Johnny Dollar

Born March 8, 1933, in Kilgore, Texas, Johnny Dollar specialized in country and rockabilly singing. He reached Dallas in the early 1950s and took a string of manual positions that included roughneck, truck driver, and lumber-yard foreman. Around 1952 he recorded for Shelby Singleton’s D Records, though the single failed to register commercially. Dollar next worked as a DJ across Louisiana and New Mexico while fronting the Texas Sons, a group that performed regularly on the Shreveport-based Louisiana Hayride broadcast over KWKH. He eventually left that ensemble to sing with Martin McCullough’s Light Crust Doughboys, yet by the late 1950s he had returned to Dallas and begun exploring the rockabilly style popularized by Elvis Presley.

Through promoter Ed McLemore and songwriter Jack Rhodes he produced several energetic rockabilly numbers, among them “Action Packed,” which Ronnie Dawson later recorded and which became a lasting rockabilly standard. Despite Dollar’s intense stage presence, striking appearance, and strong voice, none of these rockabilly tracks saw release. Frustrated, he abandoned music entirely and moved to Oklahoma to sell insurance. A chance encounter there with country star Ray Price secured him a Columbia contract in 1964. Now sometimes promoted as Johnny $ Dollar or “Mr. Personality,” he reached the Top 50 in 1966 with “Tear-Talk” and climbed to the Top 15 the following year with “Stop the Start (Of Tears in My Heart).”

Dollar subsequently recorded for Dot Records, then Date Records, and arrived at Chart Records in 1968. At Chart he achieved success with the trucking-themed country singles “Big Big Rollin’ Man” and “Big Wheels Sing for Me.” In 1970, again using the name Johnny Dollar, he scored his last Chart hit with “Truck Driver’s Lament.” Chart performance thereafter declined, so for the remainder of the decade he concentrated on production work in Nashville, collaborating with the New Coon Creek Girls, Jimmy Dickens, and Teddy Nelson.

His private life deteriorated after the end of his fourth marriage; alcoholism and depression followed. Diagnosed with throat cancer, he underwent surgery that left him without a voice, deepening his despair. On April 13, 1986, he died by suicide.