Doc’s father taught him most of everything he knew about music; and there was always an old fiddle, a cornet, and other instruments around their home. By age 12, Doc had learned to play the cornet by note, and could play many songs from the family hymnbook. He also played the trumpet, accordion, and guitar and had a natural love for music. His father bought him a guitar for $3.00 at a pawnshop, and brother Cy, who was six years younger than Doc, got a fiddle.

                                Doc’s early country music heroes were Jack and Jerry Foy, of KDKA, Pittsburgh. Around 1927, he listened to them every day on a crystal set he had built himself. Another early hero was Montana Slim (Wilf Carter), whom Doc heard over KQV, Pittsburgh, on the CBS Network. Mr. and Mrs. Charlie Tarr, Doc’s neighbors, liked to play Jimmy Rodgers’ records on their wind-up gramophone, and in the summertime, Doc could hear the music coming through their open windows across the railroad tracks to his home. The neighbors would sometimes invite Doc over to listen to their 78 r.p.m. collection of records.

At age 18, during the depression years, Doc left the mines to follow his dream of becoming a country music entertainer. He returned to Cleveland, Ohio, to live with his maternal grandmother, Suzzana, and landed a couple of seasonal jobs as a maintenance worker. When Suzzana saw that her grandson was serious about music, she gave him with a small Martin guitar, which she had purchased for $45. Doc began rehearsing songs with neighbor, Joe Stoetzer, and they called their duo the “Mississippi Clowns.” Doc played guitar and harmonica, and Joe played the musical spoons and the kazoo with a horn attached.

Through an audition, Doc and Joe started broadcasting on an amateur program, the “Barn Busters,” over WJAY in Cleveland. The emcee of the program was Morey Amsterdam, who would become a famous comedian. The Mississippi Clowns worked beer gardens for $1.00 a night, and appeared on the weekly Barn Busters program. They were soon offered a job with Doc McCaulley
and his “Kansas Clod-Hoppers,” broadcasting daily over WJAY from 8:10 to 8:25 in the morning. Doc McCaulley, a native West Virginian, taught Doc traditional songs, such as “Down Yonder” and “Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down.”

When Joe left the act, Doc and Curley Simms (on mandolin) formed the “Allegheny Ramblers”, along with brother, Cy Williams on fiddle and vocal harmonies. In 1935, the group moved to KQV in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where they renamed the group, the “Cherokee Hillbillies,” borrowing from the fact that Curley was part Cherokee Indian. In 1936, they were offered a contract with Miss Billie Walker and her “Texas Longhorns,” who were also broadcasting over KQV. Big Slim, the Lone Cowboy, was a member of that group. When Miss Billie moved to WLS in New Orleans, Louisiana, Doc formed his own group, the “Border Riders.” The group moved to WJAS in Pittsburgh, on a three-station hook-up with KQV and WHJB in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, for a daily 8:30 a.m. broadcast, sponsored by the ABC Washing Machine Company. This marked the first time the name, “Doc Williams’ Border Riders,” was used over the airwaves.

Doc heard of an opening for a country music act on WWVA in Wheeling, West Virginia, located about 57 miles southwest of Pittsburgh. The group auditioned and were immediately given a 2:45 p.m. daily show over WWVA. Their first broadcast was on May 1, 1937. By October, Doc Williams’ Border Riders was sponsored by Little Crow Milling Company and their Coco Wheats breakfast cereal, which the group had as sponsor for several years.

                                Doc met his future wife, Chickie, at the Reawood Dance Hall in Hickory, Pennsylvania, when Chickie wrote to him requesting a personal appearance there. It was love at first sight for Doc. They married in 1939, made their home in Wheeling, and had three daughters, Barbara, Madeline, and Karen. The girls were known over the radio and on stage as Peeper, Pooch, and Punkin, and made their debut on the Jamboree at ages, 7, 5, and 4. They also traveled with their parents’ show during school vacations.

                                Doc has spent most of his long country music career at WWVA, except for brief periods at WREC, Memphis, Tennessee, and WFMD, Frederick, Maryland in the 1940’s. On the Border Riders’ return to Wheeling after their short tenure at WREC in 1940, Doc stopped off to see Harry Stone at WSM in Nashville. Mr. Stone offered Doc a job at the Grand Ole Opry, but Doc had to take a “rain check,” as his wife, Chickie, was expecting their first child and she wanted to return home. Doc never picked up the rain check, as WWVA increased itspower from 5,000 watts to 50,000 watts in 1941, and Doc and Chickie Williams would continue on as two of Jamboree’s most popular and enduring entertainers.

                                “Doc Williams’ Border Riders” became a household name in the heavily populated Northeastern United States and Canada, due to their broadcasts over power-station WWVA. Marion Martin, “Famous Blind Accordionist”, joined Doc’s show after World War Two, and played harmony to Cy Williams’ “silver voiced” fiddle. Thus the “Doc Williams Sound” was born. The radio listeners loved this traditional country music sound.

