Rex Griffin

As a songwriter, performer, and recording artist, Rex Griffin bridged the gap between Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams -- indeed, it can be said that he bridged the gap between Rodgers and Buddy Holly, and between Rodgers and the Beatles. Griffin was among the first country music stars to record using his own material almost exclusively, and among the least of his accomplishments, one of his songs was covered (albeit without proper credit) by the Beatles. Griffin is the author of the original version of "Everybody's Tryin' to Be My Baby," which Carl Perkins later adapted into his own song, and the Beatles subsequently covered to the profit of all except Griffin, who'd been dead about six years when all of this happened. Griffin is one of those pre-war figures in country music whose legacy has been unjustly overlooked. He had no hits of his own after 1939, although his biggest hit from that year -- "The Last Letter" -- continues to get recorded at the end of the century. He was also a direct inspiration to both Hank Williams (whose recording of "Lovesick Blues" was virtually a copy of Griffin's from ten years earlier) and Lefty Frizzell. One of country music's first singer/songwriters, Griffin was the model for figures including Floyd Tillman, Willie Nelson, and Merle Haggard (and one could even throw Buddy Holly in there). And, like Williams, his personal demons in love and substance abuse brought a premature end -- albeit not as suddenly as Williams' -- to Griffin's performing career and his life. He was born Alsie Griffin, second of seven children of Marion Oliver Griffin and the former Selma Bradshaw. He grew up without much formal education and spent most of his early childhood on the farm that his family owned in Sand Valley. By the 1920s, Ollie Griffin was working...