Jimmie Davis- Biography 1928
In July 1928 Jimmie Davis accompanied by James Enloe on piano waxed his first sides for the Doggone label in Chicago, Illinois: “Ramona,” “You’d Rather Forget Than Forgive,” Jimmie Rodger’s “Way Out on the Mountain” and “Think of Me Thinking of You.”
His next attempt at recording was in Dallas for Columbia but the two songs cut on Dec. 4, 1928 were never issued. His recording career really started when he recorded for Victor in Memphis, Tennessee on September 19, 1929 with Prentis Dumas also playing guitar, where he cut blues oriented sides in the style of his idol, Jimmie Rodgers.
Louisiana musician and politician Jimmie Davis is identified largely with the controversial song "You Are My Sunshine," a song known by most people in the English-speaking world. Davis had a fascinating career that led him from raunchy blues to gospel music; from a two room sharecropper's shack to the Louisiana governor's mansion; and from recording with black musicians to defending the system of state-imposed racial segregation that existed in the American south until the late 1950s.
Jimmie Davis was one of the most popular Country stars in the mid-30’s and early 40s, and only Gene Autry, whose movie career took him to lofty heights, was more popular.
Early Life
James Houston Davis was born on September 11, 1899, in Beech Springs near Quitman, Louisiana. Jimmie, the eldest child of Sam Jones Davis and Sara Works, shared a small cabin with ten siblings and several members of his extended family. "The first Christmas present I ever got," he was quoted as saying in the Daily Telegraph of London, "was a dried hog's bladder and a plucked blackbird. We ate the blackbird and played ball with the bladder, and I thought we were pretty well off." According to the New York Times, when a friend asked Davis whether his family had an outhouse, he replied, "No, we had outwoods."
He grew up in poverty that was extreme even by the standards of the small farms of the Deep South. Until he was nine he didn't have a bed to sleep in, and he had to help his father build a casket out of loose pieces of wood when his younger sister died. Despite this hard life, Davis excelled in school.
"I decided at a very young age that if my life was to be better, I had to get an education," he was quoted as saying in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. After finishing grade school as one in a class of three, he attended high school in Winnfield, Louisiana, and then moved to New Orleans, carrying his belongings tied together in a bedsheet, to attend business college. Moving on to Baptist-affiliated Louisiana College in Pineville, Davis worked his way through school partly by singing and playing the guitar, although he was forced to drop out at one point due to lack of funds. "I had to start from scratch," Davis recalled, as quoted in You Are My Sunshine: The Jimmie Davis Story. "Because we didn't have a library back home, I simply had no idea of how to use one or for that matter what one even was." With an eye toward a teaching career, Davis completed a master's degree in education at Louisiana State University in 1926.
Shreveport- KWKH Mid-20s
After graduation and a brief stint teaching in public schools, Davis began teaching at the all-female Dodd College in Shreveport. A year later, apparently not finding teaching to his liking, he got a job as a clerk in Shreveport's court system. Davis kept up with his music, performing on a Friday night program on Shreveport radio station KWKH, and when Northern record labels began looking for a yodeling country singer who could duplicate the success of Mississippi's "Blue Yodeler," Jimmie Rodgers, Davis emerged as a natural pick and was courted by several companies.
First Records 1928; Victor and Bluebird 1929-33
Jimmie Davis first attempt at recording for the Doggone label in July 1928 at their Chicago, Illinois. The four songs he cut are collectors items and were not distributed like to larger labels. His next attempt at recording was in Dallas for Columbia but the two songs cut on Dec. 4, 1928 were never issued.
His recording career really started when he signed to the Victor label in 1929; recording first in Memphis, Tennessee on September 19, 1929 with Prentis Dumas also playing guitar, where he cut blues oriented sides in the style of his idol, Jimmie Rodgers. His first session included “Down Home Blues” and “Out of Town Blues.” His blues and Rodger’s cover songs were mixed with an occasional ballad, cowboy song or hobo song. The roughly 60 sides Davis recorded for Victor between 1929 and 1933 were, in the words of country music historian John Morthland, as quoted in London, England's Daily Telegraph, "the dirtiest batch of songs any one person had ever recorded in country music."
