by Paul R. Spitzzeri
The revolutionary results of the rise of radio in the Roaring Twenties cannot be overestimated, certainly being on-par with such technological advancements in communication as the telegraph, telephone and television in roughly a century between the 1840s and the 1940s. Within a short time after the first radio stations began programming content in the early 1920s, the transmission of music, news, political gatherings, sporting events and more was truly transformative for how people consumed media and in short order.
In Los Angeles, one of the early dominant stations, unsurprisingly, was owned and operated by the Los Angeles Times, which had an enormous impact on print media and its boosting, coverage and dee-seated ties in the business, entertainment, political and social realms of the Angel City and environs. The station, KHJ (mistakenly assumed to stand for “Kindness, Happiness and Joy”), made its broadcast debut in mid-April 1922 and rapid became a major force in local radioland.
KHJ’s first radio personality was “Uncle John” Daggett, who became enormously popular with his programming for children and remained a core figure at the station until it was sold to Cadillac dealer Don Lee in November 1927. While no one challenged “Uncle John” and his supremacy at KHJ in those first five years, there were certainly other popular figures, including the singer Charlie Wellman. Wellman came to Los Angeles from Chicago in early 1924 and quickly made his mark for his fine tenor as well as his sunny disposition and ease behind the microphone, though his career waned during the Great Depression.
The featured object from the Homestead’s collection for his post is a real photo postcard issued, probably in January 1925 and postmarked 3 February as it was sent to a resident of Lynwood, by KHJ, compliments of tailor John Wright, whose business comprised the second floor of a building replaced a couple of years later by the current Great Western Building. The photo is of Wellman’s “Sun Dodgers Frolic,” an ensemble who usually performed on the station’s “Saturday Afternoon Frolic” program.
The photograph shows the nine entertainers gathered around a birdcage, with the imprisoned creature clinging upside down to the top of its prison, while Wellman and another of the group holds a microphone atop the cage as if broadcasting a “songbird.” The card identifies those present including Welman in a short and tie and, standing along with him from, left to right, Everitte K. Barnes, Jimmy Kessel (identified as the “Cross-Eyed Fiddler”), Harold Hynes, Freeman Lang (with the moniker the “Sheik of Sawtelle”), and Hatch Graham. Kneeling on the floor and supporting the birdcage are Jerry Cope, Helene “Bubbles” Smith, Dot Street, and Bill Hatch. Barnes played celeste; Kessel was a violinist and baritone singer; Hynes a monologist; Lane a “novelty entertainer;” Graham a banjoist, guitarist and singer; Cope, also a banjo player; Smith, a pianist; Street, a soprano singer; and Hatch, a pianist and composer.
The formation of this group as the “Sun Dodgers Frolic” looks to have taken place just prior to Christmas 1924, with the Times of 21 December commenting that,
The regular Saturday Afternoon Frolic was under the skilful [sic] guidance of Charlie Wellman, manufacturer of tonal spices. The Pacific States Electric Company acted as host, the minutes fleeted away to the rhythm and melody of Charlie Wellman and his assistants, who were Hatch Graham, Dot Street, Helene Smith, Bill Hatch, Freeman Lang, E.K. Barnes and Jimmie Kessel. When this troupe “do their stuff” there is not the slightest hope for survival for any gloom carrier that comes within the circle of their hearers.
The last day of 1924 included the same photo featured in the Times and, after the onset of the new year, the paper had more praise for the “Peptonic Prince” and “his retinue of brilliant entertainers,” saying that the frolic “has become one of the more attractive features of KHJ.” It went on to note that “it is not always easy to laugh and make merry on demand,” but since Wellman joined the station the prior year, he “has never left our studio without chasing away the clouds and making us thankful for his presence.”
The popularity of the troupe was such that, in late January, a Monday program was arranged with the explanation being that “there are thousands of business people who have been denied the entertainment which the Frolic furnishes because Saturday afternoon finds them busy with their various duties.” Moreover, thanks to Wright, the self-proclaimed “Right Tailor,” a two-hour block was set from 8-10 p.m. with the sponsor thanked as he “endeavors to be as novel and versatile in his choice of artists as he is in his tailoring.” With this innovation in programming, it was hoped, the Times went on, that other patrons would follow his lead.
