Bluegrass Messengers

           Otto Gray and his Cowboy Band Biograhies- 1926

On May 11, 1926 members of Otto Gray’s Cowboy Band waxed two songs for Okeh in their St. Louis studio. Led by Dave Cutrell on guitar and vocals, the two songs would both become important Country standards. The first song, “Midnight Special” also know as ‘When You Wake Up In the Morning” was a train song that later became popularized by Leadbelly and crossed over to pop and rock as the theme song for Wolfman Jack’s TV show. The Midnight Special was a weekly musical television series during the 1970s and early 1980s, created and produced by Burt Sugarman and airing on NBC. It premiered as a special on August 19, 1972 then began its run as a regular series on February 2, 1973; its last episode was on May 1, 1981.

The second song, “The Cowboy’s Dream” also known as “The Great Roundup,” dated back to the 1880’s and became one of the first cowboy lyrics in print when it appeared in the Stock Growers' Journal (See p. ). From humble beginnings and with little musical skill Otto Gray made a name for himself across the US, Mexico and Canada. This is the biography of one the first cowboy performers and the first cowboy string band.

Early Years
Otto Gray was a cowboy, originally from South Dakota, who was a part-time musician and full-time band organizer. Gray, born March 2, 1884, moved to the Stillwater, Oklahoma area with his parents in 1899. When he was a youngster, he learned to rope, a skill he would display across the nation. First a stockman, then a cowboy on the ranges of Wyoming and South Dakota, he married the daughter of a rancher and together they launched a career as trick and fancy ropers.

“In 1918 I started ranching on my own,” Gray said in a 1959 interview, “then I got the idea for the band. We actually started a fiddlin’, singing and dancing unit for local gatherings and programs in nearby towns.” His wife, who became known in his band as “Mommie,” was a talented singer and Gray sang and played the guitar. Gray, by his own admission, only knew a few chords on a guitar but he "played 'em real loud." Gray left most of the guitar picking to his son, Owen and other talented musicians like Dave Cutrell. Nevertheless, his cowboy band, known by various names, became one of the most popular musical groups in the Midwest and toured the country from 1925 to 1936.

"I don't know what we had that appealed," said Gray while reminiscing about his band. "Maybe it was the novelty of it. There weren't many cowboy bands when we started. But I believe what keep us at the top in the end was we were authentic.”

By the 1920s cowboy bands weren’t new. Buffalo Bill's Cowboy Band was organized and directed by William Sweeney in 1883. Buffalo Bill Cody's Congress of Rough Riders of the World began the 1898 season with a performance in the grand amphitheater at Madison Square Garden, New York City. One of the stars was a bantam bronc buster from Indian Territory, Little Billy McGinty.

“McGinty fronted the organization” recalled Otto Gray in a 1959 interview. “He wasn’t a musician but he was famous.  He was one of Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders at San Juan Hill. He won a medal and all that. He had traveled with Buffalo Bill’s Wild Show for years and was one of first bronc-riding champions of the world. We called ourselves McGinty’s Oklahoma Cowboy Band.”

Billy McGinty’s Cowboy Band
The nucleus of Billy McGinty’s Cowboy Band was formed in 1921 before McGinty was involved. The group was first called “The Old Time Fiddlers” and then “The Ripley Cowboy band.” In 1922 they played at a dance in Pawhuska. It was made up from musicians that like to play the old-time tunes. When the group was invited to perform on radio station KFRU in 1925 George Youngblood, a local businessman, thought the group should have a more prestigious name. He selected Billy McGinty who he said “was a cowboy from the age of 14. There was no horse or steer he could not ride.”

Youngblood met with McGinty, who agree to lend his name to the group and made appearances at the performances. KFRU started broadcasting in January 1925. On March 12, 1925 Billy McGinty’s Cowboy Band performed. A local newspaper article stated that there were “twenty-five to thirty radios in Ripley homes and that more would be installed by progressive citizens.” Fortunately radio broadcasts in those days covered large regions, usually several surrounding states.

The personnel for the first broadcast were: Billy McGinty- Rough Rider; Colonel Frank Sherrill (Fiddle); U.E. Moore (bass); Paul Harrison (Guitar); Guy Messecar (mandolin); H.C. Hackney (banjo); Mrs. Marie Mitchell (piano); and Ernest Blevins (harmonica). Otto Gray, who eventually became the announcer and MC, wasn’t present at the first broadcast. Their tunes included Roaring River; Red Wing; Durango Hornpipe; Ride ‘Em Cowboy; Over The Waves; Hell Among the Yearlings; Casey Jones; Arkansas Traveler; and Turkey in the Straw. Many telegrams and telephone calls were received congratulating the performers. George Youngblood also talked about the history of Ripley and daring deeds of Billy McGinty on the air.

