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Louis Jordan
Born in Brinkley, Arkansas, Louis Jordan started out playing clarinet with his father’s Brinkley Brass Band when he was a child. His early career saw him attending college in Little Rock, playing boom-town bars in El Dorado, and performing for gangsters in Hot Springs. He left segregated Arkansas for better opportunities in northern cities, eventually becoming one of the most influential band leaders and saxophone players in jazz. When Jordan performed for an audience, his motto was, “To be successful today, a band must be capable of creating good music and putting on a show. The public wants to see all-around entertainers.” Only Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder have had more number one Rhythm and Blues hits than this Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. Join Louis Jordan in Send You Back to Arkansas: Our Own Sweet Sounds II, and learn about his early days touring Arkansas and his hit songs like “Choo Choo Ch’ Boogie.”
Jimmy Driftwood
"Jimmy Driftwood" was born James Corbett Morris in 1907 at Timbo, Arkansas. His most famous song, "The Battle of New Orleans," was written while Driftwood was a teaching aid for a history class. The song became a Number One hit for country singer Johnny Horton in 1959. In 1962, Driftwood founded the Rackensack Folklore Society, dedicated to the preservation of old-time music. He later devoted himself to the establishment of the Ozark Folk Center at Mountain View. Driftwood died in 1998 at the age of 91.
Lefty Frizzell
William Orville "Lefty" Frizzell was born March 31, 1928 in Texas. He grew up in various oil towns in Arkansas, Louisiana and East Texas. Lefty got his nickname in a schoolboy fight. He was barely in his teens when he started performing regularly on radio shows and at talent contests. In 1945, Frizzell found regular work at a radio station in New Mexico. His big break came in 1950, when Frizzell's first recordings for Columbia Records - "If You've Got the Money, I've Got the Time" and "I Love You a Thousand Ways" - was a two-sided number one hit. His hits continued into the late 1950s and 1960s. Frizzell died in 1975 and was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1982.
Patsy Montana, the cowboys' sweetheart |
Patsy Montana
Born in Hot Springs in 1914, Ruby Blevins became "Patsy Montana" in the early 1930s, when she became one of the three "Montana Cowgirls" in a troupe headed by Stuart Hamblen and cowboy star Monte Montana. In 1935, she teamed with the Prairie Ramblers to record "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart," her own composition featuring her superb yodeling talent. "Cowboy's Sweetheart" went on to become the first million-selling hit by a female country singer. For 15 years Montana toured with the Prairie Ramblers and appeared as a regular on the WLS Barn Dance radio show. She went on to have several more hit songs, appear in a movie western, and host her own radio show. Before her death in 1996, Montana was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Almeda Riddle
"Almeda Riddle" was born Almeda James in 1898 in Cleburne County, Arkansas. She learned ballads and other traditional folk songs from her mother and her maternal uncle, but it was her father - a singer, teacher, and fiddler - who encouraged her interest in music. Riddle collected songs all her life and once said, "I knew my notes before I knew my letters." Around 1950 Riddle began working steadily on her "book of ballads" and and was discovered by folklorist John Quincy Wolf when a neighbor answered his newspaper ad seeking traditional singers. Riddle spent the rest of her life making records and appearing at colleges and folk festivals throughout the United States. She died in 1986.
See also the entry in the Exhibits section for Send You Back to Arkansas: Our Own Sweet Sounds II.
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