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Jimmie Davis

b. James Houston Davis, 11 September 1899, on a farm at Beech Springs, near Quitman, Jackson Parish, Louisiana, USA, d. 5 November 2000, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA. (Davis regularly claimed to have been born anytime between 1899 and 1902). One of 11 children in a sharecropping family, Davis progressed through local schools and in the early 20s gained a BA at Louisiana's Pineville College. Here he sang in the College Glee Club and in a group known as the Tiger Four. He returned to Beech Springs, where he became the first high school graduate ever to return to the school as a teacher. After school, he worked in the fields and busked on street corners until he had raised enough money to allow him to study for his master's degree at the State University in Baton Rouge. In the late 20s, he taught history and social science at Dodd College in Shreveport, but left to become the clerk at Shreveport city court.

He also began to make regular appearances on the city's KWKH radio station, where he came to the attention of RCA-Victor Records. Between 1929 and 1933, he recorded almost 70 songs for the label. The material ranged from songs that clearly showed the influence of Jimmie Rodgers and ballads, to songs of a very risque nature which, in later years, he tended to forget that he ever recorded. (Noted author John Morthland later emphatically wrote, "Davis launched his career as a Jimmie Rodgers imitator with the dirtiest batch of songs any one person had ever recorded in country music", and added, "Many of his early sides were double-entendre songs of unbridled carnality".) These included such tracks as "Organ Grinder Blues", "Tom Cat And Pussy Blues" and "She's A Hum Dum Dinger (From Dingersville)". In 1932, he recorded with guitarists Ed Schaffer and Oscar Woods. In September 1934, he made his first recordings for Decca Records, the first number recorded being his now standard "Nobody's Darlin' But Mine". This became his first hit and led to his recording several answer versions to it (Frank Ifield had a UK number 4 pop hit with his version of the song in 1963).

A few of the old risque songs crept in at first, but he soon abandoned both these and the Rodgers influence to concentrate on more middle-of-the-road material. In 1938, he recorded his and Floyd Tillman's "It Makes No Difference Now" (a major pop hit for Bing Crosby in 1941) and in 1939, he (allegedly) co-wrote the internationally famous "You Are My Sunshine", with his steel guitarist Charles Mitchell. The song has been recorded by so many artists over the years that it is reputed that its copyright is the most valuable in country music. Among the artists finding success with their recordings of it, apart from Davis himself, were Bob Atcher, Gene Autry and Bing Crosby. During the 30s, Davis made a great many recordings both as a solo artist, or with others, including Brown's Musical Brownies.

In 1938, Davis was made Shreveport's Commissioner Of Public Safety and in 1942, he was promoted to State Public Service Commissioner. He had Top 5 US country chart hits in the 40s with "Is It Too Late Now", "There's A Chill On The Hill Tonight", "Grievin' My Heart Out For You" and "Bang Bang" and in 1945, he enjoyed a country number 1 with "There's A New Moon Over My Shoulder". In 1944, standing as a Democrat, he was elected Governor of Louisiana, in spite of his opponents raising the subject of his early RCA recordings. During the 40s, he appeared in movies, including Strictly In The Groove (1942) (in which he sang "You Are My Sunshine"), Frontier Fury (1943) and  (1947). In 1948, he returned to his musical career and began to specialize more in gospel music than in straight country songs. He appeared in his last movie, Square Dance Katy, in 1950, and during the 50s he toured, making appearances at many religious events; in 1957, he was voted the Best Male Sacred Singer. He was elected to a second term as State Governor in 1960 and again the early songs were cited by the opposition.