Davis delved into African-American blues music, discovering its rich lore of sexual double meanings and making them his own in such pieces as "Tom Cat and Pussy Blues." In his "Organ Grinder Blues," Davis sang of a popular anti-impotence monkey-gland treatment popularized by quack physician and heavy radio advertiser John R. Brinkley.
Gonna get me some monkey glands,
Be like I used to was;
Gonna run these mamas down,
Like a Dominicker rooster does.
In some of his blues pieces, Davis recorded with black guitarist Oscar Woods and with a few other African-American performers, becoming one of the first white musicians to record in an integrated group.
In 1933 he switched to the Victor’s discount Bluebird label continuing his blues recordings mixed with an occasional Western number. He started his career, like Gene Autry, at the height of the Depression so through no fault of his own, his Victor sales were never robust.
Decca 1934-First Hit: “Nobody’s Darlin’ But Mine”- Marries
Jimmie was one of the first artists to sign with the newly formed Decca label in 1934. Remarkably, his very first side recorded in September 1934 became his first bona-fide hit in 1935. "Nobody's Darling But Mine," a grim dirge with a theme of suicide, became a country classic. He recorded three sequels to the song and it remained one of his favorites.
He used the royalties to pay off old debts and purchase a farm.
By mid-30’s Davis had married Shreveport socialite Alverna Adams, another critic of his racy lyrics. "I try out a song on my wife," he was quoted as saying in the New York Times, "and if she doesn't like it, I rush right out and record it." The marriage produced a son, James, and lasted until Alverna's death in 1968. Davis later married another woman, Anna Gordon, a member of the Chuck Wagon Gang gospel group.
At Decca, Davis fell in with a group of musicians from Shreveport and nearby east Texas who were trying to create a country counterpart to the smooth pop of Bing Crosby and other "crooners" of the day. In 1938 Davis cut his nationwide hit "It Makes No Difference Now," a downbeat but smoothly sophisticated song he co-wrote with Texas vocalist Floyd Tillman [Tillman sold the rights to the songs to Davis but got them back in the 1960s].
During his Decca years Davis made records with Milton Brown’s Brownies (who accompanied him in 1937), Buddy Jones, and Lani McIntire and His Hawaiians. In 1938, the same year Collier’s magazine called Davis and Gene Autry the two biggest stars of country music, Davis ran for office and was elected commissioner of public safety for Shreveport. The dirty lyrics and racey blues songs stopped.
His sessions in the 40s featured some of the finest Country swing musicians: the Dallas, Texas May, 1941 session featured Charles Mitchell, Moon Mulican, Cliff Bruner, Hershel Woodal andTex Swaim; while his May 15, 1942 session was backed by Johnny Bond and Jimmy Wakely.
You are My Sunshine
Jimmie’s biggest hit and best money-maker is "You Are My Sunshine" which Davis at first claimed to have written while working on his master's degree at LSU. On February 4, 1940, Davis stepped into Decca’s recording studio in Chicago and waxed “You Are My Sunshine.” When it was released in March, it became a reported million-seller and eventually an international hit. Gene Autry and Bing Crosby both had million-sellers with the song and were among the first of over 350 artists to record the song, which was eventually translated into more than 30 languages.
Davis was first quoted about writing "You Are My Sunshine:" "I didn't write it about anybody special, although I might have been courtin' two or three at the time. I believe it was written after a rainy day in Louisiana like this. Sunshine is a welcome thing. It brings a lot of brightness. I still like to watch the sun go down in the afternoon. I carried 'You Are My Sunshine' around but nobody would let me record it, and I couldn't get anybody else to record it. They either didn't think the song was any good or that I was any good. I recorded my own version in 1931 in Chicago, but nothing happened with it."
Eventually the truth came out: In 1939 Davis and Charles Mitchell, who played Pedal steel with Davis, copyrighted “You Are My Sunshine.” Paul Rice and his brother Hoke performed as the Rice Brothers’ Gang. Paul Rice wrote the song and on September 13, 1939 they recorded the song for Decca. A newspaper article in the Shreveport Times related “on a day in 1939- no one seems to remember the exact date- Charles Mitchell and Jimmie Davis called the station KWKH to see Paul Rice (who was playing there at the time). Paul’s wife was in the hospital and needed cash to pay her bills. He sold “Sunshine” to Davis and Mitchell for $35. Each put in 17.50. On Jan. 30, 1940 “You Are My Sunshine” with words and music by Jimmie Davis and Charles Mitchell was published by Southern Music Publishing Company in New York. In the meantime Mitchell sold his rights to the song to Davis but not the right to have his name listed as co-composer.”
