Cactus 104. Norman Phelps And His Virginia Rounders. The Phelps Brothers grew up in the Southern part of Virginia in the early 1900's. As teenagers their mother would take them around the neighborhood to sing and play their music. Norman, the oldest, played bass and guitar and sang bass. Willie, two years younger, played guitar, drums and washboard and sang baritone. Earl, the youngest, played fiddle and mandolin and sang tenor. They had a beautiful blood harmony. Their down-home-fun-loving style made them local favorites and soon they performed at clubs and on local radio shows. In 1936, the brothers headed to New York to try their luck. They became prize-winners on "Fred Allen's Town Hall Tonight" radio show, landed a Decca Recording deal and performed on the WHN Barn Dance. They met Tex Ritter, Gene Autry and Ray Whitley who also performed on the Barn Dance. They teamed up with Whitley and a trick banjo player named Ken Card and appeared at Madison Square Garden in the Co! lonel Johnson Wild West Rodeo Show and started calling themselves "Ray Whitley and the Six-Bar Cowboys". After a stint at Colonel Johnson's ranch in Texas to learn to become "cowboys", they headed west to the 1936 Texas Centennial where they performed and sang "Home on the Range" for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Their next stop was Hollywood. Whitley had worked as a singing cowboy and soon they were making musical shorts and feature films for Paramount and RKO. They appeared in films with such
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