Jimmie Davis

Jimmie Davis maintained an active performing presence across all eight decades of the twentieth century, moving from risqué country-blues into traditional gospel while simultaneously building a political career that twice placed him in the governor’s office of Louisiana. His strongest chart successes occurred precisely during those two administrations, first in the mid-1940s and again in the early 1960s.

James Houston Davis entered the world in Beech Springs, Louisiana, on 11 September 1899—the date he later alternated with 1902 before reverting to the original. Although his father worked as a sharecropper of limited means, Davis completed a bachelor’s degree at Louisiana College in Pineville and earned a master’s from Louisiana State University in 1927. The next year he accepted a history teaching post at a small Shreveport college. Occasional radio broadcasts around the city led to his first recording session in 1928; Victor signed him the following year. Those early sides consciously echoed Jimmie Rodgers, including the latter’s taste for suggestive lyrics. Roughly seventy titles appeared on the label over the next five years, yet sales remained modest amid the Depression. Davis switched to Decca in 1934 and scored his initial major success with “Nobody’s Darlin’ but Mine.” He also acquired “It Makes No Difference Now” from Floyd Tillman, but his own composition “You Are My Sunshine,” first cut in 1940, became the enduring standard later interpreted by countless artists in both country and pop.

Leaving the classroom, Davis joined the Criminal Court staff in Shreveport, rose to chief of police in 1938, and won election as Louisiana Public Service Commissioner in 1942. Between 1942 and 1944 he appeared in three Western films; in 1947 he starred in the partly autobiographical picture Louisiana. Chosen governor in 1944, he continued issuing records and placed five singles inside the Top Five during that term, among them the 1944 double-sided hit “Is It Too Late Now”/“There’s a Chill on the Hill Tonight” and the chart-topping “There’s a New Moon Over My Shoulder” the year after.

Full-time recording resumed in 1948. After a period with Capitol he returned to Decca; gospel audiences responded to country numbers such as “Suppertime,” prompting a gradual shift toward sacred material. In 1960 he secured a second gubernatorial term on a segregationist platform yet adopted a sufficiently moderate stance to avert much of the regional turmoil. Although no recent hits had appeared, “Where the Old Red River Flows” reached the Top 20 in 1962. By 1964 Davis had returned exclusively to gospel, maintaining a steady release schedule through the late 1960s and early 1970s. Decca terminated the contract in 1975, but he kept performing and recording into the 1990s. The Country Music Hall of Fame inducted him in 1971; he died on 5 November 2000 at the age of 101.