Buddy Knox

In the rock & roll era Buddy Knox became the first performer to compose and cut his personal chart-topping single, the 1957 million-selling “Party Doll.” A trailblazer of the Lone Star State rockabilly style later labeled “Tex-Mex,” his professional trajectory foreshadowed that of another Texas native, Buddy Holly, though Holly now occupies a lasting position among rock’s essential legends while Knox’s achievements still draw inadequate notice. Wayne Knox entered the world on July 20, 1933, on a farm near the small West Texas community of Happy. During World War II his mother Gladys sang alongside her siblings in a family gospel ensemble, yet it was his affection for country music that first prompted him to take up the guitar. After finishing high school Knox enrolled at West Texas State College, where he completed a business administration degree while performing on the side with an amateur vocal group called the Serenaders that also featured double bassist Jimmy Bowen and guitarist Donny Lanier. In 1955 the three musicians renamed themselves the Rhythm Orchids after the purple shirts they wore onstage. Once drummer Don Mills joined the Rhythm Orchids—initially playing nothing more than a pair of brushes on a cardboard box—the group’s wistful country material gained a lilting backbeat that edged toward rock & roll, pleasing the bar crowds who heard them. Following a local engagement the Rhythm Orchids encountered Sun Records artist Roy Orbison, who advised them to head to Clovis, New Mexico, and work with producer Norman Petty, later renowned for his recordings with the previously mentioned Buddy Holly. Mills chose to resume his studies, prompting the remaining trio to enlist drummer Dave Alldred for two Petty-produced sides: “Party Doll,” which Knox had written at age twelve, and “I’m Stickin’ With You,” featuring Bowen on lead vocals. After paying Petty their sixty-dollar studio charge the Rhythm Orchids returned to West Texas carrying acetates. Blue Moon Records proprietor Chester Oliver quickly manufactured five hundred copies, and when those sold rapidly—largely because of frequent spins by Amarillo radio personality Dean Kelly—the band launched its own imprint, Triple D, to press twenty-five hundred additional copies. Lanier’s sister, a New York City fashion model, forwarded one of the records to music publisher Phil Kahl, who, together with partner Morris Levy, secured national distribution through the newly established Roulette label. Roulette divided the original Petty session into separate singles, pairing Bowen’s new “Everlovin’” with “I’m Stickin’ With You” on Roulette 4001 and adding “My Baby’s Gone” to “Party Doll” on Roulette 4002. While the former climbed into the Top 20 and moved more than a million copies, “Party Doll” achieved greater success, lingering on the charts for twenty-three weeks, dominating airplay lists nationwide, and gaining further exposure after a notable appearance on Ed Sullivan’s television program. Thereafter Knox and Bowen launched parallel solo careers on Roulette while continuing to employ the Rhythm Orchids as their support group. The successor to “Party Doll,” “Rock Your Little Baby to Sleep”—credited to “Lieutenant” Buddy Knox in recognition of the singer’s six-month service in the U.S. Army Tank Corps—reached the Top 30 in mid-1957 and likewise sold a million copies, as did the next release, “Hula Love.” Knox’s singing on these early recordings remained clear and unaffected, and the band’s rockabilly approach functioned more as a brisk, skipping refresh of traditional country than as a Caucasian imitation of rhythm-and-blues in the manner of Holly. By the close of 1957 Knox arguably commanded a larger audience than Holly, topping bills on DJ Alan Freed’s national package tours and even appearing in the motion picture Jamboree. He concluded the year with the energetic tracks “Devil Woman” and “Swingin’ Daddy,” then scored a number-twenty-two pop hit in mid-1958 with a version of Ruth Brown’s “Somebody Touched Me.” The follow-up, “That’s Why I Cry,” failed to chart, and 1959’s “I Think I’m Going to Kill Myself,” a song prohibited by many stations, marked Knox & the Rhythm Orchids’ final Hot 100 placement. After two further Roulette singles, “Taste of the Blues” and 1960’s “Long Lonely Nights,” Knox departed the label amid disagreements over royalty accounting and signed as a solo artist with Liberty, where producer Snuff Garrett noticeably tempered his sound. Liberty’s debut single, “Lovey Dovey,” peaked at number twenty-five in 1961, yet Garrett’s teen-idol style of production did not suit Knox, and later efforts such as “Ling-Ting-Tong” (his last pop-chart entry, at number sixty-five), “Three-Eyed Man,” “Dear Abby,” and “All Time Loser” diminished the vitality of his earliest work. Knox ultimately recorded nine singles for Liberty before joining longtime A&R executive and promoter Ray Ruff to establish the Ruff label, which issued only one record, 1964’s “Jo Ann.” He next moved to Reprise for two modestly received releases, 1965’s “Livin’ in a House Full of Love” and 1966’s “Love Has Many Ways.” After signing with United Artists, Knox collaborated with staff producer Bob Montgomery to adopt a full country identity; “Gypsy Man” registered on the Nashville charts in 1968, becoming his final chart entry. Eventually Knox relocated to Vancouver, where he opened the nightclub the Purple Steer and sustained an active touring schedule throughout the 1970s and 1980s. On February 5, 1999, the longtime smoker learned he had developed inoperable lung cancer, and he died just nine days later.