Ray Whitely memorial tribute

February 28, 1979

Ken Griffis presided over a tribute to Ray Whitley at The Sportsmen's Lodge in Los Angeles. Guests who spoke were: Ken Griffis, Jimmy & Inez Wakely, Marilyn & Wesley Tuttle, Art Rush, Stuart & Suzy Hamblen, Bob Nolan, Gene Bear, Forrest White, Oliver Drake, Curt Barrett, Tex Williams, Harold & Phyllis Hensley, Doye O'Dell, Eddie & Dearest [Lorene] Dean, W G (Bill) Bowen, Hank Worden, Hi Busse, Novadeen (Mrs. Chill) Wills and Laurence Zwisohn.

KEN GRIFFIS: This recording is being made on Wednesday evening of February 28, 1979. The gathering here of many great, loyal friends of Ray Whitley. I guess the theme of the thing is to show our deep love and gratitude for a man who made such a great impact on so many of us over the years.

First of all, I’d like to acknowledge his two daughters. Judy and Clare are here tonight and we’re going to make a copy of this tape for them and also for the lovely Kay and anyone else that wants a copy of it. Jimmy Wakely has graciously volunteered to make copies of them and so just lay it on Jim. He’s going to make copies for us.

And we’re gonna pass the tape recorder around and ask everyone to identify themselves and to make any comment they feel appropriate. There’s nothing heavy. You can tell anything funny or outlandish about Ray because Ray was that type of individual.

I’d like to start it off by just reminiscing. The first time I met Ray I was attending a radio broadcast Foreman Phillips had on a Friday night back about 1941. I went down there that night and met so many great names in Country & Western Music. Among them was Roy Rogers and Bob Nolan & The Sons of the Pioneers.

I do remember that night—I was a young man at the time but I was intrigued by the traffic up the hallway, Bob Nolan leading the way up around the corner and Roy Rogers right after him. They kept disappearing around the corner. So I said, “What’s going on around the corner there?” So I peeked around the corner and I want you to know how nice these guys were. They didn’t have enough of their fruit drink to spread around so they were taking it out of the paper bag, around out of sight of the other people so nobody’d be asking for a drink, you know. They didn’t have enough to go around. And Bob, I think, was at that time leading the parade. [laughter]

But it was really a wonderful night. I’d heard about Ray Whitley, of course, and I had an opportunity to meet him that night and, I guess, of all the people I talked to that night, Ray made the greatest impact because he spent time talking to me. He had no reason to talk to me but he did and he probably spent 10 minutes just asking me about myself and getting to know me. I thought that was awfully nice of a person of his stature to take the time to talk to a nobody. But it was the beginning of many opportunities to meet Ray over the years. I found him to be one of the finest gentlemen I have ever known and it was a rare privilege to have known the man over the years.

I would like also to put on this tape—to thank a good friend of Ray’s and Kay’s, Gerry Vaughn, for providing us with the brochures we have here tonight. Gerry would liked to have been here but he just couldn’t make it but Gerry loved Ray and Kay and I’m sure that, if he can be here in spirit, he certainly is here.

So, I’d like to at this time pass this recorder to Jimmy Wakely and ask Jimmy to take it from there.

JIMMY WAKELY: All right. I just want to say, I’m sure you feel the same way, we didn’t gather here to mourn the loss of Ray Whitley. We came here to thank God that we got to share Ray Whitley’s love and affection and kindness and entertaining values and his friendship. I am so grateful that he touched our lives as he went by. We’re never ready to give up on somebody, I still believe, but it’s always nice to know that they left their mark.

And, as they touch our lives, we, always in show business, I think we borrow from each other. I borrowed something from Whitley and I never thought of it, really seriously, until today. I used to make little westerns and at the end of the show, as I’d ride off on a horse, I’d do—I hope I can do it tonight now that I’m off a horse but a little yodeling went like [yodels] and then I’d ride off into the sunset. I stole that from Ray Whitley. [laughter] Just about 39 or 40 years ago—not less than 39 years ago [1941]—I was driving down a street in Oklahoma City. There was snow on the ground. I turned my car radio to KVOO in Tulsa and I heard that yodel. The very first time Ray Whitley and Miss Kay came on the air with a 15 minute broadcast. I went to a phone. As soon as I got off I called him. He talked to me. He dedicated a song to me and Inez next day. He invited us to a place they were playing over in Okmulgee the following Saturday. Went over there to the Saddle Mountain Roundup, saw Ray and Miss Kay and old Harold Goodman and Arthur Smith and everybody and Ray was a big hit. We became good friends.

