From Hillbilly-Music.com: [Draft document]
The legal profession lost a lawyer in Tucson, Arizona when Woody Mercer became a cowboy singing star and appearing on the WLS National Barn Dance in Chicago. Woody was born and raised in Cochise County in Arizona. He remembered that the first taste of music he heard was the crying fiddle, the guitar playing and singing of Oscar and Christi Anderson, some family friends. After hearing them, he decided he was going to learn how to pick and sing, too and the first instrument he tried was the banjo.
Ms. Prussman quotes Woody as stating "There's no music so wonderful and soul-pleasing as country music." That music was a part of his life from helping him pay for his law education and degree, and then coming to his rescue again when income was slow while starting off as a new lawyer. And he had no better authority to start singing than Levi Udall, Chief Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court who told Woody that he should be singing for a living after hearing him sing. Woody mentions he had heard that a lot from many friends. Later on, Glenn Snyder, the station manager at WLS offered him a contract. Needless to say, he didn't need a judge to tell him to accept that.
Credits & Sources
- Cowboy Songs No. 41 (June 1955); Dorothy Prussman, President Woody Mercer Fan Club; American Folk Publications; Inc.; Derby, CT.