KITTY: I wanted it to be right.

I wanted it to be dependable, because nothing really has been written on Si.

This would be the first time ever.

And I wanted it to be a foundation for other scholars to dip from, for other work about Si Siman.

[music playing] The "Ozark Jubilee" television series, originating from Springfield, Missouri, remains a groundbreaking and nationally impacting accomplishment, one that helped advance nationwide broadcasting, increased the popularity of country music, and introduced the Ozarks and Springfield to many visitors.

Visionary Si Siman and his partners together made unforgettable broadcasts and music history.

My guests today are authors Kitty Ledbetter and Scott Foster Siman, whose informative and entertaining book tells this remarkable and true story.

[music playing] ANNOUNCER: Ozarks Public Television and Missouri State University are proud to present "OzarksWatch Video Magazine," a locally produced program committed to increasing the understanding of the richness and complexity of Ozarks culture.

Visit our website for more information.

Welcome to "OzarksWatch Video Magazine."

I'm Dale Moore.

And as always, it is such a delight to have you invite us into your homes.

And you know, there's an old saying, if you are a person of a certain age, you heard it more than once.

Good things come to those who wait.

And today's program is all about good things finally coming to those who waited about this book right here, "Broadcasting in the Ozarks, Si Siman and Country Music at the Crossroads."

And I'm so delighted to have as my guests on the program today a long-time friend of mine, Dr. Kitty Ledbetter, and Scott Foster Siman.

So nice to have you both here.

Thank you, Dale.

Nice to be here.

DALE: I'm excited about this.

I got to tell you.

And when I say long time waiting, you know, we're going to get into why it took so long to tell this remarkable story.

But Kitty, I don't think-- Kitty and I worked together years ago at KTTS, years ago.

KITTY: At least 45.

Oh, at least 45.

It's more-- it's closer to 50.

Maybe.

DALE: Sorry to burst your bubble.

SCOTT: I don't think I was born then.

[laughter] Here we go.

Here we go.

And I don't think when you and I were on the air, you as Miss Kitty, and me as Dandy Dale at KTTS, that we ever thought that we'd be sitting here having an interview on a book you wrote 40, 50-some years later.

Isn't that strange that we even made it this old?

[laughter] Absolutely, it is.

You know, I-- how did the collaboration start?

I know that you make a reference in the beginning of the book, something about a note that you got from Si Siman in 1980.

I did.

I was interviewing Wayne Carson on KTTS.

And Si wrote me a little note.

"Good interview.

Thanks for having Wayne on the show."

But I didn't see him.

It was just a note.

And he signed it "Sin seriously, Si."

DALE: Which was-- well, that's what he said.

KITTY: That's what he loved to-- and I don't know why I just kept that note forever.

It was a souvenir.

So when I started thinking about writing a book about Si, I kept remembering that little note, and thinking, well, this is for you, Si.

And then I asked the Siman family if I could write a book about, and get their support on archives, and those kinds of things that a writer has to have.

And I didn't know that they'd been trying to get somebody to write this book for at least 20 years.

But it didn't matter.

I was onto it.

And I think it was just meant to be.

Do you recall what the interview with Wayne was all about?

What were you-- I have no idea.

But I'm sure it was just Wayne's songwriting, you know?

Well, actually, it was '81.

So-- That probably would have been "Always on My Mind," Grammy time frame.

Well, he was-- yeah, he was working up for a Grammy.

The first one was in '82, right?

Yeah.

And then the second one, '83, which is incredible, to get a Grammy two years in a row.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, did he get a Grammy and the Hall of Fame?

Country Music Association Song of the Year two years in a row, and then the Grammy one year.

One year.

They changed the rules after that.

But who's counting?

You know, with all the awards they had on that song, I can't even remember how many.

Yeah, "Billboard" does a survey, and they ranked it the most awarded song in the history of country music.

So after the radio business, you got into the teaching business, and we almost parallel each other.

I did the same thing-- did radio, radio, radio, and then somehow wound up doing TV.

And then here we are, right?