I want to tell you two stories. They’re very short. I won’t take up too much of your time but I want to set the tone for this so you can…. You know, this is not a funeral. This is a party for Ray Whitley. We might say “a standing ovation”. I wouldn’t want to see him leave without an organization like this of his peers to tell him goodbye in a happy way because he should have a standing ovation and this would be it.

Anyway, Ray Whitley and I got to be friends and we went on tour in ’46. He was my MC and head of the band. We were playing Yakima at the Capitol Theatre and I had some musicians in my band that just couldn’t stay sober. Now, Ray had said to me, “Don’t take Jesse Ashlock. He’ll just goof up on you.” Well, Jesse was with me and he’d been on one for two days and we brought him back in and I said, “You’d better sober up because Deuce Spriggens is going down and I can’t have you both down at the same time.” So, backstage at the theatre between shows, and Jesse came in. He was really hung and just barely alive. Ray says, “I told Jimmy not to bring ya.” And Jesse said – pardon the language, folks, but I want to tell it like it is – Jesse said, “You told him not to bring me?” and Ray said, “Yeah”. He said, “You horse’s ass!” And Ray just said, “Just a minute, son.” And he just kind of squeezed in on Jesse’s shoulder and Jesse said, “What’d I say? What’d I say?” “You called me….” And Jesse said, “No, I didn’t.” He said, “Yes, you did.” Jesse said, “I really didn’t call you that, Ray, but if I was gonna be one I wouldn’t take a hundred dollars for your start.” [laughter] Ray laughed and you could hear him roar over the theatre and, of course, that broke it up. They put on a show like that constantly.

The next memory I have of Ray, he never bragged but he could have about this. I saw Jack Dempsey bloody Ray’s nose. Roy was there. Roy Rogers. We were at O C Whittaker’s house at Ft. Worth and Ray liked to hold these wrestling holds on his friends and they got in a little match, him and Jack Dempsey. Roy and Mr. & Mrs. Whittaker and I were watching this and Ray threw an arm bar on Jack Dempsey. Jack came around like this and hit him in the nose and Jack was saying in that little bitty voice of his, “I’m so sorry I hit you but I’m afraid of wrestlers and you scared me to death.” He said, “I refereed wrestling matches and I was had a fear that if a wrestler got me he’d have killed me and it just automatically brought my hand up.” You know Jack Dempsey. When he comes around like that you know something’s gotta give.

Anyway, we’re delighted that you could come and we’ll miss Ray but we will enjoy the memory a great deal and I’m just so delighted to be a part of this party of love and affection for a real great guy, Ray Whitley.

GRIFFIS: Jimmy, tell him about the cigarette.

JIMMY WAKELY: Well, that trip up north…. Ray had just bought him a new Dodge and he wouldn’t let anybody smoke in the car and his daughters smoked. And so every time they’d smoke, you know you gotta roll down the windows. There was four musicians riding with Whitley. We were way up there around Yakima and the snow’s, you know, way up to here. And one of the boys would say, “Let’s light up” and down would go all the windows and they’d sit back there in that snowy weather and they’d freeze and they’d smoke, they’d finish their cigarettes, throw them out and roll the windows up. Well, years went by. Johnny Bond was down in Texas about three years ago and he saw Jesse Ashlock, who was really on his last legs, and he put a cigarette package together with one broken cigarette and said, “Give that to Ray with my love!” That’s that story. Ken, go ahead. Pass it on.

INEZ: I want to tell something.

JIMMY: OK, baby. This is my wife.

INEZ: I never get to talk. You do all the talking! I don’t want to stand up. Do I have to?

JIMMY: No.

INEZ: OK.

UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: With you, it doesn’t make any difference! [laughter]

INEZ WAKELY: When the Wakelys and the Bonds hit Hollywood, some of the first people we met was Ray and Kay Whitley and they had a lot of parties at their house. They were singing parties, really. The three girls were very small. At one of the parties, we went [to] there, Fred Rose was staying with them and he was playing the piano and singing and everybody was singing and Clare, in the meantime, had gotten married and she was very pregnant. So she started from the kitchen….

BOB NOLAN: [laughing] How do you get very pregnant?

INEZ: I mean very out to here. Anyway, Clare started from the living room to the kitchen and as she passed by Ray, he jerked her down onto his knee, and patting her fanny and her stomach. And she said, “Daddy, I’m married, and I’m too old for you to pat my fanny any more.” And he said, “That’s my grandchild I’m patting and you’ll never be too old for me to pat you anywhere.” Have you found that to be true, Clare?

CLARE: I told him that just last month.

INEZ: But it didn’t work! I love you, Clare, Dodie and Judy. Thank you.

