Otto Gray and his Oklahoma Cowboys were the first nationally-famous cowboy band in the United States, and the first cowboy band to appear on the cover of The Billboard (June 6, 1931).
Formed in Ripley, Oklahoma in the early 1920s, the band was first known as McGinty's Oklahoma Cowboy Band, for the leader, Billy McGinty, a well-known cowboy, former Rough Rider, and world champion rider with Buffalo Bill's show.
The band members were authentic cowboys from ranches in and around Ripley. Their first promoter, George Youngblood, introduced them saying, "I wish to say of this bunch of cowboys that they are not only good fiddlers, but can ride or rope anything that has horns, hide or hair." After McGinty left to become the post master at Ripley, Otto Gray (1884–1967), took over as bandleader as well as manager. With the extensive traveling generated from their popularity, the original band member dropped out to stay with their jobs and families. Gray filled their places with professional musicians willing to spend most of their time on the road.
Playing on the vaudeville circuits in the Midwest and Northeast, and nationwide over some 130 radio stations, they played the first cowboy music most Americans outside of the West had ever heard.
One of their most popular tunes was "Midnight Special", performed by member Dave "Pistol Pete" Cutrell; Cutrell's "Pistol Pete's Midnight Special" with McGinty's band was also the first version of "Midnight Special" ever recorded.
The band lasted until the early 1930s when economic situations led them to disband.
Read more about Otto Gray And His Oklahoma Cowboys: Selected Discography
Famous quotes containing the words otto, gray, oklahoma and/or cowboys:
“Some smart man once said that on the most exalted throne in the world we are seated on nothing but our own arse.”
—Wendell Mayes, U.S. screenwriter. Otto Preminger. CINCPAC II (Henry Fonda)
“Freud’s eye was the microscope of potency.
By fortune, his gray ghost may meditate
The spirits of all the impotent dead, seen clear,
And quickly understand, without their flesh,
How truly they had not been what they were.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“I know only one person who ever crossed the ocean without feeling it, either spiritually or physically.... he went from Oklahoma to France and back again ... without ever getting off dry land. He remembers several places I remember too, and several French words, but he says firmly, “We must of went different ways. I don’t rightly recollect no water, ever.””
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)
“What do you think spies are: priests, saints and martyrs? They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives.”
—John le Carré (b. 1931)