After adding that the Frolic gave “one more reason why families should spend the evenings home with their radio sets,” composer-pianist Claire Forbes Crane added,
As a musician who sponsors classical music, I must admit that all forms of jazz do not make me happy, but as long as the human race loves to dance, jest and laugh, there will always be a necessity for popular music. And when this type of entertainment is placed in as capable hands as Charlie Wellman’s, it cannot help but prove enjoyable. All who love our station should be happy to know that we have a “Prince of Jazz” whose programs reflect his personality and who gives to radio clean, snappy and intriguing music which never degenerates to mere noise or footless lyrics.
With respect to the Frolic, it was “full of pep and the fun waxed fast and furious,” and the musicians “seemed loaded with dynamite and the city rocked with laughter.” Crane felt that the highlight was a piece, “Our Radio Uncle,” about Daggett, and written by Hatch and Wellman and sung by the latter. She urged that all KHJ fans purchase the song and sing it, while praising Wellman, while concluding “we each of us serve our family musically and our common meeting-place is a sincere desire to make the world happier.”
It does not appear that the nonet shown in the photo remained together as the “Sun Dodgers Frolic” for more than a couple of months or so at the end of 1924 and early the following year, though most of them had some long-standing ties to KHJ and Los Angeles “radioland” generally. Moreover, many of these persons had interesting backgrounds and other occupations, musical or otherwise, before and after their tenures in the Frolic.
Cope was the least-known and documented of the group, his name only being found in local press accounts from time of the formation of the Frolic, not long after he graduated from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, until summer 1925, when he performed on KFWB, the station owned by the Warner Brothers film studio. Jimmie Kessel came to Los Angeles from San Francisco and sang in local theaters from 1920, while he and Smith performed as a duo in Long Beach, including for that city’s KFON radio station. The latest that could be located locally of him was singing for the KMIC station in Los Angeles in summer 1927.
Hynes, too, could only be documented as performing locally from November 1924 to November 1925 and his shtick was his “wandering Jew” act, during which he wore a long beard and emitted “wave after wave of humorous Semetic [sic] philosophy.” He left KHJ and performed at KFPG, where Freeman Lang landed after he departed the former station. As for the others, they had lengthier and more varied careers, whether in music or in some other field.
Barnes (1875-1957) was, by far, the eldest of the group, being about fifty when the photo was taken. A native of Minnesota and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, he worked as an auto salesperson in Illinois before migrating to Los Angeles. During the First World War, he was a “designing engineer” for an Army ordnance detachment at the Mt. Wilson Observatory and, followed that with a stint working for a piano manufacturer. He was a studio technician for KHJ, but his skills on the celeste (bell piano) were utilized for broadcasts and the Frolic, but became assistant manager for the station and, after Don Lee acquired, it, was the daytime program manager until his retirement.
Harold Haynes “Hatch” Graham (1898-1958) was also a graduate of the University of Illinois and became an attorney, but his skills as a banjo player and singer led him to perform for KHJ as early as the start of 1924, with the Times reporting that he played “for his many friends and old schoolmates in Illinois and Colorado.” Most of his material were composed by his fellow students at the University of Illinois and were making the radio debuts with his broadcast “highly pleasing, the rollicking songs with banjo accompaniment given in true college spirit.” Graham continued making radio appearances through much of the Twenties, but his vocation was a 30-year career as a deputy public defender for Los Angeles County.
Freeman Lang Post (1896-1976) was from central-east Illinois and moved to San Diego as a child. After his parents divorced, he took his middle name (his mother’s maiden name) as his surname and joined the Marines. He served in the American occupation force in Haiti and, after completing a four-year hitch remained to work for an American company plantation. In November 1920, however, he was accused of killing three Haitian prisoners while he was working for the “gendarmerie,” or constabulary, set up by the United States and including many Haitian members.
After a constabulary post was attacked in mid-October 1918, Lang was accused by a native Haitian of taking three men captured during the affray, ordering them out of the jail and shooting them in the back one at a time. Lang testified that he killed one man during the course of the attack, but vigorously denied the charges against him. A court of inquiry, composed, naturally, of Americans, was exonerated, and Lang, though he remained a short time longer in Haiti, soon returned to Los Angeles.
