‘Smokey’ Montgomery; Longtime Banjo Picker for Doughboys Band

Marvin “Smokey” Montgomery, the longtime banjo picker for the seminal western swing band the Light Crust Doughboys, has died. He was 88.

Montgomery died Wednesday in Dallas after a long battle with leukemia.

Montgomery joined the band in 1935, four years after it was founded, and was still performing as recently as last month. The band was nominated for three Grammy awards in recent years.

“I’ll get ladies in their 70s coming up and saying, ‘I listened to you in grade school,’ ” Montgomery said in 1996. “I can’t play quite as fast as I used to, but I can still keep up.”

The Light Crust Doughboys were founded in 1931 by W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel to advertise his Fort Worth-based flour company, Burrus Mill, and its Light Crust Flour. It was a pioneer in the style of western swing.

In their heyday, the Light Crust Doughboys could be heard on 170 radio stations with their signature opening: “The Light Crust Doughboys are on the air!”

Montgomery joined the band in 1935, around the time Bob Wills, western swing’s greatest star, left to start the Texas Playboys.

“We’d pull into the square in some little town that didn’t have but 5,000 people living in it, and there would be 10,000 people in the crowd,” Montgomery once recalled.

The band split up during World War II, but Montgomery got them going again after the war. Their repertoire included old cowboy songs, Spanish classics and what was then popularly called hillbilly music.

The Doughboys quit recording in 1985, and Montgomery appeared only occasionally with the band. But newcomer Art Greenhaw persuaded the members to regroup in 1993.

The group shared a Grammy nomination this year in the category of Southern, country or bluegrass gospel album for “The Great Gospel Hit Parade: From Memphis to Nashville to Texas,” recorded with James Blackwood and the Jordanaires. Similar collaborations brought Grammy nominations in 1998 and 1999.

Montgomery was born Marvin Wetter in Rinard, Iowa. His show business name came from his favorite actor, Robert Montgomery.