Paul Rice: “I wrote You Are my Sunshine in 1937. Where I got the idea for it, a girl over in South Carolina wrote me this long letter- it was long about seventeen pages. And she was talking about how I was her sunshine. I got the idea for the song and put a tune to it.” According to Rice, “At least 20 people claimed to have written ‘You Are My Sunshine.’ I had a gal write me from California (should be South Carolina) that she wrote it.”
Davis, who originally claimed ownership, apparently changed his mind in later years and made a statement to Dorothy Horstman in her book “Sing Your Heart Out Country Boy.” When asked about the song, Davis, in a statement he made for the book, said he doesn’t claim authorship of the song, he merely states its remarkable history of popularity.
Tony Russell gives a brief account in his booklet to the second Bear Family box set of Davis' complete recordings. It is a tangled web, but the key facts are as follows: There were two recordings of the song before Davis' 1940 recording: in August 1939 (Bluebird B-8263) by the Pine Ridge Boys (Marvin Taylor and Doug Spivey), a vocal duo from Atlanta; and in September 1939 (De 5763) by the Rice Brothers Gang, a band originally from north Georgia led by guitarists Hoke and Paul Rice. Davis and Charles Mitchell bought the song from Paul Rice for $35 to help him pay his wife's hospital bills. The new Davis-Mitchell copyright was published by Southern Music on 30 January 1940, six days before Davis put it on record. Though Mitchell's name appears on the copyright listing, he had already sold his half share to Davis. On the other hand, Doug Spivey told Georgia country music historian, Wayne Daniel, that he and Taylor had got it from a lady singer from South Carolina who had 'got it from some fellow there'. She said: 'Take the song. Do with it what you want to'. Spivey has a half-confirmation from Paul Rice who said he got the idea after reading a 17-page letter from a girl from South Carolina who 'was talking about I was her sunshine and I got the idea for a song and put a tune to it'.
Russell points out that, despite the clear account of how he bought it, Davis always maintained that he had written it himself, that he had been singing it for years before 1940 and that he had recorded it several times (before 1940) but not satisfactorily enough for it to be issued. Russell comments that his 'discography provides no evidence to support any of these claims.
The basic facts are: Spivey and Taylor recorded it first on Aug. 22, 1939 and they got it from a lady singer from South Carolina who had “'got it from some fellow there.” This was corroborated by Art Slatherley Columbia’s A & R man. Clearly no one knows the origin of the song and it should be considered a folk song.
A Japanese country music historian, Toru Mitsui, devoted an entire monograph to this matter which he delivered at the 6th Annual Country Music Conference, Meridian, Mississippi on May 26 1989: 'You Are My Sunshine: A Question of Authorship'. Mitsui quoted from the 'Shreveport Times' Horace Logan's opinion that the Rice brothers got the idea for 'Sunshine' from a refrain in an old Hawaiian song, a theory that even Davis seemed to support: 'It's a kind of Hawaiian tune, something like', he told Mitsui.
Davis played up his association with the song when running for governor, singing it at all his campaign rallies and riding on a horse named "Sunshine." Jimmie Davis's authorized biography, You Are My Sunshine: The Jimmie Davis Story, was published in 1987.
Interview Roy Lee Brown recorded by Bill Thompson on 4-18-04:
On Saturday nights at Crystal Springs, they [Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies] started at 9 and played until 2 in the morning, and they didn’t take an intermission. Usually, if they took an intermission, fights would start. If you took the people who had danced and the ones that had drank, and the ones who danced AND drank, by 12 o’clock they were having a big time and they might be getting a chip on their shoulder and were ready to fight sometimes. So Milton didn’t allow them to take an intermission on Saturday night. If a Brownie needed to get down and go to the restroom or whatever, the rest of the band carried on playing without them.
I started going to Crystal Springs when I was 12 years old. My dad didn’t want me to go down there. If it hadn’t been for Milton and Derwood saying “Oh Dad, let him go down there, we’ll watch after him” then Dad wouldn’t have let me go. But even then, I had to be home at 12 o’clock. I had to catch a bus or somebody had to bring me home. I never did get to stay until 2 o’clock.
