Johnny Horton

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Johnny Horton (April 30, 1925 – November 5, 1960) was an American country music singer who was most famous for his semi-folk, so-called "saga songs". With them, he had several major crossover hits, most notably in 1959 with "The Battle of New Orleans" which won the 1960 Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording. The song was honored with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award and in 2001 was named number 333 of the Songs of the Century. In 1960, Horton had two other crossover hits with "Sink the Bismarck and "North to Alaska".

Contents 1 Career 2 Coincidences 3 Top 40 Country Hits 4 External links

[edit] Career

Horton was born John Gale Horton in Los Angeles but raised in the town of Rusk in east Texas. After graduating from high school, he attended the Methodist-affiliated Lon Morris College (then called "Lon Morris Junior College") in Jacksonville, Texas, the oldest junior college in the state. Thereafter, he worked in California and Alaska. He returned to Texas and won a talent contest hosted by then-radio announcer Jim Reeves at the Reo Palm Isle club in Longview, the seat of Gregg County, and soon went on to star in the popular Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport, Louisiana. He remained a member of the Hayride until his death.

In September 1953, he married Billie Jean Jones, who, in late 1952, had also been married to the late country music star Hank Williams, Sr., for two and a half months prior to his death. Horton's first marriage to Donna Cook ended in a divorce granted in Rusk. With Billie Jean, Johnny had two daughters, Yanina (Nina) and Melody. Billie Jean's daughter, Jerry, was also part of the family. Horton was killed instantly while he was returning home from a performance in Austin (Skyline Club) in a head-on collision with a drunk driver on Highway 79 at Milano, Texas.

There is no truth to the rumour that Horton was on his way to Dallas to meet actor Ward Bond about a role on the NBC television series Wagon Train. Bond was in Dallas at the time attending a football game. Bond died of a heart attack in Dallas just hours after Horton perished in the vehicular accident. A "Horton" did appear on Wagon Train: the actor Robert Horton, who portrayed the fictitious scout "Flint McCullough."

Johnny Horton is interred in the Hillcrest Cemetery in Haughton east of Bossier City. His pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

He loved fishing as much, if not more, than singing and was once billed as "The Singing Fisherman." His favorite fishing holes abound through the Piney Woods of East Texas and northern Louisiana.

Today, on peer-to-peer networks, many songs with racist titles and content are falsely attributed to him. Many of them are done instead by the singer Johnny Rebel.

[edit] Coincidences

• Johnny Horton reportedly had experienced premonitions several months before his own death about the possibility of dying in a car crash caused by a drunk driver. He always said that if he was in a head-on situation to drive into the ditch. His accident took place on a bridge so there was no ditch to head for.

• Also in connection with these premonitions, a story circulates that Horton, known to detest musicians who drank, had agreed to send his friend Merle Kilgore a message from beyond the grave. Ten years later, Kilgore heard from a group of psychics from New York of an apparition in a cowboy hat, whose message was "the drummer is a rummer and he can't keep the beat." (recounted in "The View From Nashville" by Ralph Emery)

• Both Horton and Hank Williams were married to the same woman at the time of their death, and played their last shows at the Skyline Club.

[edit] Top 40 Country Hits

• "Honky-Tonk Man" (1956)
• "I'm a One-Woman Man" (1956)
• "I'm Coming Home" (1957)
• "The Woman I Need" (1957)
• "All Grown Up" (1958)
• "When It's Springtime in Alaska (It's Forty Below)" (1959)
• "The Battle of New Orleans" (1959)
• "Johnny Reb" (1959)
• "Sal's Got a Sugar Lip" (1959)
• "Sink the Bismarck" (1960)
• "North to Alaska" (1960)
• "Sleepy-Eyed John" (1961)
• "Honky-Tonk Man" (1962) re-release
• "All Grown Up" (1963) re-release

[edit] External links

• The Handbook of Texas Online: Johnny Horton
• http://www.rockabillyhall.com/JohnnyHorton1.html
• http://www.geocities.com/shakin_stacks/johnnyhorton.txt
• http://rcs.law.emory.edu/rcs/artists/h/hort1000.htm
• http://www.rockabilly.nl/artists/jhorton.htm
• Johnny Horton's Gravesite