Pee Wee King - Biography
By J Poet
Pee Wee King was one of the singers who modernized country music leading a band that wore matching Nudie suits and used electric instruments. He was a lively and outgoing performer and the writer of many country standards including the crossover smash “Tennessee Waltz” as well as “Slow Poke,” another pop crossover #1, “Silver and Gold,” “Changing Partners,” “You Belong to Me,” later a pop hit for Jo Stafford and a do-wop smash for the Duprees, and “Bimbo.” In 1965, Tennessee named “Tennessee Waltz” its state song. After he retired from show business, he became a director of the Country Music Hall of Fame, which inducted him in 1974.
King’s given name was Frank Anthony Kuczynski and he was born into a musical family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1914. His father led a polka band, and young Frank was playing in his dad’s group by the time he was 13. He took the name Frank King, in tribute to Wayne king, a popular polka bandleader, and put together King’s Jesters. After finishing high school he started touring, playing a blend of square dance, country, and western swing. In 1933, the Jesters had a regular spot on Milwaukee’s Badger State Barn Dance, where a country singer named Gene Autry heard him. Autry hired the Jesters to be his backup band on his WLS Chicago show and nicknamed King Pee Wee because of his short stature. In 1934 Autry, King and the band moved to WHAS in Louisville, Kentucky. When Autry was offered a part in a cowboy movie he left for Hollywood; King refused to go with him staying on in Louisville.
In 1936 he put together his famous Golden West Cowboys and soon was asked to join the Grand Ole Opry. The Opry audience had never heard western swing before King and his band blew down the house with a big band sound that included horns, drums, and electric guitars. He toured the country packing dancehalls and early lead singers in his band included Ernest Tubb, Eddy Arnold and his songwriting partner Redd Stewart. He signed with RCA in 1946 and made hundreds of singles and dozens of albums including Swing West (1956 RCA) and the #1 pop and country hit “Tennessee Waltz.”
In 1959 he left the Opry and started producing his own TV show; Nashville didn’t think much of the new medium as yet, and King became the first country artist with his own show. He soon had live TV shows in Louisville, Cincinnati, and Chicago, which helped him become one of the most popular country artists of the early 50s. From 1950 to 1955 he was named Most Popular Country Act by Billboard and Cashbox and his ABC TV program, The Pee Wee King Show, was the first national show hosted by a country music star. The show lasted for six years.
When rock reshaped the music business in the 60s, King left TV and broke up his band, but continued touring as part of Minnie Pearl's Roadshow with Stewart. When Pearl retired, King took over the Roadshow and kept performing until 1968.
Although he’d stopped touring, King stayed active. He booked country acts on the county fair circuit, and served on the Board of Directors of the Country Music Association and the Country Music Foundation. He died in Louisville in 2000, at 86 years of age. Most of King’s original albums are out of print, but Collectables released his RCA collections Pee Wee King’s Biggest Hits and Country Barn Dance as a twofer in 2004. Western Swing Get Together (2001 Jasmine UK) gives you 26 of his lesser known tunes, while Pee Wee King's Country Hoedown (1999 Bloodshot) includes 42 tracks taken from his radio shows in the 1950s on two CDs. Pee Wee King & His Golden West Cowboys (1995 Bear Family Germany) includes a detailed biography and almost everything King ever recorded on six CDs.