Sometimes they would have a guest vocalist. Jimmie Davis would come by there sometimes and sing with them. He used to go fishing somewhere up in North Texas, and he thought there was nothing like the Brownies. Best of my recollection, he would just sit up there in a chair on the bandstand close to Wanna Coffman, who played the bass. He would sip on his little whiskey or honey or whatever he had in that bottle. I was told by Wanna that he did sing with the band from time to time. Jimmie Davis put out some hit songs that he had bought off of prisoners down there at Shreveport. He was some kind of peace officer down there. That’s where he got most of his songs- “You Are My Sunshine” and a bunch of them. He’d bail somebody out if they’d give him the words to a song. Jimmie Davis had trouble with meter. He couldn’t keep meter. When he was recording, he had a man there to tell him when to come in to sing. Back in those days, I heard him break meter on several tunes.”
Movie Star- 1941
He traveled often to Hollywood to make movies that featured his singing. In 1941 Jimmie appeared in his first feature film role in "Strictly in the Groove" which starred Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. Films such as the 1949 Mississippi Rhythm were short, thinly veiled excuses to showcase a few songs from Davis and his band, but Louisiana (1947) was a more ambitious rags-to-riches tale based on Davis's own life.
In 1942, Davis made his first starring film "Strictly in the Groove," where he played himself and sang, “You Are My Sunshine.” The same year he made “Riding Through Nevada” and back in Louisiana was also named State Public Service Commissioner. "Frontier Fury" was made before he became governor in 1944. After completing his first term of office, Davis starred in “Louisiana,” a 1947 Monogram film based on his own life directed by Phil Karlson. His last film was “Square Dance Katy” in 1950.
Politics 1938; Governor of Louisiana 1944- Number One Hit
Meanwhile, Davis had quit teaching and accepted a position at the Criminal Court in Shreveport. He became the chief of police in 1938 and moved to state government four years later by being elected Louisiana Public Service Commissioner. In the fall of 1943 Davis entered the race for governor of Louisiana and won. Musical performances, as they did for a number of old-time Southern politicians, played a major part in his campaign.
"It's better in a political campaign to give folks very little talking and a whole lot of songs," Davis was quoted as saying in the New York Times.Serving as governor from 1944 to 1948, Davis didn't let his political responsibilities interfere with his musical career. Elected governor of Louisiana in 1944, he continued to record and scored five Top Five singles during his first term. Jimmie’s hits included the double-sided "Is It Too Late Now" backed with "There's a Chill on the Hill Tonight" in 1944 and the number one, "There's a New Moon Over My Shoulder," the following year.
Capitol Records 1940s- Gospel Singer Decca 1950s
Davis moved back to full-time recording in 1948, and after a stint with Capitol, he returned to Decca, where he recorded strictly gospel songs. His version of the gospel standard "Suppertime" became a major hit in the early 1950s. In 1957 he was given the American Youth Singers Award for Best Male Sacred Singer.
Re-elected Governor 1960-64
Jimmie ran for a second term in 1959 and been elected again as Govenor, serving from 1960 to 1964. This period saw bruising conflicts across the South, as state governments resisted court-ordered desegregation orders. Davis ran on a segregationist platform in 1959 but was not regarded as a virulent racist, and desegregation proceeded in Louisiana during his second term largely without the violence that occurred in other states. Davis smoothed out legislative controversies by leading lawmakers in singalongs of "It Makes No Difference Now," and he once rode his horse, Sunshine, up the steps of the state capitol building in Baton Rouge while singing a song about his legislative agenda.
While serving as chief executive again, he returned to Billboard’s country chart after an absence of almost 15 years with a top 20 hit, “Where the Old Red River Flows.”
Later Life
By 1964, he was back to gospel music, and he recorded heavily throughout the late '60s and early '70s. Decca ended his contract in the 1975, but Davis continued to perform and record even into the 1990s. He was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1971 and a year later, he was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Gospel Music Association’s Hall of Fame. In the spring of 1992 Davis appeared on a CBS special celebrating the Country Music Hall of Fame's 25th anniversary, and in 1998 he recorded a new version of "You Are My Sunshine.” At a 100th birthday party held in Baton Rouge in 1999, Davis performed four songs. The affair was a benefit for the Jimmy Davis Tabernacle Fund. After being elected into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2000, Jimmie died at his home in Baton Rouge on November 5, 2000, having said, according to the New York Times, that he wanted to be remembered as "someone who scattered a little sunshine along his path."
