October 16 Trivia Question

Additional Bowden Comments
Very impressive that all the respondents knew the answer to this one. Somehow I thought it would be more “inside baseball”. Something special coming for next week. I don’t know if you’ll find it too hard or too easy. But it WILL be different! Completely different!

As far as the multiple choices, Colorado probably does have hot air balloon festivals, but they have nothing to with the bluegrass band as far as I know. It is true that bassist Nick Forster is always introduced as being from Beirut, Lebanon, but I thought the Lebanese pun for fancy neckties was very creative of me! (But I don’t think they speak Lebanese in Lebanon, probably Austrian instead.) The broken heater in the van is a complete work of imagination (mine). I threw in “sunrise on the Colorado plains” for the visual artists in the readership. Yes, as you all knew, Hot Rize is the “miracle” ingredient in Martha White Flour that means you add NOTHING to it for biscuits other than milk and shortening. “No risky pinches of salt or soda” as the announcer used to advise. Ha! Every baker knows salt (too much or too little) has the LEAST effect on your baking as long as you have “some”. Martha White Flour started sponsoring Flatt & Scruggs’ daily radio show on WSM in Nashville in June 1953, the team stuck together until many years after Flatt & Scruggs split up in 1969 — sponsoring Lester Flatt & the Nashville Grass. In fact, Martha White ran the write-in contest for their customers to suggest the new band name. Flatt & Scruggs responded to audience demand and sang the “little theme song of a sponsor we have down in Nashville” as Lester called it, at their Carnegie Hall concert in 1962 (recorded and released on Columbia records and later the Bear Family CD box set).

Now you bake right (a ha!)
With Martha White (yes ma’am)
Goodness gracious good ‘n’ light, Martha White (Martha White)
For the finest biscuits, cakes and pies
Get Martha self-rising flour (the one all-purpose flour)
Martha White self-rising flour has got Hot Rize! (wild applause)

Martha White also sponsored Jim & Jesse & the Virginia Boys for several years, and finally, they sponsored Rhonda Vincent & the Rage for several years more recently. Martha White Flour was awarded a spot in the IBMA Hall of Fame for their role in advancing bluegrass music! Hot Rize recognized a good horse to ride. (Martha White never sponsored Hot Rize the band.)