-->

• Lefty Frizzell was an early country singer known for a string of hits that helped to update the Honky Tonk sound and influence successive generations of artists. His vocals were smoother than Hank Williams', but his life was not. Born in Corsicana, Texas in 1928, Frizzell got his nickname in a high school fight, later served a prison sentence for statutary rape and spent his final years in the grip of alcoholism. Despite all this, he managed to write and record some of country music's most influential sounds in his three-decade career, and has been hailed as an inspiration by Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakum, George Jones, George Strait and many other giants of traditionalist country music. Frizzell was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1982, seven years after he died of a stroke.

• Fast Facts

  1. Legal Name: William Orville Frizzell
  2. Born: March 31, 1928
  3. Played the guitar as a young boy
  4. At the age of 12, he sang on a local children's radio show
  5. Influenced Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson and Roy Orbison
  6. Four songs in the country music Top Ten at the same time (1951)
  7. Died: July 19, 1975 of a stroke
  8. Inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1982
  9. Has a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

• Related Mahalo Pages

  Hank Locklin | Roy Clark | George Jones | Hank Williams | Hank Snow | Johnny Horton | Merle Haggard | Marty Robbins | The Carter Family | Roy Acuff | Conway Twitty | Jim Reeves | Bill Monroe | Patsy Cline | Tammy Wynette

Categories

• View History
• Discuss on the Message Board
• Embed this Page
• Share this page