The Professional Work of DJ and Show Promoter Pappy Hal Horton
Pappy Hal Horton (Montclair, New Jersey 1893 – Nov. 28, 1948): KRLD, Dallas, Texas. Popular Dallas disc jockey (DJ) and show promoter, Hal first acted on stage with his parents at age ten. He worked as a sideshow barker all over and entered broadcasting in Davenport, Iowa. From Mexican border stations he came to Dallas in 1936, where an auto dealer sponsored Horton’s first hillbilly record programs on WRR.
Around 1945, Horton launched the KRLD Hillbilly Hit Parade, a 10:30 PM program on which he played and ranked records and interviewed many country stars he brought to Dallas. It soon became one of the most popular DJ shows in the region setting the stage for the postwar surge. Later he added the Cornbread Matinee and announced Mutual’s Checkerboard Jamboree with Eddy Arnold.
In 1946, Hank Thompson recorded Whoa Sailor at Pappy Sellars’ Dallas studio for Globe Records. Hal Horton liked Hank’s new song and played it on his Hillbilly Hit Parade radio show. Horton's late night disc jockey show on Dallas' KRLD, made Thompson's Globe recordings at least regional favorites, as stacks of fan mail and requests poured in to Horton in Dallas and to Thompson at KWTX (Waco). Before long, Thompson was under Horton's career supervision.
With KRLD’s 50, 000 watts, Horton’s show had a national reach that afforded a new artist real exposure. Hank remembered, “Horton played that thing and it went to number one (locally) and also he played the other side, Swing Wide Your Gate of Love, and it went to number one.”
A couple of years later, Hank recorded an acetate tape of Humpty Dumpty Heart, with a local band, The Lonestar Playboys. Hank took the acetate to Horton and it went to number one (locally) and soon Hank had a recording contract with Capitol Records. Horton lobbied the touring movie and recording star Tex Ritter to get Thompson onto Ritter's own label, Capitol. When he came through Texas on a theater tour and made a guest appearance on Thompson's radio show, Ritter and Thompson hit it off immediately.
Horton co-founded Metro Music, which published Hank Thompson’s earliest songs and Tommy Dilbeck’s biggest hits for Eddy Arnold. Hal co-wrote I'll Hold You In My Heart with Eddy Arnold and Tommy Dilbeck. There were many other artists, whose career got a huge boost from Hal and his show, including Ernest Tubb, Hank Snow, Ray Price and Tex Ritter.
Horton made two records for Sonora in 1946, Dreamy Rio Grande and Rhythm in the Hills. Hal was plagued by a heart ailment in the last years of his life and he did his final broadcast from a back porch home studio two weeks before he died. Hal was inducted into The Country Music DJ Hall of Fame in 1978.
