Jean Shepherd inducted into Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame

 

Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame to induct female pioneer

Paul’s Valley native Jean Shepard is noted for several firsts in the field of country music

She’ll join three others today when their lives and careers are celebrated during the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame Concert and Induction Ceremony.

Shepard joined singer, actor and Broadway star Sam Harris, Oklahoma balladeer Les Gilliam and legendary drummer Jamie Oldaker at 7:30 p.m. last night at Muskogee Civic Center. Following the ceremony, there was a concert with performances by the inductees.

Shepard was one of the first women to break the country music barrier in the 1950s. Upon the recommendation of Hank Thompson, Shepard signed with Capitol Records in 1952. One year later, she scored with a No. 1 country hit, a Korean War song entitled “A Dear John Letter” with narration from Ferlin Husky, who was appointed as her guardian for tours outside the state since Shepard wasn’t 21. It topped the country charts for 23 weeks and crossed over to the Top 5 pop charts, selling some 10 million records in 1953.

This success made her California’s first major female recording artist since Patsy Montana. She was one of the first women to join the Grand Ole Opry in 1955, and is the first woman to hold membership in the “mode lode of country music” for more than 47 years.

Shepard was the first country music female vocalist to overdub her voice on records and the first female in country music to sell a million records. Finally, she was the first woman in country music to record a concept album. Her 1956 “Songs of a Love Affair” featured 12 songs, all written by her, from a single woman’s point of view on one side, while the other side portrayed the wife’s perspective.

The early years

Born to parents, Hoit and Alla Mae Shepard, who raised 11 children in rural Oklahoma, Ollie Imogene Shepard was an avid listener to the Grand Ole Opry and Bob Wills’ radio broadcasts over KVOO in Tulsa. She learned to sing by listening to Jimmie Rodgers records on a wind-up Victrola. After living in Hugo, Shepard and her family relocated to Visalia, Calif., near Bakersfield, at the conclusion of World War II. At 14, she and several friends formed The Melody Ranch Girls, an all-female western swing band, named after Noble’s Melody Ranch, owned by Noble Fosberg, who managed and booked the band. She sang and played upright bass, an instrument that overwhelmed her 5-feet, 1-inch height. She recalled her mother and father hocking every stick of furniture in their home to pay for the bass which cost $350, a sum that would have bought a whole house full of furniture at the time. In 1948, the group recorded Hank Thompson’s song “Help.”

Shepard was becoming a well known music personality in the San Jaoquin Valley, while working three nights a week at Pismo Beach, performing on local radio station KNGS, and appearing on Jelly Sanders’ radio show on Porterville’s KTNV.

Through these appearances, she came to the attention of Thompson, who was responsible for her first recording contract with Capitol. Her first solo recording was “Crying Steel Guitar Waltz/Twice the Lovin'” in 1953 with Speedy West on steel. The aforementioned “A Dear John Letter” was followed with “Forgive Me John,” which charted at No. 4 on the country lists as well as on the Top 25 pop charts. Her early Capitol recordings were backed by Bill Woods’ band out of Bakersfield, which included guitarist Buck Owens. She later formed her own band called The Second Fiddles, after her 1964 hit “Second Fiddle (to an Old Guitar).” With the Capitol and United Artists labels, she produced several Top Five country hits such as “A Satisfied Mind,” “Beautiful Lies,” “Second Fiddle to a Steel Guitar,” “Take Possession,” and “Slippin’ Away.” The latter won her a Grammy Award nomination in 1973 for Best Country Female Vocalist of the Year.

The same year Jean joined the Grand Ole Opry (1955), she helped launch the “Ozark Jubilee” telecast on ABC television as part of Red Foley’s cast, where she remained until 1957. She was named Top Female Singer by “Cash Box” magazine in 1959 following such hits as “I Want to Go Where No One Knows Me” and “Have Heart, Will Love.” In 1963, her husband Hawkshaw Hawkins was killed in a plane crash near Camden, Tennessee, which also killed Patsy Cline and Cowboy Copas.

Shepard’s string of medium-sized hits in the 1960s on Capitol included “Many Happy Hangovers to You,” “If Teardrops Were Silver,” “I’ll Take the Dog,” “Mr. Do-It-Yourself,” “Heart, We did All We Could,” “Your Forevers (Don’t Last Very Long),” and “Seven Lonely Days.” The late Jim Reeves was quoted as saying, “All the girl singers should sound like Jean Shepard. She always hits her notes, holds them and wraps them around an audience like nobody else can.”

In 1973, Shepard moved to the United Artists and remained with that label until 1977. Her biggest hits with UA included “At the Time,” “I’ll Do Anything It Takes (To Stay With You),” “Poor Sweet Baby,” and “The Tips of My Fingers.” Her last hit single was in 1978, “The Real Thing,” which peaked at No. 85.

She continues to perform on the Grand Ole Opry as well as in Branson, Mo., in “Grand Ladies of Country Music,” a show launched in 2000 that includes Jan Howard, Helen Cornelius, Margo Smith, Leona Williams, and Norma Jean, another Oklahoman.

 

 

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