This Week in Texas Music History, we visit a lesser-known name who just might be top of the heap in honky-tonk standards.
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On March 3, 1922, country singer Jimmy Heap was born in Taylor, Texas. He learned guitar as a teenager and formed the first version of his band the Melody Masters upon his return from the Army Air Corps in WWII. They began playing the Central Texas dance hall circuit and made their names with a residency at Dessau Hall on the outskirts of Austin. In 1948, Jimmy Heap and the Melody Masters began their own radio show out of Taylor, as historian Deirdre Lannon writes, and its theme, the “Dessau Waltz,” became their first regional hit when released on Austin’s Lasso Records.
In 1949, they signed with Imperial Records, where they released an early version of “The Wild Side of Life,” later a honky-tonk anthem once Hank Thompson cut it in 1952. Likewise, in 1953 Jimmy Heap and the Melody Masters issued their biggest single, “Release Me,” on Capitol Records, later rendered iconic by Ray Price.
Though less-remembered, perhaps, than either Thompson or Price, it was Jimmy Heap who really put these songs on their way to becoming standards. After this first wave of pioneering honky-tonk, Jimmy Heap and the Melody Masters left Capitol in 1956. They entered an experimental period that included raucous rockabilly and adult party albums based on their racy stage show at the Golden Nugget Casino in Las Vegas. The group continued to tour regionally through the 1960s and 1970s, and Jimmy Heap recorded a solo album with the Crazy Cajun label as late as 1977. He died in a boating accident the same year. Twenty years later, in 1997, the Texas Western Swing Hall of Fame inducted Jimmy Heap, and his memory was further honored when Governor Rick Perry officially declared Jimmy Heap Day on March 9, 2001.
Sources:
Deirdre Lannon in Laurie E. Jasinski, Gary Hartman, Casey Monahan, and Ann T. Smith, eds. The Handbook of Texas Music. Second Edition. Denton, TX: Texas State Historical Association, 2012.
