Ivory Joe Hunter

The music of East Texas has been heard around the world. The native rhythms of the Piney Woods and Gulf Coast have resonated for decades through the work of legendary performers like Tex Ritter and Jim Reeves, J. P. "Big Bopper" Richardson to contemporary artists such as Lee Ann Womack and Mark Chesnutt. For many years, Ivory Joe Hunter was as important as anyone in forging East Texas's musical heritage.

Ivory Joe Hunter-his given name, not a nickname-was born in Kirbyville in Deep East Texas on October 10, 1911-not 1914, as is often asserted--to a gospel-singer mother and a guitar-player father. One of fourteen children in the musically inclined family, Ivory Joe soon became an accomplished piano player who performed at tent shows and carnivals, both common attractions in pre-Depression East Texas.

In 1933 Ivory Joe attracted the attention of musical folklorist and Library of Congress collector John Lomax, for whom he first played and sang on a cylinder recording. By early in the 1940s Hunter had garnered a regional following by hosting a radio show on KDFM in Beaumont. He then left East Texas for California and a recording career that spanned three decades.

Ivory Joe was a businessman as well as a musician, and found considerable success in both venues. In 1942 he founded his own record label, Ivory Records, and later started another small operation, Pacific Records. His first record on the Ivory label, "Blues at Sunrise," became a national hit. "Pretty Baby Blues" topped the R&B charts for three weeks in 1948.

Hunter was among the first Black artists to combine rhythm-and-blues riffs with country-and-western elements, a skill that later proved profitable for such notables as Ray Charles and Fats Domino. In 1949 he wrote and recorded "Almost Lost My Mind" for MGM Records, which became one of his signature songs. Seven years later, "Since I Met You Baby" hit the top of the R&B charts and peaked at number twelve on the pop charts. Along the way, he penned nearly 2,500 other songs that were covered by artists including Pat Boone, the McGuire Sisters, and Sonny James. "The big Texan with the owl eyes and Cheshire-cat smile," as one contemporary described him, had made good.

Few artists boasted the musical range of Ivory Joe Hunter. He could play boogie-woogie piano with the best, and his rich, mellow vocals lent themselves to R&B ballads as well as to country songs. He appeared at the Monterey Jazz Festival as well as the Grand Ole Opry-no other performer had quite so broad-based an appeal. Even during the 1950s, when most African American artists had their hit songs covered by white performers for distribution to white audiences, Ivory Joe crossed over and attracted a racially-diverse following.

Ivory Joe Hunter died in November 1974 in Memphis, Tennessee, and was buried in his home town of Kirbyville. To get there, follow Hwy. 69 north from Beaumont to Hwy. 96 north. Kirbyville is on Hwy. 96 between Jasper and Silsbee.

For more information about Ivory Joe Hunter, or to learn more about East Texas history, contact the East Texas Historical Association at Stephen F. Austin State University or visit the ETHA web site at http://leonardo.sfasu.edu/etha/.