Bud Billings & Carson Robison - By the Old Oak Tree (1930)

A Vocal Duo Made Up of Frank Luther & Carson Robison. Due to Limited Space, I have put Carson Robison's Biography along with Vernon Dalhart's on the video for "Oh Dem Golden Slippers". FRANK LUTHER: Frank Luther was born as Francis Luther Crow on August 4, 1899 on a farm near Larkin, Kansas, forty miles from the Colorado line. He began to study piano at age 6, and began vocal instruction at 13. Three years later, he toured the Midwest as tenor with a quartet called The Meistersingers. He began studying at the University of Kansas, but attended a revival meeting conducted by Jesse Kellems and was so deeply impressed that he accepted an offer from the evangelist to become his musical director. Returning to Kansas, he married vocalist/musician Zora Layman on May 8, 1920, and the young couple eventually worked their way to New York City, where he could devote his creative energies to the world of music. In 1926 he was invited to join the DeReszke Singers, as tenor/accompanist. They declared his surname, Crow, to be un-musical, and so he dropped it and became Frank Luther from that day on. Luther joined a popular quartet, The Revelers, as tenor in 1927. They toured the British Isles. On his way back to the States, he contracted a severe cold and a long-lasting sinus infection and infected throat that robbed him of his ability to sing for nearly a year. In 1928, with his singing gradually returning to top form, Frank met and became acquainted with Carson J. Robison, who had teamed with tenor Vernon Dalhart in the mid 1920s. Robison and Dalhart were severing their recording partnership, and it was suggested that Luther listen to some Dalhart records and seek to approximate his style. From 1928 to 1932, Frank Luther recorded country music with Carson Robison. Their recordings, made for several record companies and issued on a variety of labels, were extremely popular. While Frank Luther's role in Country & Western music is significant, he regularly performed many other types of music. From 1928 until the outbreak of World War II, he recorded hundreds of vocal choruses with popular dance bands of the day. The High Hatters, Victor Arden and Phil Ohman, Leo Reisman, Joe Venuti, and many other recording bands featured Frank's tenor vocals. In 1934, Jack Kapp signed Frank to record a series of Hillbilly Records for his newly formed Decca Label, but did two 78rpm albums of songs for children, which featured him in brief interpretations of traditional children's tunes, tied together with gentle and pleasant narration. While his recordings for children remained his chief claim to fame, Luther made a number of successful 78rpm album sets for Decca in the late 1930s and early 1940s. In 1946, Luther, by now a Decca Records executive, in charge of children's, educational, and religious recordings, returned to the studios to re-record many of his pre-war albums for children and to make many others, including "The Birthday Party Record" released on Decca in the fall of 1950. By the early 1950s, his tenor voice began to mellow, and began singing baritone. He continued to record regularly for Decca through 1954. Luther's last two albums were made by Pickwick International, and were nostalgic re-visits to two familiar themes, "A Treasury of Mother Goose Songs" and "American Folk Songs". He did not retire, but continued to write scores and work on recording projects well into the 1970s. Frank Luther died in New York City, November 16, 1980, at age 81.