Word: springfields
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...years ago the Springfield hillbillies began moaning and wailing on a two-hour KWTO show called Ozark Jubilee, and ABC put 25 minutes of it on its radio network. Six months later the show was on the ABC-TV network, soon grabbed 90 minutes of prime television time (Sat. 7:30 p.m., E.S.T.) three weeks out of four. Last week Springfield could lay claim to being the hillbilly capital of the world...
Hillbilly Boom. At last count, 121 hillbillies were dancing, singing and strumming on Jubilee, ambitious youngsters were washing dishes, waiting for their chance to howl their way to success, and Springfield had become accustomed to high-heeled guitar players breezing around town in expensive cars. Jubilee executives figure that they will squeeze about $2,500,000 out of country music this year...
...record sales of Jubilee's star, Clyde Julian ("Red") Foley, have topped 2½ million. Foley and two other Springfield hillbillies (Webb Pierce and Eddy Arnold) sell close to half the country-music records marketed in the U.S. Six years ago Pierce was selling clothes in Sears, Roebuck; now he is making something close to $200,000 a year. Foley can command up to $1,500 a night, but does only four or five dates a month because he "doesn't want to take all that money to the graveyard.'' Jubilee has always been...
Hayride & Opry. Springfield's claim to hillbilly distinction annoys both Nashville, long the mecca of hillbilly music, and Cincinnati. Cincinnati takes pride in Midwestern Hayride (Wed. 10:30 p.m.), which consists of fancy Dans caterwauling heart-rending laments and pretty cowgirls yodeling morosely as they pluck at guitars. The show turns around Master of Ceremonies Willie Thall, a part-time hillbilly from Chicago, who talks corny on mike, but is a city slicker...
...successful? Says Ralph D. Foster, mastermind of Springfield's hillbilly enterprises: "There are more country people in America than any other kind of people. Most city people were from the country and are still sentimentally attached...