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Don Redfield was a native of Boston, Massachusetts.
Don travelled a bit in his career, going from Massachusetts to
Alaska at one time. He started it early on, too, learning
to play the violin when he was just eight years old and taking
classical violin lessons for four years.
Later on,
when the family moved to Montana, he traded two rabbits and six
phonograph records for his first guitar and learned to play that, too.
When he was in high school, seemingly in Montana, he organized a
western band that he admitted wasn't too hot; this band was called the
"Tune Timers".
When he was in Rocky
Mountain College in Billings, Montana he was part of a vocal trio that
was known as the "Three Bears". The trio went over well and were in demand
for personal appearances in the Billings area.
They wrote that in the winter of 1952, he carried two half-hour broadcasts
from the Amvets in Billings and had two fifteen-minute shows a week over
radio station KOOK.
He
left that group when he joined radio station KMON as a staff announcer
in Great Falls, Montana. It was then he became part of a band called
the Sagedusters that played western music. He also kept busy teaching
guitar.
Later on, from 1953 until September 1954, he was at KIYI in Shelby, Montana.
At that time he was inducted into the armed forces.
But that didn't stop his career in music. He started up another Sagedusters
band at Fort Greely, Alaska. And while he was at it, was doing five
half-hour radio shows on AFRS. Even television got his time for he
had several shows over KFAR out of Fairbanks, Alaska.
While in the service, he put out his first record on the Sogi label, a tune called
Montana Waltz that was backed with I Can't Go Back. He was due to
get out of the service around 1956 and get back to touring and recording.
Credits & Sources
- Cowboy Songs No.28; September 1953, American Folk Publications, Inc.;
Derby, CT.
- Country & Western Jamboree Magazine; May 1956; Maher Publications, Inc.;
2001 Calumet, Chicago 16, Ill.
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