More than 70 episodes of the influential “Ozark Jubilee” music television show that aired on ABC-TV from Springfield, Missouri, during the late 1950s and early ’60s now can be viewed on YouTube.
Getting those nearly 70-year-old episodes online was part of Missouri State University Libraries’ years-long Ozark Jubilee Digitization Project that finished in early February, reported the Springfield Daily Citizen, a new news outlet in the region.
“The Ozarks has a very rich and varied musical and entertainment tradition … but the Ozark Jubilee was the most important and foundational,” says Tom Peters, dean of Missouri State University Libraries, which led the project. “Lots of local Ozarks musical, comedic, and dance talent appeared on the Jubilee, as well as nearly every major country and western music star from that era.” […]
The weekly musical variety show originated from Springfield and helped boost the careers of both local and nationally known musical artists, featuring names such as Brenda Lee and Porter Waggoner. It also made Springfield the country’s third-leading producer of network television, coming in just after New York and Los Angeles.
Peters said most of the episodes now online are from 1955 and 1956, aired from the Jewell Theatre in downtown Springfield. They can be viewed here.
Here’s the first segment from Jan. 22, 1955. It includes performances by Red Foley and the Foggy River Boys, the Oklahoma Wranglers, Jean Shepherd and Hawkshaw Hawkins, plus several commercials and corny jokes from that time. It really is a glimpse of another era.
A critical part of the digitization project was Wayne Glenn, an “Ozark Jubilee” fan and radio host who found a bunch of episodes on kinescope at the University of California-Los Angeles. MSU Libraries then cleaned up the files — mostly enhancing the video and sound quality, plus adding information about each segment — at a cost of $2,500 per episode.
Years after the TV show ended, the Route 66 town of Springfield continued to have a vital music scene partly due to the late Lou Whitney, who not only led two acclaimed bands — The Morells and The Skeletons — but he became an in-demand producer of rock and country acts at his Springfield studio. The Springfield music scene was detailed in Dave Hoekstra’s documentary, “The Center of Nowhere.”
Missouri State Libraries also guided the Route 66 Oral History Collection a few years ago.
(Screen-capture image from the first “Ozark Jubilee” episode in 1955)