'Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas' Myths

RECEIVED Mon., Dec. 1, 2003

Was interesting to read about Bob Wills (Turkey, Texas, native) and his Playboys being credited with doing the song "I'm a Ding Dong Daddy From Dumas," ["The Top Texas 40," Nov. 28]. I can certainly remember hearing it at the Avalon Ballroom in Amarillo every Saturday night in the late 1950s when I would go there with my dad, the late Ken Duke, owner of the radio station KDDD in Dumas. (That was when kids were allowed to go – with their parents – where drinking and dancing took place.)
   Dad always told me that the song was written about Dumas, Ark., as he heard it every morning on his morning show – The Coffee Hour – as well as saw the original sheet music signed by the writer, Phil Baxter, on the wall in his office at the radio station all the time.
   The City of Dumas claims the song was written because of Phil being there and that is another joke of those "Dumas Demons" – and there are a lot from those smokin'/drinkin'/dancin' and wife-swapping Baptists up there! Nothing could be further from the truth – once again, my ol' friends.
   Dad said that his addiction to Dixieland Jazz was where he was aware of the song from hearing the version originally recorded by Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong and his Sebastian New Cotton Club Orchestra in L.A., July 21, 1930. Being in the radio business from the time he was 16 in Lubbock, Ken heard a lot of Victor records. All those myths of the origin sure make me smile as I used to hear that song over and over when dad and all of us in the caravan during mid-May would go from Sunray to Gruver to Dalhart to all the other small towns with the great big bullhorns on top of that old 1955 station wagon selling [pimping] tickets to the Lion's Club barbecue that was thrown each year for "Doggie Days." I had to twist the machine's hand constantly for the music to play. Got so tired of that song I could puke, but I guess legends and myths are hard to die, huh?
"The Duke of Dumas" – David "Spanky" Duke
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