I was amazed that you got a PhD.

DALE: I was amazed.

[laughter] I said, are you all really thinking this through?

You know, what's going on here?

Dr. Moore, no Handy Moore anymore.

DALE: Crazy, right?

I know.

I'm still Dandy Dale, because once a ranch hand, always a ranch hand.

Oh, That's right.

DALE: You know that.

Miss Kitty forever.

Scott, before we get into the depths-- we could do a two-hour program here, but we've got to get to some of what's going on in the book.

But it's fair to say that the apple didn't fall too far from the tree.

SCOTT: I think that's a really fair statement.

DALE: I would-- I would say you're in the business in a big way.

Kind of tell us.

I mean, your dad never-- when I said, I do this, I do this.

He was-- and you're very understated in the same way, much like your dad.

So tell us about what your career looks like.

Yeah.

Well, thank you.

I think in a lot of ways people say, how did you get in the music industry?

And I always say, I was born into it, and didn't know how to get out of it.

[laughter] And I think my dad certainly groomed me to have a career in the entertainment industry, and was blessed to hang out at KWTO radio station, where my dad's office was.

And he was associated with the radio station and all the executives there.

Ralph Foster was the big-- the mentor to all of them.

And that's my middle name, thus it's on the title page there.

KITTY: I insisted.

SCOTT: Yeah, you did, which is great.

Thank you.

Because I'm, obviously, really proud of that, that heritage.

DALE: Absolutely.

And you know, Uncle Ralph.

DALE: Yeah.

But really, I just grew up around the industry.

And I did promotions for KWTO radio station, putting little flyers on cars.

And then my dad had been promoting all the country music concerts in Nashville-- I mean, from Nashville to Springfield, and got a little tired of that.

And so my junior year, I started promoting concerts at the Shrine Mosque.

My hair got a little longer.

That sounds familiar.

Yeah, exactly, right?

And so, yeah, I promoted concerts doing that.

And then I started screening material for his publishing company.

And yeah.

One thing led to another.

SCOTT: And next thing you know, he's like, you know, probably Nashville's a good place to go to college.

So I ended up going to college.

And then I worked on the music industry on the side.

Where'd you go to college at?

SCOTT: I went to University of Missouri Law School, Vanderbilt undergrad.

DALE: Right.

So both black and gold, now both in the SEC.

DALE: Yeah, of course.

SCOTT: But in Nashville, it was great, because when I was at Vanderbilt-- I think my oldest daughter put it in one of my Facebook pages, like, minored in the alleys and the backwoods of Nashville, trying to figure out studios, or something like that.

Backwoods.

But it was.

It was just a great opportunity to be around the music industry.

And obviously, my dad had many, many connections, and friends from the "Jubilee" years.

Yeah, sure.

So a lot of people gave me a helping hand along the way.

And you know, again, on your own right, I mean, I believe it says here something about the Academy of Country Music.

Tell us about the-- Yes.

I got very involved with the Academy of Country Music.

So country music is sort of blessed.

We have two major trade organizations, the Academy of Country Music, and the Country Music Association.

And when I went to work for Sony Music to help run their Nashville division, one of the executives who really wanted to do the CMA.

So I took over representing Sony at the ACM, and got actively involved-- really loved the organization, and just felt like, I could really bring some value to that organization, and help sort of modernize it.

It was primarily West Coast centered, which was, in a way, good, but in a way, bad, because it wasn't connecting all the dots.

And so I was president of the ACM for four years, and then chairman of the board.

And we made a lot of changes, I think modernized it, and it continues to thrive as an organization.

Again, we're really blessed as country music to have two great trade associations.

And now your day job is just hanging around with Tim McGraw.

Yeah, I get to hang around with Tim McGraw.

Not a bad gig at all.

I worked for a law firm that was representing him back before I even went to work for Sony.

So I've known Tim for many years, and then never intended to be a manager.

And next thing you know, I am one.

DALE: It's in your blood.

It's in my blood.

DALE: I mean, it's DNA.

It's in the water you guys drink, or something, for crying out loud.

