WWVA Wheeling Jamboree

WWVA was granted a license on December 6, 1926 and its initial broadcast, via a 50-watt transmitter, was on December 13. On July 1, 1929, WWVA increased its power to 5,000 watts. Holland Engel and Howard Donahoe were among the first announcers and in 1927, the station signed William Wallace "Bill" Jones and the Sparkling Four as its first hillbilly act. The new Managing Director, George W. Smith, was appointed in 1931 and he quickly saw the potential of country music.

Late in 1932 Smith called a meeting with Program Director Howard Donahoe and Paul J. Miller. The purpose of the meeting was to program something special for the 5,000-watt station's listeners on Saturday nights. From the meeting the WWVA Jamboree was conceived. The new program began broadcasting on January 7, 1933, from the WWVA (Wheeling, West Virginia) studios.

Paul J. Miller was Master of Ceremonies. The entertainers were; Ginger, Snap and Sparky, Wandering Minstrel Elmer Crowe, Fred Craddock's Happy Five, Felix Adams, Paul Miller, Willard Spoon, George Kanute, Jimmy Lively and Eddie Barr, Sherlock and Tommy, and The Tweedy Brothers.

From the outset, the WWVA Wheeling Jamboree was immensely popular and soon, the program had to move. On April 1, 1933, the WWVA Jamboree moved to the Capitol Theatre. An admission charge of 25 cents helped defray the cost of renting the theatre for the show. The first jamboree accommodated 3,266 patrons with another thousand having to be turned away.

The WWVA Jamboree took place at Wheeling's Capitol Theatre until February 10, 1934. A change in theatre management caused a change in the Jamboree's venue to the Victoria Theatre. However, only two performances were held at the Victoria Theatre as larger seating capacity to handle the crowds was necessary. From there, the jamboree moved to Wheeling's Virginia Theatre. Then, in February 1936, the jamboree moved back to the Capitol Theatre. From there, the show moved to the Wheeling Market Auditorium.

Grandpa Jones signed with the show in 1936 and joined the Rhythm Rangers, but he left the following year. Jones returned for a short stint in 1941 and 1945. Joe Barker and the Chuck Wagon Gang came to the Jamboree in 1937. In 1939, Lew Childre joined the Jamboree staying almost four years. An aspiring young star, Floyd Tillman was one of the members of Childre's group. On October 8, 1942, WWVA increased its power and became a 50,000-watt station.

Frankie More, who was sponsored by Pinex Cough Syrup, signed with the Jamboree in 1936. The name of Frankie More's band, the Log Cabin Gang, varied between Log Cabin Boys or Log Cabin Girls during the "Gangs" period on the show. The most prominent member of the Log Cabin Gang was banjo player, Cousin Emmy.

The Log Cabin Gang left the Jamboree in 1941. The jamboree was discontinued due to gasoline rationing in December, 1942. The WWVA Jamboree's in-person audience drew from patrons from several places well beyond Wheeling. Jamboree personal appearances resumed in July, 1946 and the shows resumed again from the Virginia Theatre.

The WWVA Wheeling Jamboree also had its share of traveling troupes of artists who would go to outlying towns and cities as far as five hundred miles to perform for audiences. For WWVA, these were called "Goodwill Tours." Like the WLS National Barn Dance, the WWVA Jamboree had music that one might readily associate with 'hillbilly' or 'country' music back then. As such, the jamboree had its own such person in the name of Vivian Miller, who was the Jamboree organist. They attributed the jamboree theme song to her and they mentioned that the words to the tune were believed to be the work of Elmer Crowe and Howard Donahoe.

Pictured left Cousin Emmy

The bluegrass duo of Jim & Jesse McReynolds and Hylo Brown had a short stint at the Jamboree during 1955. In October 1956, the Osborne Brothers joined the Jamboree. They had been on the show one year earlier as part of Charlie Bailey's Band. The Osborne’s left the show and moved to the Grand Ole Opry in 1963.

As the fame of Elvis Presley began to increase, a similar decrease in honky-tonk and traditional styles began to take its toll among the members of the Jamboree and many were forced to leave. During that period rockabilly became a regular feature at the show with artists like Bob Gallion, Hardrock Gunter and Chuck & Jim Cook. They had all had joined earlier as straight country singers. The Jamboree managed to survive the explosion of rock 'n roll through a mix of rockabilly and traditional music.

In July 1962, the Virginia Theatre in Wheeling was demolished. It had been the home of the original WWVA Jamboree since July 1946. The Rex Theatre became the new locale for the live-audience Jamboree. WWVA-AM changed ownership in the mid-1960s and a new program director, Lee Sutton was appointed (1965). Plans arose to cancel the Jamboree but Doc Williams and John Corrigan wanted to revitalize the show instead. The Jamboree added 27 new acts within the next 15 months, including country and bluegrass music acts such as David Houston, Esco Hankins and the Stanley Brothers.

In November, 1965, the new program director, Arlen Sanders, made WWVA a full-time country radio station and in January, 1966, the Jamboree moved to a new location at Wheeling Island Exhibition Hall. In May 1966, Mac Wiseman was hired to work both as a performer and a talent agent. He started a new radio program in October, the Mac Wiseman Record Shop, which aired at midnight following the Jamboree. The DJ, Lee Moore, went on the air in November, 1966, with a new program titled, The All Night Show.

Pictured right Little Shoe

On December 13, 1969, the WWVA Jamboree moved its live-audience shows back to the same Capitol Theatre used for the 1933 broadcasts. The Capitol Theatre had been purchased in the summer of 1969 by Communications Inc. and had its name changed to Capitol Music Hall.

The Jamboree changed its name as well to the more cosmopolitan sounding Jamboree U.S.A. Special guest stars such as Buck Owens, Ray Price, Charlie Pride and Tammy Wynette, who weren't part of the regular cast, began to appear and the regular artists were overshadowed. Despite the new format, Doc Williams continued to perform at the Jamboree well into the 1980s. Rockabilly singer Bob Gallion began to sing country duets with Patti Powell in the 1970s. The yodeler Kenny Roberts left the Jamboree in 1973 after a 14 year stint.

A new roster of country music stars were tied to the Jamboree during the 1960s and 1970s including Freddy Carr, Jimmie Stephens, Darnell Miller, Junior Norman, Kenny Biggs, Gus Thomas, Slim Lehart and Bud Cutright. Also bluegrass groups like Jimmy Martin and the Sunny Mountain Boys, Charlie Moore & Bill Napier, Red Smiley and His Bluegrass Cutups, Tater Tate and the Shenandoah Cutups and Frank Necessary and the Stone Mountain Boys became regular acts at the Jamboree. In the early 1970s, “Trucker's Jamborees” were held at the Jamboree with performers such as Dick Curless, Dave Dudley, and Patti Powell.

Homecoming reunions were arranged where the old-timers of yesterday like Bill Jones, Elmer Crowe, Doc Williams and Grandpa Jones would gather.Jerry Brightman took over the show in 1977, beginning a tenure that lasted until 1982.

Pictured left Red Belcher

Under Brightman's watch, the Jamboree launched an annual summer country music festival, the Jamboree in the Hills, in eastern Ohio. The multi-day festival has since grown well beyond the radio series to draw major country music stars and continues to this day, even after the radio program's cancellation. It is estimated that between 1933 and 1976, more than five million visitors attended the original WWVA Jamboree shows.

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