MARILYN TUTTLE: Hi. This is Marilyn Tuttle and I want to tell Kay, especially, a story about when I met Ray. I came to Hollywood when I was about 17 years old and I went to work at CBS. And there were those who were working there at that time in the Country business or in the Western field that were kind of looking for 17-year-old girls to, uh, influence. And the nicest man that I met at that time was Ray Whitley.

WESLEY TUTTLE: Don’t talk about me.

MARILYN [laughs] That was later! But he [Ray] was always a complete gentleman and a really fine friend and I appreciated him all the way through the years. One short story that I will remember—he had a motorcycle and I had never ridden on a motorcycle and I said, “Ray, would you take me for a ride on your motorcycle?” and he took me around the block. And that was my first motorcycle ride. I really appreciated him. He was a great man.

WESLEY TUTTLE: Thank you, honey. Well, I think it’s been covered so well before the tape recorder got this far. Ray Whitley has been an inspiration to me ever since I’ve known him which was in the very early ‘40s during the era of World War II. My sentiments are the same as those that have been expressed already. I was just so thankful that very recently I had the privilege of visiting Ray when Forrest White and Gene Bear brought him over to visit Marilyn and I. I feel it was a rare privilege because he brought his guitar in and it was just unbelievable to see how vital Ray still was. He loved to sing and he loved to laugh. He came in and he stood in the middle of our livingroom, sang songs and yodelled for us. Still had as beautiful a high, clear yodel as he did 40 years ago. I’m just very thankful for the memories and glad to say that Ray Whitley was my friend. May God bless him and keep him with Him very very close and be with his family because what more can a man ask. Ray Whitley lived every minute of his life you just can’t ask for any more than that. Art Rush.

ART RUSH: I’m here and happy to be with all of you who are expressing all our feelings about Ray. It’s been a rich experience in my long career to have known Ray and Kay the minute that Gene Bear called me the other morning to tell me about Ray passing on, that I phoned Roy Rogers and said, “Well, Art, I can’t believe it.” He said, “He was just up here a few days ago. We had a wonderful talk and everything,” and Ray was such an inspiration even to Roy and myself and everyone. So I’m here tonight expressing the deep regrets of Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and all the Sons of the Pioneers. I called them in Phoenix, Gene, told Dale Warren and all the boys about it. We had all kinds of plans. Roy wanted to come right down, the Pioneers wanted me to send the flowers that they had decided they wanted and so forth. I have always considered a great inspiration, as Wesley said, to have known Ray because of his deep convictions and I know the good Lord has accepted him with open arms. Thank you.

SUZY HAMBLEN: Well, this is Suzy Hamblen and I feel very honoured to be here to pay respects to Ray. We didn’t, I didn’t have any close association with him but the thing I remember most about Ray: All through the years, whenever I met him or whenever we heard his name, I visualized the man I knew who was always very gracious and a complete gentleman. I never knew him to be otherwise in all the times that he crossed our paths and we had occasion to be with him or to meet him. Ray was a total gentleman and very, very gracious to everyone.

STUART HAMBLEN: And I’m Stuart Hamblen and I’d like to say, regarding to Ray, you know there’s some people in your life you don’t actually remember when you met them. You just look back through the long years behind you and it seems like they were always there and Ray was that kind of a person. He wasn’t a pushy person, yet he was a kind of a solid person you could always count on. And I’ve never heard him speak an ill word of any other man. He was kind and gracious to everyone and the strangest thing of it all is, I was with him only the night before he died.

When I was with Bill Ward and the KLAC crowd over at the Tale o’ the Cock and Ray there and he looked in such good health and such wonderful healthy and he and his wife were so happy. It just struck me when I heard of his passing that, you know, it’s a strange thing. We cannot call the hour that we leave nor can we dictate how long we’ll be here. We’re just here for such a short, short day.

I was thinking of Ray as we were coming over here to this party about what Rudyard Kipling had to say about things like that. He wrote a poem called “When Earth’s Last Picture is Painted” and it started with:

When Earth's last picture is painted
And the tubes are twisted and dried
When the oldest colors have faded
And the youngest critic has died
We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it
Lie down for an aeon or two
'Till the Master of all good workmen
Shall put us to work anew.

You know, a long life in this world is like, well, just a second of time compared to Eternity but the thing we can be proudest of is that, when we lose somebody like that, we can say, “Thank you, Lord, we met him and we lived with him, we knew him and some of his goodness rubbed off on us.” [interrupted by applause] And I’m sure that the good Lord will find a nice place for a man like that fellow, Ray Whitley.

