RECALLING time and again all those wonderful Maine coast childhood summers, spent at Gramp and Grandma Johnson's snug little Bailey Island homestead on Casco Bay, is a pleasure which never diminishes, though three decades have since passed by. In those days, to awaken soon after sunrise, with surf crashing on the near shore and a distant gong buoy heard tolling through open window screens, could be almost exhilarating. By the time sleepy eyes were rubbed open and that long bedside stretch was done, the aroma of frying bacon and eggs usually rose upward over the varnished staircase toward open eaves and rafters of our unfinished attic bedrooms. Sometimes, a simpler breakfast might be bubbling on Grandma's ancient wood-fired kitchen range.

     But always, intermingled with the hazy awareness of our first wakeful moments, there was the sound Of Gramps big wooden Monarch console radio, habitually tuned by 7 a.m. to WGAN in Portland. That careful but still hurried journey down the stairs, intent to be the first at the pitcher-filled washbasin. And none too soon, as a resounding guitar, with accordion, fiddle and bass sparked the lively chorus of "Hello, hello, hello everybody! How do you do?..." from somewhere within that old radio, and Ken MacKenzie with his radio gang had once again beamed into our midst for everyone’s favorite few minutes of the new day.

     It could be said that Ken was at or near the zenith of popular acclaim as Maine's leading Country & Western troubadour. An honestly pleasant and outgoing hospitality, clean-cut good looks and singing talent beyond the scope of most competition in New England and the Maritimes had rendered him a bonafide Pine Tree State "western" star. Success was assured from his first show at WGAN in the late 1930's and quickly widened when he produced the "Down East Homefolks Frolic", a touring show in the old "barn-dance" tradition of an earlier decade.

     Daily except Sundays, Ken with wife Simone, comedienne "Windy" Betty Gribbin and four other backup performers would regale us briefly with friendly down home banter, good humor and several "country favorites", always closing with ever smiling Ken's own distinctive yodeling trill, before our empty plates could be cleared from the breakfast table.

     My Sister Sandy and I usually sat a while longer, nursing our warm cups of Postum (Grandma forbid real coffee to little children!) and trying to mime one or more of Ken's morning selections. A scuffle often ensued over who was going to be the "Singing Cowboy" and who wasn't! We would retreat out to the garage workshop to grab our old sawed-off broom "guitars", of which there were two or three kept around for sweeping under workbenches or in corners. We would pick and strum at the straw ends and be satisfied we were making great music. An old braided rug cast-off from the parlor became both stage and spotlight whenever we stepped onto it from the concrete floor surrounding. That continuing question of who was going to be star of our little show once persisted over my insistence that Sis couldn't be called Ken MacKenzie, because only a guy could have that name. Thinking I had made my point, with a little shoving to emphasize my very slight seniority, an indignant wail warned me too late that she could throw a mean barrage of little tomboy fists. Moments later, I was the "announcer" with a Pine Spring tonic bottle for a microphone, and stoically intoning: "...And now here's your favorite and mine ... Smilin' Sandy Ken-Kenzie!"  The victor then stepped "on stage" to greet an audience of one announcer, two preoccupied pet kittens, and Grandma (between her chores). It still amazes me how that sister of mine could parley so many random sagebrush lyrics into a near endless ballad, filled with her forgivable attempt to yodel and running the gamut from lovesick heartache and blue shadows on the trail, all the way to little "dogies", tumbling tumble- weeds, and lonesome coyotes calling!

     Ken MacKenzie was the cowboy idol of countless other kids like us who listened to his broadcasts and saw his road shows. He often did special programs around Greater Portland for audiences numbering a thousand or more entranced moppets. But Ken and his radio gang built a great following among all age groups, with some 17 years of broadcasting to their credit by the mid-1950's and promptly graduated from daily radio into weekly television as soon as the new medium took root north and east of Boston.

     The "Smilin' Cowboy" could easily claim title as the greatest country music star and producer Maine had ever seen. A busy schedule of radio, T.V. and personal appearances saw his wardrobe burgeon to eight (and later ten) of the handsomely embroidered $200 cowboy outfits that were his trademark and the style also worn by most of his performing troupe. Ken took his show on tour over the length and breadth of Maine and Nova Scotia, eventually playing just about every sizeable city or town in the Pine Tree State, and many more throughout northern New England and Canada.

