- Cindy Walker
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Cindy Walker 
Cindy WalkerBackground information Born July 20, 1918
Mart, TexasDied March 23, 2006 (aged 87)
Mexia, TexasGenres country music Occupations songwriter Cindy Walker (July 20, 1918 – March 23, 2006) was a prolific American songwriter, as well as a country music singer and dancer. As a songwriter Walker was responsible for a large number of popular and enduring songs recorded by many different artists. She adopted a craftsman-like approach to her songwriting, often tailoring particular songs to specific recording artists. She produced a large body of songs that have been described as “direct, honest and unpretentious”.[1] She had Top 10 hits spread over five decades.[2]
Walker was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1997 and inducted into the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame in March 2011.
Contents
Career
Early life
Cindy Walker was born on July 20, 1918 on her grandparents' farm near Mart near Mexia east of Waco, Texas, the daughter of a cotton-broker. Her maternal-grandfather F.L. Eiland was a noted composer of hymns and her mother was a fine pianist. From childhood Cindy Walker was fond of poetry and wrote habitually. As a teenager, inspired by newspaper accounts of the dust-storms on the American prairie-lands in the mid-1930s, Cindy Walker wrote the song, "Dusty Skies" (later recorded by Bob Wills and his band).[3] In 1936 (when Cindy was in her late-teens) her "Casa de Mañana" was performed by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra (as part of the Texas Centennial celebrations).[1] By the end of the decade Cindy Walker was singing and dancing in Texas stage shows.[4]
Move to Los Angeles
In 1940, Walker, at the age of twenty-two, accompanied her parents on a business trip to Los Angeles, California. As they were driving down Sunset Boulevard she asked her father to stop the car near the Bing Crosby Enterprises building. Walker later recalled: "I had decided that if I ever got to Hollywood, I was going to try to show Bing Crosby a song I had written for him called 'Lone Star Trail'". Her father said "You're crazy, girl", but nonetheless stopped the car.[5] Walker went inside the building to pitch her song and emerged shortly afterward to ask her mother to play the piano for her. Bing Crosby’s brother Larry Crosby had agreed to listen to the song; Walker sang “Lone Star Trail” to him, accompanied by her mother. Larry Crosby was impressed and aware that his brother was looking for a new Western song to record. The next day Cindy played guitar and sang “Lone Star Trail” for Bing Crosby at Paramount Studios (where he was making a movie). Crosby arranged for her to record a demo with Dave Kapp of Decca Records, who was also impressed and offered her a recording contract.[1][3] "Lone Star Trail" was recorded and became a top-ten hit for Bing Crosby.[6]
Walker remained in Los Angeles for 13 years. In 1940 she appeared as a singer in the Gene Autry Western Ride Tenderfoot Ride. The Decca recording contract led to Walker recording several songs with Texas Jim Lewis and His Lone Star Cowboys, including “Seven Beers with the Wrong Man” in 1941, which was also filmed as an early ‘Soundie’ (a precursor of music videos).[6] In 1944 Walker recorded a song (not her own) which became a top ten hit, “When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again”.[4]
Focus on songwriting
Walker successfully pitched her songs to Bob Wills and began to regularly contribute compositions for recordings and the movies that Wills made in the 1940s.[7] The collaboration was extremely fruitful: Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys eventually recorded over 50 of Cindy Walker’s songs, including "Cherokee Maiden" (1941), "Dusty Skies" (1941), "Miss Molly" (1942), "Sugar Moon" (co-written with Bob Wills; 1947) and "Bubbles in My Beer" (1948).[1] Bob Wills and his band performed Walker’s first top-ten country hit, “You're From Texas” (1944).[8]
In 1948 the following Walker-penned songs were hits: "Oklahoma Waltz" (recorded by Johnny Bond), "Warm Red Wine" (Ernest Tubb) and "Take Me in Your Arms and Hold Me" (Eddy Arnold).[1]
During the 1950s Walker continued her success as a writer of popular songs. In 1952 Hank Snow had a hit with her "The Gold Rush is Over" and in 1955 Webb Pierce had success with "I Don't Care".[1] Another Walker song was "Blue Canadian Rockies" recorded by Gene Autry (which featured in Autry’s 1952 movie of the same name). The song was revived in 1968 by The Byrds on their influential country-rock album Sweetheart of the Rodeo.
In 1955 Eddy Arnold pitched Walker the song-title "You Don't Know Me" when they met during a WSM deejay convention in Nashville. From this title Walker wrote a song for Arnold which has been described as “a beautifully symmetrical and poignant portrait of a love not to be”.[1] "You Don't Know Me" has been recorded by numerous artists over the years, most successfully by Jerry Vale (1956); Lenny Welch (1960); Ray Charles (1962); and Elvis Presley (1967).
Walker’s song, "Anna Marie", was a hit for Jim Reeves in 1957 and the beginning of another productive artist-writer association which culminated in "This is It" (1965) and "Distant Drums" (a posthumous hit for Reeves).[1] "Distant Drums" remained at No.1 on the British charts for five weeks in 1966. Reeves recorded many of Walker's compositions, Walker often writing specifically for Reeves and offering him first refusal of her tracks. "Distant Drums" was originally recorded by Reeves as a demo, simply because he loved the song. However, Chet Atkins felt the time was not right for an international release. This demo, like many for Reeves, was unearthed upon his death and along with Atkins and Mary Reeves, Walker oversaw the production of the overdub which was to be released in 1966, and became a huge international hit. It is often believed that Roy Orbison was the original voice to cut the track; however, it was upon hearing the demo by Reeves that he decided to cut it.
