Jenks "Tex" Carman

Jenks Tex Carman was one of the more dubious but interesting talents ever to achieve stardom, however fleeting, in country music. A player of great dexterity but severely lacking in any sense of rhythm, and even more lacking in a voice, Carman succeeded on the basis of the sheer enthusiasm of his performances, achieving some respectable record sales and a national following based on his television appearances. Jenkins Carman was the seventh of eight children born to Alford Carman and his wife. They were a farm family with a great love of music -- throughout his career, Carman also claimed part Cherokee ancestry, and tried to emphasize this by wearing Native American regalia in some of his public appearances and later album cover art. By age 12 he was on his way to becoming an accomplished guitarist, and he left home in his teens to pursue a career in music. He started out in vaudeville and playing Chautauqua shows, and by the end of the 1920s had emerged as a solo-guitar novelty act. He cut a pair of songs in late 1929 for the Gennett label in Indiana, but neither was ever issued. In the early '30s, he hooked up with Hawaiian guitar virtuoso Frank Plada, who taught Carman the basics of Hawaiian guitar technique. This instrument became the core of Carman's music from the early '30s onward, and it was using the unamplified acoustic Hawaiian guitar, hung from his neck and fretted with a steel bar, that he began making a name for himself in country music. By the late '40s, he had signed to the Four Star label and begun recording under the name Jenks Tex Carman, "the Dixie Cowboy," as well as appearing on local radio. Soon after, he started to perform regularly on television on the country music showcase Town Hall Party, hosted by Tex Ritter and Johnny Bond, and later...