Early Bean Blossom. (Commentary by: Thomas A. Adler)
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This shows the very first Brown County Jamboree promotional vehicle: Denzel “Silver Spur” Ragsdale 
with his “ballyhoo car,” cir 1942-43?   This may have been the very car 
that was used to promote the first "free show" held in Bean Blossom, in 1939 or before. 
(The free shows, held by the side of Highway 135,  provided the historic nucleus of the
Brown County Jamboree.)  "Spurts" Ragsdale (his earlier nickname) was thus a key 
figure in the creation of the Brown County Jamboree, who later acted as "sound man" for
many early Jamboree shows under two owners, during both the Francis Rund and the Bill 
Monroe years.  (Later, the sound was provide by Marvin Hedrick.)  "Spurts" was 
well-known to Jamboree audiences as an M.C. I don't know what kind of car it actually 
was, but on the door, just above Ragsdale’s knee it says “Silver Spur Ragsdale”, and 
along the side “Brown County Jamboree” and on the edge of the roof,  “Sound Equipment 
for Hire”.  A sign in the rear driver's side window also announces a show in Roachdale, 
Indiana on July 2nd-3rd-4th and there is also an early poster or showcard for the 
Brown County Jamboree.

Photo by Loren Parker, Nashville, In

 
This snapshot, from 1949, shows four Brown County Jamboree performers. In the foreground is the singer Juanita Sheehan, and left to right in the back are Jack Cox, Oscar “Shorty” Sheehan, and Loren Parker.  Singer Maxine Montgomery and Loren were married to one another, and performed many times on the Jamboree in the late 1940s and again in the mid-1950s.  Shorty came to the Jamboree during the war and enjoyed immediate popularity because of his great Southern-style fiddling. Jack Cox often performed on the early Brown County Jamboree with his brother Alva, under the name “the Hillclimbers.”  Note the western clothes, which were typically worn on stage by the "hillbilly" singers of the Brown County Jamboree from its earliest days through the 1950s and early 1960s.

This information was updated by Sam Shehan (8-26-04).

Photo by Loren Parker, Nashville, In

 
 
Jack Cox at Bean Blossom in 5-4-2000.

Photo by Frank Overstreet

 
 
This is a scan of an advertisement from the weekly paper, the 
Brown County Democrat of 11/5/53, for the Jamboree show of 
November 8, 1953. That unique performance featured *four* different Monroe acts: Milissa,  “Burch” and the Brown County Fox Hunters, Charlie Monroe, and Bill Monroe “with Blue Grass Boy.” 
(Such typesetting and spelling and proof errors were pretty common 
in all the local newspaper ads of this period.)  Note also the 
appearance of “Shorty and Juanita Shehan” as the “extra added.” 
Juanita played on the Jamboree in the earliest days with her sister 
Nettie as the popular “Doyle Sisters.”  After she and Shorty married, 
they quickly became a favorite duo act on the regular Brown County Jamboree cast.

Photo by Brown County Democrat

 
 

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