BOB NOLAN: OK. My name is Bob Nolan—as if that means anything to you, Ray. I find it very hard to speak of somebody whom you've known so long and been so fond of. And then suddenly find out they're no longer here with us. Now, Ken's told me not to make this heavy so I could try to get it right. So, did you ever stop and think that when we are born, two seconds later we start to die. That is the irony of life. How many of us have ever stopped, after we have the words in our mouth, to ask our mothers what it was like when I was born. We don't have to. We already know but if we let her answer, she would say it was painful. Damnedably painful. Now, I will not make it heavy so I'll just say let it be. I wonder.... No. I'm curiously quisitive of whether Ray would approve of what we are doing here tonight or not. One thing I am sure of, he wouldn't frown on us or berate us. That is not Ray Whitley. He would be smiling as always and that's the way I'm going to remember him, my man [struggles with emotion], with a smile for every occasion. And if you think I'm not going to .... [breaks down] (audio)

GENE BEAR: Thank you, very much. My name is Gene Bear. I must be real brief because, as most of the people in this room will know, I get kind of emotional. Several years ago I was hosting a TV program called “Bear Country” and, up until the time I had Ray, I had maybe 25 or 30 guests. But I always felt I didn’t have that class element until I was able to get Ray to be on the show. I’ve got to say in all honesty that he’s one of the first people that I ever met that I admired so much that I actually sat back and listened to and didn’t talk. [laughter] When I look back now, that was 8 or 9 years ago, he was a legend then, he’s a legend now and he’ll always be a legend.

Well, I want to tell you just this one little brief story here. I put together many shows. About 2 or 3 years ago I was putting together a show for the March of Dimes or some organization and he was living every moment of his life. I called him and I says, “Ray, now the people backing you up on this band aren’t very good.” And when I walked in, here was this all girl band. I think there was about 23 or 24. And you never saw a man so full of life to be around two things he loved most in this business, and most in this world was pretty girls and western music. [laughter]

And I want to share one more last experience. I won’t forget the day I went up to the hospital and seen him out there. I took Kay out there and here he was propped up on the bed playing his guitar and the nurse is standing in the doorway. And I bet many, many memories are…. If I can remember that one instant when he …. If you could see the look on his face, that he was still there, still shovin’ and I know what he’s doing tonight. He’s still playing the guitar and everybody’s gonna listen to him. Thank you very much.

FORREST WHITE [Vice president of Fender Musical Instruments Association]: My name is Forrest White. I’ve always heard that Gene Bear was quite an act to follow. I don’t know why I had to be in this position. [laughs] I will say this that my friendship with Ray was of short duration but what wonderful memories I will have. I was talking to Kay a couple of days ago and Kay was sure that Ray would approve of the meeting that we’re having here tonight. And I think, as Bob mentioned, it was…. The comments that Bob made I appreciated so much and Stuart but you know we’re told the soul never dies. And I have a hunch that Ray, somehow, is looking down here tonight and he’d be so pleased that so many of his friends are here to pay tribute to him. And, as I say, my friendship with Ray was of short duration but what a wonderful man and, I agree with Suzy, such a gentle person. And he was so fortunate to have such a wonderful wife in Kay and his daughters are just out of this world. Such a nice family. I know I will miss him but I will have to feel that somehow Ray will be with us and I just can’t believe that Ray is unaware of what is happening tonight. And it’s such a privilege for me to be here and thank the Creator that He made it possible that the soul will live on and I’m sure that Ray would approve of what’s happening. Bob, if there’s any doubt in your mind, Kay believed this and I’m sure that Ray appreciated everything that you said and everyone at this table. Thank you.

JIMMY WAKELY: Thank you, Forrest. Before we continue here, I would like to say one thing. Bob’s tribute was beautiful - Bob Nolan’s – and, if I’ve led you to believe, and I’m sure I didn’t, we can laugh or we can have tears, either one. This is our party for Whitley and however we feel at the moment. I just didn’t want to preclude the fun things because he was a fun guy, too. But, if we may leave the music end of it just for a moment, and go back to the beginning of Ray’s career as a movie star. If I may, Ken, Can I switch this all the way back to Ray’s RKO days when he was working with George O’Brien and making his own shorts and then, later, he was signed to work in Universal movies by a man he met at RKO who is here tonight. He’s written a thousand westerns, directed and produced so many and also produced almost all the pictures that I did alone as well as all the pictures I made with Johnny Mack Brown and Tex Ritter. And he signed Ray to Universal movies and I wish we could hear from the only picture producer that we’ve got here that I know of tonight and that’s Oliver Drake and let him say something and then we’ll get back to the centre of the room. Take it over, Oliver Drake!