Yeah.

And I'd say today in the music industry, being a manager, really, I think, a lot of where the power is in the music industry.

And I say that in a good way.

A lot of the decisions and things are made at the manager, artist level.

Record companies are still hugely important.

But I think the real fun is being the manager.

DALE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let's talk about the book.

That's why we're here.

And wow, what a book!

When I first read this, I didn't know what to expect, you know?

I read a lot of history.

I love history.

You know, you get to that age where you didn't pay attention to history when you were younger.

It's like, I better start catching up.

So I read a lot of history.

But when I read this, Kitty, the narrative-- and I'm sure you've heard this already.

I mean, the narrative, this reads like-- it's like when I finished the book, I thought, this needs to be a movie script.

I mean, it struck me, right?

And in my head, I'm thinking, OK, who's going to play Si?

Who's going to play-- who's going to play the Skipper?

I remember interviewing with Ralph Foster, the Skipper.

And I remember feeling about that tall as I walked into his office with all the-- you know?

If you go to the School of the Ozarks now, the replica office is there.

And I remember feeling, oh, I'm not worthy.

I am not worthy to be part of this.

But when I read about this, I mean, you put a voice to this that we-- and people in the writing business talk about a writer's voice.

Where did the writer's voice come from on this?

I'm so glad you said that.

You know, you can't imagine how many trauma days I've had writing that book, because I wanted to do honor to Si.

But then, also, I've been in country music all my life.

Even though I was a English professor, I refused to be English professor-ish.

I wanted to be Miss Kitty more than I wanted to be an English professor.

And it comes out in the book.

I mean, I've been listening to country music, and I know it.

That's why Brooks Blevins-- I'm going to brag about this, because it's the only compliment he ever gave me.

He was my editor at the University of Arkansas Press.

He said-- at the end of this long revision process, which was really the most brutal I ever had, I said, you must really want this book.

And he said, "Yes, I do.

And you're the only one who could write it."

DALE: Wow.

Did you hear that?

DALE: That's high praise.

KITTY: Brooks, thank you.

DALE: That's high praise.

That is high praise.

Really.

DALE: Yeah, yeah.

And this is high praise from you.

And I mean it sincerely, because, my goodness, it's one thing to get on the radio and yap, and do what we used to do.

And that's fun.

But, boy, this is work involved here.

And the thing that strikes me about this is how well this is sourced.

Now, you had a kind of a direct line to the source, obviously.

But boy, the sourcing in this, and the tying together of the stories, the different-- it reminded me of like I'm getting to look over Si's shoulder at all of these things that are happening with the backstories of Chet Atkins.

Who knew that Patsy Cline was a diva?

I mean, right?

So I mean, great, great stories in here.

And that's not an easy thing to do.

How did you piece this together?

Did you start off with a "I'm going to do this section, this section, and this section"?

Or how did you-- how did you get there?

SCOTT: Yeah, Kitty.

How did we get there?

Well, one of the things that helps is that I was an academic, and I was a scholar, and I have already written several academic books that nobody reads, because they're not like this kind of book.

But I have to go back to Brooks Blevins again.

I mean, where do you put Porter Wagner?

Do you put him in the '40s?

Or do you put him in the "Jubilee"?

1953 is pre-"Jubilee."

So Porter Wagner moved chapters several times before Brooks and I finally decided, well, let's just put him here, because we're going chronologically, historically.

So everything was an experiment to see where it goes, and what kind of things-- Yeah, I can only imagine how-- it's one thing to write-- to free form write, and to free think write, and to do that.

And then you can go back and edit.

But when you're trying to piece together this complex story, and give it all of the body that you were able to give it with the references, and the-- I mean, it's like a first-person experience read.

And that's a rare-- that's why this is a remarkable book, because it captures that, that a lot of authors, I think, wish they could capture.

But then, again, when you can go kind of directly to the source-- and we've got to give props to Janie here, because Janie was absolutely one of those that said years ago, this story needs to get told.

So I mean, Janie in the background.

And we don't get in Janie's way, because she's a force to be reckoned with, bless her heart.

This book wouldn't exist without her persistence, and just keeping the idea alive.

And then, actually, you and Janie connected originally.

KITTY: Oh, gosh.

I would go over to her house at any time of the day or night.

And she-- I read all these chapters to her aloud.

I was so afraid that I wasn't going to get it right.

I wanted to get it right so that somebody a year after would say, you know, that's not exactly the way that happened.

Yeah.

I wanted it to be right.

I wanted it to be dependable, because nothing really has been written on Si.

This would be the first time ever.

And I wanted it to be a foundation for other scholars to dip from for other work about Si Siman.

Because he deserved all the credit for a lot of things, and then he was in the center of other things, but he doesn't get talked about, or written about.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which is remarkable.

I remember I used to-- and I forget who I told this reference to.

I said Si Siman is like the "Wizard of Oz."

He's behind the curtain.

There's a great thing going on.

You don't know how or why, but there's this-- then behind the curtain is the wizard.

And I remember more than once saying to somebody, Si Siman is the Wizard of Oz-- Ozarks with the Wizard of Oz.

I like that.

Born 1921, born Eli Earl Siman Jr. And from what I read in the first chapter or two there, boy, as a young man, he was a pretty extraordinary young man.

[laughter] KITTY: He was.

I mean, you know, when he started off-- KITTY: He was after it.

A bad boy.

He weasels his way into-- to ride around with Charlie Barrett, who was the Saint Louis Cardinals scout.

And I guess Si early on really wanted to be a baseball player.

SCOTT: Oh, I think that was his original dream.

DALE: It sounded like it.

Absolutely.

I mean, I think he was promoting concerts, and Half-A-Hill, and other things.

But I think his big dream was to be a baseball player.

And like a lot of people in Springfield, we're all Cardinals fans.

It was the dream.

He lived on Normal Street.

And I just moved off of Del Mar not long ago.

So I was a rock throwing distance from where your dad was born.

And he talked about being an entrepreneur.

And we're talking 10, 8, 9, 10 years old here, during one of the hardest times in American history.

You've got-- you're coming off of World War I.

You've got the deep Depression that is here looming.

And then, by the way, we're going to jump into World War II.

So I mean, these were tough times for people.

And most kids went out, and just were not whole gang watching baseball.

But he was an entrepreneur.

I mean, I love the story of him setting up the movie theater in the garage from an old refrigerator.

I mean, who thinks these kinds of things up?

And the fun part about that for me is that his house on Normal Street, his grandparents lived there.

His parents lived there.

And then him, he and his two stepsisters lived there in a two-bedroom house on Normal Street.

It's very small.

DALE: Yeah.

And then he had to go out to the back yard-- DALE: And live in a tent.

And live in a tent.

But what did he do then?

He didn't complain.

He just started a movie theater in his garage.

I mean, the original entrepreneur.

Did you ever get a sense in talking to your dad where that kind of young spark came from?

SCOTT: You know, we talked about that.

I mean, because he was not anything like his dad.

His dad was very mechanical.

[interposing voices] --could work on cars, and machines, and worked at the hospital, and lily tulip, and all those kind of things.

And my dad was not really good at hardly any of those kind of things.

So no, I think-- and I think probably for them, it's like, I hope our son can make it, because he's doing all these weird things that we don't know really mean anything until he showed up, I think, one day with a big wad of money.

And they're like, where did you get that?

You didn't steal that, did you?

That's a great representation here.

He comes home from a concert that he had done.

And he's throwing boxes of money in the air.

Wake up.

Wake up.

And he wakes them up to tell them what he had done.

Yeah.

I just-- you know, I can't get over thinking about those hard times, and for him to take that on.

And then he builds-- out of an orange crate, I think he builds and sells popsicles.

That's how he met Ralph Foster.

That's how he met Ralph Foster.

But prior to that, he was selling over at the courthouse, and they ran him off, because-- [laughter] SCOTT: A little license permit issue.

As a lawyer-- Yeah, right.

He wasn't properly permitted, and he was disrupting the business of the court.

So move on down the street.

So he goes down.

He meets Ralph Foster.

And of course, that's a story that that winds up being the story that's almost like a father-son relationship.

SCOTT: Absolutely.

KITTY: It's the story people like to tell.

But you spoke of Si as an entrepreneur.

When he was promoting shows at the Shrine Mosque, I recognized him in some of the reports, even though I don't have proof of this.

But one of the shows, somebody put a car in the square, and put a big sign to promote the show.

And I thought, ah, I bet that was Si Siman who did that, because that's the kind of promotion he would do.

Yeah.

He struck me as the kind of guy who was always thinking.

He says in here somewhere-- he's quoted, and I'm roughly paraphrasing it, I didn't have much talent, but I had enough talent to know how to recognize talent, which I thought was just really great.

And obviously, it speaks for itself in the success of-- KITTY: He had a lot of those phrases.

He, and Lester Cox, and Ralph Foster, I think, are the kind of 20th century men-- person, who loved those phrases that were uplifting.

And I don't think Si, if he ever had a bad day, he wouldn't complain about it.

There's the story that he tells of when he had cancer close to the end of his life.

And he would be in the ward, getting his chemotherapy, and other people would go to chemotherapy on his days so they could hear him talk.

Yeah.

Well, you know-- and he graduates from high school in 1939.

And so here he is a teenager, and he's booking Ella Fitzgerald.

I mean, how does a 17, 18-year-old figure out how to do that?

I mean, how did he go about making that happen?

SCOTT: Look, I think there was a tremendous can-do spirit.

It's almost like he didn't know what he couldn't do.

So there was nothing-- just go for it.

Maybe I will be the baseball player for the Cardinals.

Or if I'm not that, maybe I'll just-- you know, I'll run the team.

I'll be the general manager, or I'll promote the show.

But if I can't promote it, then maybe there I'll sell the merchandise.

I mean, he was, I think, always just sort of wired that way.

He had a great connection to-- and I think a lot of us, the early learning that he did was with his connection with Half-A-Hill.

And you mentioned in the book, if you were born in the '50s or '60s, then you probably knew about Half-A-Hill.

Oh, yeah.

And that seemed like the place where he hung out, and he really kind of made his bones, so to speak, in the promoting business was learning it there.

Walter Hickman taught him everything he knew.

And then Walter died, leaving Si with the contracts with Ella Fitzgerald and others.

And he didn't have-- he wasn't old enough to sign contracts, but he did it anyway.

[laughter] You've got to like that.

That's can-do.

But I mean, Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman, Glenn Miller, I mean, those were the names at the time.

And then fast forward a few years, and he's with the names of the time then, right?

And we'll get to that in a second.

But the magic of the Shrine Mosque, and when it was opened, I think it was touted as being the largest auditorium west of the Mississippi when it was originally opened.

And to go in there and to bring shows in there, I mean, and the thousands of people.

And here you've got basically a teenager pulling this off.

I mean, I can't think of any modern day standard person that even comes close to doing that sort of thing.

I mean, it's extraordinary.

He also had the concessions.

Yeah.

And the wrestling program.

Yeah.

He was vertically integrated in his businesses.

Absolutely.

We can make money here.

We can make it here.

And we can also do this.

DALE: Yeah, absolutely.

And yeah, I mean, he's in the wrestling business.

When I read that, I said to myself, well, sure he was.

Of course, he was in the wrestling business.

Why would he not be, right?

He's Si Siman.

Of course, he does that.

And I love the fact that when he sold that franchise, the person that bought it was getting ready to put on his first match.

And my dad said, well, do you have a ring?

And he said, well, I thought I bought that.

He said, no, you bought the franchise.

You didn't buy this.

But if you'd like to buy this, it's for sale.

[laughter] DALE: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A lesson we all learned.

We've only got a couple of minutes left, and I can't even believe I'm not even halfway through where I wanted to be.

Let's talk about the "Ozark Jubilee," and about his role in that.

