Biography
Wayne Jetton secured his sole known opportunity in the music industry while still attending high school in Gainesville, Texas, where he devoted his free time to singing and composing original material. Local airplay on KGAF, the station owned by Joe Leonard, led Leonard to establish Lin Records toward the end of 1953 in order to feature some of the performers already on his broadcasts. Jetton became the label’s inaugural artist when he recorded two of his own songs, “A Crazy Mind Plus a Foolish Heart” and “Somebody’s Girl,” in December 1953. His strong lyrical sense and distinctive vocal ability were evident on the early-1954 release of “A Crazy Mind Plus a Foolish Heart,” yet the single moved only about a thousand copies. Leonard, impressed by Jetton’s potential, planned further sessions, but military conscription intervened; after completing his service, Jetton departed Gainesville and disappeared from Leonard’s view. Around the same period, during the spring or early summer of 1954, Merle Shelton recorded Jetton’s “Chilena, My Dancing Girl” as the B-side of his own “I Love You Just Because”; the Jetton composition soon received greater radio exposure than Shelton’s A-side. With Jetton already entering the army, he was unable to capitalize on the interest. No further trace of him has surfaced in the industry since 1954, although both his own single and Shelton’s versions of his songs were later included in Bear Family’s 1998 four-CD box set, The Lin and Kliff Story.