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Hillbilly-Music.com—The People. The Music. The History.
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About The Artist
Sleepy joined the Marines in November 1942 and served in the Pacific from November 1944 including the invasion of Okinawa and the occupation of Japan. After the war Mack and Slick retired from entertainment, but Sleepy returned to WWVA and worked with the Davis Twins, marrying Honey Davis. The careers of Jeffers and the Davis Twins thereafter work as a threesome. This seems to be the period when Sleepy developed his comic alter-ego "Little Willie," an overgrown child in a sailor cap and short pants. As Little Willie aged he eventually became "Uncle Willie." Jeffers left Wheeling in late 1947; he went to WPDX Clarksburg, WTIP Charleston and KWKH and KTBS Shreveport.
After Starcher left the program it became the Sleepy Jeffers Show until 1973. As Uncle Willie, he had a children's afternoon TV program to attract the after-school audience. He sang children's songs and showed cartoons and old Little Rascals films, signing off with the word "bicycle." Country Song Roundup gave Webb Pierce a series of questions in its "Witness Box" column in their December 1953 issue. They asked him - who was his favorite comedian. He responded - Little Willie (alias Sleepy Jeffers). After his live show ended, Sleepy worked a night shift at WCHS radio until 1984 where his job consisted mostly of changing tapes on prerecorded programs. He still played occasional programs in the Charleston area, mostly for children. Jeffers died at seventy, the same week as Roy Acuff. Credits & Sources
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Recordings (78rpm/45rpm)
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George (Sleepy) Jeffers was a native of East Tennessee who entered into a show business career at the age of ten when
his father William M. "Mack" Jeffers formed a group called the Fiddling Farmers that worked on WKRC radio
in Cincinnati, Ohio and in 1939 moved to WWVA in Wheeling and its popular Saturday night "Jamboree." By that time
the group consisted of Mack who played banjo, "Sleepy" and his brother "Slick" (William Jeffers, Jr.) who played
guitars, and William H."Shorty" Godwin, a former vaudeville performer and member of Otto Gray's Oklahoma Cowboys who
played fiddle and did comedy. Later the group moved to WMMN Fairmont. As World War II intervened and military
service began to threaten personnel, Mack added Celia "Cricket" Mauri to the group, but the war soon caused the
Fiddling Farmers to disband.
By 1950, Jeffers and the Davis Twins were back in Charleston where they became entrenched at WTIP. Sleepy did deejay work
and also entertained, After 1960, he appeared often as a guest on Buddy Starcher's morning TV show and was a regular from 1963.