Lefty frizzel biography

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By 1950, he was a regular performer at the Ace of Clubs in Big Spring, Texas.

Career peak

Columbia Records signed him as a singer and writer on the strength of his song, “If You’ve Got the Money, I’ve Got the Time.” That song was released as a single in July 1950 with “I Love You a Thousand Ways” on the flip side.

By 1952, Frizzell had achieved a series of 13 top-10 hits.

Lefty Frizzell was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1982. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential singers in country music history.

At eighteen and already married, Frizzell began appearing on radio station KGFL in Roswell, New Mexico. His first hit single was “If You’ve Got the Money, Honey, I’ve Got the Time” in 1950.

The Nashville Sound: Bright Lights and Country Music. He debuted as a singer on radio station KELD in El Dorado (Union County) when he was twelve, and he acquired his nickname in a schoolyard brawl. A supreme vocal stylist, he introduced an intimate, vowel-bending style of singing that has been internalized by countless younger performers in the years since he burst to stardom in 1950.

Disaster struck in July 1947, though, when Frizzell was charged with statutory rape. His next was the flip side, “I Love You a Thousand Ways,” a song he composed while serving a six-month jail term for statutory rape. He reportedly got his nickname “Lefty” in his early teens after impressing his peers in a schoolyard fight.

Plying his musical craft in honky tonks and at parties and barn dances in Texas and New Mexico during the late 1940s, Lefty developed his own unique style, characterized by fluid, highly expressive phrasing.

He auditioned for country talent scout Jim Beck in Dallas.

Charting most of his self-penned hits during the 1950s, his singing and musical stylings served as templates for later stars ranging from George Jones, Merle Haggard, and Willie Nelson to Randy Travis, George Strait, and Daryle Singletary.

He is sometimes described as the “greatest honky tonk singer,” though his music covered a much wider range than just honky tonk.

Early life

William Orville Frizzell was born on March 31, 1928, in Corsicana, Texas.

His last No. 1 hit was “Saginaw, Michigan” in 1964.

Frizzell was not praised in his lifetime as a definitive country singer, but he influenced multitudes that came after him. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970.

Horstman,Dorothy. During World War II, he began singing on Texas radio stations as a teenager.

https://www.countrymusichalloffame.org/hall-of-fame/lefty-frizzell (accessed August 2, 2023).

Martin, Philip. Within roughly two years, Lefty Frizzell had 13 Top 10 hits.

He became a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 1951, but relocated to Southern California in the mid-1950s and joined the cast of TV's Town Hall Party show.

Their co-written "I Never Go Around Mirrors" and "That's the Way Love Goes" are among the best-known songs in his repertoire.

The comeback ended when he was felled by a stroke in 1975 at the age of 47. In 2018, a twenty-CD box set of Frizzell’s recordings, complete with a book, was released under the title An Article from Life.

For additional information:
Hemphill, Paul.

“Lefty Who?” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, December 9, 2018, pp.