                                In 1950, Doc started his pioneering road tours. His was the first WWVA act to tour long-distance out of Wheeling. Their first tour took the group 1000 miles to Aroostook County in northern Maine with no guarantee that even expenses would be met. However, Doc had not anticipated the popularity of his radio shows as heard over the Wheeling Jamboree in those days. The crowds were so huge throughout the 10-day tour that two shows had to be scheduled each night. When Doc returned home, he bought a new car--which he sorely needed. (The trip to Maine was in a borrowed car with its driver.)

                                Later tours took the Doc Williams Show to the Maritime Provinces in Canada, then to Ontario, to Quebec, and to New England. In 1952, the show toured the island of Newfoundland in Canada for three weeks (the people there were avid listeners of the Wheeling Jamboree). This was before the Trans-Canada Highway was complete, so Doc had to load his car into boxcars and travel around the island by train to get to his show dates. After their appearance in St. John’s, a group of about 100 fans gathered to say good-bye at the train station, and many were in tears. Some school children sang Doc’s popular song “Roses are Blooming” by heart, as a farewell gesture.

                                Doc Williams’ career is an illustrious one, and recognized as such by his peers, and at age 86, he continues to work a few concert appearances. Doc has truly earned his “keep” in country music. This is due to his dedication to his music, and to the support of his friends and family. He credits a great deal of the success he has enjoyed over the years to the lady who has been at his side all these years, his wife and singing partner, Chickie Williams, “The Girl with the Lullaby Voice.”

 Chickie was born in the little town of Bethany, West Virginia in 1919, and, as a child, enjoyed listening to her father, Fred, and Uncle Cal singing and playing country music. While growing up, she loved to sing for family gatherings and at school functions. Chickie began her professional career (after her three girls were a little older) singing with her husband’s show, and she would later play back up for the group on the upright bass fiddle. Her first appearance with the Doc Williams Show was in August of 1946 at the Tyler County Fair in West Virginia, and she won the audience over with her sweet, soft voice and traditional country songs.

                                In 1948, Chickie had a “hit” record, based on her original arrangement of the hymn “Beyond the Sunset”, with the reading “Should You Go First and I Remain.” Soon after its release on Wheeling Records, “Beyond the Sunset” was charted #3 in Billboard trade magazine’s Top 100 Country Music Songs. Hank Williams and Red Foley, among many others, immediately came out with their own recordings of Chickie’s arrangement. Chickie Williams is loved by her many fans for the purity of her vocal arrangements and her exquisite taste in choosing songs to record.

Here are some historical facts about Doc and Chickie:

---------Doc and Chickie Williams were inducted into the Jamboree USA Walkway of Stars as two of Jamboree’s most enduring and popular entertainers. In 1987, they celebrated Doc’s 50th Anniversary on the Jamboree with a special videotaped concert at the Capitol Music Hall in Wheeling (home of Jamboree USA). The couple also celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary in 1989 with a special videotaped concert, again at the Capitol Music Hall.

---------Doc was a member of the World’s Original WWVA Jamboree for 61 years. Chickie was a member for 52 years.

---------Doc and Chickie were married on October 9, 1939, in Winchester, Virginia. They have three daughters, four grandsons and two great-grandsons.

---------The city of Wheeling honored Doc Williams by inducting him into the Wheeling Hall of Fame in 1984, in the Music and Fine Arts category. The state of West Virginia, by gubernatorial proclamation, has hailed him as “West Virginia’s Official Country Music Ambassador of Good Will.”

---------At one time, Doc was the number one American artist for Quality Records in Toronto, Canada, and his Quality record of “The Cat Came Back” became a Gold Record in Canada.

---------An astute businessman as well as entertainer, Doc designed and published his own “Simplified By-Ear” Guitar Course in 1942, and sold over 200,000 copies over 50,000 watt radio stations, such as KXEL (Waterloo, Iowa), WCKY (Cincinnati, Ohio), XEG (Mexico), and WWVA. These guitar courses were promoted through Doc’s self-produced 15-minutes radio shows, featuring himself, Chickie, and members of the Border Riders, plus Doc’s own acoustic guitar picking.

---------Doc and Chickie are graduates of the University of Hard Knocks, the world’s only honorary society for persons who are successful without benefit of a college degree. The annual commencement activities are held on the campus of Alderson-Broaddus College in Philippi, West Virginia. Among the graduates of UHK are U.S. Senator Jesse Helms, Sam Walton, and U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater.

---------Doc is a “Kentucky Colonel” and a “Distinguished West Virginian”. He and Chickie were made honorary citizens of the state of Maine, and they both have received various awards, throughout the years, from the states of Vermont and New Hampshire, and several provinces in Canada. Doc is a lifetime member of the Country Music Association in Nashville.

--------WWVU-TV (now WNPB-TV), Public Television for West Virginia, produced two half-hour programs titled “Country Moods” featuring Doc and Chickie Williams. The programs were beamed out to the more than 200 TV stations in 1976-1977 over the PBS Network. WWVU-TV later videotaped four more thirty-minute TV programs. These programs are still sold to fans of Doc and Chickie.

--------Two songs closely associated with Doc are the old English folk songs, “My Old Brown Coat and Me,” and “Mary of the Wild Moor.” Two songs closely associated with Chickie are “Beyond the Sunset” with the reading “Should You Go First and I Remain,” and the old folk song, “In the Baggage Coach Ahead.”