Where There's a Will There's a Fred

Billie Burke, Fred Stone, and Will Rogers

The American stage humorist Will Rogers, who never met a man he didn't like, was a good buddy of Fred Stone, the superstar originator of the Scarecrow role in the 1903 Broadway Wizard of Oz. In fact, they were so close that Will named one of his sons Fred Stone Rogers. So it's no surprise that an early episode of Will Rogers's radio show featured Fred as a guest. You can listen to that broadcast on Emerald City Radio. During the program Fred and Will sing "Travel, Travel, Little Star," a tune Fred recorded years earlier with his stage partner David Montgomery, who originated the Tin Woodman role in Broadway's Wizard. You can hear the Montgomery and Stone recording of "Travel, Travel, Little Star" on Emerald City Radio, too, and it's included on the Hungry Tiger Press CD Vintage Songs from the 1903 Broadway Wizard of Oz (see the sidebar of this blog to click on the link to order your copy).

The photo above is from 1935 during the production of the movie Doubting Thomas, starring Will Rogers and Billie Burke, who later played Glinda in the 1939 M-G-M film version of The Wizard of Oz. Fred Stone visited Will Rogers on the Doubting Thomas movie set and they both dropped in to see Billie Burke and submit to the obvious photo op.

The Fred Stone episode of the Will Rogers show plays about twice a day for the next week or so on Emerald City Radio. You can also hear the Montgomery and Stone recording of "Travel, Travel, Little Star" as part of our regular playlist.

It's easy to listen to Emerald City Radio on Live365. Just click here to go to Live365 and click "Sign Up" in the upper right hand corner and join for free for access to thousands of internet radio stations. Then "Log In" and make a search for Emerald City Radio. When the Emerald City Radio logo shows up in your search results, just click on the logo to start listening right away! Listening is free.

So give Emerald City Radio a listen. Our current playlist is over 13 hours long with such a wide variety of Oz songs and music that you're sure to hear some old friends and some new delights.

Emerald City Radio - all great, all powerful - all the time!