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Hillbilly-Music.com—The People. The Music. The History.
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About The Artist He was known as the "Dixie Cowboy" and was a native of Hardinsburg, Kentucky. He showed his musical talents at a very early age while in school and at church and became quite a bit of an expert at 'strumming the old family guitar'. His very first professional musical engagement was with the Continental Lyceum Chautauqua Bureau of Louisville, KY as the leader of the International Glee Club Quartette. He stayed with them for a couple of years before doing a vaudeville tour with the likes of the Loew's Time, Bently Theatrical Agency Time of St. Louis, MO. and other circuits.
Jenks did his vaudeville act as a single for several years, while later teaming with his sister when they billed themselves as the "Royal Castillians". When his sister got married, the act broke up. And Jenks went back to doing the vaudeville tours by himself. Then he began to do radio work on stations such as KMOX out of St. Louis, WHAS out of Louisville. Later, he was signed to record with the Four Star Records, Inc. label. On Four Star, some of his more notable recordings were:
What was the key to his success? He was a showman. And he had a unique style of playing the steel guitar that "...placed him in a class by himself." Jenks learned his steel guitar from Frank Plada, one of the first of the Hawaiian musicians that came to this country. The showman he is, he learned the traditional Hawaiian stylings, but let his showmanship creativity turn it into something unique that entertained the audiences everywhere he went. Those talents led to a later recording contract with Capitol Records where it saw him record such tunes as:
Jenks in the mid-1950s was performing on the west coast show "Town Hall Party", that was one of the top TV shows out of Compton, California on KTTV. Credits & Sources
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Recordings (78rpm/45rpm)
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