ROOTS of Country Music

The Town Hall Party

           Beryl Harrell                                                   The Collins Kids

The Town Hall Party was a country music radio and television show held in Compton, California. It was broadcast over KXLA, Pasadena, KFI, Los Angeles and KTTV-TV, Los Angeles beginning in the autumn of 1951. 

Promoter William B. Wagnon, Jr., had been booking such acts as Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys in ballrooms between Bakersfield and Sacramento for several years when he decided to extend his operations to Los Angeles. The Town Hall Party was held at the Town Hall in Compton and drew in excess of 2,800 paid admissions. It was held each Friday and. Saturday and featured artists working in the area.

There was seating for 1,000 patrons in front of the stage, and room for possibly another 1,000 people to dance at the rear of the theatre. Wagnon instructed the performers to play only music which could be danced to and to keep individual songs short and plentiful, in order to satisfy everyone's tastes. Each show had a theme. Some of the themes included subjects such as, "Hank Williams Night," "State Nights," "Veteran's Nights," and "Jimmie Rodgers Night. 

The Town hall Party was a proving ground for aspiring artist. Although many of those singers, who graced the stage of the Town Hall Party, had great potential, only a few were fortunate to advance their career. The program was carried by portions of the NBC Radio network.

Country singer Wesley Tuttle was hired as musical director of the series and Johnny Bond was contracted to write the scripts for the KFI/NBC series. The cast featured Tex Ritter, Johnny Bond, Wesley and Marilyn Tuttle, Tex Williams, Joe Maphis & Rose Lee, Jenks "Tex" Carman, Eddie Kirk, Merle Travis, Fiddlin' Kate, Freddie Hart, Mary Jane Johnson, Les "Carrot-Top" Anderson, comedian Texas Tiny and other prominent country entertainers. Radio announcer Jay Stewart, who had worked with Bond on an earlier West Coast country & western show, Hollywood Barn Dance, was hired as master of ceremonies. 

As the show expanded, new talent joined the cast with Lefty Frizzell, Skeets McDonald, Dortha Wright, and The Collins Kids being among the most popular. Eddie Dean, Smiley Burnette, Jimmy Wakely, Sons of the Pioneers, Johnny Cash, Jim Reeves and many other big names made guest appearances on the program. Gene Autry broke all attendance records during a 1950 performance. The 10-piece Town Hall Party band featured Joe Maphis, Merle Travis, superb steel guitarist Marian Hall, Billy Hill and Fiddlin' Kate on violins, PeeWee Adams on drums, Jimmy Pruitt on piano, and other excellent musicians who created a Town Hall Party sound also heard on many country sessions produced by Columbia Records in Hollywood in the 1950s. 

Beryl Harrell                                Fiddlin'Kate                      Wanda jackson

In 1957, Wagnon arranged with Screen Gems to film a series of 39 half-hour television shows featuring the Town Hall Party cast. A close friend of Art Linkletter, Wagnon had named his series after Linkletter's popular radio/television program, House Party. He opted to capitalize on the TV Westerns craze of 1957 by calling the syndicated series, Ranch Party. While many traditional country and Western musicians had been mainstays of the radio and television cast for years, the series readily embraced rock ´n roll and enthusiastically presented singers from the new genre.

Carl Perkins and his combo were brought in to film guest spots on the Screen Gems series, and The Collins Kids were given co-star billing with host Tex Ritter. Traditional country entertainers, singing cowboys, and rock singers never shared the spotlight in a more harmonious manner than on the Town Hall Party and syndicated Ranch Party shows. 

The band was made smaller and many regular cast members departed in 1958. Billy Mize and Cliff Crofford, joined the much smaller cast as band members and soloists. The Showboat Hotel in Las Vegas began to put on Town Hall Party shows featuring Tex Ritter, The Collins Kids, and other prominent figures, thus drawing them away from the KTTV Saturday night telecasts. 

Competition for television viewers was more intense as the new decade began and KTTV gave notice that Town Hall Party was to be dropped in December, 1960. The final performance at the Compton Town Hall was given on January 14, 1961. Other live country and Western music shows were seen on California television at various points in the 1960s, but none featured the large cast of recording artists which Wagnon assembled in the 1950s. The syndicated Ranch Party series is available on DVD releases of the surviving kinescopes of Town Hall Party.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The following is a partial listing of artist who performed on the Town Hall Party: