By Scott Barretta
 
In 1948 WDIA in Memphis became the first station in the nation to feature all African-American programming, delivered by deejays including a young B.B. King. Prior to this it was only the rare radio station that featured blues over the airwaves.

The most famous early radio outlet for the music was Helena’s KFFA, where legendary harmonica player Sonny Boy Williamson II debuted the King Biscuit Time program in 1941. Broadcast at lunchtime for just fifteen minutes, the live music program was sponsored by Helena’s Interstate Grocer Company, makers of King Biscuit brand flour, and reached far across the river.

Williamson is widely remembered today for his work at KFFA, but he also hosted other live programs across the region, including one that originated from downtown Belzoni beginning likely in the latter half of 1948. In May 2010, the “Tallyho” program, which sometimes also featured legendary blues guitarist/singer Elmore James, was honored with a Mississippi Blues Trail marker, dedicated at the former site of Turner’s Drug Store.

The show took place in the front of the Easy Pay Store, a furniture outlet across the street from Turner’s, and was broadcast daily at 3:30 p.m. over Yazoo City’s WAZF via a direct telephone line. It’s not apparent if the show had a formal name, but it was well known by locals for its sponsor, the tonic medicine Tallyho.

An elixir with a healthy dose of alcohol, Tallyho was a joint venture of partners O.J. Turner, Jr. of Turner’s and Easy Pay owner George Gordon. The tonic––whose recipe is long forgotten––was mixed and bottled in the back of the drugstore.

In the course of research for the Blues Trail marker, a great deal of new information about Tallyho has emerged, though sadly no one has yet been able to locate an original bottle with a label. A reward of $100 has been posted for a bottle or anyone willing to share an image of the label.

One of the most interesting discoveries was the relationship between Tallyho and Hadacol, the most popular tonic on the market at the time. The man behind Hadacol was Louisiana’s colorful Senator Dudley J. LeBlanc, a marketing wizard who often used live music to draw in customers. In exchange for two tabs from the boxes containing Hadacol bottles, customers could gain entrance to touring programs that featured celebrities including Hank Williams, Judy Garland and Groucho Marx. According to O.J. Turner III, who mixed Tallyho in the back of his father’s store, and Hollywood producer Larry Gordon, the son of Easy Pay owner George Gordon, the elder Gordon met LeBlanc while both were patients at the Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans. He soon licensed a formula from LeBlanc, and it’s possible that the name Tallyho was derived from a plantation named Tally-Ho in Bayou Goula, Louisiana.

Williamson had previously crafted a jingle for King Biscuit flour, and in the course of research for the marker, the words to the jingle he likely penned for Tallyho were uncovered via the recollections of Mother Teretha Lee of Midnight. One of the highlights of the Blues Trail ceremony was when Lee sang the jingle for the large crowd that had gathered:

Tallyho, it sure is good, you can buy it anywhere in the neighborhood.
Go on the corner of Hayden Street, Mr. Turner Drug Store.
You ask to buy one, buy two. It’s good for you, it’s good for the children too.
Tallyho, it sure is good.
Take it in the morning, take it at night, Tallyho’ll make you feel just right.

For blues fans the first line has a striking similarity to another musical advertisement for a tonic. When B.B. King––then just Riley––first applied to WDIA in late 1948 his first test was to create a jingle for Pep-ti-kon, a locally produced tonic. He immediately came up with, “Pep-ti-kon, Pep-ti-kon, sure is good, you can get it anywhere in your neighborhood,” and soon gained his first fame as the “Pep-ti-kon boy.”

Interestingly, King had approached WDIA after a club owner in West Memphis told him she would give him a gig if he was able to find his own radio show. Her café often featured Sonny Boy Williamson II, who at the time hosted a show on West Memphis station KWEN sponsored by Hadacol.

The chronology of all these shows is a bit murky, but Williamson’s West Memphis show appears to have come on the air after his stint in Belzoni. Is it possible that B.B. had heard Sonny Boy’s jingle for Tallyho over the Yazoo City station, or did Sonny Boy revamp his Tallyho jingle for Hadacol? Further complicating the story is the fact that owners of WDIA and Pep-ti-kon, Bert Ferguson and John R. Pepper, had earlier been co-owners of Greenville’s WJPR, which may have also broadcast the Tallyho program via a remote feed from Belzoni.

One reason that these stories are not better known is because the tonic medicine business came to an abrupt stop in the early 50s. In 1951 LeBlanc sold his operations for a hefty sum, but the purchasers soon found out that he had hidden millions in unpaid bills and tax debt.

Adding to his troubles was a ruling that year by the Federal Trade Commission that Hadacol’s advertising claims were “false, misleading and deceptive” in suggesting that it was “an effective treatment and cure for scores of ailments and diseases.” In doing so, the FTC effectively eliminated the rationale that allowed teetotalers and residents of “dry” counties to enjoy alcohol without guilt in the form of “cure all” elixirs.

This story draws largely on research gathered by Jim O’Neal, the research director of the Blues Trail, members of the Turner family, and local residents including Helen Sims.