- Billy Mize
Billy Mize (Born William Robert Mize on April 29, 1929 in
Arkansas City ,Kansas ) is a steel guitarist, band leader, vocalist and TV show host.He was raised in the
San Joaquin Valley ofCalifornia , an area steeped incountry music thanks to relocatedOkies and other southerners headed for the gold in them there hills out west. He originally learned to play guitar as a child, but fell in love with thesteel guitar he received for his 18th birthday.He moved to
Bakersfield ,California and formed his own band playing local gigs and also working as a disc jockey onKPMC . In1953 , he, Bill Woods and Herb Henson put together a local TV show calledThe Cousin Herb Trading Post Show onKERO -TV Bakersfield, where he became affectionately known as Billy The Kid. The signal from that show was so strong the show could be seen as far asFresno , all the way over to the central coast and Los Angeles. The show was wildly popular because it not only featured fledgling acts such asBuck Owens ,Merle Haggard , Tommy Collins,Jean Shepard ,Bonnie Owens ,Ferlin Husky , but many national acts such asHank Williams andPatsy Cline . He stayed with the show for thirteen years. In1955 he began to appear on theHank Penny Show on Los Angeles television and by1957 he was working on seven different weekly shows in the LA area, including theHank Penny Show ,Cal Worthington Show,Country Music Time and the legendaryTown Hall Party . He recorded forDecca (Solid Sender/It Could happen - 1957), Challenge and Liberty, finally hitting the country charts in1966 with You Can't Stop Me for Columbia. That year he began hosting and performing on Gene Autry's Melody Ranch network show onKTLA as well as starting his own syndicated Billy Mize Show fromBakersfield . During the next decade he managed eleven chart hits as well as writing hits for others such as Who Will Buy The Wine (Charlie Walker), My Baby Walks All Over Me (Johnny Sea ) and Don't Let The Blues Make You Bad (Dean Martin ). Dean Martin cut three of his songs in one day in June 1966, including "Terrible Tangled Web."He won the
Academy of Country Music 's "TV Personality of the Year" award three years in a row between 1965 and 1967. In 1972 he taped two pilots of the "Billy Mize Music Hall," which he hoped to sell into national syndication. With Merle Haggard on the one show and Marty Robbins on the other it seemed a sure fire bet, but it wasn't picked up.Shakers will no doubt know other versions of these, for instance Jerry Lee Lewis' great version of Who Will Buy The Wine and
Bob Luman 's wonderfully moody reading of "My Baby Walks All Over Me." He was a mainstay of Merle Haggard's band, playing steel and rhythm on many of Merle's classics. In the early '80s, Billy hooked up with his brother Buddy for various television projects. In recent times he's been heading Billy Mize Productions, making television spectaculars withMerle Haggard . He suffered a stroke during the mid-90's and although he now speaks a little slowly, he has recovered well enough to again play guitar.Discography
*"Solid Sender/It Could Happen" (Decca, 1957)
*"Please Don't Let The Blues Make You Bad" (Columbia, 1965)
*"You Can't Stop Me" (Columbia, 1966)
*"It's Gonna Get Lonely" (Columbia, 1966)
*"Lights Of Albuquerque" (Columbia, 1967)
*"This Time and Place" (Imperial, 1969)
*"You're All Right With Me" (United Artists , 1971)
*"A Salute to Swing" (Hag Records , 2006)
*"Make it Rain" (Sharecropper Records , 2006)External links
* [http://www.bakersfield.com/static/FP/baksound/mizethom.htm Article about the Bakersfield Sound] Cousin Herb's TV Cousins.
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