Hit Songs: Nobody's Darlin' But Mine; It Makes No Difference Now; Sweethearts or Strangers; You Are My Sunshine; Worried Mind; When It's Round Up Time in Heaven There's a New Moon Over My Shoulder; Come Home It's Suppertime; Where the Old Red River Flows;
LP’s: Jimmie Davis, Decca, 1953; Near the Cross, Decca, 1955; Hymn Time, Decca, 1957; Hail Him with a Song, Decca, 1958; You Are My Sunshine, Decca, 1959; Suppertime, Decca, 1960; Rock 'n' Roll Blues (early Victor material), Bear Family, 1984; Sounds Like Jimmie Rodgers (early recordings), ACM, 1985; Barnyard Stomp (early Victor material); Bear Family, 1988.
Jimmie Davis, Complete Recorded Early Works 1928-42: 1892 Blues; Alimony Blues; All Alone In This World; All Because You Said Goodbye; Answer to Nobody’s Darling But Mine; Arabella Blues; Are You Tired Of Me Darling?; Baby Your Mother; Baby’s Lullaby; Barnyard Stomp; Barroom Message; Bear Cat Mama From Horner’s Corners; Beautiful Mary; Beautiful Texas; Bed Bug Blues; Before You Say Farewell; Born To Be Blue; Bury Me In Old Kentucky; By The Grave Of Nobody’s Darling; Call Me Back Pal O’ Mine; Columbus Stockade Blues; Come On Over To My House; Corn Fed Mama; Cowboy’s Home Curse Of An Aching Heart; Sweet Home; Davis Limited, The; Davis’ Salty Dog; Do You Ever Think Of Me?; Doggone That Train; Don’t Break Her Heart Boy; Don’t Lock Your Heart and Throw Away The Key; Don’t Say Goodbye If You Love Me; Don’t You Cry Over Me; Down at The End Of Memory Lane; Down At The Old Country Church; Dream Of Love; Easy Rider Blues; End Of The World; Farewell To The Range; Gambler’s Return; Get On Board Aunt Susan; Good Time Papa Blues; Goodbye Old Booze; Gotta Have My Baby Back; Graveyard Blues; Greatest Mistake In My Life; Hard Hearted Mama; Have You Ever Been In Heaven; Heading Home; High Behind Blues; High Geared Daddy; High Geared Mama; Hobo's Warning; Hold ‘Er Newt; Home In Caroline; Home Town Blues; Honky Tonk Blues; I Ain’t Gonna Let Satan Turn Me ‘Round; I Dreamed of An Old Love Affair; I Feel The Same As You; I Got News For You; I Hung My Head And Cried; I Love Everything That You Do; I Loved You Once; I Saw Your Face In The Moon; I Think I’ll Turn Your Damper Down; I Told You So; I Want Her Tailor-Made; I Wish I Had A Sweetheart; I Wish I Had Never Seen Sunshine; I Wonder if She’s Blues; I Wonder Where You Are; I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now; I’d Love To Call You Sweetheart; If I Cry You’ll Never Know; If Tomorrow Never Comes; I’ll Be Happy Today; I’ll Be True To The One I Love; I’ll Get Mine Bye And Bye; I’m Drifting Back To Dreamland; I’m Knocking At Your Door Again; I’m Sorry Now; I’m Still A Fool Over You; I’m The One; I’m Thinking Tonight Of My Blue Eyes; I’m Waiting For The Ships That Never Come In; I’m Wondering Now; I’ve Tried So Hard To Forget You; In Arkansas; In My Cabin Tonight; In My Heart You’ll Always be Mine; In The West Where Life Is Free; It Makes No Difference Now; It’s All Coming Home To You; It’s Been Years; It’s Hard But It’s True; I’ve Got My Heart On My Sleeve; Jealous Lover; Jellyroll Blues; Jimmie’s Travelin’ Blues; Just A Girl That Men Forget; Just A Rolling Stone; Just Because; Just Forgive and Forget; Keyhole In The Door; Last Letter, The; Last Trip Of The Old Ship; Live And Let Live; Lonely Hobo; Love I Have For You; Mama’s Getting Hot And Papa’s