Herald Goodman and His Tennessee Valley Boys
Bands / Ensembles
Herald Goodman and His Tennessee Valley Boys was a country string band. Goodman had been a member of the Grand Ole Opry vocal trio the Vagabonds. Brothers Howdy Forrester (fiddle) and Joe Forrester (bass) took their first professional jobs with the band. Goodman also hired the Opry fiddler Arthur Smith to draw crowds. A September 1938 recording session in Rock Hill, South Carolina, featured Goodman with Billy Byrd on guitar, Virgil Atkins on banjo, as well as both Forresters and Smith. Georgia Slim Rutland joined on October 17, 1938, giving the band three fiddlers. The band couldn't make a living around Nashville, so in December 1938 it moved to radio station KVOO in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Goodman started the Saddle Mountain Roundup barn dance there in April 1939. Singer and guitarist Wilene "Billie" Russell performed with the band as the Little Orphan Girl. The Forresters later left Goodman for KWFT in Wichita Falls, Texas. Howdy and Billie married and later joined Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys, where she became known as Sally Ann Forrester.