Big Bill Campbell and his musical cowboys featured regularly on "Riders of the Range". And if my memory is correct, their songs were not just diversions from or interludes in the unfolding plot. Each week's songs provided comment on, or context for, the ongoing action, linking song with narrative in a way that partly foreshadowed the Radio Ballads. In that respect, the two Charlies (Chilton and Parker) were not so far apart after all.

As for Shirley Abicaire – she delivered cheerful songs in an engaging folky style, accompanying herself on a zither (not an autoharp).   Her biggest hit was "Let him go, let him tarry".

Let him go, let him tarry, let him sink or let him swim,
He doesn't care for me, and I don't care for him.
He can go and get another, which I hope he will enjoy,
But I'm going to marry a far nicer boy

Her heyday was in the early '50s, over a decade before Tom Paxton wrote "We're Going to the Zoo" and Julie Felix popularised it on this side of the pond.

Wassail!