Ernest Hare

The partnership of this baritone singer and a tenor named Billy Jones was exceedingly popular on radio in the '20s and '30s. The duo of Ernest Hare and Billy Jones can also be said to be one of the first performing acts to have "hit records," the quotation marks used to suggest the novelty of the notion in the earliest days of the recording industry, not to demean the business the pair did at the sales counter. That was brisk enough to nab them a perpetual spot on lists of the 200 or so biggest hit records of all time. Thus, the duo's name of the Happiness Boys could have appl...