Death
Tommy Tomlinson flew in from Nashville, where he was producing a duet album with Jerry Kennedy (Tom and Jerry). Johnny used the morning to make arrangements to go duck hunting with Claude King once he had returned from Austin and he also telephoned Johnny Cash for a chat. Cash didn't accept the call, and always regretted it. Against his wife's wishes, Franks got out of his sick bed and they began traveling to Austin.
When they got to the Skyline club, Horton stayed in his dressing room, saying that a drunk would kill him if he went near the bar. After the show, they started the 220-mile (350 km) journey back to Shreveport. Tomlinson was in the back, observing that Horton was driving too fast - Franks was asleep in the front. About 2 a.m., near Milano, Texas they were crossing a bridge when a truck came at them, hitting both sides of the bridge before plunging into Horton's Cadillac. Horton had practiced avoiding head-on collisions by driving into ditches, but on the narrow bridge he had no opportunity. He was still breathing when he was pulled out of the car but died on the way to the hospital. The 19-year-old truck driver, James Davis, was intoxicated. Franks suffered head injuries and young Tomlinson had multiple leg fractures and nine months later, had his left leg amputated. Davis was virtually unscathed.
Tillman's preacher brother, Billy, performed the funeral service on November 8, with Billie Jean becoming a widow for the second time at the age of 28. Johnny Cash read Chapter 20 from the Book of John, having flown in on a chartered airplane.
Columbia released various singles and a greatest successes album and on October 5, 1964, Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Three overdubbed "Rock Island Line" and "I Just Don't Like This Kind of Livin'" to Horton's demos. Other such sessions were held throughout the sixties for album release. "Sleepy-Eyed John" scored the country charts during April 1961, scoring No. 9 and a year later "Honky Tonk Man" was reissued, scoring No. 11. During February 1963 he made his last appearance in the charts (to date) with "All Grown Up" maximizing at No. 26.
Horton is buried in the Hillcrest Cemetery in Haughton, east of Bossier City in northwestern Louisiana.
Read more about this topic: Johnny Horton
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“‘Tis no great valor to perish sword in hand, and bravado on lip; cased all in panoply complete. For even the alligator dies in his mail, and the swordfish never surrenders. To expire, mild-eyed, in one’s bed, transcends the death of Epaminondas.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Water, earth, air, fire, and the other parts of this structure of mine are no more instruments of your life than instruments of your death. Why do you fear your last day? It contributes no more to your death than each of the others. The last step does not cause the fatigue, but reveals it. All days travel toward death, the last one reaches it.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relations with this best and truest friend of mankind, that his image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling! And I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity ... of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness.”
—Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)