Jimmie Dolan

Ramblin' Jimmie Dolan's tenure in the music business goes back to the days when records ran at 78 rpm, but he was still around when the adolescent obsession was souped-up cars known as hot rods. A car would certainly be convenient if one were trying to ramble, and indeed this artist, kind of half hillbilly and half Western swing, seems to have acquired much glory through his connection with the world of hot rods, glorified for the couch-bound audio hound on compilations such as Drag City. Dolan was one of four performers to do a cover version of the song "Hot Rod Race", originally written and recorded by George Wilson. That song in turn inspired an even more popular ditty from the heart of honky tonk culture, "Hot Rod Lincoln". Through the rearview mirror it seems the hot rod helped Dolan arrive at a cherished spot in music history; i.e. getting to appear on compilation sets with the likes of Robert Mitchum. It is all pretty good for a guy whose decision to go hot rod may not have been that heartfelt. Jimmie Dolan (or Ramblin' Jimmie Dolan, as he was sometimes called) remains one of the most important and elusive figures in rockabilly music, a half-century after he made his contribution and more than a decade after one of the few indisputable facts surrounding life -- his death, in the summer of 1994. He always claimed for legal purposes that he was born Jimmie Lee Dolan, and was born in 1924 in (at different times in his life) Texas, Oklahoma, or Wyoming; but the Encyclopedia Of Country Music pegs his birthname as Lee Roy Petit, his year of birth as 1916 (which would make him one of the oldest contributors to 1950's white rock 'n' roll), and his place of birth as Gardenia, California. The 1916 birthdate might make more sense, in terms of his apparent desire, manifested...