With the encouragement of his piano teacher at the Texas School for the Blind, Fred Lowery got up the nerve to audition for a radio program on July 31, 1929.

A few days later, the station manager phoned the 19-year-old blind orphan to tell him he had the job. For the first time in his life, he would be paid for what he loved most to do – whistle.

In reality Fred Lowery was neither an orphan nor completely sightless. His mother had died soon after his birth in 1909 at Palestine, but his no-ac...