Biography
Raised on a Texas cotton farm, Allen Doye O'Dell eventually cultivated a string of country successes. Musical uncle Tom Gregory carried his fiddle on family visits and became O'Dell's initial instructor, guiding him toward several contest victories. The young musician later took up guitar during high school, joined a vocal trio, and performed on Amarillo's WDAG radio, launching a professional path that led him to drop his given first name. Doye O'Dell headed to the Mexican border for a year-long stint at XCPM before enlisting with Doc Snyder's Texas Cowboys, whose rowdy vaudeville productions showcased his fiddle skills until another fiddler arrived and prompted a switch back to guitar. Striking out solo, he landed an NBC network program, Doye O'Dell & the Radio Rangers, which aired for five years; afterward he operated from Connecticut, mixing further broadcasts with theater dates across the East Coast. After World War II he relocated to Los Angeles and contributed rhythm guitar to numerous sessions, among them 1947 dates supporting deep-voiced Johnny Bond. He soon signed with Exclusive and scored one of his earliest major successes with the sentimental "Old Shep," a song Red Foley had popularized six years prior and which Elvis Presley would also cut in the mid-'50s. Texas Jim Lewis & His Lone Star Cowboys backed several of his Exclusive 78s. Novelty numbers figured prominently in his output, including "Give Me Texas," "Bath Tub Blues," "Lookin' Poor But Feelin' Rich," and "Blue Christmas," the last of which later received versions by Ernest Tubb, Linda Ronstadt, and Elvis. Another sentimental piece, "Dear Oakie," originated with cowboy actor Rudy Sooter; O'Dell, eager to record it, arranged a session before the lyric was complete, resulting in co-writing credit shared with his producer as they supplied the final lines that helped turn the track into a substantial hit—an effort consistent with O'Dell's frequent authorship or co-authorship of his own material. He next moved to Intro, a subsidiary of Aladdin's Hollywood operation, where his second release, the propulsive "Diesel Smoke, Dangerous Curves," ranked among 1952's strongest country sellers and anticipated the trucking-song subgenre while also shaping hot-rod music; steel guitarist Speedy West appeared on every subsequent cover. A Mercury contract followed, along with screen roles opposite Tex Ritter, Ronald Reagan, James Garner, and Roy Rogers. On television he featured in Western Varieties, once the top-rated Western program in Los Angeles, earned two Emmy awards for the children's series Country Thrills, and made guest appearances on Maverick and Sugarfoot. From the late '50s into the early '60s he recorded for Sage & Sand, delivering some of his most polished work with prominent guitar from Roy Lanham. Additional sides appeared on smaller labels, culminating in the Longhorn album Doye O'Dell Today. A 1995 stroke forced his retirement.
Albums
