Lee Babcock and His Black Hills Cowboys ･ﾟ✧

B&S B-DISC-S 7503 Beautiful Hills Of Dakota / Deadwood Dick (1949)

This record is as delightfully South Dakotan as a person can get. B&S B-Disc-S Recording Company, helmed by Benjamin and Helmi Stoller, operated out of Deadwood, SD in the 1940s and 1950s. They recorded local talent, amongst them Babcock siblings Evelyn and Lee.

Evelyn Babcock Coffey (1920-2007) and her brother Lee Babcock hailed from the area of Faith, South Dakota, and performed on local radio in the 1940s. They cut multiple discs; this one is themed after the Black Hills. Evelyn Coffey wrote poetry and music.

Beautiful Hills of Dakota is, shockingly enough, a song about how the Black Hills are the most beautiful place a person can live. They drop the obligatory Mount Rushmore reference, and sap up the Hills with mountains and spruce and pines and wildlife and vacation and even "mild" winters (I question the last descriptor, though compared to East River, fair enough). All in all, this song comes off as the strongest Black Hills pride and propaganda you can get - love it.

It's interesting to note that the Stollers' names are on sheetmusic for this piece and on the B&S discs where composition credits and rights reside. Although composition rights were tradeable for favors, which means I'd've first guessed Coffey was the composer, the Deadwood Historic Preservation Society notes the Stollers were musicians and Benjamin occasionally composed.

Side B, Deadwood Dick, is just as embedded in local sensibilities. Famous outlaws who frequented South Dakota are name-dropped throughout the verses: Buffalo Bill, Bill Hickok, and Calamity Jane, the latter two of whom are buried in Deadwood. Then, of course, there's the titular Deadwood Dick.

Deadwood Dick, in one sense, is a fictional character from dime novels written between 1877 and 1897 by Edward Lytton Wheeler. In another sense, multiple South Dakotans adopted the moniker. Frontiersman Richard Clarke (1845-1930), who helped build up the new city of Deadwood, has been regarded as the original inspiration for Deadwood Dick. Quick-shooter Richard Bullock took on the name, as did stagecoach driver Richard Cole and gambler Frank Palmer. However, I'm most familiar with cowboy Nat Love (1854-1921) out of the "Deadwood Dicks." An ex-slave who was born in Tennessee, Nat Love became a Western cowboy who fought cattle rustlers and wrote an autobiography called Life and Adventures of Nat Love, Better Known in the Cattle Country as Deadwood Dick. He claimed he received the name after winning multiple rodeo events on Independence Day, 1876 in South Dakota - though, thus far, there's a lack of evidence this happened.

The last delightful South Dakota touch to my copy is a signature by Lee Babcock.


Sources

  • Deadwood Historic Preservation Office notes on B&S B-Disc-S and the Babcocks In May of 2014, Deadwood resident Roger Huffman donated twelve audio records to the City of Deadwood. The records were produced by Benjamin and Helmi Stoller the proprietors of the B-Disc-S Recording Company. The B-Disc-S Recording Company operated during the 1950s and recorded local and regional singers such as Lee Babcock & the Swing Time Play Boys, Jess Ervin & Fred Gibbs, Chuck Smith and his Western Ramblers, Tess Tessin & Blackhills Rhythm Rangers, Coyote Tootsie & Cowboy Ben, and Agnes Hansen (Finnish Nightingale).
  • Beautiful Hills of Dakota sheet music (1950) Sheet music of "Beautiful Hills of South Dakota" published by B-Disc-S Publishing Co. of Deadwood and the Black Hills Song Writing Team of Benjamin and Helmi Stoller. The cover features photographs of Mount Rushmore, the Stollers and the Passion Play stadium in Spearfish. There are several other photos of the Black Hills throughout the book.
  • Benjamin and Helmi Stoller Benjamin and Helmi Stoller sit on a piano bench. They married in 1922, moved to Spearfish in 1935, then moved to Deadwood in 1949 where they started the recording studio, B-Disc-S. Benjamin Stoller wrote a few songs. Helmi played the piano and piano accordion in the Senior Citizen Band in Spearfish for four years until her death in 1975.
  • B&S B-Disc-S page on discogs.
  • Evelyn Babcock Coffey obituary Evelyn Babcock Coffey was born January 26, 1920 near Faith, South Dakota, the daughter of William and Alma (Dailey) Babcock. She graduated from Faith High School in 1939 and attended Black Hills State University. She taught school for 10 years in Meade and Lawrence Counties, teaching 1st and 2nd grades in Faith and Whitewood. Evelyn married Paul Coffey on Dec 26, 1947. In 1953 they moved to Rapid City where she did display for First Federal and Gambles for many years. . . . She and her brother Lee Babcock made records for a Deadwood recording company and sang over the Deadwood radio station in 1940s. Some of Evelyn's hobbies were writing poetry, songs and programs for birthdays and anniversaries. Evelyn Babcock Coffey passed away on November 18, 2007 at Bella Vista Nursing home in Rapid City, SD. She is survived by one brother, Lee Babcock (wife Vivian) of Phoenix, Arizona . . . .
  • Evelyn Babcock Coffey on FindAGrave
  • Deadwood Dick on Wikipedia I will be double-checking Wikipedia's information and finding better sources for the information I pulled from Wikipedia. Stay tuned.
  • Some Local Loser Blog I accessed this blog June 22, 2023. Unfortunately, it has since been removed and it was not saved under Wayback. Thankfully, I did save part of the conversation that happened in the comments on this blog:


    I contacted the Deadwood Historical Society and sent them on the label scan and they were nice enough to get back to me with this bit of info

    "The record was released in 1949. The recording studio was located in Deadwood, SD, and was owned by Ben Stoller and his wife Helmi. They wrote and recorded a number of songs and recorded songs by other local artists as well"


    Derik,

    Thanks for posting up all the interesting records to look up.

    The Deadwood Historical Society is also sending me on some articles on the Stollers - if you send me on an E mail I will scan and send them to you immediately. If you like I can do a bit of a write up to post or not post, or if you like you can write it up yourself to post or not post. You post em' I just look em up. I certainly don't want to step on toes and by all means you and your wonderful blog should get the credit if credit is due.

    Bruce


    Thank you very much for posting these songs and albums on your blog. Lee Babcock (passed away 11/2011)was my uncle, and Evelyn Bacock Coffee(passed away 11/2007) was my aunt. David, their youngest brother and the baby of the family, was my Dad.

    Thanks again for sharing these memories for another generation to share.

    Sincerely,

    Jonathon Babcock