“This bunch of cowboys are not only good musicians, they can ride,” said Youngblood. After introducing McGinty, the former Rough Rider himself wouldn’t talk on radio. A quiet man, he preferred to stay in the background. The band members came from ranches in the Ripley area. Their idea was to bring the music and songs of the Old West to the current generation. "Some of the boys were fair-to-middling musicians, but when we started we were just plain terrible," said  Otto Gray, who joined subsequent broadcasts and eventually became the band’s leader. "They kind of made me their announcer,” he said. “Even if I couldn't talk worth a dern. I mispronounced everything: Called a piano, a pianny."

Besides enticing Gray, the group’s showman and promoter, the early broadcasts attracted two musicians from neighboring Drumright, Dave Cutrell and Johnny Bennett. Cutrell with a handlebar mustache, one piercing black eye and two prominent front teeth, played guitar and sang. His most requested song was “Midnight Special.” After attend several sessions playing with the group both men joined. Dave Cutrell’s nickname was Pistol Pete. One day the band was all dressed up in western garb waiting to do a radio program at KRFU. After Dave jokingly asked the porter for some whiskey, the man said Dave looked like Pistol Pete.

Otto Gray Manages the Band
In 1925 they also played at WKJF in Oklahoma City, where McGinty later met his friend Will Rogers. After repeated broadcasts on KFRU the McGinty Band’s fame reached Chicago and they were invited to perform at radio stations across the mid-west. One of the other local stations the Band played was KVOO in Tulsa. Otto Gray and his wife were members the band by Dec. 1925 when they played a weeklong performance in Hominy Theatre and earned $200. Sensing the potential of the group, Gray became the manager and he planned bigger performances.

An article in the Ripley Record in Dec. 1925 stated: The Billy McGinty Cowboy Band of which Otto Gray of Stillwater and a group of Ripley folks are members will extend its action in January 1926. Arrangements have been made by Mr. Gray to appear on the Orpheum vaudeville circuit in Kansas City for two weeks beginning Jan. 17, 1926.

The first song the new Band sang on the radio was Mommie Gray’s parody of Alexander’s Ragtime Band: “Come on and hear, come on and hear, Billy McGinty’s Cowboy band.” The Band that was “just plain terrible” eventually played on broadcasts from 146 different radio studios including Bristow radio station KFRU; KVOO after the station KFRU moved to Tulsa (where Gene Autry began his career); WGY, Schenectady, N. Y.; WLW, Cincinnati, Ohio; NBC Radio; and CBS Radio.

When they traveled to Kansa City in 1926 to play a 15-minute spot on WHB and were kept on the air for over two hours. “The phones were ringing off the hook,” exclaimed Gray. “Nobody had heard anything like us.”

On May 11, 1926 they cut their first record for Okeh in St. Louis. They did an instrumental  “Cowboy’s Dream” featuring Chief Rebird Sanders on fiddle and “(Pistol Pete’s) Midnight Special” as Billy McGinty’s Oklahoma Cowboy Band (Otto Gray Director with Dave Cutrell nicknamed “Pistol Pete” vocal and guitar).  Typical instrumentation included fiddle, guitar steel guitar, mandolin and cello.They first recorded as Otto Gray’s Oklahoma Cowboy Band in 1928 for Gennett and then under the same name for Vocalion from 1928 to 1931. Eventually they recorded for Gennett in Richmond, Pathe, Paramount, Vocalion, Columbia, Brunswick, and The General Phonograph Company of NY.

McGinty, who possibly financed the original 1926 recordings, left the band to return to his ranch when he was appointed postmaster of Ripley. The Washington Irving Trail Museum nominated Billy McGinty to the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, and in April of 2000 the cowboy and Rough Rider from Ripley, Oklahoma, was officially inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners, the highest honor bestowed by the Cowboy Hall of Fame.

Otto Gray’s Olkahoma Cowboy Band- 1926
After McGinty’s departure Gray with his wife and son changed the name to Otto Gray’s Oklahoma Cowboy Band. Within three years they were known from coast to coast. As the money rolled in Otto bought a fleet of Cadillacs, all decorated, including some with living quarters. Billboard Magazine once headlined a story about the band: "Cowboys Here in Fancy Cars." The story noted that traffic came to a standstill as other drivers gawked at the band's fleet.