OLIVER DRAKE: Thank you, Jimmy. It was nice to hear an introduction like that. I probably have known Ray Whitley, or knew Ray Whitley, as long as anyone here. We worked together at RKO in the ‘30s. I wrote practically all of the pictures he made over there. Other than being a friend and writing music with him, one of my remembrances was one day he brought in a big, tall gangling character and he said, “I think this should be the comedy in the George O’Brien pictures. See what you think of him.” And this guy had an accent from here to Texas. So, we talked awhile and I talked to the producer, Bert Gilroy, and said, “Well, see what you can work out with him.” So I worked a couple of weeks with this character and we signed him up and it was Chill Wills. But Ray was the one that brought him in to the studio. Ray had been over the years a very, very loyal friend and a good friend and I know that wherever he is now, that he’s probably singing some of his old songs to some of the old people who have gone before him and will continue to sing to some of the people who are here who’ll join him later on. Thank you.

CURT BARRETT: My name is Curt Barrett and I’ve known Ray a number of years but let me go back to Sunday, a week ago. I had a very bad cold at the time. My wife has broken her hip and she was in bed but at the front door my little Lhasa Apso barked and I went to the front door and there stood Ray and all his splendour and, bless his heart, he looked beautiful. He was dressed in black and he had on a white straw hat—black shoes, black pants, just nattily. And Ray says, “Curt, you’re sick!” And I said, “I’ve known it for years but don’t tell everybody!” And he says, “No. I was going to come over and spend the morning with you but I see now that I cannot catch your cold.” I said, “Well, I appreciate that, friend,” and he says, “I’ll see you two weeks from now.” He plays golf with me every Wednesday that he could before he went into the hospital and so on and so forth for his operations and toes, etc. I don’t want to get morbid. He said, “But when I come back, I’ll bring you a fish.” Bless his heart.

Now, I’m going back a number of years now. I’m starting at, I guess it was 30-odd years or so. I don’t know. Anyway, I met Ray back…. He says, “I’ve been working on radio for a few years now, maybe 2, 3, 4, 5.” He says, “I’m a steel worker.” And he was, was he not, dear? “But,” he says, “I’m doing real well now and I want to just show you a couple of things.” And he showed me many things and I learned from Ray there. Then, back in 1946, I had the pleasure of doing My Darling Clementine [A John Ford/Darryl F. Zanuck film] at 20th Century Fox under Al Newman—the music. The opening, closing and incidental. I needed a bass singer so who did I call? Ray Whitley and he was right there to sing the bass. And he did a beautiful job of it. If you folks have been listening to your TVs, you’ll hear Ray’s voice standing out because Alfred Newman liked that voice and put him closest to the mike. But we did well there.

Then, every time I think of Ray, I think of him as a real golfing buddy because he loved golf. And, one last little thing, can’t say it the way Ray said it but when I would putt on the green, Ray would say that I resembled a monkey doing something to a football. Mr. Tex Williams.

TEX WILLIAMS: Thank you, Curt. Like Stuart said, I really don’t remember when I met Mr. Ray Whitley—and I put a little emphasis on the “Mister”. I think Ray was a “Mister” and a gentleman. Seems like I always knew Ray, certainly ever since I was in the business. He was a fine man and I’m proud to say that he was a friend of mine in Dallas, along with Kay and their daughters for a good, good many years. We’re gonna miss him, that’s for sure, but like Bob says, he’s in better hands. I remember a couple of the things Jimmy Wakely mentioned. Jesse Ashlock. And, of course, Jesse worked with Ray for a good many years and I remember a little incident that Jimmy may have forgotten at The Painted Post and I think we all remember The Painted Post. Jesse had been out around the area having coffee, I suppose, something like that, you know. [laughter] Jesse, of course, was a kind of perfectionist as far as music was concerned. He liked the right chords and the right plays and so on, you know. He’s standing behind Ray playing the fiddle and Ray hit maybe a wrong chord or something like that, you know. And Jesse’s talking in the background. Well, this is very annoying to any entertainer that’s up front, you know, when you hear this chit-chat in the background, you know. So Ray finally turned around, after finishing the song and said, “Jesse, do you think you can stand being quiet for about 20 minutes? If you can’t, you’re fired.” [Some discussion with Stuart Hamblen about the rights of the story.]

Oh, well, it may be distorted but it’s going to be on there. Maybe Ken can cut and cool it down a little bit. And another, just a quick thing. This is the kind of man Ray was. We were working Town Hall Party and I think Wesley and Marilyn and a whole bunch of us worked Town Hall Party and Ray was a special guest one night and he had a brand new Nudie’s suit on that was just absolutely beautiful. But Town Hall Party didn’t have any air conditioning and backstage it was hotter even than it was out front, you know. Ray went out and did his first show with his complete suit on, you know, and he came backstage. They brought him back on for an encore and he says to us guys back there, he says, “Do you think they have seen this coat already?” “Yeah,” we says, “I think so.” And he says, “I’m gonna take the thing off and then go back out. Ray was a friend and we’re gonna miss him but we loved him so very much.

