Biography
Wayne Raney built a long-running presence in country music shaped by many of the genre’s defining mid-century currents, even as he remained identified most strongly with his chart-topping 1949 release “Why Don’t You Haul Off and Love Me.” Beyond his vocal work, he earned widespread notice for his harmonica performances. Alongside longtime performing partner Lonnie Glosson, he moved millions of the instruments through mail-order sales and helped turn the harmonica into a widely available and commonly played instrument across the country. Born on a farm near Wolf Bayou, AR, Raney lived with a congenital foot condition that ruled out strenuous agricultural labor. After hearing a street musician “choke” a harmonica, he decided to master the instrument. By age thirteen he had traveled to Piedras Negras, Mexico, just across the river from Eagle Pass, TX, where he performed on the high-powered border station XEPN. He first encountered Glosson in 1936; two years later the pair began broadcasting together from a Little Rock station. They later moved to Cincinnati’s WCKY and eventually reached a national audience through syndication. The heavy emphasis on mail-order sales that characterized border radio—everything from piano lessons to monkey-gland-implant impotence treatments—may have prompted Raney to consider marketing harmonicas directly to listeners who enjoyed the music he and Glosson broadcast.
Following World War II, Raney spent a short time on Memphis radio before joining the Delmore Brothers; their tongue-in-cheek boogie recordings, accented by cheerful bursts from Raney’s harmonica, became national successes. He launched a solo career in 1948 and placed two singles in the Top 15—“Lost John Boogie” and “Jack and Jill Boogie.” The next year he reached number one on the country charts with “Why Don’t You Haul Off and Love Me,” again featuring Glosson; the track also crossed over to a Top 25 pop position and remained his biggest hit. Raney went on to cut novelty numbers in the style of Little Jimmy Dickens, among them “Pardon My Whiskers” and “I Love My Little Yo Yo.” He spent one year on the Grand Ole Opry roster, toured briefly with Lefty Frizzell in 1953, and appeared on the California Hayride and WWVA Jamboree programs. In the late 1950s he worked as a disc jockey, opened a recording studio, and founded the bluegrass-focused Rimrock label, which issued several of his own albums. The King label assembled many of his earlier singles on the 1958 LP Songs of the Hills—its title somewhat misleading—and the collection enjoyed extended circulation through repeated reissues drawn from the King catalog. Raney issued a handful of singles in the late 1950s and early 1960s and continued selling harmonicas until 1960, when demand subsided. He then returned to Arkansas, recorded the gospel album Don’t Try to Be What You Ain’t, operated a chicken farm for a period, and made occasional appearances on Hee Haw during the 1970s. Declining health led to the removal of his voicebox in the late 1980s; in 1990 he published the short autobiography Life Has Not Been a Bed of Roses. Raney died of cancer in 1993 and was later inducted into the Country Music Disc Jockey Hall of Fame.
Following World War II, Raney spent a short time on Memphis radio before joining the Delmore Brothers; their tongue-in-cheek boogie recordings, accented by cheerful bursts from Raney’s harmonica, became national successes. He launched a solo career in 1948 and placed two singles in the Top 15—“Lost John Boogie” and “Jack and Jill Boogie.” The next year he reached number one on the country charts with “Why Don’t You Haul Off and Love Me,” again featuring Glosson; the track also crossed over to a Top 25 pop position and remained his biggest hit. Raney went on to cut novelty numbers in the style of Little Jimmy Dickens, among them “Pardon My Whiskers” and “I Love My Little Yo Yo.” He spent one year on the Grand Ole Opry roster, toured briefly with Lefty Frizzell in 1953, and appeared on the California Hayride and WWVA Jamboree programs. In the late 1950s he worked as a disc jockey, opened a recording studio, and founded the bluegrass-focused Rimrock label, which issued several of his own albums. The King label assembled many of his earlier singles on the 1958 LP Songs of the Hills—its title somewhat misleading—and the collection enjoyed extended circulation through repeated reissues drawn from the King catalog. Raney issued a handful of singles in the late 1950s and early 1960s and continued selling harmonicas until 1960, when demand subsided. He then returned to Arkansas, recorded the gospel album Don’t Try to Be What You Ain’t, operated a chicken farm for a period, and made occasional appearances on Hee Haw during the 1970s. Declining health led to the removal of his voicebox in the late 1980s; in 1990 he published the short autobiography Life Has Not Been a Bed of Roses. Raney died of cancer in 1993 and was later inducted into the Country Music Disc Jockey Hall of Fame.
Albums