Doug Green, “Their fame spread rapidly and from 1929 to 1932 they tirelessly toured and broadcast in the Northeast. Traveling in huge (Cadillac) sedans made out to look like railroad locomotives, complete with cow catchers, their group became a success on the theatre circuits of the era due to their showmanship- with whip and rope tricks in addition to the music- their flashy costumes and visual humor and the wide variety of their musical material.”

Gary promoted his act in Billboard Magazine that pictured them driving their Cadillacs in white ten-gallon hats. “They can broadcast for eighteen hours without repeating and without looking at a sheet of music,” boasted their publicity. They were also “riding, roping, shooting, bronco-busting cowboys and musicians as well.”

WLS- Duke of Paducah
Around 1930 Gray did a morning radio show on the popular radio station WLS in Chicago. One famous member of their group was Country Music Hall of Famer, Whitey Ford, The Duke of Paducah. In 1931 Ford talked to Gene Autry when he was in New York City playing vaudeville with Bob Vann about WLS:

Gene asked me, “I understand you worked at WLS.” I said, “Yes, I worked there with Otto Gray’s Oklahoma Cowboys. We did an early morning program, and then went out and played all the towns around there.”  Gene asked, “Well, did you wear cowboy clothes?” I said, “Well, Otto Gray’s group just wore hats and boots, and he required that if you wore a hat, it had to look decent and clean and you never wore your boots outside your pants. Your pants were always down over your boots because that was the real western style.”

Greatest Show on Earth
In 1932 they set a record attendance of over 50,000 in Endicott, New York’s En-Joie Health Park. After opening on WGY they received over 16,000 telegrams and letters. Gray, with a whiff of fame, never lost his sense of humor. "It wasn't the quality of our playing and singing; I know that,” said Gray with typical humility. “My slogan was ‘You've heard the best -- now hear the worst.' "

When the band played the Roxy in New York they arrived in their decorated Cadillacs wearing ten gallon hats, high heeled leather boots, angora chaps. These were real cowboys singing authentic songs and ballads. “We were not a western swing band,” said Gray. “We gave ‘em a dose of cowboy life and songs.”

They had a German Shepherd dog name Rex , who had a part in the opening and closing numbers and a tiny monkey name Pip who screamed and squealed in different numbers. Fed Wilson, Rube Tronson, Owen Gray, and Bill Crane did a novelty song with four instruments where they fingered one instrument and picked another. There were instrumentals by the banjo and cello kings Zeke and Hy Allen and the half breed Cherokee fiddler Chief Sanders. Rope tricks were done by Otto and Mommie plus a knife throwing act by Jack Edwards. Otto never planned a program in advance “we just ad-libbed our way through” each performance.

Last Years
After breaking box office records at many theaters around the country, the band broke up in 1936. Gray said, "I just got tired of traveling." The Grays moved to Springdale, Ark., where he died in 1967. Two palomino horses, symbolizing his early life, led his funeral procession. A museum, located on the farm homesteaded by Otto Gray's family in Stillwater, contains photographs, recordings, and other memorabilia related to Otto Gray and his Oklahoma Cowboys, including his wife, "Mommie," who was one of the first female country singers on stage and over the radio.

Songs Recorded By *Otto Gray: A Picture From Life’s Other Side; Adam and Eve; Barbara Allen; Barefoot Boy With Boots On; Be Home Early Tonight; Blind Child; Cat Came Back; Chisholm Trail; Coon Hunt; Cowboy’s Dream; Down Where The Swanee River Flows; Drunkard’s Lone Child; Drunken Fool; Four Thousand Years Ago; Gathering Up The Shells From The Sea Shore; I Can’t Change It; In The Baggage Coach Ahead; I Had But Fifty Cents; It Can’t Be Done; (Bury Me on The )Lone Prairie; Mammy’s Little Coal Black Rose;  Midnight Special; Plant A Watermelon On My Grave; Streets of Laredo;  Suckin’ Cider; Terrible Marriage; Tom Cat Blues; (When) I Had But Fifty Cents; When You Come To The End Of The Day; Where is my Wandering Boy?; Who Stole The Lock; Your Mother Still Prays For You Jack;

*Includes songs by McGinty’s Oklahoma Cowboy Band (Otto Gray Director)