Town Hall Party

Town Hall Party was an American country music radio and television show broadcast over KXLA-AM, Pasadena, California, KFI-AM, Los Angeles, California, and KTTV-TV. The first radio broadcast was in the autumn of 1951.

Promoter William B. Wagnon, Jr., had been booking such acts as Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys in ballrooms between Bakersfield and Sacramento for several years when he decided to extend his operations to Los Angeles. Burt "Foreman" Phillips had been promoting country and Western barn dance programs at the old Town Hall building, situated at 400 South Long Beach Boulevard in Compton, near Long Beach. Wagnon acquired Phillips' lease and commenced promoting a combined dance-and-show, featuring any and all country & western recording artists working in the area and available on Saturday nights. An estimated 3,000 patrons could be accommodated in the Town Hall Ballroom.

Wagnon instructed the performers to play only music which could be danced to, and to keep individual songs short and plentiful, in order to satisfy everyone's tastes.

A Friday night radio version of Town Hall Party was heard on KXLA, and Wagnon approached KFI with a proposal for a Saturday night broadcast. The latter was carried by portions of the NBC Radio network. Country singer Wesley Tuttle was hired as director/musical director of the series, and Johnny Bond was contracted to write the scripts for the KFI/NBC series. The cast featured Tex Ritter, Johnny Bond, Buddy Dooly, Wesley and Marilyn Tuttle, Tex Williams, Roy Klein, Joe Maphis, Rose Lee Maphis, Jenks "Tex" Carman, Eddie Kirk, Jim Pruitt, Merle Travis, Fiddlin' Kate (Margie Warren), Freddie Hart, Mary Jane Johnson, Les "Carrot-Top" Anderson, Pee Wee Adams, Shirley Adams, comedian Texas Tiny, and other prominent country entertainers. Radio announcer Jay Stewart, who had worked with Bond on an earlier West Coast country & western show, Hollywood Barn Dance, was hired as master of ceremonies.

...
Wikipedia