ROOTS of Country Music

The Professional Work of Hank Penny

(Aug. 8, 1918 ~ Apr. 17, 1992

Herbert Clayton Penny was born on September 18, 1918, in Birmingham, Alabama. In the early 1930s, Penny was hanging around Birmingham radio stations, learning from the local musicians and angling for a chance to get on the air. His career would ultimately take him across the country, including stints in New Orleans, Atlanta, Cincinnati and Los Angeles.

In 1936, Hank was in New Orleans performing on WWL's Riverboat Follies. By the time his New Orleans stay was up, he had evolved from apprentice to bandleader, and from the outset, he exhibited what would be a lifelong tendency to seek out and surround himself with the best possible talent. After New Orleans, Penny returned to Birmingham (1937), where he formed the Radio Cowboys and worked a midday show on WSGN. From there he moved to WBOD's Chattanooga Playhouse.
 
His radio performances lead to a recording session with ABC Records (1938). Fourteen songs were recorded, including "Back Up A Little Bit." From Chattanooga he relocated to Atlanta (1939) securing a more prestigious gig on WSB's "Crossroad Follies." However, the Radio Cowboys struggled to build a large enough following to make a living there, so Penny moved the group to Nashville that year. The band auditioned for WSM's Grand Ole Opry and Penny was offered a spot on the show.

By 1942 Penny was fronting a group called the Plantation Boys on the "Boone County Jamboree" at Cincinnati station WLW. There he worked with Grampa Jones, Merle Travis and the Delmore Brothers.  In 1944, he signed a contract with King Records. From 1945 -- 1950, Penny recorded 23 singles.

In 1945, he moved to Hollywood, where he continued to record and worked as a dee-jay, hosting his "Penny Serenade" radio show.  In 1946, he scored two hits, "Steel Guitar Rag" and "Get Yourself a Redhead." In June 1948, Penny joined Cooley's massively popular television program, where he performed as a comedian best known for his backwoods character "That Plain Ol' Country Boy." In 1947, he recorded a number of songs, among them "Hillbilly Bebop" and "Bloodshot Eyes."

In 1950, Hank left King and signed on with RCA Records. He had only three Billboard hits, all with King Steel Guitar Stomp (1946), Get Yourself a Redhead (1946) and Bloodshot Eyes (1950). With little success on RCA, he switched to Decca (1952 ~ 1957), and had little success there as well. That same year, Penny left Cooley to join Dude Martin's program; after first stealing Martin's wife, singer Sue Thompson (1953 ~ 1963), he began hosting his own series, The Hank Penny Show.

By 1954, Penny had moved to Las Vegas, where he began a seven year stint as a performer at the Golden Nugget Casino, fronting a band which included the likes of Roy Clark. In 1970, Hank moved to Nashville, where he was in the running for a slot hosting Hee Haw but lost out, ironically enough, to Clark. After a stint on radio in Wichita, KS, he returned to California in 1976 and for the most part he retired. Penny died of a heart attack on April 17, 1992.

During the late '40s and early '50s Hank was relatively popular with a respectable following. However, he never achieved success on the level of Bob Wills, Pee Wee King or Hank Thompson. For Penny, it wasn't a question of talent. It was the genre --- hillbilly music. During his heyday, western swing was extremely popular. Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys played nightly at Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa (1934 -- 1958), reaching crowds as large as 6,000 people.

Hank Thompson jumped on the swing bandwagon and enjoyed years of success. Western swing had a rich big band sound, whereas hillbilly music was more simple and unrefined. Penny produced pure raw hillbilly music and in that vein his career did as well as it could have. Seldom heard today, Hank Penny's music was a trendsetter in the hillbilly music arena for more than a decade.

Hillbilly Jump

Researched and written by Richard Bell, Roots of Country Music, Jun. 22, 2010.