W. Lee O'Daniel - Radio Fame

Radio Fame

In the late 1920s, O'Daniel assumed responsibility for the company's radio advertising. To that end, he wrote songs and hired a group of musicians to form an old timey band. Originally called the Light Crust Doughboys, notable musicians such as Bob Wills got their start with O'Daniel. After the Doughboys split up, O'Daniel formed the Western swing band, Pat O'Daniel and his Hillbilly Boys. The new group was named after O'Daniel's Hillbilly Flour Company. The show extolled the values of Hillbilly brand flour, the Ten Commandments and the Bible.

O'Daniel's noontime radio show not only gave him his nickname "Pappy" after a catchphrase used frequently on air, "pass the biscuits, Pappy"; it also propelled him into the public spotlight. By the mid 1930s, W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel was a household name in Texas. As a national magazine reporter wrote at the time: "At twelve-thirty sharp each day, a fifteen-minute silence reigned in the state of Texas, broken only by mountain music, and the dulcet voice of W. Lee O'Daniel."