With a long-standing interest in wireless telegraphy and then radio, Lang was hired by KHJ and became something of a right-hand figure and understudy to Daggett. He developed a talent for announcing and apparently did “novelty” voice work for the Frolic—notice that, in the photo, he seems to be wearing a military-type uniform. How we was denoted as the “Sheik of Sawtelle” is unknown, though he may have had some character that he developed that led to that title.
In any case, by August 1925, Lang and Barnes began work at KFPG, operated by the K.M. Turner Corporation, which had friendly ties with the Times, so the two men did broadcasting for both stations. Lang not only continued his announcing work, but soon established a strong reputation for his engineering and technical skills, including remote radio broadcasting for all kinds of events, including film premieres. A notable one was for Charles Chaplin’s 1928 film, The Circus at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, and there were many others well into the Thirties.
With Barnes as a colleague, Lang formed a radio transcription business, in which recordings of all kinds, from jingles and ads to full program, were recorded on photographs and then sent out to stations for broadcast. Lang was the principal of the firm, which operated until 1936, though at one point he got into a bit of hot water when it was learned that there were seats on the board of directors for Freeman Lang and his old name of F.L. Post.
Once the business was sold, Lang moved to Hawaii and was involved in radio broadcasting, a radio shop, dredging at Pearl Harbor during World War II, the sale of yachts and other craft and he was also known for his sophisticated ham radio outfit that he used to help ships in distress near the islands. He spent the last forty years of his life in Honolulu and was the subject of a 25-minute interview for a public broadcasting station, with some of the discussion about his early career in radio and Hollywood. His son, Robert, was a radio and recording engineer and his work with Hawaiian music was widely recognized
Helene Smith (1904-1974) began getting recognition for her pianistic abilities by spring 1924 with broadcasts at KFON in Long Beach, as well as being a performer at Grauman’s Metropolitan Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. She played jazz-like pieces and composed her own tunes, as well, and began accompanying Wellman soon after he landed in the Angel City, acquiring the title of “queen of pianistic jazz” by the Times for her work with the “effervescent tenor.”
In addition to working occasionally on KFI and KWH, Smith returned to KFOX by the end of the Twenties and then entered on a long career with KGER, another Long Beach station, and had the distinction of being among the very few women to hold a position as program director. This continued until at least the early 1950s and she also performed on organ and piano, delivered the news and provided other broadcast elements. Known occasionally by her married name as Helen Lamb, she continued performing until after World War II.
Dorothy Street (1904-1967) was the only of the ensemble to hail from Los Angeles and was performing as a soprano singer on KHJ as early as December 1922, with the Times writing that “Miss Street has a voice of charming quality.” She didn’t have a booming voice, which meant she stood closer to the microphone than most singers, but she displayed “a delicate lyricism that flowed as evenly as a rippling brook, and her excellent diction materially enhanced her renditions.” She continued as a KHJ regular for nearly a half-decade and, capitalizing on her local renown, briefly ran a beauty shop in Lincoln Heights, where she resided. After she married dentist Frank Courtney, however, and had her only child, a son, her public singing career ceased.
Regarding Wilbur “Bill” Hatch (1902-1969), the prior post cited here on Wellman noted that the two met and worked together at least once in 1922 in Chicago before Hatch relocated to the City of Angels by the summer of the following year, and then Wellman came out to visit and then returned to stay. A 6 March 1924 Times account, however, stated that their performance together at KHJ the previous evening was their first, though they had worked in the Windy City at the same time unknown to each other. In any case, Hatch and Wellman became a successful team in Los Angeles for several years.
Hatch, a native of Mokena, southwest of Chicago, was a chemical engineering graduate of the University of Chicago before deciding to pursue music as a career and then heading west. A pianist and composer, he was able to establish an orchestra in Los Angeles and, after ending his tenure with KHJ, he became the music director at KNX as the Roaring Twenties came to a close. During the Depression years, he was a conductor, composer and music director for CBS and was widely known for creating the theme for the very popular radio show, The Whistler.
Hatch is best remembered for being the musical director of Desilu Studios, including for all of its shows, especially I Love Lucy, as well as Lucille Ball’s later sitcoms, The Lucy Show and Here’s Lucy, though he also worked on Star-Trek, The Untouchables and Mission: Impossible among many others when Desilu was a powerhouse in television production in the 1950s and 1960s. It is remarkable to see this photo and, amid all of the other interest inherent to it, see a “Bill” Hatch who was all of 22 years old and at the start of an illustrious career.