Town Hall Party

Town Hall Party is an American country music and rockabilly entertainment program originating in Southern California. It was initially broadcast on radio in 1951 and then on television beginning in 1953.

The first radio broadcast was in Autumn 1951 by stations KXLA-AM in Pasadena, California, and KFI-AM in Los Angeles.

On television, the show was broadcast by KTTV-TV in Los Angeles.

Promoter William B. Wagnon, Jr., had been booking such acts as Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys in ballrooms between Bakersfield and Sacramento for several years when he decided to extend his operations to Los Angeles. Burt "Foreman" Phillips, himself a bandleader had been promoting country and Western barn dance programs at the old Town Hall building, situated at 400 South Long Beach Boulevard in Compton, near Long Beach. Wagnon acquired Phillips' lease and commenced promoting a combined dance-and-show, featuring any and all country & western recording artists working in the area and available on Saturday nights. An estimated 3,000 patrons could be accommodated in the Town Hall Ballroom.

Wagnon instructed the performers to play only music which could be danced to, and to keep individual songs short and plentiful, in order to satisfy everyone's tastes.

A Friday night radio version of Town Hall Party was heard on KXLA, and Wagnon approached KFI with a proposal for a Saturday night broadcast. The latter was carried by portions of the NBC Radio network. Country singer Wesley Tuttle was hired as director/musical director of the series, and Johnny Bond was contracted to write the scripts for the KFI/NBC series. The cast featured Tex Ritter, Johnny Bond, Buddy Dooly, Wesley and Marilyn Tuttle, Tex Williams, Roy Klein, Joe Maphis, Rose Lee Maphis, Jenks "Tex" Carman, Eddie Kirk, Jim Pruitt, Merle Travis, Fiddlin' Kate (Margie Warren), Freddie Hart, Mary Jane Johnson, Les "Carrot-Top" Anderson, Pee Wee Adams, Shirley Adams, comedian Texas Tiny, and other prominent country entertainers. TV and radio announcer Jay Stewart, who had worked with Bond on an earlier West Coast country & western show, Hollywood Barn Dance, was hired as master of ceremonies.

From 10:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. PT on Saturday nights, Los Angeles television station KTTV carried the live Town Hall Party series. By September 1953 the show was "a regional NBC TV'er," and "the longest c.&w. West Coast TV'er, with net plans in the works. The Armed Forces Television Service made 16mm kinescopes of the shows and broadcast them on stations throughout the world, from Greenland to Saudi Arabia to the Canal Zone. As the show expanded, new talent joined the cast - with Lefty Frizzell, Skeets McDonald, Dortha Wright, and The Collins Kids being among the most popular.

Guest stars were plentiful, with an appearance by Gene Autry breaking all attendance records during a 1954 performance. Other notable guest stars included Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent, Eddie Dean, Smiley Burnette, Jimmy Wakely, Eddie Cochran, Sons of the Pioneers and Jim Reeves.