mandolin

Interesting illustration depicting a young woman in a beach outfit.

"Luke" (the mandolin player) is definitely Luther Baucom, known as "Looney Luke." He performed with a group called the Three Tobacco Tags (sometimes given simply as The Tobacco Tags) on a number of radio stations, including Richmond's WRVA, and on records for Victor's Bluebird label. I'm less certain of the guitar player, but I think it's "Roly-Poly Reid," aka Reid Summey of the Tags. A check of the Library's WRVA collection might confirm this. I'm working from the cover image on "The Tobacco Tags Book of Songs."

You are correct. That is Reid Summey. The Tags ended in 1949. From the picture, I assume that Luke and Reid continued to perform together. My dad, George Wade, was one of the original Three Tobacco Tags, along with Luke and Reid. They took on another member later and changed the name to just the Tobacco Tags. The Tags members changed several times during their run. My dad left in the late 1930's.

This image and the discussion here have been featured in an Indicommons.org post. This really is the best of the Commons!

I can agree with mwade303, that is Reid Summey, I know this because I am his grandson, J. Reid Summey. Reid Summey passed away 11- 19-75, I would like to know the dates that Luke and George passed.

This picture of Reid Summey recalls when he stayed for a while at my grandmothers' house. He had a daughter, Mary Alice (I think) who sang. This was in the 1930's I was pretty excited to see that the Tobacco Tags had an album "Put Your Head in Here" that is hard to find outside the UK. I recall listening to the Tobacco Tags practice.

"Marguerite Sylva (also known as Marguerita Sylva) (10 July 1875 – 21 February 1957) was a Belgian born mezzo-soprano who achieved fame not only on the opera stage but also in operetta and musical theatre." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marguerite_Sylva