HAROLD HENSLEY: My name’s Harold Hensley and I’m a fiddle player and I’ve had the pleasure of working in Ray’s band. We had about a 10-piece western swing band back in 1946 and I really, really enjoyed working in Ray’s band. This belongs to Forrest White and it’s not turning, Forrest. Anyway, I had about 6-8 months with Ray. We had a fine western swing band but I’ll tell you what we had more fun doing was when we’d go out on a fishing trip. Ray used to like to go fishing so he’d charter a boat and the whole band, or whoever would go, would go along with Kay. So, anyway, we went out on this fishing trip and Kay hooked what seemed to be the bottom of the ocean. Ray said, “Don’t help her. Don’t help her. It’s her fish, let her land it.” So she worked for about 30 minutes and brought up, eventually, about a 35 pound halibut. The biggest, it looked like the biggest fish I’d ever seen. They called it “The Barn Door”. She, Kay, brought this in and landed it. This 35 pound halibut and she did it by herself and Ray, he said don’t help her. But, anyway, I enjoyed working with Ray. He was always funny and always nice and always a gentleman and I just loved working with him—it was a great pleasure—and his whole family. His whole family is just great. We love him. And the best to him. And I’ll turn you over to my wife, Phyllis

PHYLLIS HENSLEY: Well, I don’t have much to add to that except I’ll miss Ray, my old fishing buddy.

DOYE O’DELL: Ken, I don’t know where we talk here on this but…. [Several people give instructions at once.] I’m a little hoarse trying to, like Jimmy Wakely. We live out in the fresh air out in Simi, California, and we’re not used to it. Jimmy says, “It’s killing me!” But, anyway, it’s a pleasure and an honour to be here tonight. My name is Doye O’Dell. I never had the pleasure of working with Ray. I’ve known him for, I guess, 40 years but, you know, we’d get together every once in awhile and when we did, we’d slap each other on the back and say, “How ye doin’” and “that’s fine” and all that sort of stuff. But, anyway, I just never had the pleasure of working with Ray but before World War II—kinda dating myself, now—I did a network NBC Radio show from back east and we used to work theatres. We didn’t have to work clubs like we do now and all that but, anyway, we used to work theatres. It was kinda hard times then and the theatre manager—quite a few of them—back in New England has told me that if it wasn’t for a Gene Autry picture and a Ray Whitley musical, he says, I’d have to close up. They’d kind of pair them up together there back before the War. But, anyway, as I said, it’s a pleasure to be here tonight and, Ray, even though we never did get to see each other too often, we’ve known each other for about 40 years and all of us are gonna miss you. Here’s Dearest Dean.

DEAREST DEAN: My name is Dearest Dean, Eddie’s wife, and Eddie and I feel we’re part of Ray and Kay Whitley’s family. Ray would have a new story to tell and he’d always come and he’d say Dearest Dean is his listening post and he’d tell it to me. And he said if I can make her laugh, I’ll keep it in the act. We’re gonna miss him and we loved him.

EDDIE DEAN: Well, so many things…. I’m Eddie Dean and so many things have been said about Ray Whitley and none of us have the vocabulary to say what we really mean, what we’d like to say. And I think Ray Whitley was one of the finest men that I’ve ever met. He was a true showman all the way. I think I knew him about as well as anybody that ever knew Ray Whitley because I hunted with him, fished with him and played golf with him. And he and I both knew that if you really wanted to know a man, you’d do one of those three things, you’d learn what kind of person they are right away. He was a beautiful person, a great entertainer, a true showman and could hold an audience as well as anybody I ever worked with. And in the last years of his life, he and I did a lot of shows together. The more shows we did, the more I admired him and respected him, his ability and his wonderful warm friendship. Well, he’s just one of my best friends, that’s the whole thing. I tried to give him the roses while he lived. Ray knew I loved him and I told him so. Many times. But, maybe somewhere along the line, we didn’t give him enough. Like all of you said, he wouldn’t mind because he knew we liked him because we knew that his love that he gave to everybody was returned to him. So, I think I’m gonna miss Ray just as much as anybody outside of his family. He’d call me up every day, nearly, and talk to me. And the day before he went down to Mexico, he called up and he said, “Eddie, I’m higher’n a kite.” I says, “You’re not drinking?” Of course, I knew Ray didn’t drink. With his diabetes he couldn’t if he wanted to. “No,” he says, “I’m going on my last great fishing trip.” I says, “Where are you going?” and he says, “Well, I’ve got a friend, my son-in-law,” he said. “Hal. And he’s got a friend. They’re gonna pick me up in a jet and we’re gonna go to Mexico and we’re gonna go fishing. And he said, “I’m so high about this, I’ve never been so excited about a trip in my life. We’re going to Acapulco. And I said, “Well, Ray, we’ve got a party the night before, you know. You’ll be awful tired.” I said, “You gotta take care of yourself.” Because I knew he probably passed out one time on the golf course with me on the third green and I didn’t know if it was his diabetes or whether he was having a heart attack. I got his sugar for him and I gave it to him and, knowing Ray, he went ahead and finished the game afterwards. He’s that kind of a person. So, anyway, he said he was going down there and they’re gonna pick him up on the jet and that he would, like he told Curt, “I’m gonna bring you back some good fish.”

And I’m delighted to be here to honour this great man, my friend. I could tell you a lot of funny stories but I’m gonna write a book and Ray’s gonna be in that book, believe me. I could tell you a lot of stories and a lot of pleasures we had together. Thank you, Ken, for inviting me and all you dear friends to honour Ray Whitley.

W G “BILL” BOWEN: This is Bill Bowen. We’ll all miss Ray. Thank goodness we’ve got his music. We can refresh our memory that way. I won’t take any more time because I want Hank Worden to tell us a story about Ray. I know he won’t tell.

HANK WORDEN: My name is Hank Worden and my acquaintance with Ray and his family goes back to March, 1937, when Ray came up from New York. I was with Tex Ritter and a few other people, Franchot Tone, Helen Westley, etc., in the New York Theatre Guild production of “Green Grow the Lilacs”. Tex and I and a couple other guys had an apartment in New York when we played the Guild Theatre in New York and then we always stayed together on the road. I didn’t meet Ray at that time—that was 1931 when the show closed—but Tex came out under contract to Grand National in 1936 in September. In the meantime, Tex had stayed in New York and got on the radio show and please correct me if I’m wrong—you weren’t very tall then—I think Tex and Ray and Kay—Cassie May, I believe, is what she worked under at that time—stayed in New York and came out a year after Tex. My first comic relief was with Tex Ritter in March 1937 and Ray and his band did the musical background in the picture and Ray wrote some songs for it and Kay had Tex and I over for dinner when she was beating her brains out to give us a beautiful meal. I’ve known them for a long time. When the family was living up on Beechwood and Ray and Kay were out making appearances and whatnot, I used to go up and babysit. I remember holding Judy on my lap, telling her western stories and all that sort of thing. It was a beautiful family. I was married to Louise in June, 1940. Ray was our best man, Tex Ritter sang, “I Love You Truly” and Marge Reynolds, who I had met in a Tex Ritter picture the year before, introduced me to Louise and she was our matron of honour. So I had the best in the western background. Our marriage last until January 6, 1977, when Louise passed away with cancer. She was an elementary school psychologist and a terrifically hard worker. In the last summer, 1978, Ray and I and Jennifer Holt and Jimmy Ellison were down in St. Louis for a film festival and they had Ray and Jennifer and Jimmy Ellison and I up and did a half hour tape at a university there in St. Louis and then they played it back so we could hear ourselves. I was invited up to the thing that they put on, oh, a couple of months ago. Ray went and I saw Ray at Chill Wills’ funeral. He was one of the honorary pall bearers and we got to visit a little bit then and I’m sorry to say I haven’t seen him since then. But it was a beautiful family and I love Kay, I love the gals and they had a beautiful life. Certainly, when Eddie and all the other people said he was a gentleman, that should be quotations, underlined and everything else. He was a beautiful man. My love to Kay and Judy and Clare and Dody. I’m sure that Ray is probably sitting up there enjoying our fond memories of him and I’m so very grateful to him for asking me to be here with many of my friends and Ray’s friends. And I’m sure that Ray is probably looking down and smiling and saying, “See? That’s real nice.” My love to the family and to all or you. Thank you for the opportunity.

HI BUSSE: I was just sitting here thinking. This is Hi Busse, by the way. When I first met Ray, I was known as High Pockets. I think a lot of people around here are gonna remember when I was called Hi Pockets. Anyway, Bob Nolan and Wesley Tuttle and a few other people around here – Jimmy Wakely and everybody else. I was known as Hi Pockets at that time. My first recollection of even hearing about Ray Whitley was we were over in San Angelo, Texas, and heard a record on the air and it was called, “I Saw Your Face in the Moon”. Is that right? Yeah. Any how, years passed and I always liked that record and I learned it right away and started to singing the song. In 1945, why, Ray called us up. I was with a group, well we’d just left Foreman Phillips Barn Dance and we were called “The Three Shiftless Skunks” at that time. Abner, Hi and Shorty (Scott). And so, Ray called us up and said, “I’ve got a chance to go with Roy Rogers back to Madison Square Gardens and I’d like for you guys to go with me.” So we said why sure, that would be fine so you never know a man until you really get on the road with him and really get acquainted with him. And I want to say something, that Ray Whitley was really a fine gentleman and a wonderful guy to be on the road with and a wonderful MC, too. Like so many people have said before me, I know because I was on stage with him a long time—it was only half a year, practically, that we was on the road. We went on the road on our own after that after we left Roy Rogers. We worked Philadelphia Gardens, Madison Square Gardens for 30 days. I mean 31 days, I guess it was, and then we went to Boston Gardens and I know Judy remembers this. She was in the car with us and we’d drive on and she’d sit on my lap [laughs] when we was driving around the country there. I never forget Roy did a thing – the Paul Revere’s Ride, wasn’t it? Art Rush can remember this because he was along on it. Roy had to do the complete ride of Paul Revere’s Ride at the time and there was snow on the ground. It was cold and everything and Roy was going to do this Boston …when Paul Revere made this ride so what we did was ride in a big long car and we’d be in every town, every Middlesex farm an town, as they say. We was out there singing “Tumbling Tumbleweeds” when Roy would ride into town. I think Judy was along at that time. Were you? That’s right. And Kay and, oh, boy, a lot of memories. We went on tour after that along with Ray and he was always so fine on the stage and he loved to sing, he loved to entertain people and I want to tell you something – a lot of good has rubbed off on all of us. Ray Whitley!

NOVADEEN WILLS: Hi, Kay. This is Novadeen. I know I won’t miss Whit as much as you do but I sure will miss him. And I know he’s up there with Chill fishing. He’d say, “Come on, Whit, let’s go fishing.” You take care now.

LAURENCE ZWISOHN: My name is Larry Zwisohn. I only had a few chances to meet Ray. I can honestly say there have been only 3 or 4 people who have impressed me as much as Ray for the kind of person that he was. When I first met him—I’m always interested in songs—and I asked him how he came write “Back in the Saddle Again” and he told me how one morning before going to RKO, he got a call from his producer saying that he needed one more song to fill in for the movie. And he came back to the bedroom, he said, and sat down on the bed and said, “Well, I’ve got another song to write. Looks like I’m back in the saddle again.” His lovely wife, whom I’ve also had a chance to meet recently, said, “Well there’s your title—Back in the Saddle—why don’t you write it?” Well, he did and it became one of the most well-known songs ever written and I commented to him that he must be doing very well with the royalties off of it. And he said, no, that he had an arrangement at that time and he sold a great number of songs to Gene Autry for a nominal sum and that was the case with “Back in the Saddle Again”. And I commented that it must be a little difficult not to receive all that, knowing that you are the one who wrote it. What impressed me was his answer. He said, “No, Gene bought an awful lot of songs and not too many of them worked out the way “Back in the Saddle” did. And if it worked out for him, that was fine.” What impressed me was the complete sincerity and earnestness with which he said it. He was quite a man. I’m privileged to have had the chance to meet him.

KEN GRIFFIS: This is Ken Griffis again and I want to wrap up this little tape if I could and I’d like to leave two thoughts here. I think all the people that was close to Ray knew that he referred to the lovely Kay as “Mama” so often. And she said something that was very touching. Whenever he left on his fishing trips, the last words he’d say to her was, “Mama, keep a good thought.” That was Ray and I’m sure, Ray, if he could be here or at least in spirit he’s here, and he would probably say in his own way that this gathering here is uncommonly good.

JIMMY WAKELY: Well, Ken, before we go any further, I’d like to announce that Dorothy Bond sends a message that she could not be here. Unfortunately, she had to go to a funeral today. One of her very close friends. But she heard that Clare and Dodie was coming and she said, “At least, I’d like one of them to be my guest because I’d like to become a part of this. Not for the money. I want to become a partner in your party. And she wants to be among you. So I will request that Dorothy Bond be made a co-sponsor on an equal basis with the rest of us. Let Dorothy Bond have that pleasure. She wants it. We loved Johnny. We miss him. We’re losing entirely too many of our friends but let’s number Dorothy Bond with us as if she were here.

KEN GRIFFIS: OK, as we bring this taping to a close, I thought it would be nice, as Kay has requested, that we all do as best we can “Back in the Saddle Again”. Kay requested so she’s gonna get it. So we’re gonna do it best we can and maybe we could get Jimmy here to start us off. We’ll all try to start at the same time and then we’ll have a break and then we’ll come back and I think it would be kinda nice if we could have Wes and Marilyn sing a couple of songs for us. So maybe Stuart and Suzy could give us a prayer as we end up.

Songs they sang after the break