News Interview - "Doc" Tommy Scott Walter Conkrite Charles Kuralt 1979

• published: 02 Jul 2015
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American Film, TV and Country Music Pioneer Ramblin' "Doc" Tommy Scott (1917-2013) and his Last Real Old Time Medicine Show appears on CBS Evening News on Thanksgiving, Nov. 22, 1979 introduced by Walter Conkrite and interviews by Charles Kuralt. Features an appearance in Blairsville, Ga. and Andrews, N.C. Among the cast Gaines Blevins "Old Bleb", Scotty Lee, and Clyde Moody. Archives editor: Randall Franks For more information, visit http://www.doctommyscott.com. Scott stepped into the entertainment field as he crawled up on the back of a "Doc" M.F. Chamberlain's Medicine Show wagon in Toccoa, Ga. in 1936 giving him his first opportunity to leave his parent's farm in Eastanollee, Ga. and become a traveling showman. Chamberlain toured the South for roughly two more years retiring from the show he began in 1890 and turning it over to Scott lock, stock and medicine formulas including the laxative Herb-O-Lac, also called Man-O-Ree and Katona and a liniment that Scott sold as Snake Oil. Scott moved to North Carolina in 1938 gaining a position on WPTF radio in Raleigh, N.C. performing as part of the Pete and Minervy dramatic troupe. He then moved to WWVA, Wheeling, WV where he agreed to front Charlie Monroe's new band the Kentucky Partners appearing as Rambling Scotty. Monroe had just split with his brother Bill Monroe, later known as the Father of Bluegrass Music. He married his late wife Mary Frank "Frankie" Thomas in 1940 shortly before he became a member of the Grand Ole Opry alongside contemporaries Roy Acuff, Minnie Pearl and Ernest Tubb performing music on WSM and doing comedy with his hand made wooden sidekick Luke McLuke on the Opry. He led his Grand Ole Opry touring show both in auditoriums and under canvas with Opry stars such as Uncle Dave Macon, Curley Williams, Danny Bailey, and Jimmy Selph at his side. Scott penned his most popular song of the late 1940's "Rosebuds and You" in honor of his longtime stage and film and TV co-star Frankie. The song became a regional hit in the South and west for Ramblin' Tommy Scott in 1950; it was later covered by dozens of artists including Country Music Hall of Famer George Morgan znc late fiddler Benny Martin whose version went to Billboard's top 20 in 1963. Scott also wrote the bluegrass standard "You Are The Rainbow of My Dreams," and contributed to the multi-million selling pop song "Mule Train," to which he sold his rights. "You Took My Sunshine," "You Can't Stop Time," "Gonna Paint the Town Red," "Tennessee," "Rockin' and Rollin'," "Elly Mae," and "Pollution" were among the more than 500 songs he penned and recorded for a numerous record labels. Scott became a fixture in early radio, theaters, circuses, and western and hillbilly films appearing coast to coast. He starred in the 1949 release of "Trail of the Hawk," directed by Oscar nominee Edward Dymytrk, as well as numerous other 1940s and 50s films such as "Mountain Capers," "Hillbilly Harmony," "Southern Hayride" and starred in two TV series - the "Ramblin' Tommy Scott Show" which came to nationwide television in 1948, and Ramblin' Tommy Scott's "Smokey Mountain Jamboree." Among his other early television appearances was one with young talk show host Johnny Carson and he later appeared with almost every major journalist, talk or variety show personality in the U.S. and Canada including Walter Conkrite, Oprah Winfrey, Margaret Trudeau. Charles Kuralt, Jane Pauley, Ralph Emery and David Letterman. He made multiple appearances for Entertainment Tonight, The Tommy Hunter Show and the Today Show.Scott was honored as an International Bluegrass Music Museum Legend in 2011, he is an inductee in the Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame, Country Music Association Walkway of Stars in 1976, and was honored with a major exhibit at the Georgia Music Hall of Fame from 1996-2008. He completed his 700-page autobiography "Snake Oil, Superstars, and Me" with co-authors Shirley Noe Swiesz and Randall Franks in 2007.