In 1928, Hall recorded a few country music tunes, and by 1929 he had united with Fields in a band that was playing big-band renditions of folk songs.
Early in 1930, a refrigerator salesman and broadcaster named Rex Cole asked to sponsor the group for a show on New York radio station WEAF.
He was looking for something along the lines of the Beverly Hillbillies, another group who were put together in a big city (in their case, Los Angeles) but made to sound as if they were plucked from the American South.
The Mountaineers' show differed from some other popular country radio broadcasts in being primarily parodic in its intent; it made exaggerated references to stereotypes about rural America for comic effect.
Around 1933, Fields and Hall had departed, and Cole had a new cast of Mountaineers which included Tex Fletcher; this group made no recordings, and their last broadcasts came in mid-1934.