Cindy Walker (July 20, 1917 – March 23, 2006) was an American songwriter, country music singer, and dancer. She wrote many popular and enduring songs recorded by many artists.

She adopted a craftsman-like approach to her songwriting, often tailoring particular songs to specific artists. She produced a body of over 650 songs that have been described as “direct, honest, and unpretentious”. She had top-10 hits spread over five decades. She was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1997, and the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame in March 2011.

Early life

Lucille Eiland Walker, who in 1940 changed her name to "Cindy Walker," was born on July 20, 1917, on her grandparents' farm three miles north of Mart, Texas (near Mexia, about 20 miles east of Waco), the daughter of cotton broker Aubrey Walker. Her maternal grandfather, Franklin Lycurgus Eiland (1860-1909), was a noted composer of hymns. Her mother Oree Walker (1899-1991) was a fine pianist and Cindy's lifelong musical collaborator and business partner. From childhood, Cindy was fond of poetry and wrote habitually. Beginning at age 5 she gained recognition for her singing and dancing abilities.

Career

Beginnings

Throughout the 1930s, Walker sang and danced in stage shows across Texas and beyond. As a teenager, Walker wrote dozens of songs, many of which remained unpublished until the early 1940s. Among these early compositions, her song "Dusty Skies" was inspired by newspaper accounts of the dust storms on the American prairies in the mid-1930s, and later became a hit for Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. In 1936, her song "Casa de Mañana" was performed by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra on a national radio broadcast as part of the Texas Frontier Centennial celebration in Fort Worth. Walker went inside the building to pitch her song and emerged shortly afterward to ask her mother to play the piano for her. Bing Crosby's brother, Larry Crosby, had agreed to listen to the song; Walker sang “Lone Star Trail” to him, accompanied by her mother. Larry Crosby was impressed and aware that his brother was looking for a new Western song to record. The next day, Cindy played guitar and sang “Lone Star Trail” for Bing Crosby at Universal Studios where he was making a movie. Crosby arranged for her to record a demonstration with Dave Kapp of Decca Records, who was also impressed and offered her a recording contract.

Performances and recordings

Walker remained in Los Angeles for 13 years, appearing in films, performing on stage and on the radio, and writing songs for country and western artists. In 1940, she sang her song "Hill Billy Bill" in the Universal musical short "Swingin' in the Barn," and later appeared as a singer in the Gene Autry Western Ride, Tenderfoot, Ride. Walker provided lead vocals for three songs (released as sides of three records) recorded by Texas Jim Lewis and His Lone Star Cowboys, the first of which was “Seven Beers with the Wrong Man” (1940), a song featured in the first of her dozen "Soundies" (a precursor to music videos, presented in large coin-operated video juke boxes).

Focus on songwriting

Beginning in July 1941, Walker successfully pitched her songs to Bob Wills and began to regularly contribute compositions for recordings and the movies that Wills made in the 1940s. The collaboration was extremely fruitful. Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys eventually recorded over 50 of Cindy Walker's songs, including "Cherokee Maiden" (1941), "Dusty Skies" (1941), "Miss Molly" (1942), "Sugar Moon" (co-written with Bob Wills; 1947) and "Bubbles in My Beer" (1948). "Warm Red Wine" (Ernest Tubb, 1949), probably confusing it with her own 1947 composition of that name, co-written with and recorded by Spade Cooley.

During the 1950s, Walker continued her success as a writer of popular songs. In 1952, Hank Snow had a hit with her "The Gold Rush Is Over", and in 1955, Webb Pierce had success with "I Don't Care". Walker's song "In the Misty Moonlight" was a hit for both Jerry Wallace (1964) and Dean Martin (1967), as well as being recorded by Jim Reeves. "Heaven Says Hello" (recorded by Sonny James) and "You Are My Treasure" (Jack Greene) were hits in 1968, both written by Walker.</blockquote>

Her speech was followed by a standing ovation, and Walker left the stage in tears after softly blowing a kiss. During the proceedings, renowned songwriter (and fellow Hall of Fame inductee) Harlan Howard described Walker as "the greatest living songwriter of country music".

Walker customarily rose at dawn each day to write songs, the words and music often coming to her simultaneously. She typed her lyrics on her hand-painted pink-trimmed manual typewriter, and presented her finished songs to her mother, singing them while strumming her guitar. Oree could play Cindy' songs on piano after a couple listens, and she accompanied Cindy on home-recorded demos. Each year, Walker and her mother would operate from an apartment in Nashville for five months or so to market the songs. Oree Walker died in 1991. In a 2004 interview, Walker stated: "I miss Mama every day".

Charting singles

{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"

|-

! rowspan="2"| Year

! rowspan="2" style="width:20em;"| Single

! Peak positions

|- style="font-size:smaller;"

! width="65"| US Country<br />

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| 1944

! scope="row"| "When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again"

| 5

|}

See also

  • Mr. Texas (film 1951)

References

Further reading

  • Oermann, Robert K. (1998). "Cindy Walker". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kinsgbury, Editor. New York: Oxford University Press. pp.&nbsp;567–568.
  • Cindy Walker – Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
  • Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame: Cindy Walker
  • Douglas Martin, "Obituaries: Cindy Walker, Songwriter" The New York Times, 29 March 2006.
  • Cindy Walker Foundation website