It’s an understatement to simply say Porter Wagoner was famous. The sparkly Nudie-suit clad celebrity had a TV show that ran for more than two decades, was a mainstay at the Grand Ole Opry and introduced many of us to Dolly Parton. Those facts are amazing – but what I think makes Porter’s story even more meaningful for us is that he was an Ozarker. Not a dotted-line Ozarker who we try to figure out a connection with. He was from here, and it’s because of the region he had his big break. As one local put it, “everybody in the neighborhood knew Porter.”
Porter was born in 1927 into hard times in rural Howell County. From a young age, he was enamored with music. Porter set traps to earn money for a guitar, and his sister helped show him how to play.
Struggle and loss eventually sent the family from the farm to West Plains. Porter skipped high school and went to work, but music was always in the background. Michael Cochran, originally of West Plains, recalls a young Porter at a house concert around 1950 and seeing his guitar case stuffed full of sheet music.
“I don't know how I even got the guitar case closed,” Cochran said. “This is just an indicator of how serious he was about learning songs.”
Porter married once, then twice and became a father. By 1950, he was a meat cutter in a West Plains market. It was there he went on the radio, singing during the store’s sponsored spots on the local KWPM radio station.
This wasn’t unusual. Radio needed programming, and it transformed homegrown talent into celebrities. KWTO in Springfield was the Ozark Empire’s leader in this era. Tom Peters, retired dean of Missouri State University Libraries and an expert on Ozarks music shares more.
The talent was already there, but then radio changed everything,” Peters said. “An argument could be made that it was radio that led to country music as a viable economic endeavor. And so it was just like this talent coming out of the hills."
KWTO hired Porter in 1951. From there, it was a hop, skip and a song to the Ozark Jubilee, a TV show that was broadcast from Springfield’s long-gone Jewell Theater.
In the 1950s, the Jubilee made Springfield one of the country’s leading producers of national TV – and Porter was front and center. It was a chance to learn the new medium and from stars like Red Foley, a Country celebrity recruited to host the Jubilee.
In 1954, Porter found his first hit song in “Company’s Comin’.” The catchy tune links to another notable Ozarks name: Johnny Mullins, Springfield’s Grammy-nominated school janitor and songwriter. The next year, Porter topped the country charts with “A Satisfied Mind.”
There are a lot of facts to cover in the following years. In 1957, he left for Nashville and took the stage at the Grand Ole Opry. In 1960, “The Porter Wagoner Show” began. That’s where Dolly Parton came into the picture. She and Porter became a beloved musical duo; unfortunately there was a messy split years later, but they eventually reconciled. And Dolly wrote the song “I Will Always Love You” in his honor.
While we’re talking about notable Ozarks ties, I should also mention Don Warden of Mountain Grove. Warden was a longtime collaborator of Porter’s and ultimately managed Dolly’s career for years. “Speck” Rhodes, the show’s comedian, also hailed from West Plains.
But back to Porter. Even after his TV show ended in 1981, the musician remained a mainstay at the Grand Ole Opry. Sid Pierce had a unique look at Porter’s famous side. The Gainesville native worked for Roy Clark and regularly visited the opry.
“When you're Porter Wagner, you're there every night the doors are open,” Pierce said. “He could bow out if he had a conflict, but if he was in town, he was going to be on that stage.”
Porter died in 2007. His presence is still felt in West Plains where the longest street in town is Porter Wagoner Boulevard. He – accompanied by Dolly – visited for its dedication in 1971. Porter didn’t move home, but he never forgot it.
In 1979, Michael Cochran and his brother, the late Russ Cochran, interviewed Porter for the West Plains Gazette, a magazine they published that documented local culture and history.
“I think number one, he just wanted to make it as a musician,” Cochran said. “I mean, he's a farm boy with a sixth-grade education, you know, and he dedicated himself to music. And the thing about the sheet music in the guitar case, it just shows he wasn't kidding. He was all in."
“I don't know was thinking about the mega fame that he achieved, but he wanted to be recognized.”
Off of the last note: The moment that grabbed me most from the Cochrans’ interview was a story Porter told about his first week at KWTO in Springfield.
He’d asked friends to send him mail at the radio station and grew increasingly discouraged as he found the mailbox empty. Then he made a discovery: There were boxes of letters. So many that they’d moved them to the basement. As he put it in the article:
“Well, I just sat down and cried. I never had anything hit me like that did…"
“That was one of the biggest thrills of my career, getting all that mail. That was the first time I ever thought I had anything to offer, the first time I knew for sure people liked me and my music. That’s when I knew I was going to make it.”
Ozark Jubilee clips included in the audio version of the story are courtesy of Missouri State University Libraries. To watch more of the Ozark Jubilee, click here.
