Johnny Maddox

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Johnny Maddox
Birth nameJohn Sheppard Maddox Jr.
Born(1927-08-04)August 4, 1927
Gallatin, Tennessee, U.S.
DiedNovember 27, 2018(2018-11-27) (aged 91)
Gallatin, Tennessee, U.S.
GenresJazz, ragtime
Occupation(s)Musician
Instrument(s)Piano

John Sheppard Maddox Jr. (August 4, 1927 – November 27, 2018) was an American ragtime pianist, historian, and collector of music memorabilia.

Life and career

Maddox was born in 1927 in Gallatin, Tennessee.[1] His interest in the ragtime era was fueled by his great-aunt Zula Cothron. She played with an all-girls' orchestra at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis and later played in vaudeville. Maddox studied classical music for nineteen years with Margaret Neal and Prudence Simpson Dresser, who studied in Europe for a short time with Franz Liszt. One of his teachers of popular music, Lela Donoho, accompanied silent movies in his hometown of Gallatin, Tennessee. He played his first public concert when he was five and began his professional career in 1939 playing with a local dance band, the Rhythmasters, led by J. O. "Temp" Templeton.[2]

Around 1946, Maddox started working for his friend

Pat Flowers, Dorothy Donegan, and Lawrence Welk. His first record to sell over a million copies was probably "San Antonio Rose" by Bob Wills. Another one of his most popular early records was "In the Mood", and he performed the song on The Pee Wee King Show in February 1953.[3][citation needed
]

After hearing him play in 1952, the "Father of the Blues", W. C. Handy, called Maddox "the white boy with the colored fingers".[4]

In 1954, Maddox was declared the Number One Jukebox Artist in America by the MOA (Music Operators of America). In January 1955, he recorded "

The Soupy Sales Show.[3][citation needed
]

Maddox continued to record for Dot Records through 1967, by which time he had earned nine

gold singles, and his total sales were over eleven million.[2] One of the highlights of his was performing twice at New York's Stork Club, where he appeared on live television with Teresa Brewer. At the annual Hillbilly Homecoming in Maryville, Tennessee, in 1957, he worked with an up-and-coming young singer named Patsy Cline. Maddox toured fairgrounds across the country in the late 1950s and early '60s with Swenson's Thrillcade, playing on a piano placed on the back of a pickup truck that was lifted by a hydraulic lift as high as fifteen feet. His longest professional engagement was at the Red Slipper Room in Denver, Colorado's Cherry Creek Inn, where he played for seventeen years. Maddox befriended many more musicians and performers from the ragtime and vaudeville days in his travels, including Glover Compton, Butterbeans and Susie, Candy Candido, Ted Lewis, Gus Van, Glenn Rowell, and Joe Jordan.[5]

Maddox began collecting antique sheet music, 78s, cylinders, piano rolls, photographs, and more at a very young age. He sold much of his first collection to Brigham Young University when he moved to Bad Ischl, Austria, around 1970. Tired of life on the road, he attempted to retire from show business. Soon, however, he was back performing in the United States and began a long residency at Il Porto Ristorante in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia.[5]

He retired in 1992 but was then coaxed to perform at the Historic Strater Hotel's Diamond Belle Saloon in Durango, Colorado, where he played from 1996 to 2012. He owned one of the largest collections of popular sheet music in the world,[citation needed] likely totaling near 100,000 pieces. He died on November 27, 2018, at the age of 91.[6]

Awards and honors

He is the only ragtime pianist to earn a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which was included when construction on the Walk of Fame began.[7]

A caricature of Maddox was placed in the main dining room of the Hollywood

Bill Haley.[3][citation needed
]

References

  1. ^ "John "Johnny" Sheppard Maddox Jr. AUGUST 4, 1927 ~ NOVEMBER 27, 2018 (AGE 91) Obituary". Archived from the original on March 29, 2019. Retrieved December 7, 2018.
  2. ^ a b Reffkin, David (February 2004). "An Interview with Johnny Maddox". The Mississippi Rag. Minneapolis, Minnesota.
  3. ^ a b c Maddox, Johnny. Personal scrapbooks.
  4. ^ a b "Crazy Otto Music – Purveyors of Ragtime". Crazy Otto. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
  5. ^ a b Melinsky, Dorothy (June 1976). "The Ragtime Missionary". The Mississippi Rag. Minneapolis, Minnesota.
  6. ^ Bebco, Joe. "Johnny Maddox has Died". Syncopatedtimes.com. The Syncopated Times. Retrieved November 27, 2018.
  7. ^ "Johnny Maddox | Hollywood Walk of Fame". Walk of Fame. Retrieved 20 January 2016.

External links

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