Acrobat Music

Webb Pierce, legendary country star of the '50s, died on Feb. 24th 1991

Webb Pierce, legendary country star of the '50s, died on Feb. 24th 1991

We are a week or so late with this, but a spare day gives us a chance to fit in one we didn't have room for in February, and it's an opportunity to mention a country honky-tonk vocalist whose success and influence is often understimated. Born on 8th August 1921 in Monroe, Louisiana, Webb  Pierce was obsessed as a boy with Gene Autry movies and the hillbilly records his parents played, and he took up guitar before he was in his teens, and by the time he was 15 was performing on local radio. Before he could turn professional, he enlisted in the US Army during WW II, marrying Betty Jane Lewis in 1942. After the war he started performing with his wife while working in the Sears Roebuck store in Shreveport, and following more radio work, they were signed to separate contracts by 4 Star Records. He achieved immediate success, unlike his wife, which led to divorce in 1950. Pierce set up his own Pacemaker label, joined the Louisiana Hayride and assembled a band that included the young Floyd Cramer and Faron Young. In 1952 he signed to Decca, and the following year took Hank Williams'place with the Grand Ol' Opry, twin moves which sealed his career, leading to a string of Top 10 hits over the next 4 years, including ten No. 1s with songs such as "In the jailhouse now" and "Slowly" probably the first country hit to feature a pedal steel guitar. His career waned somewhat after he resigned from the Opry in 1957 over money issues, but he continued to work in the country market and on TV for the next 25 years, all the while acquiring a reputation for his ostentatious lifestyle, with his guitar-shaped swimming pool at his home in Nashville, which became a toursit attraction, his cars lined with silver dollars, and his hard drinking. He had his last entry in the country charts in 1982, and died in 1991 at the age of 69 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He was one of the great honky-tonk vocal stylists of the post-war country era, and influenced many later country artists as well as contributing to the rise of the rockabilly styles that were a precursor of rock 'n' roll. Acrobat has on catalogue a collection of his 4 Star and Pacemaker recordings - for details click here.

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