During his two terms he was instrumental in introducing driving licenses, free school milk, building over 6,000 miles of new road, and improving welfare for the mentally ill, but earned notoriety for opposing desegregation. "Where The Old Red River Flows' gave him a Top 20 country hit in 1962 and went on to become yet another very popular and much recorded song. In 1971, he was unsuccessful in his attempt to seek a third spell as Governor and instead concentrated on his gospel music and his publishing interests. The many songs that he had written saw him elected to the Nashville Songwriters" International Hall Of Fame in 1971 and the following year he was inducted into the Country Music Hall Of Fame. In 1973, he left Decca (by then MCA) and recorded for the Canaan label, even recording a gospel version of his classic, which he called "Christ Is My Sunshine'. During the 70s and up to the mid-80s, he continued to make recordings of gospel music and appearances at some religious venues until a heart attack in October 1987 caused him to restrict his activities. Some of his old RCA tracks were reissued in 1988 by the German Bear Family Records label, no doubt without Davis" blessing. He eventually died in November 2000 at the age of 101.

 

Jimmie Davis, Louisiana's Singing Governor, Is Dead from the New York Times

          By RICHARD SEVERO 

Jimmie H. Davis, the troubador and composer of one of 
America's best-loved songs, "You Are My Sunshine," 
who yodeled and smiled his way into the hearts of 
Louisiana voters to serve two terms as their Singing 
Governor, died yesterday at his home in Baton Rouge, La. 

Mr. Davis, who also acted in B westerns and taught history and yodeling at a women's college, was believed to be about 101 years old.  

Various newspaper and magazine articles over the last 70 years said he was born in 1899, 1901, 1902 or 1903. He 
told The New York Times several years ago that his 
sharecropper parents could never recall just when he was born — he was, after all, one of 11 children — and that he had not had the slightest idea when it really was. Nonetheless, in Baton Rouge on Sept. 10, 1999, more than 800 Louisianans from across the state's political spectrum decided he was born in 1899 and decided to celebrate. Mr. Davis, by then quite frail and using a wheelchair, his 6-foot-plus frame seeming smaller than anyone could remember it, heard an outpouring of love for his music and praise of his tenure as governor, from which his budget surpluses were more fondly remembered than his various maneuvers to try to block public school integration ordered by the United States Supreme Court.
Former Gov. Edwin W. Edwards set the tone that day 
when he told the audience: "Just imagine: He served two terms as governor of Louisiana and was never indicted. That's a genuine achievement." 
Many in the crowd remembered the day in 1960 when Mr. Davis, wearing a white cowboy hat, rode his horse 
Sunshine up the steps of the Louisiana Capitol to sing the praises of his legislative agenda. Few people, either 
integrationist or unreconstructed segregationist, held 
grudges against Mr. Davis on that day in 1999 for his 
ineffectual efforts to preserve segregation in Louisiana. 

"Unlike so many Southern governors, Davis managed the transition so that, however stormy the rhetoric in the 
state, there was never any violence or closed schools," 
Kevin Fontenot, a historian at Tulane University, told The Washington Post in 1999. "He has just never been a 
demagogue or a hater."  Not that Mr. Davis was ever totally divorced from the kinds of activities that had earlier marked the storied Statehouse tenures of Huey Long, shot dead in 1935, and his brother, Earl Long, who was committed to a mental hospital. In the 1960's, during his second term as governor, Mr. Davis saw to it that the taxpayers of Louisiana paid for a new Governor's Mansion with 12 bedrooms and 18 bathrooms. The Legislature approved the million-dollar mansion after the governor made clear that he would also favor public works projects that might benefit the legislators' districts. In addition, as one legislator told a New York Times reporter, "The governor made it clear that those who didn't go along with him were through." On another occasion, journalists learned that members of the Plainsmen Quartet, who sang with Mr. Davis whenever he hit the campaign trail, turned up in state jobs as "insurance rate supervisor" and "inspector" in the Louisiana Department of Agriculture.  

On still another occasion, Mr. Davis vetoed right-to-work 
legislation. This outraged his conservative supporters, who contended that he acted not because he cared about organized labor, but because he wanted to do a favor for James C. Petrillo, then head of the musicians' union, who strongly opposed the legislation. Mr. Davis said there was no truth to the report that Mr. Petrillo had suggested to him that if the veto were not forthcoming, Mr. Davis might not again be able to sing on the radio or in the recording studio.  

