Cindy Walker

Cindy Walker
Background information
Born	(1917-07-20)July 20, 1917 Mart, Texas, U.S.
Died	March 23, 2006(2006-03-23) (aged 88) Mexia, Texas, U.S.
Genres	Country
Occupation(s)	Songwriter, singer, dancer

Cindy Walker (July 20, 1917 – March 23, 2006) was an American songwriter, as well as a 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 large body of songs that have been described as “direct, honest and unpretentious”.^[1] She had Top 10 hits spread over five decades.^[2]

She was inducted into the

Early life

Cindy Walker was born on July 20, 1917, on her grandparents' farm near Mart, Texas (near Mexia, east of Waco), the daughter of a cotton-broker. Her maternal grandfather F.L. Eiland was a noted composer of hymns and her mother was a fine pianist. From childhood Cindy Walker was fond of poetry and wrote habitually.

Career

Beginnings

As a teenager, inspired by newspaper accounts of the dust storms on the American prairies in the mid-1930s, Walker wrote the song, "Dusty Skies" (later recorded by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys).^[3] In 1936, her "Casa de Mañana" was performed by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra (as part of the Texas Centennial celebrations).^[1] By the end of the decade Cindy Walker was singing and dancing in Texas stage shows.^[4]

Move to Los Angeles

In 1940, Walker, at the age of 22, accompanied her parents on a business trip to

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.[7] 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).^[1] Bob Wills and his band performed Walker's first top-ten country hit, “You're From Texas” (1944).^[8]

Among her other 1940s hits were "Triflin' Gal" (top-10 records for both Al Dexter and Walter Shrum, 1945);^{[9]: 104, 314} "Warm Red Wine" (Ernest Tubb, 1949),^[9]: 355 and "Take Me in Your Arms and Hold Me" (Eddy Arnold, 1950).^[9]: 30 Some sources have erroneously attributed Johnny Bond's 1948 "Oklahoma Waltz" to her;^[10] probably confusing it with her own 1947 composition of that name, co-written with and recorded by Spade Cooley.^[11][12][13]

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".^[1]

Another Walker song was "Blue Canadian Rockies" recorded by

Reeves recorded many of Walker's compositions; she often wrote specifically for him and offered him the right of first refusal of her tracks. "Distant Drums" was originally recorded by Reeves as a demo, simply because he loved the song. Chet Atkins felt the time was not right for an international release. This demo, like many for Reeves, was unearthed upon his death and along with Atkins and Mary Reeves, Walker oversaw the production of the overdub which was to be released in 1966, and became a huge international hit. ^{[citation needed]}

In 1961 Eddy Arnold had a minor hit with Walker's "Jim, I Wore a Tie Today", a moving song about the death of a cowboy. Walker also wrote the song "Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream) ", which was recorded by Roy Orbison (who also recorded a version of "Distant Drums"). She originally had little confidence in “Dream Baby”, but Orbison's recording was a hit in both the US and Britain in 1962, and was a hit again in 1971 for Glen Campbell and in 1983 for Lacy J. Dalton.^[1] In 1964 Fred Foster of Monument Records "tempted her back into the studio to record an album, Words and Music by Cindy Walker.^[14] 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.^[1]

Honors, awards and tributes

In 1970 Walker became a charter member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.^[3] In 1981 Mickey Gilley's version of "You Don't Know Me" was a hit in the country charts. A year later Walker had her last major hit with Ricky Skaggs’ reworking of "I Don't Care".^[1]

It has been estimated that more than 500 of Walker’s songs have been recorded

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".[16]

In 1998, Walker was inducted into the

In March 2006, Willie Nelson released You Don't Know Me: The Songs of Cindy Walker, an album featuring 13 of Walker's well-known songs.

Personal life

In her personal life, Walker shunned the limelight. It was often reported that she never married, though in an interview with The New York Times shortly before her death, Walker stated she once had “a very short-lived marriage”. After her stint in Los Angeles she returned to Texas in 1954, living in Mexia in a modest three-bedroom house with her widowed mother, Oree.^[17]

Walker's custom was rising at dawn each day to write songs. She typed her lyrics on a pink-trimmed manual typewriter and Oree helped work out melodies for her daughter's words. Each year Walker and her mother would operate from an apartment in Nashville for five months or so in order to market the songs.^[8] Oree Walker died in 1991. In a 2004 interview Walker stated: "I miss Mama every day".^[3]

Death

Walker died near her home, at the Parkview Regional Hospital in Mexia, Texas, on March 23, 2006, at age 88. She died seven days after Willie Nelson's tribute album to her was released. She had been ill for several weeks prior to her death.^[16] She was buried in the Mexia City Cemetery. Her family had a custom-designed sculpture created for her gravestone to honor the songwriter and her work. The memorial sculpture is a large pink-granite guitar (in her signature color).^[18]

Charting singles

See also

• Mr. Texas (film 1951)

Notes