Death Records Now

Buck sings “North To Alaska” by Johnny Horton.
Although he had a regular job on the Hayride, Horton’s recording career was going nowhere — none of his Mercury records were selling, and rock & roll was beginning to overtake country’s share of the market place. Horton’s fortunes changed in the latter half of 1955, when he hired Webb Pierce’s manager Tillman Franks as his own manager and quit Mercury Records. Franks had Pierce help him secure a contract for Horton with Columbia Records by the end of 1955. The change in record labels breathed life into Horton’s career. At his first Columbia session, he cut “Honky Tonk Man,” his first single for the label and one that would eventually become a honky tonk classic. By the spring of 1956, the song had reached the country Top Ten and Horton was well on his way to becoming a star.

“Honky Tonk Man” was edgy enough to have Horton grouped in on the more country-oriented side of rockabilly. Wearing a large cowboy hat to hide his receding hairline, he became a popular concert attraction and racked up three more hit singles — “I’m a One-Woman Man” (number seven), “I’m Coming Home” (number 11), “The Woman I Need” (number nine) — in the next year. However, the hits dried up just as quickly as they arrived; for the latter half of 1957 and 1958, he didn’t hit the charts at all. Horton responded by cutting some rockabilly, which was beginning to fall out of favor by the time his singles were released.

In the fall of 1958, he bounced back with the Top Ten “All Grown Up,” but it wasn’t until the ballad “When It’s Springtime in Alaska (It’s Forty Below)” hit the charts in early 1959 that he achieved a comeback. The song fit neatly into the folk-based story songs that were becoming popular in the late ’50s, and it climbed all the way to number one. Its success inspired his next single, “The Battle of New Orleans.” Taken from a 1958 Jimmie Driftwood album, the song was a historical saga song like “When It’s Springtime in Alaska,” but it was far more humorous. It was also far more successful, topping the country charts for ten weeks and crossing over into the pop charts, where it was number one for six weeks. After the back-to-back number one successes of “When It’s Spring Time in Alaska” and “The Battle of New Orleans,” Horton concentrated solely on folky saga songs. “Johnny Reb” became a Top Ten hit in the fall of 1959, and “Sink the Bismarck” was a Top Ten hit in the spring of 1960, followed by the number one hit “North to Alaska” in the fall of 1960.

Around the time of “North to Alaska”‘s November release, Horton claimed that he was getting premonitions of an early death. Sadly, his premonitions came true. On November 4, 1960, he suffered a car crash driving home to Shreveport after a concert in Austin, TX. Horton was still alive after the wreck, but he died on the way to the hospital; the other passengers in his car had severe injuries, but they survived. Although he died early in his career, Horton left behind a recorded legacy that proved to be quite influential. Artists like George Jones and Dwight Yoakam have covered his songs, and echoes of Horton’s music can still be heard in honky tonk and country-rock music well into the ’90s.

Duration : 0:3:23

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