He was the "Ozark Jubilee."

I mean, essentially.

SCOTT: Yeah.

Look, I think he was certainly, in our opinion, sort of a leading force.

But as Kitty mentioned, there were a lot of other people that helped to make that a reality.

You mentioned Ralph Foster and Les Kennan, and John Mahaffey.

Lester Cox was a key element of that.

[interposing voices] Dallas was obviously a founding father.

KITTY: Disney.

SCOTT: Yes.

And so-- and Lou Black.

And so there were a lot of other people that sort of were a part of this to make it happen.

But I think all of them needed somebody like Si to come in that had the rapport with talent, and looking at, what can we do with this?

And I mean, you look at the artists that were on the "Jubilee," they were the best of the best.

And he put a lot of women artists on the "Jubilee," which was not necessarily-- even today, female artists struggle to be successful in country music.

And they're breaking artists on the "Jubilee" itself.

You know, one thing I would say-- the point I'd like to make about the "Jubilee," I got to meet a historian by the name of John Meacham, a phenomenal writer, and he became friends with an artist that I represent, Tim McGraw.

And they wrote a book together.

And so I just picked his brain about history as much as I could, because he's just a fascinating author.

And he said, nothing's really historical until it's been 30, 40 years down the road.

Then it starts to be history, and it can be talked about.

And so for the "Jubilee," I think looking back, I think the key point about the "Jubilee," historically, is that it was that moment that country music went from being just a rural format, and went to the cities and suburbs.

It's on national television.

You have Madison Avenue supporting it.

You have sponsors.

And all of a sudden, people are seeing country music in a way they've never experienced before.

And now you look at country music today.

We thrive in the cities and the suburbs.

Yes, we're still a rural format.

And there's country boys and girls.

And there always will be.

But we're not limited by that.

Now, some of the biggest markets where we go play, it might be Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, New York City.

It's this is where country music lives.

And so I think the "Jubilee" was the key factor that sort of took it from, call it, just limited, and said, look, it's unlimited now.

The whole country is ours.

What a great tribute, though, to your dad to love the Ozarks so much that he never really left it.

He stayed here.

SCOTT: They drove to Nashville, they said, and looked at a house, and then drove back, and went, nah, I don't think we can do this.

He wanted to hunt, and fish, and raise his kids here, and do all of that.

And with this book, I think, for me, when Ken Burns did his historical analysis of country music.

And it's a wonderful show.

But I think the Mack Truck loophole, or the big gap was the "Ozark Jubilee."

He did not talk about that and its impact, probably because he was very influenced by people in Nashville, and what that was about.

But at one point, Springfield had surpassed Nashville.

And so this whole history here, to me, was the greatest untold story in the history of country music.

And now it's told.

It is told.

So there'll be another best untold story.

But now people can sort of fill this gap, fill this hole, like, how did we get from WSM radio, and this chain that led you there to where we are today?

And there's this huge transcending moment.

If you look at the Country Music Hall of Fame, the two biggest influences or factors are the Grand Ole Opry and the "Ozark Jubilee."

Right, right, right.

Well, it's the missing link.

SCOTT: It's the missing link.

DALE: This is the missing link.

And it's a brilliant piece.

And you've got to have it is all I can tell you.

Thank you both for being here, and for being on the program.

It's great to have you here.

Thank you.

DALE: A great piece of work.

And thank you for joining us.

You stay tuned.

I'll be right back.

[music playing] ANNOUNCER: Ozarks Public Television and Missouri State University are proud to present "OzarksWatch Video Magazine," a locally produced program committed to increasing the understanding of the richness and complexity of Ozarks culture.

Visit our website for more information.

Broadcast television, country music, and Ozarks tourism was forever changed by Si Siman and his bold business partners.

Their accomplishments, in many ways, remain enduring.

And I want to thank my guests, Kitty Ledbetter and Scott Foster Siman, for sharing this unique and incredible story.

And I want to invite you to join us again real soon for another "OzarksWatch Video Magazine."

[music playing]