Biography
Born Clarence Albert Poindexter in Jacksonville, Texas, Dexter owned a bar in the 1930s and helped popularize the style of country music known as honky tonk. He made his recording debut on November 28, 1936 for ARC Records. and he was probably the first artist to use the term "honky tonk" in a country song when he recorded "Honky Tonk Blues" at his first session. His tremendous hit "Pistol Packin' Mama" became the 1943 marching chorus of the New York Yankees. The 1943 movie of the same name, made by the Republic Pictures, gave Dexter close to $250,000 in royalties. Another hit from the 1940s was "Guitar Polka", which entered Billboard's list as the "Most Played Juke Box Folk Record" for 16 weeks running in 1946. Still other hits include "So Long Pal", "Triflin' Gal", "I'm Losing My Mind Over You" and "Too Late to Worry."
Dexter was the first country singer to perform on Broadway, and in 1971, was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. He died January 28, 1984 in Lewisville, Texas. On August 21, 2010, Dexter was inducted into the Texas Country Music Hall Of Fame, located in Carthage, TX. Other inductees that night along with Dexter were George Jones and Ray Winkler.
Read more about this topic: Al Dexter
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“The best part of a writer’s biography is not the record of his adventures but the story of his style.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West [Cicily Isabel Fairfield] (1892–1983)