ROOTS of Country Music

The Professional Work of Johnny Bond

(Jun. 1, 1915 – Jun. 12, 1978)

Career Track

Barn Dance Affiliate: Town Hall Party

Band Name:

• Johnny Bond & His River Valley Boys 
• Singing Cowboy Trio 

Film, Night Club, Radio & TV 

• Ed Sullivan Show, 4
• Ernest Tubb’s  Midnight Jamboree, 3
• The Jimmy Dean Show, 4
• The Johnny Carson Show
• The Johnny Cash Show, 4
• The Porter Wagoner Show, 4 

1-Film, 2-Night Club, 3-Radio, 4-TV

Billboard Chart Data 

• No. 1 Singles: 0
• Top-10 Singles: 7
• Crossover Singles: 0
• Charted Singles: 21
• Years Active: 1947 - 1965

Awards

Country Music Association

• Country Music Hall of Fame (1999)

Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame

Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970

Billboard Top-10 Singles 

1. Divorce Me C.O.D. -1947
2. So Round,So Firm, So Fully Packed
3. The Daughter of Jole Blon
4. Oklahoma Waltz -1948
5. Love Song in 32 Bars -1950, 1
6. Sick, Sober and Sorry -1951
7. 10 Little Bottles* -1965

*Biggest Single

1Johnny Bond and His Red River Valley Boys 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Ten Little Bottles: The Johnny Bond Story

Cyrus Whitfield Bond known professionally as Johnny Bond, was a popular country music entertainer of the 1940s through the 1960s. Bond was a regular on the 1950s Los Angeles country music television series Town Hall Party.

Johnny Bond was born in Enville, Oklahoma (OK). He got his first break working for Jimmy Wakely in the late 1930s and went on to join Gene Autry's Melody Ranch in 1940.

In Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (OK)  Johnny Bond hooked up with Jimmy Wakely and Scotty Harrell (later replaced by Dick Reinhart), with whom he formed a group, originally known as the Singing Cowboy Trio and later the Bell Boys, in acknowledgment of their radio sponsorship from Bell Clothing. Their repertoire in those days was influenced heavily by the work of Gene Autry and the Sons of the Pioneers and featured many cowboy songs.

The Singing Cowboy Trio did their broadcasting on radio station WKY (Oklahoma City) and cut transcription discs at KVOO in Tulsa, OK. By then, Bond was already writing songs of his own and in 1938 he wrote his first classic, Cimarron. Gene Autry saw their work when he was on tour late in the 1930s and expressed his interest in using them on his Melody Ranch radio show, should they ever make it out to California (CA).

By 1939, they were brought out to Hollywood, CA for an appearance, under the name of the Jimmy Wakely Trio, in The Saga of Death Valley, starring Roy Rogers and produced by Republic Pictures. There was more film work being offered by Republic and Autry's offer was difficult to ignore.

In May of 1940, Wakely, Bond, Reinhart and their families headed west in Wakely's Dodge automobile. They immediately became regulars on Melody Ranch and Bond continued to play on the show for 16 years, until it was canceled in 1956.

Cedric Stevens, Lee "Lasses" White, Dennis Moore
and Johnny Bond in a scene from Jimmy Wakely's
first movie for Monogram, Song of the Range (1944)

They also made their second film appearance, in The Tulsa Kid, starring Don "Red" Barry, with the group credited as "Jimmy Wakely & His Rough Riders." The group later moved to Universal Studio, making a debut there in Pony Post (1940), starring Johnny Mack Brown. They also played the usual concerts, ballrooms and clubs throughout southern California.

Bond, Wakely and Reinhart, along with Scotty Harrell, who came out to Hollywood, CA a little later and was welcomed back into the fold; continued to work together in the early '40s in various configurations, although the Wakely Trio had more or less ceased to exist officially after 1941.

Curiously, it was Bond and not Wakely, who was the first member of the trio to get a recording contract of his own. Art Satherly of Columbia Records, who had previously signed Gene Autry, Tex Ritter, Leadbelly and a dozen other music legends to recording contracts, got Mr. Bond under contract in 1941. His first recording sessions were held in August of that year. The highlight of those sessions was Those Gone and Left Me Blues.

