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Pee Wee King and his Golden West Cowboys (1936-1969)
(1948) - The Winter 1948 fan club journal reported that Pee Wee and the Golden West cowboys had been chosen third most popular western orchestra in a recent "Orchestra World' poll, and mentioned that Shorty Boyds had recenlty had a child and referred to daytime brodcasts by Pee Wee from Rhodes Burfords and evening brodcasts from WAVE, whose new TV studios had gone into operation November 24, 1948.
(1949) - Just over a month after the second musician's union recording ban ended, the Golden
West Cowboys were again in the studio in Chicago to record for the first time in over a year. There was an obvious attempt to capitalize on the success of "Tennessee Waltz" by recording a couple more waltzes, "Waltz of the Alamo" and "Whisper Waltz."
Also recorded in 1949 was (I Lost My Love) "The Color Song," which was done as a favor to Redd, who "was gung ho on that song because Eddy Arnold had it, and he wanted to do it so bad." The real gem of that session, recorded in the final minutes, was "Bonaparte's Retreat", the re-working of an old public domain melody.
"The melody evidently is Cajun, probably," Pee Wee said. "Somehow between Baton Rougue and down there in the Louisiana bayous, we got acquainted with some of the bands down there... Somehow we got a lead on it, a fiddle tune, and changed everything all around, and put the middle part, da-da-da in. So that's how we got 'Bonaparte's Retreat."
"Bonaprte's Retreat" made one appearance on the disk jockey chart, at #10, in January 1951; over on the pop side, it was a hit for both Kay Starr with Lou Busch's orchestra (#4) and Gene Krupa (with vocal by Bobby Scots, #9). Through the years it has been covered by many artists. In the 1970's Pee Wee got a call from Glen Campbell, who told him of the tremendous response he was getting with his version, on which he played bagpipes, and said he was thinking of releasing it as a single. He did, and the pride of Delight, Arkansas took the song to #3 in 1974.
(1950) - A young lad named Clara Ann Fowler from Oklahoma was making waves on the Mercury label under her stage name, Patti Page, frequently harmonizing with herself through the relatively new technological wonders of double tracking.
In 1950 the Philadelphia distributor of Mercury, Harry Rosen, told the company's Eastern vice president and A&R chief, Joe Carlton, that he would order 45,000 copies if Patti Page recorded a rhythm and blues number, "Boogie Woogie Santa Claus."
Such an order guaranteed the record would break wide open in Philadelphia, almost assuring good sales, so a recording session was called specifically to fulfill Rosen's request. Patti's manager, Jack Rael and Carlton frantically searched for a song for the "B" side of the record. "Tennessee Waltz" was recorded on the "B" side. The results were well beyond the expectations of anyone: the hit side turned out to be "Tennessee Waltz," and her recording spent 13 weeks at #1 on the 'Billboard' pop chart, and reached #2 on the country chart. Reportedly, her recording alone has sold over six million copies.