But there were solid accomplishments, too. In his first 
administration, 1944-48, Governor Davis saw to it that 
drivers of automobiles were finally licensed. Before that, all anyone had to do to drive in Louisiana was to turn on the ignition. Mr. Davis considered the licensing issue so  important that he saw to it that he got the first license issued by the state. 

His second administration did not begin until the early 
1960's (he was precluded from immediately succeeding 
himself in 1948). He kept taxes down, took steps to 
prevent forests from being too rapidly exploited, built 
hospitals, repaired and created roads, raised teachers' 
salaries and set up the state's first civil service system.   He also signed into law segregation bills that were basically determine which schools would remain open and which would be closed in the face of federal orders to admit black children. In the South in those days, this was all part of the theory of "interposition," which held that the states could interpose themselves between federal law and the people who found that law too much of a burden.  

But Governor Davis was never regarded as a hard-core 
racist. He had the reputation for instinctively liking 
everyone. At the end of the legislative session he would 
gather friend and foe alike and lead them in singing his hit song "It Makes No Difference Now." 

A serious public servant, Mr. Davis was equally serious 
about show business. He found time to play the singing 
sidekick of the cowboy hero Charles Staret in B westerns in Hollywood, and he showed up with his guitar in Las Vegas to sing "You Are My Sunshine" and his other songs, including "Bed Bug Blues," "Bear- Cat Papa" and "High-Powered Mama."  

James Houston Davis was born in Quitman, in the red hills of north Louisiana, the son of sharecroppers who were always in desperate financial straits. As many as 14 Davises lived in a two-room shack, and they all worked long days in the cotton fields. A friend once asked Jimmie whether his family had an outhouse and he replied, "No, we had outwoods." He said he did not have a bed to sleep in until he was 9. When his younger sister died because the family could not afford medical care, Jimmie helped his father build her coffin out of wood they found. Later in his life he built the Jimmie Davis Tabernacle, a nondenominational chapel, on 
a highway south of his birthplace. 

Mr. Davis's father told his children that education was 
important, that they ought to get as much of it as they 
could, because if they learned something, it might be a 
way out of the poverty they all knew so well. Mr. Davis took the advice to heart. After graduating in a class of three from the Beech Springs Consolidated School,        he attended high school in Winnfield, Huey Long's 
hometown, then went to New Orleans to attend a 
business school. Mr. Davis regarded himself as "a shouting Baptist" and so he entered Louisiana College, a Baptist institution in Pineville, going on to earn a master's degree from Louisiana State University. 

He taught briefly in a public school, then, in 1927, joined the faculty of Dodd College, a women's college in Shreveport, where he officially taught history and 
unofficially taught the finer points of yodeling. He feared 
yodeling was fading in American music, and felt he ought to try to save it. He remained at Dodd a year before taking a job as court clerk in Shreveport, where he remained for most of the 1930's, becoming as interested in pursuing a life of public service as he was in his music. 

Mr. Davis began to write his own songs in the mid-1930's. He could not read or write music, and he had no formal knowledge of chord structure. But he could pick out tunes on the guitar he taught himself to play. A talent scout from RCA Victor Records heard him singing on Shreveport's radio station KWKH and asked him whether he would like to record, then paid his way to Memphis, where he made trial recordings. 

He attracted attention with songs like "Nobody's Darling 
But Mine" and "It Makes No Difference Now." Mr. Davis's 
own renditions sold well, and Bing Crosby, Gene Autry, 
Guy Lombardo and the Andrews Sisters were attracted to his tunes.  

In the mid-1930's he married Alverna Adams, a member 
of an old Shreveport family. Miss Adams was a cultured 
woman who played classical music on the piano, and she began to help him put his music down on paper.     "I try out a song on my wife," Mr. Davis joked, "and if she doesn't like it, I rush right out and record it."  

