Who is lefty frizzell

The lack of success helped him sink deeper into alcoholism. Though the change in labels helped revitalize him artistically, he didn't sell that many more records.

However, he did have the enthusiasm to record albums, as well as play concerts and television shows. Frizzell 's alcohol addiction worsened and he developed high blood pressure, but he wouldn't take the medication because he thought it would interfere with his drinking. As a result, he looked older than his 47 years when he died of a stroke in Years of mediocre and mis-marketed records had diminished Lefty 's reputation, but after his death, a new generation of artists hailed him as an influence and an idol.

In , he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, but the greatest testament to his music remains the fact that his voice can be heard in every hard country singer that followed. AllMusic relies heavily on JavaScript. Please enable JavaScript in your browser to use the site fully. Blues Classical Country. Electronic Folk International. Jazz Latin New Age.

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Born March 31, in Corsicana, TX. He drank heavily, and in August he was arrested backstage at the Opry and charged with contributory delinquency; the charge stemmed from a liaison in Arkansas during his tour with Williams. Frizzell was never prosecuted. Frizzell also signed a succession of ill-considered, conflicting contracts, including one in January that designated Jack Starnes Jr. That contract led to a major lawsuit filed by Starnes against Frizzell in June It was settled out of court a year later.

In he embarked on a grueling three-month tour backed by musicians from the Louisiana Hayride. The tour bankrolled a Frizzell family relocation to Southern California, and they ultimately settled in Northridge. While in California, Frizzell became a regular on the television program Town Hall Party he had previously made a succession of sell-out appearances on Hometown Jamboree , starred in the first country concert ever held at the Hollywood Bowl August 6, , and was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

From early to late he failed to score a chart hit of any kind. In the Frizzells moved to Nashville, eventually settling north of the city in Hendersonville. His main advocate, producer Don Law, retired from Columbia in , and in Frizzell was dropped from the label. His performing style was nourished in the dancehalls of Texas and built heavily on the recordings of Jimmie Rodgers.

His father was an oilfield roughneck and the family frequently moved around the east Texas oilfields. They were a poor family and the young Sonny the family name for Lefty , was something of a tearaway. Only music kept him under control. By the age of twelve he was playing guitar and writing songs and four years later leading his own band and playing local dives and honky-tonks.

By the time he was 17 he was married, and little more than a couple of years later, a night out with some teenage boys and girls went awfully wrong when one of the underage girls complained to her parents and Lefty was charged with statutory rape and ended up in the local prison. This brought him to his senses and he started to take his music a lot more seriously. He linked up with Jim Beck at his famous Dallas studio to make his first recordings in the summer of Signed to Columbia Records, Nashville, he became the biggest country star of with seven of the top 30 hits of the year.