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The Oklahoma Cowboy Band was the first western string band in the
nation to broadcast over the radio and appear on vaudeville,
drawing large audiences throughout the Midwest and Northeast. The
band began in Ripley as Billy McGintyas Cowboy Band and first
played over radio station KFRU in Bristow in May 1925. Billy
McGinty was a Rough Rider with Theodore Roosevelt and performed in
Buffalo Billas Wild West Show. The public responded to the
broadcast of his band with a steady stream of telegrams, telephone
calls, and letters asking for more of that old-time cowboy music.
Soon Otto Gray and his wife, Mommie, of Stillwater joined the band,
with both performing rope tricks, Mommie singing sad songs, and
their son, Owen, performing comedy routines as athe Uke Buster.a
Renamed Otto Gray and His Oklahoma Cowboys, the band traveled for a
decade to such cities as St. Louis, Chicago, Cincinnati,
Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, and Syracuse. Its custom-built Cadillacs
drew crowds wherever the band went. By the early 1930s, other acts
were copying the bandas cowboy themes and songs, and Otto Grayas
lawyers threatened legal action. The lawyers met with only limited
success, though, and today the cowboy image is firmly established
in country music, thanks in large part to the early success of
Billy McGinty, Otto Gray, and the Oklahoma Cowboy Band.
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