Seems to me that we need a thread for information about Carson Robison. Here's an article I came across that's worth a look.

New York Daily News:

New York Country Boy Goes to War

FIGHTIN' SIDE. A
BY DAVID HINCKLEY
Tuesday, July 05, 2005

THE COUNTRY music world, the one where every band had at least one fiddle player and the audiences came by the muck on their boots honestly, never embraced Carson Robison.

A lot of that world thought Robison, like his mentor Vernon Dalhart, was New York's idea of country music, stilted pop songs that had no real country heart.

If this bothered Robison, he didn't let on. Born in Kansas in 1890, he moved East in 1924, just as electronic recording was about to make phonograph records a boom industry and radio was taking off as a nationwide vehicle to promote them. With a pleasant voice and a gift for writing and singing simple, hummable songs, Robison recorded hundreds of records, some with Dalhart and more on his own. He was regularly on New York radio in the '20s and '30s, mixing folksy pop songs like "Hallelujah I'm a Bum" with reworked versions of novelties like "Barnacle Bill the Sailor" and actual country songs like "That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine."

All this earned him a modest following among some country fans down South and in the Midwest, though more often fans wondered why anyone would listen to Carson Robison when Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys were out there.

But Robison had one other trick, which he'd picked up from Dalhart. He wrote and sang topical songs. If someone died in a mine cave-in, Robison could write, record and release a song about it within days.

This was a talent that would pay off big after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

WITH THE nation united behind something much bigger than the definition of real country music, Robison was suddenly on the front lines. Just 11 days after Pearl, he was in the studio with a six-piece band to record four songs he thought captured the mood of the nation.

Remember Pearl Harbor
When you sight down the barrel of your gun
Never stop till you've dropped every one ...

"Remember Pearl Harbor" wasn't "Star Dust," but it made its point. So did the catchily titled "We're Gonna Have to Zap the Dirty Little Jap (And Uncle Sam Is Just the One to Do It)"

The Japs and all their hooey
Will be changed into chop suey
And the Rising Sun will set
When we get through with it ...

Other writers would soon jump in with better songs, from the gospel-inspired "Coming In on a Wing and a Prayer" or "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition" to the clever "G.I. Jive" and yearning ballads like "Long Ago and Far Away" or "I'll Walk Alone."

Robison didn't care. His currency, besides speed, was outrage and mockery, and his access to New York studios enabled him to keep coming back with more.

In February 1942, he resurrected Barnacle Bill for a new adventure called "Here I Go to Tokio":

All I need is my old brass knucks,
Said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
I'll go through Japan like a fine-toothed comb
Bounce my fist off-a Hitler's dome
And puncture that windbag that lives in Rome ...

In "Turkey in the Straw 1942," he expressed the same confidence in our Soviet allies:

Adolf Hitler grabbed a tail ...
At the end of the tail was a Russian bear
The old bear growled and started in to shake
He tried to hang on, then he tried to let go
Now they got a new dance called Hitler in the Snow
As the war moved along, Robison got the idea of having Axis leaders Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito exchange worried letters about their impending defeat. "Hirohito's Letter to Hitler" in April 1945 went like this:

There's one other problem that hurts me
It's known as the B-29
And what do they mean by the eight-ball
They say that they have us behind
Please pardon my asking these questions
But I can't help wondering now
If you stayed too long in that Beer Hall
And miscalculated somehow

On the other side was "Hitler's Last Letter to Hirohito," written as a reply:

I just got your letter, Hirohito
It reached me where I'm hiding in
I don't have a Berlin post office
In fact, there just ain't no Berlin
So if I should suffer reversals,
And frankly, I look for the worst
I'll head for my fort in the mountains
If Himmler don't bump me off first
Why don't you review your great navy
'Twill boost your morale, I'm sure
Just borrow a suit from a diver
And you'll have an int'resting tour

By war's end, Carson Robison was 55 years old and bigger than ever.
HE RETURNED to novelty songs, getting his biggest hit in 1948 with a semirecitation called "Life Gets Tee-Jus, Don't It?" And he remained a New York country boy, eventually settling up the Hudson.

He died in 1957. Despite several nominations, so far he hasn't made it into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

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See Richard (Richie) Matteson's Carson Robison / Vernon Dalhart biographies at http://www.bluegrassmessengers.com/home.aspx

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Another reference at Google Books