     As time went on, our own devotion to the Ken MacKenzie Show remained unflagging and in that golden year of 1954, when we left the Bay State behind and came to call Bailey Island our home for awhile, we were suddenly able to watch and listen right on past that old seasonal barrier of Labor Day! Our hastily winterized summer cottage, not the most ideal for year-round shelter on a Maine coast island, was also without the luxury of a television set, but our proximity to the staid white homestead of old retired fisherman Washington Doughty was remedy for this problem. His son, lobsterman Lester Doughty and family, actually occupied one ell of the old house and saw to it that we were invited almost nightly to watch T.V. with them. Every Friday evening, as air time for Ken MacKenzie's evergreen country show neared, no clock was necessary since a glance out the window would find those two tiny Doughty girls running headlong, often stumbling in their hurry through the tall hillside meadow grass to warn us that: "Ken's coming ON! He's on in a minute! Mama says hurry on down!" As soon as we could get our coats and jackets on, we'd all go marching back down to "Wash" Doughty's back door for another "evening out". Inside, Mrs. Doughty had all the chairs arranged around the living room and last minute commercials still lighted the pale-bluish screen. Then it was time and there were Ken MacKenzie and "Simone the Mrs." all decked out in their sharp western livery as that first rhythmic country tune opened the show. All six-foot plus of accordionist Dick Monroe towered over them from behind while beside him bass player Joe Gallien slapped out the time and hillbilly fiddler Pete Dixon expertly sawed away, always keeping his usual polite quiet between the lively melodies. "Windy" Betty Gribben was as often the real star of the show with all her crazy cavorting stunts and jokes and kept Ken and gang in stitches almost as much as the home audience! Young singer Joanne Libro would inject a popular song or two to the proceedings and we were also treated to an occasional country song done in French by Simone. Duets, with Ken and Simone doing numbers like "Are You Mine?", were well received and often requested by many of the listeners. Shows were usually rounded out by a guest performer, from the area, and the entertainment went on, always seeming to be over too quickly for us all.

     That autumn, Ken's gang came to Brunswick's old Town Hall auditorium and we were elated to see it live for the first time. The music was predictably exciting, our hero lived up to all expectations, and we had always suspected that the hilarious Betty Gribbin was funnier than Minnie Pearl ever thought to be! That memorable one-night stand only reinforced us as solid fans.

     Actually, it was a little before our time when Ken MacKenzie first came to Maine. Born in Boston while the clouds of World War I still hung over Europe, he became an early transplant to Concord, New Hampshire, graduating from high school there in 1936. That same year his resonant voice and accomplished yodeling style first beamed over Granite State airwaves from WFEA in Manchester, which earned him a princely three dollars per program. That sort of wage (received only after the show became regularly sponsored) just about covered his transportation between Concord and the studio, so Ken was forced to work as an usher at Concord's old Capitol Theatre for his real livelihood.

     As his popularity grew in south central New Hampshire, young MacKenzie aroused the casual notice of an established Boston-based western singer by the name of Buck Nation. Buck later moved down east to Portland and when he needed another self-styled cowboy singer to augment his own traveling show, he remembered Ken MacKenzie and successfully arranged to add this new country performer. A broad circuit of road shows brought increased public exposure and permitted Ken to be heard over as many as 17 northeast regional radio stations in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. Later, when Buck decided to become a regular at WCSH in Portland, Ken opted to go it on his own and the two parted company amicably just before MacKenzie signed on with the Guy Gannett Broadcasting Company.

     Only two days after marriage to his sweetheart, Manchester-born Simone Labrie, Ken began his famous radio jamboree in early January 1939. When a lack of steady sponsorship brought renewed struggle, Ken and Simone survived through that next summer by selling his own publicity photos on the air for a dime apiece! Such stifling circumstances led to a crack at personal appearances, beginning with a local show at Deering Grange Hall. The idea immediately blossomed into four more shows in towns around Portland and thereafter hardship never came their way again.

     The "Singing Cowboy's" star continued to rise and the Ken MacKenzie jamboree became accepted tradition, strumming its country way well into World War II years. Uncle Sam finally beckoned, however, and Ken left the air on June 19, 1944 after a call to duty with the Army Air Corps. Stationed with an airways communication force in the Aleutians, MacKenzie put in several appearances a! local camp shows, though he found performing in the extreme cold not to his liking. After the war, Ken and the old troupe again took to the air on July 22, 1946. The daily except Sunday format at 8:30 a.m. remained similar to what had gone before.

     Ken and Simone MacKenzie sustained the spirit and sound of country music in Maine, perhaps for more years than they would care to recall. But their brand of music had always been a pulsing reflection of the simpler and less sophisticated walk of American life. Nowadays the national trend is more inclined toward Country & Western music than ever before, and it is revered for its earthy honesty and forthright lyricisms. Even while it remained in the quieter backwater of national importance, it kept hold on us really, and even the Rock & Roll era could not displace it.

     Ever increasing responsibilities with the Guy Gannett Broadcasting Services, first as staff announcer, then smiling emcee of such local television shows as the frontier-styled "Adventure Land" and its successor in circus format, the "Mighty 90 Show", forced Ken away from his touring one-nighters and finally (in 1972) from his T.V. jamborees as well. Today, that old classic yodel and pleasant country voice are seldom heard and those natty blue cowboy outfits are at home in a closet. Much in the retiring manner of Gene Autry, Ken has laid his guitar aside to assume an executive role. Named as Film Director of WGAN in January 1972, he has since become Operations Manager at Channel 13.

     Now that time has so altered or erased the way things were, when an old radio brought a down-home country sound to brighten our mornings, what of all us loyal fans? We can still vividly remember the electric excitement of those live one-night performances in countless Maine Grange halls, town halls, auditoriums and fairgrounds or the somewhat later luxury of a television jamboree on Friday or Saturday evening. Perhaps the pleasant memories are enough, and certainly these cannot be taken from us. We have only to remember the words that Ken MacKenzie so often gave his audiences in parting: "So long for now ... and Keep Smilin'!

 

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