Cal Stewart, Your Uncle Josh: America's King of Rural Comedy

Randy McNutt

Sep 2011 · iUniverse

About this ebook

An American recording icon of the early 1900s, Cal Stewart created the popular Uncle Josh Weathersby character; Joshs town, Punkin Center; and the many colorful characters who inhabited his fictional town from Way Down East. Stewarts recordings were among the bestselling of the period, and through his satire he showed life in a fast-changing world. The actor, singer, songwriter, and author performed across the nation with his Cal Stewart & Co. group, consisting of his wife, the Indiana violinist Hazel Gypsy Rossini Waugh, and her younger brother and sister. For millions, Cal Stewart was the king of rural comedy.

About the author

Randy McNutt is a cultural historian and the author of twenty nonfiction books on regional history, the Civil War, travel, politics, vintage music, and fading Americana. Cal Stewart, reissued here, was his first book. A record collector, he lives in Hamilton, Ohio, with his wife, the writer Cheryl Bauer.

He first learned of Uncle Josh when an elderly uncle played “Uncle Josh and the Honey Bees.”