I was talking with a friend recently whom you may remember from a previous show as being a big fan of Quincy Jones and the TV show Ironside.This time we were reminiscing about the Austin music scene from way back.
If you’re from Austin or if you spent time there in the ‘70s and ‘80s, you’ll probably remember a musical duo called The Geezinslaws.They were characters portrayed by two musicians named Sammy Allred and Dwayne Smith, and actually performed together for over 50 years.During the 1950s they regularly appeared on a famous radio show called The Louisiana Hayride from KWKH in Shreveport.The Hayride ranked alongside the Ozark Jubilee Show and the Grand Ole Opry as the most well-known American music programs.It featured regular live performances from Kitty Wells, Hank Williams, and Elvis.
The Geezinslaws were the first musical act from Austin to get a major record deal, first with Columbia Records, then with Capitol.They got their biggest break when they appeared on Arthur Godfrey’s national radio show in 1961 and recorded their debut album two years later.They would release four more over the course of the 1960s.
Back home in Austin by the 1980s they played regularly at a bar on South Lamar called The Broken Spoke where you could also catch Asleep at the Wheel quite often.Three times they were featured on the PBS show Austin City Limits.The show’s executive producer Terry Lickona said, “In their own way, [The Geezinslaws] were ‘keeping Austin weird’ even before there was such a thing.”
Turns out though they’re not quite as Austin unique as I thought.Comedy-music duos, particularly in country music, were a big thing at one point, and such acts had roots going to back to Vaudeville.One of the earliest such groups was a duo called Homer and Jethro. I remember my dad had an 8-track tape of theirs and I thought their songs were funny, but I probably didn’t even get half of the jokes.They were active from the 1940s to the 1960s and won a Grammy Award in 1959 for their parody of a Johnny Horton hit called “The Battle of New Orleans.” They were inducted posthumously into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001.
Next time, let’s look a little deeper into the history of these radio shows that were so important in launching many musical careers, including the incredible career of someone we recently lost.
