Happy Harold

Remembering Happy Harold - A Miami Country Music Pioneer

Happy Harold Thaxton was one of the few country DJs in the greater Miami area and one of the most popular radio and TV personalities all over southern Florida back in the 1950s and 1960s. Although many people seem to remember him, his career has been largely obscure in the past years. I started documenting Thaxton's career in 2014, which resulted in a detailed article on him on American Music Magazine in December 2016. However, people keep sharing their memories with me and they will be added to this post frequently.

His full name was Harold J. Thaxton, born in 1918 in Georgia. He was married to Anna Thaxton, who was born in 1929 in Hungary as Anna Kreuter. She immigrated to the US in 1949. They had a son, who died in a car crash in the early 1980s. Anna died in 2022.

Thaxton spent his early lifetime in Georgia and served his country During World War II. Upon his discharge in 1946, he moved to South Florida in order to work as a musician and DJ. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Thaxton was a member of Uncle Harve's Ragtime Wranglers, a group that performed on different radio stations and live shows in Miami. In 1948, the group began recording for the Red Bird label out of Fort Wayne, Indiana. How this Florida group ended up on a Indiana label is a mystery to me. The first record was "Rainbow of Roses" b/w "Montana Skies" with Harold (Lazy) Donelson on vocals and Thaxton doing the recitation on the A side. Two more records for the label followed in 1951.
 

Billboard July 18, 1953, review of the Ragtime
Wranglers' first Red Bird release. Although
the disc was originally issued in 1948,
Red Bird re-released its records over the years.

By the early 1950s, Thaxton set out on his own and formed his own band, the Dixie Millers, which also recorded for Harold Doane's local Perfect label around 1953. The band also played many shows and bars in the Miami area, at times with Uncle Harve's Ragtime Wranglers.

In 1954, Thaxton worked with "Uncle Martin" Wales, a radio announcer for more than 20 years back then. That year, Wales started a new television show called "Sunset Ranch" on WITV that featured local Miami singers and musicians. Thaxton, "the one with the painted freckles and blacked-out teeth," led the show's house band, as stated in an article published in "The Miami News" on April 11, 1954. The band also included Harold (Lazy) Donelson on fiddle. Thaxton was one half of the comedy team "Happy and Slappy" on this show. He had developed this act with steel guitarist Billy Kenton while being a member of the Ragtime Wranglers. Artists that appeared on "Sunset Ranch" included Slim Somerville, Mrs. Henry Turner, James E. "Eddie" Thorpe, Johnny Burns, Molly Turner, Elaine Rouse, Rita Winters, and Jimmie Martin. Several of the artists were at one time or another members of Thaxton's band. Also Charlie McCoy and his group as well as Vulco recording artists Billy Eldridge and the Fireballs appeared on the show several times.

Happy Harold on stage, early 1950s

However,  by 1955, Thaxton produced his own barn dance show called "The Old South Jamboree", which was held Saturday evenings from the porch of an old parking lot. It was probably Mun. Auto Sales' lot on NW 36th Street, where he also had parked a Volkswagon bus. This venue possibly also housed the Sunset Ranch and was owned by William "Alabama Bill" Lehman, who would go on the be a US congressman. Thaxton would do a regular afternoon radio show from the back of that bus, too. The Old South Jamboree was on air as early as 1955 and was held at least until 1958. Another witness remembers he attended dances hosted by Happy Harold at the old Dade County Armory at 7th Avenue and NW 28th Street. "He was there every Saturday night for years," as he remembers. The armory building is now gone and was replaced by a seafood restaurant.

A couple of familiar names appeared on Happy Harold's Old South Jamboree, including Mel Tillis, Charlie McCoy, Kent Westberry, and Jimmy Voytek. The house band was made up of Bill Phillips, Bill Johnson, Charlie Justice, and Johnny Paycheck. Other band members at one time or another included the band's roadie called Shorty, Eddie Thorpe, Mollie Turner, Charlie McCoy, Mike Shaw, and Russ Samuel. Samuel, who had a record out on AFS Records in 1960 with his own band, the Vanguards, remembered: "I knew and worked with Happy Harold in the early sixties. I guess the first time I met him was probably when I stopped by his radio show one afternoon to get him to listen to a demo record my band and I had recorded. He not only listened but played it on the air right then on the spot, even though it was only a demo."

It is hard to list all the shows Thaxton did during his career but I try to include as much as I can. He had an evening TV show in the second half of the 1950s, an early morning radio show in the 1960s, and afternoon DJ show, too, and was probably heard on several more slots during the years. Thaxton was so well-known and popular that the pharmacy on Palm Avenue and 41th Street in Hialeah, where Harold would eat breakfast, had a sign on its restaurant counter telling people "Happy Harold Eats Breakfast Here." But his popularity was not limited to the Miami area. His radio/TV shows were broadcast all over southern Florida and he booked many artists on his stage shows across the Sunshine State's south.

In the early 1960s, Harold ran for city council but was defeated in the final election. One reason could have been the fact that everyone knew Happy Harold but no one knew Harold Thaxton, as he was presented during the election campaign. However, he gave it a second try and eventually served as a city councilman in Hialeah, Florida, for several years.

In 1964, Thaxton joined WIII in Miami along with another veteran country DJ, Cracker Jim Brooker. By 1968, Harold was working at WOAH on 71th Street in Miami, a country station previously known as WFEC. Harold recorded a lot of commercial spots at that time for such companies as "Mr. King's Pony Farm" and "A-1 King Size Sandwiches." WOAH shortly thereafter changed its format, aimed at a Latin American audience. 

By the 1970s, Thaxton ceased musical activities and split his time between Georgia and Florida. He passed away in 1985 at the age of 66 years in Miami Lake, Florida.

Recommended reading

• "The Deep Voice from the Deep South: Happy Harold - Remembering a Miami Music Pioneer" (American Music Magazine #143, December 2016)

See also

• The Story of Perfect Records
• The Old South Jamboree
• Billy Eldridge on Vulco

• Mike Shaw on Regal

Sources

• Find a Grave entry

• 45cat/78rpm entry

• Special thanks to Bill Spivey, Jack Blanchard, Russ Samuel, Alma Sexton, Dale Wasson, Jim Cran, Terry, Jack, Marie, and Les for sharing their memories with me and providing so much information.