Getting Cold; Market House Blues; Meet Me Tonight In Dreamland; Memories; Midnight Blues; Moonlight And Skies; Moonlight Millionaire; My Arkansas Sweetheart; My Blue Bonnet Girl; My Blue Heaven; My Brown Eyed Texas Rose; My Bucket’s Got A Hole In It; My Dixie Sweetheart; My Louisiana Girl; My Mama Told Me; My Mary; My Mother’s Bible; Never Break A Promise; Nobody’s Darling Nut Mine; Nobody’s Lonesome For Me; Old Timer; On The Sunny Side Of The Rockies; One Two Three Four; Organ Grinder Blues; Out Of Town Blues; Pal Of long Ago; Pay Me No Mind; Pea Pickin’ Papa; Penitentiary Blues; Pi-Rootin’ Around; Plant Some Flowers On My Grave; (Sweetheart) Please Be True To Me; Prairie Of Love; Prisoner’s Song; Ramona; Red Nightgown Blues; Red River Blues; Ridin’ Down The Arizona Trail; Rockin’ Blues; Roll Along Kentucky Moon; Same Old Moon Is Shining; Saturday Night Stroll; Settling Down For Life; Sewing Machine Blues; Shackles And Chains; She’s A Hum Dum Dinger; She’s Left A Runnin’ Like A Sewing Machine; Shirt Tail Blues; Shotgun Wedding; Sinner’s Prayer; Some Must Win- Some Lose; Some Other Man; Sometimes Late At Night; Sweet Lorene; Sweetheart Of The Valley; Sweetheart of West Texas; Sweeethearts or Strangers; Tears On My pillow; Ten Tiny Toes; That’s Why I’m Nobody’s Darling; Think of Me Thinking of You; There Ain’t Gonna Be No Afterwhile; There’s A Chill On The Hill Tonight; There’s A Gold Mine In The Sky; There’s a Ranch In The Rockies; There’s A Smile On The Face Of the Moon; There’s An Old Fashioned House On The Hillside; There’s Evil In Ye Children; Tom Cat And Pussy Blues; Too Late; Triflin’ Mama Blues; ‘Twill Be Sweet When We Meet; Two More Years; Walkin’ My Blues Away; Walls Of White; Wampus Kitty Mama; Way Out on the Mountain; What Else Could I Do?; What Good Will It Do; What Happened; What More Can I say; What’s The Matter With You Darling; When A Boy From The Mountains (Weds A Girl); When it’s Peach Pickin’ Time In Georgia; When It’s Round Up Time In Heaven; When You Know You’re Not Forgotten; Where Is My Boy Tonight; Where The Old Red River Flows; White Lace Black Clay and a Red Coffin; Why Do You Treat Me Like The Dirt Under Your Feet?; Why Should I Be To Blame; Why Should I Care; Wild And Reckless Hobo; (A) Woman’s Blues; Won’t You Forgive me?; Would You; Write A Letter To Your Mother; Yo Yo Mama; You Can’t Tell About The Women Nowadays; You Are My Sunshine; You Tell Me Your Dream I’ll Tell You Mine; You Told Me A Lie; You’d Rather Forget Than Forgive; You’ll Be Coming Back Someday; You’ll Be Sorry; You’re As Welcome As The Flowers In May; You’re Break ing My Heart; You’re My Darling; You’re the Picture Of Your Mother; You’ve Been Tom Cattin’ Around; Your Promise Was Broken;
Decca 44-47: All Because You Said Goodbye; Bang Bang; Golden Curls; Grievin’ my Heart Out For You; I Just Dropped In To Say Goodbye; I’m Gonna Write My Self A Letter; I’m Hatin’ Myself; I’m Hurt Too much To Cry; I’m Only In The way; I’m Sorry That’s The Way You Feel; I’ve Learned my Lesson; Just Thinking of You; Let’s Be Sweethearts Again; My Heart Belongs To You; No Good For Nothin’; Take Care Of my Heart; What Happened?; What’s The Matter With You Darling; You Won’t Be Satisfied That Way
Some Capitol Recording in the early 1950s: Cickle Cackle Song; Poodle Dog Song; You Are My Sunshine; Nobody’s Darling But Mine;