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Hillbilly-Music.com—The People. The Music. The History.
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About The Artist Jimmie Logsdon was a straight 1950's style country singer who recorded mostly for Decca and King. But in between he also did some quality rockabilly sides under the pseudonym "Jimmie Lloyd." He also spent several years as a deejay mostly in Kentucky, but worked a year at powerful WCKY in Cincinnati before they abandoned their late-night country format. Logsdon hailed from the town of Panther, Kentucky. Since his father was a Methodist minister who changed churches every few years, Jimmie grew up in such towns as Bowling Green, Corbin, Olive Hill and Ludlow where he finished high school in 1940. He later worked in Cincinnati installing P.A. systems and selling appliances until he entered the service in 1944. After the war, Jimmie opened a radio repair shop in LaGrange, Kentucky and began to dabble in music on the side. Logsdon worked with a group called the Golden Harvest Boys and they had small live programs over two Louisville stations, first WLOU and then WINN. In 1951 they did a single on their own custom Harvest label and opened for Hank Williams at the Louisville Memorial Auditorium. This led to either Hank or songwriter Vic McAlpin helping him secure a contract with Decca and he had his first session on October 8, 1952. Many of Jimmie's songs generally fell into a Hank Williams style and by the time of his session on January 25, he did a pair of tribute numbers, his own "Hank Williams Sings the Blues No More" and a cover of Jack Cardwell's "The Death of Hank Williams." In all, he had sixteen sides released on Decca.
In February of 1953, Billboard included a list of the tribute recordings to Hank Williams. Here are the other tribute records:
In March of 1953, Billboard told readers that Jimmie had left WINN for radio station WLRP in New Albany, IN. In addition he had a half-hour television show on WHAS-TV that featured Jimmie's sister Martha along with the Golden Harvest Boys. In October of 1953, Jimmie had moved to radio station WKYW.
In the meantime he moved to larger WKLO, working mostly as a deejay and playing clubs at night and more distant locales on weekends. When his Decca contract elapsed he went with Dot, followed by Starday, and then Roulette where he did four quality rockabilly numbers under the pseudonym "Jimmie Lloyd." While they made little impact at the time, especially "I Got a Rocket in My Pocket" is considered a classic of the genre today. In May of 1955, Jimmie signed a one year contract with radio station WHLO in Louisville. That Billboard blurb told readers that Jimmie's group, the Golden Harvest Boys, then included Howard Whited, lead guitar; Clyde Coffey, steel guitar; Lonnie Pierce, fiddle and Clarence Morris on bass.
After WCKY changed their format in 1964, Jimmie went back to doing deejay work on smaller stations until 1973. After that he worked for the Commonwealth of Kentucky until he retired. He did a final album in 1981 for Rusty York's Jewel Records. One might add that during the days when he kept a band, his fiddler Lonnie Peerce went on to found the Bluegrass Alliance, a band that was in the vanguard of the "newgrass" style and started Vince Gill on his musical journey. Jimmie wrote or co-wrote many tunes. Here is what research to date shows:
As for Jimmie Logsdon, in 2001 he passed away at age seventy-nine. He was married to Mary Gertrude (Cissell) Logsdon. She was born October 15, 1925 and passed away on July 4, 2001. His sister Martha, mentioned above, Martha Jean (Logsdon) Toombs was born November 30, 1926; she passed away on November 7, 1993.
Credits & Sources
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Recordings (78rpm/45rpm)
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Logsdon did not record again until the spring of 1963 when he did an album
for King, Howdy Neighbor, which was also his familiar intro as a deejay.
In May of 1962, he replaced legendary night-time host Wayne Raney on 50,000
watt WCKY. This fabled station's night time show played hard country and
bluegrass and was equally famous for long commercials and another noted
record spinner Nelson King. The best known King numbers were likely the
sentimental "Mother's Flower Garden" and a country cover of
the bluegrass classic "I Know You're Married but I Love You Still."
