(Image courtesy of Les Adams)

(Image courtesy of Donn & Nancy Moyer) (Image courtesy of Donn & Nancy Moyer) Above - Jimmy Wakely circa 1980.

In 1947, Wakely changed record labels - exiting Decca and signing with Capitol Records - and that association produced a significant quantity of recordings and record sales.

In 1948, country music was dominated by Eddy Arnold and his hits included "Anytime", "Bouquet of Roses" and "Just a Little Lovin' (Will Go a Long, Long Way)". Arnold's run as the number one country artist came to a (brief) end in November, 1948 when Wakely's "One Has My Name (The Other Has My Heart)", became the country chart topper. "One Has My Name" was also among the pop top ten on the Billboard magazine rankings in late 1948.

Some of Wakely's other Capitol singles included "Signed, Sealed And Delivered", "I Love You So Much It Hurts", "Mine All Mine", "Forever More", "Till The End Of The World", "I Wish I Had A Nickel", "Someday You'll Call My Name", "Peter Cottontail", "Mona Lisa", "My Heart Cries For You", and "Beautiful Brown Eyes".

But to many Jimmy Wakely fans, his most remembered vocals are the wonderful duets he did with pop songstress Margaret Whiting. Their first collaboration was on Floyd Tillman's "Slipping Around", a ballad about cheatin' and infidelity, and it was a major cross over hit, achieving number one in the Billboard country charts and among the pop top ten in 1949. 1,750,000 copies of "Slipping Around" were sold and it was Capitol Records' top seller for 1949. To counter the infidelity issue, "Wedding Bells" was on the flipside.

Other Wakely and Whiting pairings also did well: "I'll Never Slip Around Again", "Broken Down Merry-Go-Round", "The Gods Were Angry With Me", "Let's Go To Church Next Sunday Morning", "A Bushel And A Peck", "When You And I Were Young Maggie Blues" and "I Don't Want To Be Free". My personal favorite is the 1950 Wakely and Whiting rendition of the Christmas classic "Silver Bells".

A few years later for Decca records, Jimmy paired up with Karen Chandler, and their duet of "Tonight You Belong To Me" was a moderate success, coming in at the number 49 spot in the 1956 pop charts.

Jimmy was a prolific radio performer and starred on his own JIMMY WAKELY SHOW program which ran from 1952 to 1958 on CBS. Circa 1945-1947, he was the part-time host and frequent guest on the Saturday night broadcasts of the CBS HOLLYWOOD BARN DANCE, and musical/background support on those shows included Johnny Bond, Foy Willing and the Riders of the Purple Sage, Andy Parker and the Plainsmen, and the Sunshine Girls (with Colleen Summers who became Mary Ford, the wife of Les Paul). He also guested on various programs including the World War II COMMAND PERFORMANCE, REXALL RHYTHM ROUND-UP, MELODY ROUND-UP, THE BOB HOPE SHOW, THE SPADE COOLEY SHOW and the ALL-STAR WESTERN THEATRE (which was hosted by Foy Willing and the Riders of the Purple Sage). In the late 1950s, Wakely brought his song talents to the fifteen minute syndicated COUNTRY HOEDOWN program which was sponsored by US Navy Recruiting.

His television career was brief. He made a few guest appearances including the ED SULLIVAN/TOAST OF THE TOWN show as well as country/western programs such as Tex Ritter's RANCH PARTY. Wakely also guested - and occasionally substituted for host Red Foley - on JUBILEE USA (which ran from 1955-1961 over ABC TV). He was also one of the alternating hosts on the short-lived 1961 NBC FIVE STAR JUBILEE which was staged at the Landers Theater in Springfield, Missouri (with Jimmy sharing hosting duties with Snooky Lanson, Tex Ritter, Rex Allen and Carl Smith).

In the mid to late 1950s, Wakely formed his own music publishing business as well as a mail order record company named Shasta. Under the Shasta label, he released several albums of his songs, with some of the tunes newly recorded and others taken from the Jimmy Wakely Show archives. Shasta also released material by country/western singers Tex Williams, Merle Travis, Eddie Dean, Tex Ritter, Rex Allen and others.

Jimmy performed on the Grand Ole Opry and the National Barn Dance and had a nightclub act that worked in Las Vegas, Reno, and elsewhere. He also did USO tours with Bob Hope, and I have newspaper articles on a 1949 Christmas USO Tour to Alaska and a lengthier 1950 Hope tour to Korea, Japan, Honolulu and Pacific military bases which also included performers Jane Russell, Gloria DeHaven, Marilyn Maxwell, and Les Brown and his orchestra. In his later years, he did a few recordings on the Coral, Decca/Vocalion and Dot labels. He also attended one or more western film/nostalgia conventions and continued with personal appearances and stage shows, often with his daughter Linda and son Johnny in the act.

