Lennie Aleshire

Leonard "Lennie" Aleshire teamed up with Floyd Rutledge and joined the Weaver Brothers and Elviry vaudeville act in the 1920s as "Flash and Whistler". The duo were better known as "Lennie and Goo Goo" and were admired by fans around the world. Lennie and Goo Goo were personal friends with Louis Marshall "Grandpa" Jones. They not only worked with Grandpa Jones on a radio show in West Virginia for awhile, they did road shows and personal appearances with him. Lennie and Goo Goo joined the "Korn's-A-Krackin" radio show on KWTO in Springfield, MO and made regular appearances on the ABC-TV television show, "Ozark Jubilee" (1955-1960) which was hosted by Red Foley. Ozark Jubilee which later became "Country Music Jubilee" then "Jubilee USA" had a weekly viewing audience of 9 million people. Lennie and Goo Goo were pioneers that set the stage for what's known as "hillbilly music". They were famous for their comedy and musical talent by playing cow bells and their crude homemade instruments. Today, those instruments are on display in the Ralph Foster Museum at the College of the Ozarks in Hollister, Missouri. Due to the musical uniqueness of the cow bells, Grandpa Jones started using them in his act after he joined the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, TN. Several Nashville country music artists that worked with Lennie and Goo Goo during the Ozarks Jubilee era, credit Lennie as a great showman, dancer, musician, that taught them about stage presence. When he was twelve years old, he lost three fingers on one hand in a sawmill accident. Despite his digitary loss, he was able to master the fiddle and any other instrument he could get his hands on.