Merle "Red" Scobee

Merle Nicholas Scobee was an adept five-string banjo player, born in Adair, Missouri on June 6, 1907. He led a hillbilly band called Red And His Arkansas Rangers, which included his brother Ray (“Zip”) and Art Brier (“Shorty”). The three played together for years on the Warner Brothers and Fox Circuits before landing work in the 1930s on WHO Radio in Des Moines, Iowa. In the late 30s, the group added two more members, the Rash Twins (Sally and Buck), and according to a Souvenir Program for the WHO Barn Dance Frolic, the group would “bewilder” folks as they switched from banjos to violins to guitars. He is credited as an on-screen musician in two Tex Ritter films, Starlight Over Texas (1938) and Down the Wyoming Trail (1939). Scobee continued his career with WHO as it added television broadcasts in the 1950s. He was a part of The Buckaroos music group, led by fiddler Slim Hayes. In the 1960s, he authored a 2-volume banjo instruction book called Picture Chords for Bluegrass Banjo, published by Pacific Coast Music. He also ran a music store in Des Moines called “Red Scobee’s, the Banjo Center of Iowa” (Billboard, 01 July 1967, p. WS-50). Red Scobee died in Putnam, Missouri on September 26, 1973.