Aaron Allan: A Legacy in Country Music and Radio (1929–2022)

Aaron Allan, songwriter and disc jockey, was born Allan Aaron Crenwelge on January 28, 1929, in Fredericksburg, Texas. He was the son of Hugo Edmund Henry Crenwelge and Johnnie Leonard (Davis) Crenwelge. As a youth, he developed an interest in music and drew inspiration from two aunts who were members of a musical trio called the Davis Sisters that performed in the Fredericksburg area. Other musical influences came from the country music of the Carter Family and the folk music of Burl Ives. The family moved to New Braunfels, Texas, when Aaron was thirteen, and as a teenager he learned to play guitar and also took up the hobby of astronomy. He graduated from New Braunfels High School in 1947.

After high school he began a career in radio and played folk songs on his own fifteen-minute program on KITE-AM radio in San Antonio in 1948. The executives at KITE suggested that he needed a more appropriate stage name rather than his given name of Allan Crenwelge and came up with the moniker of Aaron Allan. He then went to work for KCNY-AM San Marcos radio at their remote studio in New Braunfels. About 1950 Allan became the first disc jockey for New Braunfels’s first radio station—KGNB-AM. After KGNB, he worked at KWED-AM in Seguin, and then in 1952 he deejayed for KBOP-AM radio in Pleasanton. In 1953 he left KBOP (a young songwriter named Willie Nelson became the disc jockey in his place) and moved to San Antonio.

In San Antonio, Aaron Allan worked as a disc jockey and musical performer for WOAI-AM and WOAI-TV until 1959. His job included his own country music program in which he played guitar and sang as well as interviewed many famous and up-and-coming stars. His musical guests included a young and nervous Johnny Cash in one of his earliest interviews on the radio in 1955. He also interviewed actor Clayton Moore when his movie, The Lone Ranger, had its world premiere in San Antonio’s Majestic Theatre. In the era before the civil rights movement had come into acceptance, Allan risked dismissal when he performed live on the radio “The Ballad of Emmett Till,” a song that fellow tunesmith Red River Dave had written after an African American youth had been murdered in Mississippi.

In 1959 Allan worked at San Antonio’s KISS-FM, which was located in the same building as KMAC radio. That same year country music artist and KMAC disc jockey Charlie Walker recorded Allan’s song “Bow Down Your Head and Cry” for Columbia Records. While Allan continued to work as a deejay for a number of stations, including KCUL in Fort Worth, WLVN in Nashville, KIXX in El Paso, and KBER in San Antonio, he wrote commercial jingles for clients and maintained a prolific output of self-penned songs. The Osborne Brothers recorded his "Hard Times” on the Decca label in 1966. In 1970 Willie Nelson recorded Allan’s “Truth Number One” for RCA Victor. Stoney Edwards covered “Love Still Makes the World Go Round” on Capitol Records in 1976, and Claude Gray recorded “The Bar” (Granny Records) by Allan in 1977. A number of Allan’s songs were recorded by other Texas regional artists.

Aaron Allan was also a recording artist on Sarg Records, owned by Charlie Fitch in Luling, Texas. He recorded two or three albums on the label, and fellow Sarg Records artist Chet McIntyre later recorded Allan's songs.

Allan went to work for KCTI-AM in Gonzales, Texas, in 1989 and hosted his own show featuring area songwriters. He also presented a “Vintage Library” segment on the air in which he played classic hits from the radio station’s collection of more than 70,000 discs. He stayed with KCTI through 2009.

From 1995 through 2001 Allan was hired by Willie Nelson to emcee his annual Fourth of July picnics, where he also performed. The syndicated radio show HumbleTime! in its Texas Songwriters Radio Showcase honored him as a Texas Legend with a “Humbie” Award in 1999, and he was inducted into the Country Music Association of Texas Hall of Fame in 2000.

Allan released a number of albums, including Time Is… (2004) and Retro Specs (2006) recorded at Austin Recording Studio, and Satisfaction (a double-CD anthology, 2013) and Braindrops (2015) on Red Nickel Records. He remained active in the South Central Texas musical community through the 2010s and appeared in special solo performances and songwriters’ swaps at Cheatham Street Warehouse in San Marcos.

Aaron Allan married Norma Jean West on January 8, 1971. They had no children and divorced in 1985. He died of cancer at his home in Luling, Texas, on October 16, 2022.