Billy Gray

Born in Paris, Texas in 1924, Western swing guitarist Billy Gray grew up amid poverty. To purchase his first instrument from a neighborhood pawnshop, the youth labored in nearby fields. At nineteen he formed a band and began hosting his own radio broadcast in Paris. During the years that followed, Gray completed repeated tours of Texas and the Southwest before establishing himself in Dallas, where he took charge of Hank Thompson & His Brazos Valley Boys. With Thompson he launched the Texoma Music Publishing Company and the Brazos Valley Publishing Company, and the pair jointly composed several of Thompson’s signature songs, among them “Waiting in the Lobby of Your Heart,” “The New Wears off Too Fast,” and “A Fool, a Faker.” Gray’s only chart entry appeared in 1954: the duet “You Can’t Have My Love,” recorded with rockabilly screamer Wanda Jackson. The next year he and his Western Oakies issued Dance-O-Rama, though the album yielded no singles. He subsequently performed as a sideman with the Nuggets and the Cowtowners and made guest appearances on the syndicated program Music Country Style. One further album followed in 1965 on Longhorn Records before Gray withdrew from public view; he died in 1975 during heart surgery.