Woody Guthrie hokum:

“In mid-January (1938,) a representative of the Consolidated Drug Company named Hal Horton* called KFVD and asked Woody if he and Lefty Lou would like to sing on station XELO in Tijuana, Mexico, for seventy-five dollars per week. More important than money to Woody, though, was that Horton wanted him to assemble a troupe of hillbilly performers to broadcast for three hours each night. It meant woody could hire the whole family, and still have room for more….

...The “X” stations also were known, though, for a steady stream of awful commercials hawking products of a less than savory sort, especially quack cures too raunchy to make it past American censors and Better Business Bureaus. In fact, it was Dr. J.R. Brinkly, inventor of a goat-gland cure for sexual impotence, who started the “X” stations when he bought XERA in Villa Acuña, Mexico, in order to advertise his product after his Kansas broadcasting license was revoked in 1930. The Consolidated Drug Company, which Hal Horton represented, was a cut above the worst of the border advertising … but not by much more.** Woody, Lefty Lou, and the gang were hired to perform between loud, pushy, obnoxious ads for Peruna Tonic, which was Consolidated's cure-all, plus Colorback [sic] hair dye*** and other questionable items.”
[Klein, Joe, Woody Guthrie: A Life, (New York: Knopf, 1980, pp.102-103)]


*Could this be “Hall” Horton (Cantor Harry Horwitz) the co-writer, with Eddy Arnold & Tommy Dilbeck, of I'll Hold You In My Arms?

Thomas Christopher Dilbeck (1905-1983) – Eventually Dilbeck Realty, Los Angeles. Yet another “Hollywood” story but, nevermind.

** By 1938... maybe. Long before Woody's day, Peruna Tonic was invented by Doctor Samuel B. Hartman and then exposed as hokum by none other than journalist Samuel Hopkins Adams. The fallout was the U.S. Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.

***Kolor-Back Hair Dye. Southern Methodist U's school mascot (& a fight song) has been named Peruna since way back in the day.