frenchie1995
frenchie1995
| Forum role | Member since | Last activity | Topics created | Replies created |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Member | Nov 20, 2018 (7 years) |
- | 1 | 0 |
- Forum role
- Member
- Member since
Nov 20, 2018 (7 years)
- Last activity
- -
- Topics created
- 1
- Replies created
- 0
Bio
“Lowell Blanchard”
There’s always someone who has an idea for a story, albeit a brief one.
The name “Lowell Blanchard” came up in conversation the other day. Here’s the short version of a well-lived life. Lowell had the popular “Midday Merry-Go-Round” on WNOX radio in Knoxville and in the 1960s was John Ward’s sidekick on the early broadcasts of Tennessee basketball.
The late Knoxville Journal sportswriter Ben Byrd called him the “merry imp” of the Vol travel party. He was one of those naturally funny people who was, without a doubt, the life of any party. Anyone who was on a Vol basketball travel party in those days can attest to Lowell’s good humor and his essential goodness.
“He was a great communicator, maybe the most effective communicator I’ve ever known,” Ward said. “He understood people and could converse with anybody, anywhere, anytime. I’ve never seen anybody like him. He made road trips unbelievable with his humor. He was the best.”
According to “Heart of the Valley,” Lucille Deadrick’s 1976 history of Knoxville, Blanchard was the chief announcer at the 1933 Detroit World’s Fair. He also hosted the Saturday night “Tennessee Barn Dance.”
Deadrick credits Blanchard discovering Roy Acuff, Homer and Jethro, and Archie Campbell, among others. He served twice on City Council and was active in community affairs.
Blanchard, who died Feb. 19, 1968, the day he expected to leave Fort Sanders Hospital, cast a long shadow on Knoxville radio history and the life of the city in general.
“He was a genius,” said Bradley Reeves, an archivist at the East Tennessee History Center. “He took the shtick of country music—and it was a shtick—and he made a show out of it. He was responsible for shaping it, more than anyone else. He was good at managing these folks and cultivating talent…. So many came out of Knoxville and became great.”
By Matt Lakin
A teenager put WNOX on the air, but Lowell Blanchard and the Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round made the station famous.
Blanchard came to Knoxville from Illinois, where he'd drifted into radio work as a college student and served as chief announcer and master of ceremonies at the Chicago World's Fair. R.B. Westergaard, station manager at WNOX, chose the Midwesterner to host what he envisioned as the consummate live hillbilly music show for East Tennessee.
The Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round made its first broadcast from the second floor of the Market House, the heart of downtown Knoxville, in 1936. No recordings exist of those early broadcasts, but News-Sentinel columnist Bert Vincent recalled years later how the show drew enough of a crowd to quickly change venue to the top floor of the Andrew Johnson Hotel on Gay Street.
"These country music folk, straight from the briar patches and red gullies, sawed, picked, hummed, sang and joked on the top floor," he wrote in a 1961 column. "They were a sight for tourists' eyes, and maybe they came in for a little cussin', as they strode through the hotel lobby to the elevator, dragging their bass fiddles and drums and jabbing folks, accidentally, of course, with their fiddle bows."
The show's first big names included comic singing duo Homer and Jethro and country singer Roy Acuff. Later stars included comedian Archie Campbell and country picker Chet Atkins.
Crowds lined the street daily to join the audience for an hour and a half of old-time music and down-home fun. Blanchard brought them into the act with man on the street interviews.
The show entertained listeners until it left the air in 1961, a year after its first home, the old Market House, was torn down. Blanchard died a few years later of a heart attack in 1968.
WordPress.com Forums 