Linda writes about the time that she and Johnny worked with their Dad:

"I joined right out of high school and two years later, Johnny did the same thing. It was a wonderful life for me. We worked the Mint and Golden Nugget in Vegas, Harrah's Club in Reno, and Lake Tahoe from 1960-1969 ... several times a year. And we also played one of Daddy's favorite places: Cactus Pete's in Jackpot, Nevada where he played Keno and golf and just loved it there. We worked state fairs and rodeos and supper clubs (not country or western, but with evening clothes and formal suits, etc.). The last ten years Daddy worked, we played mostly the northwest - Washington state and a few places in Oregon. We had a weekly TV show in L.A. We worked for the military - all the bases in Hawaii (Officer and NCO clubs) ... and just about all of them on the north and south west coast as well as home shows, special openings, etc. We also worked several times for the Shrine organization of which Daddy was so proud to be a Freemason and 32º Scottish Rite Mason. He put a show together with Tex Williams, Eddie Dean, Montie Montana, Billy Armstrong (award winning fiddle player), and occasionally a comic. When Pat Butram could join us it was great. It was always a great night of music, songs and fun."

Wakely was a prolific song writer, authoring or co-writing over a hundred. Of all his western compositions, my favorite is "Saddle Pals" which he co-wrote with Johnny Marvin. Jimmy used that in several of his films including his first starrer, SONG OF THE RANGE (Monogram, 1944). He also penned another of my favorites, "Song Of The Sierras", and it became the title tune of his 1946 movie of the same name. Over the years, many singers have recorded Wakely creations - including Elvis Presley with "I'll Never Let You Go Little Darlin'" for Sun Records in 1954. (The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) website includes information on songs that were written or co-authored by Wakely. Link is on a later Wakely webpage.)

Some have been critical of Wakely's sagebrush adventures, citing that they were a low budget copy of Gene Autry's films. In reality, Hollywood tried many singing cowboys in hopes of finding someone - anyone - who could come close to matching Autry's popularity and ticket sales. Among the more successful were Roy Rogers and Tex Ritter. Achieving moderate popularity were Rex Allen, Eddie Dean ... and Jimmy Wakely. Wakely always had good words about Gene's support and mentoring. Bobby Copeland, in his book Trail Talk, has the following Wakely quote:

"Everybody reminds somebody of someone else until they are somebody. And I had rather be compared to Gene Autry than anyone else. Through the grace of God and Gene Autry, I got a career."

In his later years, Wakely suffered from a variety of medical issues including heart problems, emphysema and asthma. Jimmy was admitted to Holy Cross hospital in Los Angeles on August 14, 1982, and he passed away from heart failure on September 23, 1982. His wife Inez passed in 1997. They are interred next to each other in the Court of Remembrance at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, California.

I'm pleased that in the past few years, many Wakely recordings have been issued on CD, either in a specific Jimmy Wakely collection or in a compilation featuring him along with other western music artists.

Wakely's career spanned nearly fifty years. He was a singing cowboy on the silver screen as well as a comic book hero. He was one of the early country/western recording artists able to successfully cross over to popular music. He wrote or co-authored scores of songs. He performed on stage. He did television and was a prolific radio performer. He had his own publishing business and record company. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (at 1680 Vine Street), and is a member of the Hall of Fame at the Nashville Songwriters Foundation as well as the Western Music Association. In summary, Jimmy Wakely was a multi-talented artist with a marvelous singing voice.

(Image courtesy of Carol Murray and her "Jack Hendricks Photo Album") From left to right are Wakely, Robert Barron, Jack Hendricks and Dennis Moore in a scene from SPRINGTIME IN TEXAS (Monogram, 1945), Jimmy's second starring film. (From Old Corral image collection) Above is a lobby card from OKLAHOMA BLUES (Monogram, 1948) with Wakely atop his second film hoss 'Sonny'. Does the range costume, saddle and horse remind you of Gene Autry and Champion? (Courtesy of John Wright) Above from L-to-R are Ray Whitley, Gene Autry and Jimmy Wakely at a Sons of the Pioneers show, circa 1978. Wakely was friends with many of the top country and western artists of the period as well as people involved in the western film genre: in addition to Autry, Whitley, Bond, Scotty Harrell and Dick Reinhart, Jimmy was close to Eddie Dean, Roy Rogers, Rex Allen, Tex Ritter, Bob Nolan, Merle Travis, Wesley Tuttle, Cliffie Stone, steel guitarists Noel Boggs and Earl 'Joaquin' Murphey, Sunshine Girl Colleen Summers (who became Mary Ford, the wife of Les Paul), western movie director/screen writer/song writer Oliver Drake, lots more. And he was also friends with many pop/contemporary singers, including Margaret Whiting, John Denver, Guy Mitchell, Nat King Cole, and Elvis Presley.

Linda (nicknamed "Lindalee" by her Dad) authored a biography on her Father titled See Ya Up There, Baby - The Jimmy Wakely Story and the cover on the left shows Jimmy riding his paint horse 'Lucky/Tex'.