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Oblong quarto measuring 12" x 9". String-tied green paper boards with gilt decorations. Contains 150 sepia-toned or black and white gelatin silver photographs measuring between 2" x 2" and 8" x 10" with captions. Additionally included are newspaper clippings and various ephemera. Good only album, lacking the rear board with chips and tears with very good contents. A scrapbook compiled by Margaret Davis from material sent by her son, Whitney Gorusch, "The Wizard of the Banjo and Guitar." The album is full of ephemera from his days with Doc Schneider's Texas Yodeling Cowboys and the Ford Rangers in the 1930s. Included here are vernacular touring photos and large publicity shots, handbills, broadsides, advertising postcards, programs, passes and tickets, an advertising card for Alice the Alligator Girl, tourist stickers, and scores of newspaper clippings. One of the clippings reads, "one of the greatest novelties and most delightful vaudeville bills ever presented here is to be seen in Schneider's "Yodeling Cowboys".this unusual show will be completely fulfilled in beautiful musical numbers presented with gorgeous outdoor scenic effects, hilarious yodeling numbers, crackling, robust comedy, sharpshootin' and whatnot." The troop is seen in cowboy attire posed with instruments sometimes with a female dancer or singer as part of the group. There is one magazine article and a number of newspaper clippings about Brinkley, radio station XER, and his legal problems including attempts to shut down his broadcasts. Whitney "Whit" Gorusch, the "Wizard of the Banjo and Guitar," was a member of Doc Schneider's Texas Yodeling Cowboys (sometimes billed as the Texas Yodeling Cowboys and Mexican Border String Band), which was probably formed in 1932 in Atlanta at the beginning of the yodeling cowboy music craze started by Jimmie Rodgers. Their big boost into national fame began when they became one of the house bands for outlaw radio station XER (later XERA) which was owned by the infamous quack medicine man, John R. Brinkley, and used to hawk his products after he was banned from doing so in the United States. XER, which was located in Villa Acuņa across the river from Del Rio, Texas was the most powerful radio station in the world, and its country stars, including the Carter Family, became popular throughout the United States. The Texas Yodeling Cowboy's show, which included comedy sketches, roping, sharp shooting, and an "educated dog," toured the country and eventually secured a weekly national broadcast on NBC. As the national popularity of cowboy music (with the notable exception of screen stars Gene Autry and Roy Rogers) began to wane in the mid-thirties, the Yodeling Cowboys apparently folded, and Gorusch became a member of the Ford Motor Company's "Ford Rangers." The Rangers, a popular regional cowboy band, performed on Denver's KOA and Houston's KPRL radio stations when it was not performing at promotional events at auto shows, dealerships, and movie houses. After Gorusch left the Rangers, he settled in Battle Creek, Michigan, where he worked as a mechanic and gave occasional performances on his electric Hawaiian guitar. A unique window into an entertainment phenomenon that swept the United States in the 1930s.
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