundreds of politicians, military officers, and other prominent dignitaries and received testimonials of its wonderous qualities from countless ordinary people. It made Hartman a very wealthy man. 

In 1905, Collier's magazine published a series of eleven articles by the journalist Samuel Hopkins Adams entitled "The Great American Fraud". In his report Adams exposed Peruna and other patent medicines as complete frauds and, in some cases, dangerous due to toxic substances. The only active ingredient in Peruna was 28% ethanol. Supposedly it was at least better than other panaceas which used opium and cocaine as ingredients. Adams' work was widely read and it led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. 

However Peruna continued to be manufactured though now under a different formula with less alcohol. After his death in 1918, Samuel Brubaker Hartman's company (No relation to me that I know of. Yet.)  stayed in business selling its fantastic brew to foolish people desperate to find cheap cures. 

By 1935 Peruna was still sold to the public but it was now just an ordinary household brand name. But in order to promote sales the Peruna company began sponsoring radio programs and musical artists. What I did not know until I began doing research on the Crockett family this week was that Peruna sponsored other radio bands too. There are promotional cards for Western, country, swing bands and more, all with a calendar for 1935 printed on the back.

Thus a new genre in my collection has begun—the Peruna Presents series. Stayed tuned for the next episode.

This is my contribution to Sepia Saturday

where everyone is tuned to their radio, 

so

DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL!