Arizona Wranglers Archive, 3 78 RPM, 4 Signed Photos,Singing Western Movie Stars

$

225

Incredible “Arizona Wranglers”  Archive, photos and 78s and business cards. Famous Western Movie Singing Cowboys.    Rex Allen was the famed leader of the Arizona Wranglers. The Phoenix-based cowboy singing group the Arizona Wranglers helped popularize the singing western. The Wranglers were among the first groups to appear in the sound western, and the group itself featured several B-movie performers, including Glenn Strange (Rex Allen’s cousin best known for his role as bartender Sam Noonan on the CBS series Gunsmoke), Arkansas Johnny Luther, Jack Kirk, Jack Jones, Chuck Baldra and "Cactus Mack" McPeters. Groups like the Wranglers and the Sons of the Pioneers, popular in the 1920s and 1930s, built a new genre and library of music with songs glorifying the “cowboy ethos” and stories of horses, cattle, “night herds,” tall timber, prairies and the open range. The Wranglers started crooning on the Phoenix radio station KOY. Original member Glenn Strange joined the group after appearing at the rodeo in Prescott. By 1930, the Wranglers were singing cowboy songs in Hollywood. One such song was their 1931 hit, “The Strawberry Roan.” Originally penned by the cowboy poet Curley Fletcher, “The Strawberry Roan” captivates the imagination with the story of a bronc buster bested by spirited and unrideable horse.  This archive includes: 1.  The original envelope mailed from The Arizona Wranglers to Mr. and Mrs. Homer Cheek, Sespe, Calif.  Homer Cheek was manager of Rancho Sespe.  The envelope is dated 1931. 2.  8x10 photograph of “Hungry” signed and inscribed to the Cheeks. 3.  8x10 photograph of “Hungry” signed and inscribed to the Cheeks. Hungry is playing a National Steel Body guitar. 4.  8x10 photograph of “Nubbins” signed and inscribed to the Cheeks 5.  5x7 photo of the entire band with names written in margin. 6.  Six different business cards of the band members with the KNX Hollywood logo on them. 7.  78 rpm record.  “Recorded but not released by Columbia”.  “Going Back to Arizona”.  credited in ink to Arizona Wranglers ,  flip side is “West Coast Special”.  credit Sleepy. 8.  78 rpm record.  “Recorded by Freeman Lang - Hollywood.  Merry Xmas label.  “Twelfth St. Rag”, credit Shorty.  Flip side,  “Red River Valley”, credit Hungry. 9.  12 inch 78 rpm record,  “Studios of Freeman Lang”,  “Pressed but not released by Columbia”.  “Strawberry Roan”, credit Nubbins. Flip side, “Wreck of the 97”,  credit Hungry. Since 1984 the John Nichols Gallery.com in historic downtown Santa Paula, California has been exhibiting and promoting vintage and contemporary photography and fine art.  The gallery has occupied six different locations and is now located upstairs above the Santa Paula Art Museum at 117 North 10th Street, Santa Paula Calif. On exhibit and in the bins and boxes at the gallery are thousands of vintage and vernacular photographs in addition to contemporary photographs by John Nichols and others.  Fine art includes watercolors,  pastels, drawings, paintings, collages and giclees by Gail Pidduck. Vintage and vernacular photos include over 100 snapshot albums, documentary, crime scene and accident photography and tons of snapshots.  Some of the famous photographers in inventory are Horace Bristol, Carleton Watkins, Roger Fenton, William Henry Jackson and others. The John Nichols Gallery.com is open  by appointment