Good music as bad advertising.

Every time we hear Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion on National Public Radio, we get a giggle out of his longtime “sponsor”, Powdermilk Biscuits. Utilizing a Powdermilk jingle that changes a bit every week, and which often contains all manner of musical quotes, inside jokes and oddball references, Keillor’s fine on-air band and guests use it as a vehicle for extensive improvised soloing. Keillor would be the first to admit that he was inspired to create the fictitious product—and its jingles—by hearing The Light Crust Doughboys on the radio as a youngster back in the 1940’s.

While Keillor’s faux sponsor schtick is harmlessly kitschy, Light Crust Flour was a real product sold in Texas in the early 20th century, and was as seriously marketed as any other foodstuff. What set Light Crust apart was the marketing scheme that ultimately made them a lot of money, and launched a small musical revolution in the process. Using the relatively new medium of commercial radio, the Burrus Mill Company created a program of “hillbilly” music to promote their flour. Calling themselves The Light Crust Doughboys, Bob Wills, Milton Brown and other Dallas-area musicians introduced the world to what would become known as Western Swing. Originally utilizing a two fiddle, bass, banjo and two guitar format, The Doughboys eventually electrified the guitars and added piano. By the mid 1930’s, Brown had left the band to form his Musical Brownies and Wills famously departed to form his Texas Playboys. These two outfits then pollinated every other band in Texas, and soon Western Swing outfits featured electric instruments, horn sections and what had always been the bane of country music, drums.

Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys, in the 1940’s. Click on the pic to see a video clip.

We mention the Light Crust Doughboys partly to honor their legacy, but also to marvel at how something as odious as a band formed strictly to sell a product could ultimately have such a positive influence. We have nothing against flour, capitalism or the advertising business. We do, however, prefer that those things remain as separate from creative endeavors as possible, so the Burrus Mill experiment couldn’t have had less noble aspirations when it started. The musicians, in the depths of the Depression, were simply looking for work, and Burrus was simply trying to sell product. The result, fortunately, transcended mills, ovens and paychecks, and led to the creation of one of America’s original art forms. Charitably, we’ll credit Burrus with an assist, however unintentional their artistic input might have been.

Western Swing would have existed without Burrus or The Light Crust Doughboys, of course. The best musicians of that time were already looking for ways to adapt the rhythmic ideas of Louis Armstrong to their own material, and these cowpokes were no exception. Especially in the hands of Bob Wills, Western Swing was more like jazz played by hillbillies than the Hillbilly Jazz that it’s been called. The improvised solos on the records made by these bands are telling. While the faces are white, the get-ups are something out of a “B” Western and the instruments—like fiddles and steel guitars—are those associated with country music, once the vocals stop and the boys get to picking, they’re playing jazz.

Next time you listen to A Prairie Home Companion, thank The Light Crust Doughboys, and even the old Burrus Mill Company, for letting it all happen. Remember to click on the picture of Bob Wills above to see a clip from the 1940’s. Tasty, just like Light Crust flour!