Search - The Blue Sky Boys :: 1939-1949 Radio Broadcasts

When Bill and Earl Bolick returned from World War II and the army in 1945, their future looked unpromising. Since 1941, they d fought in Europe (Earl) and the South Pacific (Bill), while nearly all pre-war Blue Sky Boys records vanished from the catalog. Newer western and honky tonk styles gave their austere hymns and heartbreak songs minimal juke box potential, and Billboard condescendingly dismissed them as strictly from the haystacks, claiming their appeal was limited to the old folks at home. -----Bill fought back in a 1947 song book editorial, excoriating bum and hobo songs of the bar room and Honky-Tonk nature [that] do not carry the quality or character that you will find in the songs handed down to us by our Pioneer ancestors. Still, tension between traditional and modern styles persisted after RCA Victor re-signed the Blue Sky Boys in 1946, and producer Steve Sholes had limited success when he tried to persuade them to update their style.----- On returning home, Bill and Earl reunited with fiddler Sam Curly Parker, who had first joined them on WPTF in Raleigh, NC in 1940. In addition to providing tasteful obbligatos behind their singing, Curly sang lead on trios while Earl sang bass and Bill sang tenor. Regrouping at the Bolick family home in Hickory, NC, they were pleased to discover that their music still sounded good, and they decided to keep performing if they could find steady work.-----After auditioning for WBT (Charlotte), WWVA (Wheeling), WRVA (Richmond, VA), and WVOK (Birmingham), they rejoined WGST in Atlanta, where they d already worked from 1936 through 1939. They were welcomed back with daily pre-recorded fifteen minute shows, sponsored by Willys Jeep distributor Jack Briscoe, whose on-air ads proclaimed the versatility of combat vehicles repurposed for civilian and agrarian use. The shows were captured on sixteen-inch lacquers at 33 1/3 rpm and dubbed for three more Georgia stations. The format called for quick ads to begin and end every show, with a longer pitch midway through. Are You from Dixie opened and closed each show, and an instrumental version of it midway served as a bed for live local promotion. Earl (in his comic Uncle Josh caricature) then would razz Bill for a minute or so before the music resumed. Even with all that, there was usually time for three or four songs per show, with abbreviated fiddle tunes that ran out the clock and closed each broadcast at 14 ½ minutes. The Bolicks and an announcer normally completed five shows in a single afternoon. Bill said the work was challenging.-----Country music acts usually fade into obscurity once their careers end, but Blue Sky hymns, heart songs and vocal harmonies still set the gold standard, even though it s been forty years since their last records. Colin Escott has testified that their unerring sibling harmony was almost dreamlike and made them perhaps the all-time finest brother duet. Who could disagree?