While his musical career was growing, he continued to 
explore the possibilities of public office. In 1938 he became Shreveport's commissioner of public safety, the top job in the city's fire and police departments. He got the job by campaigning for it with his guitar and a small singing group. After he got the job, he never tired of telling schoolchildren not to jaywalk. He would sing them "Roundup Time in Heaven," a song he had written, inspired by his desire not to see them hit by cars.  

On Feb. 4, 1940, he recorded a song he had only recently completed, called "You Are My Sunshine." It became a big hit. Mr. Davis's recording was immensely popular and so were recordings of the song by Bing Crosby and Gene Autry. King George VI of England heard the song and immediately declared it was his favorite. Over the next 60 years "You Are My Sunshine" was recorded by more than 350 artists. It sold millions of 
 records and was translated into 30 languages. It is easily one of the world's most recognizable songs. Nearly everyone remembers singing: 

    

You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When skies are gray
You'll never know, dear,
How much I love you
Please don't take my sunshine away. 

In 1942, Mr. Davis became public service commissioner, 
the same job that Huey Long had once held. Two years 
later, he decided to run for governor, much to the dismay of the remnants of the Long machine, who were trying to hold on to the power they had accumulated 20 years earlier. During the campaign, if anybody asked Mr. Davis where he stood on a particularly contentious issue, he would sing one of his songs.  

"It's better in a political campaign to give folks very little 
 talking and a whole lot of songs," he said. When one of his rivals suggested that if elected governor,  Mr. Davis would prove fickle and accept an offer to go to         Hollywood and make movies, he passed the accusation on to a crowd at a rally and admitted he probably would "up and go" to Hollywood, if he got a serious offer.     "So would we, Jimmie!" the crowd roared back, Pleading with him to stop the chatter and sing "You Are My Sunshine" one more time. Mr. Davis obliged them. He always referred to singing on the campaign trail as 
"shucking the corn."  

He had written a tune called "Honky Tonk Blues," and one of his rivals started calling him "Honky Tonk Jim." Louisiana voters responded by singing the song. In those days, you could hear them singing it all over New Orleans and Baton Rouge. During the 1950's, he continued writing music, some of it inspirational, some of it more earthbound, including "Supper Time," "Honey in the Rock," "Take My Hand," "Shackles and Chains" and "Columbus Stockade Blues." He became interested in the music of Louisiana's Cajun country and was widely known for his rendition of "Colinda." He is credited with writing hundreds of songs and recording several dozen albums. 

After Mr. Davis's first term, he continued to concentrate on his music and on his business interests in Shreveport. By then, his music had made him rich. He knew a lot about farming and bought 450 acres of good land near 
Shreveport. He called that farm his insurance policy. "When a man's in the business I'm in, things may blow up overnight," he said. 

In 1959, he decided to run for governor again but by then, the South was in great pain over the federal initiatives to desegregate. The segregationists backed William Rainach, and the moderates looked to Mayor deLesseps Morrison of New Orleans. When it became clear that Louisiana would not support Mr. Rainach, the segregationists backed Mr. Davis and he became governor again. 

After his second term, Mr. Davis's admirers were 
disappointed when in 1968 Gov. John J. McKeithen vetoed a bill that would have made "You Are My Sunshine" Louisiana's official song. The ostensible reason was that the song, although sweet and dear to millions, said not a word about Louisiana.  

Also in 1968, a year after his wife Alverna died, Mr. Davis married Anna Gordon, another country singer. In addition to his wife, Mr. Davis is survived by a son, James. 

In 1971, Mr. Davis tried half-heartedly to win a third term 
as governor, but ran fourth. Six years later the Legislature decreed that "You Are My Sunshine" would share honors as state song with "Give Me Louisiana," by Doralice Fontane, which mentions Louisiana repeatedly. 

Asked late in life how he wanted to be remembered, Mr. 
Davis replied, as "someone who scattered a little sunshine along his path." 

 

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