In 1961 Eddy Arnold had a minor hit with Walker’s "Jim, I Wore a Tie Today", a moving song about the death of a cowboy. Cindy Walker wrote the song "Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream)", which was recorded by Roy Orbison (who also recorded a version of "Distant Drums"). She originally had little confidence in “Dream Baby”, but Orbison’s recording was a hit in both the US and Britain in 1962.[1] In 1964 Fred Foster of Monument Records "tempted her back into the studio to record an album, Words and Music by Cindy Walker.[9] Walker's song "In The Misty Moonlight" was a hit for both Jerry Wallace (1964) and Dean Martin (1967). "Heaven Says Hello" (recorded by Sonny James) and "You Are My Treasure" (Jack Greene) were hits in 1968, both written by Walker.[1]
In 1970 Walker became a charter member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.[3]
In 1981 Mickey Gilley's version of "You Don't Know Me" was a hit in the country charts. A year later Walker had her last major hit with Ricky Skaggs’ reworking of "I Don't Care".[1]
Later life
In her personal life Walker shunned the limelight. It was often reported that she never married, though in an interview with the New York Times shortly before her death Walker stated she once had “a very short-lived marriage”. After her stint in Los Angeles she returned to Texas in 1954, living at Mexia in a modest three-bedroom house with her widowed mother, Oree.
Walker’s custom was rise at dawn each day to write songs. She typed her lyrics on a pink-trimmed manual typewriter and Oree Walker helped work out melodies for her daughter’s words. Each year Walker and her mother would operate from an apartment in Nashville for five months or so in order to market the songs.[8]
Walker’s mother died in 1991. In an interview in 2004 Walker stated: "I miss Mama every day".[3]
It has been estimated that more than 500 of Walker’s songs have been recorded[3] and that her songs made the top-forty charts (country or pop) more than 400 times.[8] In September 1997 Walker was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame (together another songwriter, Harlan Howard). During her acceptance speech, Walker recited some verse she had written for the occasion:
In the 1980s, my mother bought me a dress for a BMI affair and she said “when they put you in the Hall of Fame, that's the dress I want you to wear.” And I said “Oh Mama, the Hall of Fame? Why that will never be.” And the years went by, but my mother's words remained in my memory. And I know tonight she'd be happy, though she's gone now to her rest. But I think of all that she did for me, and tonight I'm wearing this dress.[10]
Her speech was followed by a standing ovation and Walker left the stage in tears after softly blowing a kiss. During the proceedings renowned songwriter (and fellow Hall of Fame inductee) Harlan Howard described Walker as "the greatest living songwriter of country music".[11]
In 1998 Walker was inducted into the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame. In 2001 the Country Music Television network honored the 40 Greatest Women in Country Music. The women were selected for their contribution to the genre by a survey of hundreds of American artists and music historians and Cindy Walker was ranked at number 32 in the list.
In March 2006 American music icon Willie Nelson released a CD album featuring thirteen of Walker's well-known songs. The album title is You Don't Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker.
Death
Walker died at the Parkview Regional Hospital in Mexia, Texas, on March 23, 2006, aged 87 years (just nine days after Nelson's tribute album was released). She had been ill for several weeks prior to her death.[11] Cindy Walker was buried in the Mexia City Cemetery. Walker's family had a custom-designed sculpture created for her gravestone to honor the songwriter and her work. The memorial sculpture is a large pink-granite guitar (in her signature color).[12]
Singles
Year Single US Country 1944 "When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again" 5 Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wadey, Paul. - Obituary: "Cindy Walker: Country songwriter". - The Independent. - March 27, 2006.
- ^ Exhibit, National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame, Fort Worth, Texas
- ^ a b c d e McLellan, Dennis. - Obituary: "Cindy Walker, 87; Wrote Hundreds of Songs Recorded by an Array of Artists". - Los Angeles Times. - March 29, 2006.
- ^ a b "The Cindy Walker Story". Country Music Hall of Fame.
- ^ Interview with the Chicago Tribune, 1988 (quoted in McLellan, 27 March 2006, op. cit.).
- ^ a b Clayton, Lawrence (2005). - The Roots of Texas Music. - Texas A&M University Press. - p.84.
- ^ Malone, Bill C., (2002). - Country Music, U.S.A.. - 2nd revised edition. - University of Texas Press. - p.173.
- ^ a b c Obituary: "Cindy Walker; songwriter’s hits put her in 2 halls of fame". - San Diego Union-Tribune. - April 2, 2006.
- ^ Escott, Colin (2002). - Roadkill on the Three-Chord Highway. - Routledge. - p.32.
- ^ Wix, Kimmy. - "31st Annual CMA Awards Show". - CMT News, Country Music Television, cmt.com. - September 24, 1997.
- ^ a b "Songwriting World Mourns Loss of Cindy Walker", BMI News. - March 26, 2006.
- ^ "Cindy Walker". Find a Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=13725490. Retrieved November 11, 2011.
References
- Oermann, Robert K. (1998). "Cindy Walker". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kinsgbury, Editor. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 567–568.
External links
Categories:- 1918 births
- 2006 deaths
- People from Mart, Texas
- American dancers
- American country singers
- American female singers
- Songwriters from Texas
- American country singer-songwriters
- Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
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