Johnny Horton - North To Alaska

John Gale "Johnny" Horton (April 30, 1925–November 5, 1960), was an country music singer who was most famous for his semi-folk, so-called "saga songs" which launched the "historical ballad" craze of the late 1950s and early 1960s. With them, he had several major crossover hits, most notably in 1959 with "The Battle of New Orleans" which won the 1960 Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording. The song won the Grammy Hall of Fame Award and in 2001 ranked No. 333 of the RIAA's "Songs of the Century". In 1960, Horton had two other crossover hits with "North to Alaska", in John Wayne's hit film, North to Alaska; and "Sink the Bismarck". Horton was also a rockabilly singer, and was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. Horton was born in Los Angeles to John and Claudia Horton, the youngest of five siblings but raised in the town of Rusk in East Texas. His family trekked back and forth from California often as migrant fruit pickers but always returned to the Rusk/Gallatin area in Texas. After graduation from Gallatin High School in 1944, he attended the Methodist-affiliated Lon Morris College (then called Lon Morris Junior College) in Jacksonville, Texas, on a basketball scholarship. He later attended Seattle University and also briefly attended Baylor University, although he did not graduate from any college. Thereafter, he worked in California and Alaska. He returned to Texas and won a talent contest hosted by then-radio announcer Jim Reeves at the Reo Palm Isle club in Longview, the seat of Gregg County, and soon starred in the popular Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport. He remained a Hayride member until his death. Some racist songs are incorrectly associated with Horton. These songs are actually by "Johnny Rebel". Horton was married twice. His first marriage, to Donna Cook, ended in a divorce granted in Rusk. In September 1953, he married Billie Jean Jones. Jones was the widow of country music star Hank Williams, to whom she had been married for the two and a half months prior to his death. With Billie Jean, Johnny had two daughters, Yanina (Nina) and Melody. Billie Jean's daughter, Jerry, was also part of the family. He loved fishing as much as, if not more than, singing and was once billed as "The Singing Fisherman." His favorite fishing holes were in the Piney Woods of East Texas and in northern Louisiana. His other passion was spiritualism and he was devoted to the writings of Edgar Cayce. Death On November 5, 1960, Horton was killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver named James Evan Davis on Highway 79 at Milano, Texas, while returning home from a performance at the Skyline Club in Austin. When Johnny Cash, a good friend of Horton's, learned about the accident he said, " locked myself in one of the hotel's barrooms, and cried." Cash also dedicated his rendition of "When It's Springtime in Alaska (It's Forty Below)" to Horton on his album Personal File: "Johnny Horton was a good old friend of mine."