Singin Sam "Barbasol Man"
When we study the personalities of Old Time Radio, every once in a while we encounter the story of what appears to be a very happy man. One such person was Harry Frankel, better known as Singin' Sam . Harry was born in Ohio in 1888 to a men's clothing merchant who soon took the family to Danville, Kentucky. The family business would take them to Richmond, Indiana when Harry was nine, but by this time the "Old Kentucky Home" had a hold on the lad. For the rest of his life, Harry was a Son of the South. In 1908, Harry joined Al G. Fields' Minstrels and began his vaudeville apprenticeship. In 1930, an offer from the Great States Lawnmower Company allowed Harry to leave the hectic life of vaudeville, and he settled in Cincinnati, to sing over WLW as Singin' Sam, The Lawnmower Man. Exposure on WLW led to an opportunity to move to New York to become Singin' Sam, the Barbasol Man. Life in New York was not happy for the confirmed Son of the South, and he ...