In April of 1942, Johnny Bond cut four songs, covers of the recent Carson Robison hits 1942 Turkey in the Straw, Mussolini's Letter to Hitler, and Hitler's Reply to Mussolini, in an attempt to give Columbia covers of the Robison hits, but the company decided not to release them.

Johnny is best known for his 1947 hit Divorce Me C.O.D. one of his seven top ten hits on the Billboard country charts. In 1965 at age 50 he scored the biggest hit of his career with the comic Ten Little Bottles, which spent four weeks at Billboard No. 2.

Johnny Bond's other hits include So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed (1947), Oklahoma Waltz (1948), Love Song in 32 Bars (1950), Sick Sober and Sorry (1951) and Hot Rod Lincoln (1960).

Bond died of a heart attack in 1978. Johnny Bond was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1999 and to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Johnny Bond Composition Catalog, Partial Listing:

1. Cherokee Waltz
2. Cimarron
3. Don't Live a Lie
4. Glad Rags
5. I Wonder Where You Are Tonight
6. I'll Step Aside
7. Jim, Johnny and Jonas
8. Love Gone Cold
9. Ridin' Down to Sante Fe
10. Ten Little Bottles
11. Ten Years
12. Those 'Gone and Left Me Blues'
13. Tomorrow Never Comes
14. Your Old Love Letters

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Johnny Bond & His Red River Valley Boys: The Early Recordings

Aug. 12, 1941

Okeh Records

Hollywood, California

Session Personnel: Johnny Bond (vocals), Jerry Adler (harmonica), Jimmy Wakley (guitar), Dick Reinhart (string bass, vocal)

• Those Gone and Left Me Blues
• I Won't Stand In Your Way
• Down In the Dumps
• Don'y You Weep Anymore Darlin'
• The Road Is way Too Long
• Baby You're Thru Foolin' Me
• I'm Poundin' the Rails Again
• A Lonmg Lonesome Road

Aug. 19, 1941

Okeh Records

Hollywood, California

Session Personnel: Same as Aug. 12, 1941

• I'm Gonna Be Long Gone
• I've had the Blues Before
• One More Tear
• Now You Care No More For Me
• Draftee Blues
• Help Me Lose the Blues 

Dec. 2, 1941

Okeh Records

Hollywood, California

Session Personnel: Johnny Bond (vocal), Spade Cooley (fiddle), Jerry Adler (harmonica), Jimmy Wakley (guitar), Paul Sells (piano), Doyle Salathiel (guitar), Dick Reinhart (string bass, vocal)

• You Brought Sorrow to My Heart
• You Don't Care
• ASfter I'm Gone
• How Low Do the Blues Want to Go
• Someday You're Gonna Be Blue 

 Apr. 3, 1942

Okeh Records

Hollywood, California

Session Personnel: Johnny Bond (vocal), Spade Cooley (fiddle), Jack Mayhew (clarinet), Jerry Adler (harmonica), Dick Roberts (guitar), Hank Stern (tuba)

• 1942 Turkey In the Straw
• We're Gonna Have to Slap the Dirty Little Jap
• Mussolini's Letter to Hitler
• Hitler's Reply to Mussolini

Jul. 31, 1942

Okeh Records

Hollywood, California

Session Personnel: Johnny Bond (vocal), Spade Cooley (fiddle), Lyall W. Bowen (clarinet), Ralph Thomas (piano), Hank Stern (string bass)

• I'm a Pris'ner of War (On a Foreign Soil)
• You Let Me Down
• Der Fuehrer's Face
• Love Gone Cold

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Marty Robbins Recording Session

Single: Tomorrow You'll Be Gone

Recorded: Nov. 14, 1951, Hollywood, California

Producer: Art Satherley

Session Personnel: Marty Robbins (vocal, guitar), Floyd Lanning, Johnny Bond (guitar), James Farmer (steel guitar), Tex Atchison (fiddle), Bill Callahan (bass guitar).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Researched, written and compiled by Richard Bell. Roots of Country Music. Oct. 15, 2011.