Marvin "Smokey" Montgomery: a Life in Texas Music Marvin “Smokey” Montgomery: “Smokey”Montgomery Marvin a Life in Texas Music by John Dempsey
Dempsey: Marvin "Smokey" Montgomery: A Life in Texas Music Marvin “Smokey” Montgomery: MarvinMontgomery “Smokey” A Life in Texas Music By John Dempsey ust Doughboys. r tesy of Art Greenhaw and the Light C tesy of Art Greenhaw 45 hoto of Smokey Montgomery in the 1950s, cour Montgomery hoto of Smokey P The Light Crust Doughboys launched the careers of Bob Wills, who went on to legendary status as the “King of Western Swing,” and W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel, who became a popular, but lightly regarded, governor of Texas and U.S. senator. Another original Doughboy, vocalist Milton Brown, was perhaps the most popular musical performer in Texas when he was killed in a car accident in 1936. The Doughboys’ popular noontime radio program became an integral part of daily life in Texas from the 1930s to the 1950s. The lives of Wills, O’Daniel, and Brown have been chronicled in full-scale biographies. But the man who became the Doughboys’ foundation, over an era lasting more than 65 years, was Marvin “Smokey” Montgomery, a four-string banjo virtuoso whose boundless energy led him into other venues as Las Vegas entertainer, television performer, hit-record producer, and musical impresario. Produced by The Berkeley Electronic Press, 2001 1 Journal of Texas Music History, Vol. 1 [2001], Iss. 2, Art. 6 Marvin “Smokey” MarvinMontgomery “Smokey” Marvin Montgomery was an Iowa farm boy who “never Morgan, was impressed by Montgomery’s banjo virtuosity. learned to milk a cow.” Born in Rinard, Iowa, a town of 160 “About two weeks later, after I entered that contest, J.
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