California Melodies aired from 1940 to 1942 and featured composer David Rose and singer Maxine Gray. The show was a huge orchestral production featuring Rose's music and was broadcast from Hollywood. The music was easy on the ears and quite pleasing and melodic. This is episode 7 which aired on May 30, 1940 over the Don Lee Mutual network from the KHJ radio studios in Hollywood also owned at this time by Don Lee. (Photo) Don Lee made a fortune as the exclusive West Coast distributor of Cadillac automobiles. He expanded into broadcasting by purchasing radio stations KFRC in San Francisco in 1926 and KHJ in Los Angeles in 1927. The stations were connected by telephone circuits and in December 1928 the Don Lee Broadcasting System was formed. Within a month, KMJ in Fresno, California; KWG in Stockton, California; and KFBK in Sacramento, California, had joined the network. By 1938, 28 stations were affiliated with the Don Lee network. Lee died in 1934, leaving his son, Thomas S. Lee, to oversee the network's operation. Affiliating with Don Lee Network enabled Mutual to go coast to coast across the United States. The change, announced on June 27, 1936, added Lee's California affiliated stations to those already connected with Mutual. The expanded Don Lee-Mutual network began operations on December 30, 1936. After that affiliation, Lee continued independent operations, transmitting only certain Mutual programs to stations on the Lee network.
