Original group In 1931, Burrus Mill's president,
W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel, wanted to link radio and advertising to promote the company's Light Crust Flour. O'Daniel, who would later travel with the band and use its popularity as a springboard for his political ambitions, said the idea to start the band and link radio to advertising was pitched to him originally by Bob Wills, Herman Arnspiger, and
Milton Brown, who at the time were out-of-work musicians. Disagreement exists about exactly when and on what radio station the Doughboys first broadcast, but by January 1931, the band was generally accepted to have started playing on
KFJZ-AM in Fort Worth. Their first broadcasts on the station included a sad prison song, "Twenty-One Years", and a popular fiddle song, "Chicken Reel". Their radio signature was their introduction by announcer-engineer Truett Kimzey: "The Light Crust Doughboys are on the air." '' Though the Doughboys' early broadcasts were well-received, the notion of using radio to advertise was still new, and O'Daniel was unconvinced. He also reportedly did not like the band's "hillbilly music" and canceled them at least once (though he almost immediately reinstated them). At first, he paid the band members $7.50 a week, but also required that they work a "regular" job at the mill: Wills drove a truck, Arnspiger worked on the dock loading flour, and Brown was a salesman. After a few weeks of brutally long days, the band members were allowed to stop working their "regular" jobs, but O'Daniel required them to be at the mill in their new practice room working on music eight hours each day. The band eventually won O'Daniel over by asking him to serve as their emcee during a broadcast. The Doughboys began to hit their stride in March 1931, when they chartered a bus to
Galveston, Texas, to perform at a bakers' convention. The band had the bus wired for sound and they played impromptu gigs at stops along the way to large crowds. Impressed, O'Daniel purchased a seven-seater
Packard and rigged it with placards imploring people to eat more bread. In 1933, during a goodwill tour for the
Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, Truett Kimzey, the radio station's sound engineer, who usually accompanied the band as its "master of ceremonies", could not get away from the station. O'Daniel replaced him, to great effect — O'Daniel was a natural at showmanship and promotion, and the crowds loved him. Wills and Tommy Duncan departed in 1933; and by 1935, O'Daniel had left Burrus Mill to start his own flour company with a new radio band,
Pat O'Daniel and His Hillbilly Boys. He was elected Texas governor in 1939. Their popularity led to a short-lived film career, when they appeared alongside
Gene Autry in the 1936 film,
Oh, Susanna!. The original Doughboys group disbanded in 1942 with U.S involvement in World War II, and its final recording was released in 1948. ==Selected discography==