William Robert Mize (April 29, 1929 – October 29, 2017) was an American steel guitarist, band leader, vocalist, songwriter, and TV show host.

Biography

Mize was born in Arkansas City, Kansas, United States, but raised in the

San Joaquin Valley The San Joaquin Valley ( ; es, Valle de San Joaquín) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...

, an area steeped in

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, o ...

thanks to relocated " Okies". He originally learned to play guitar as a child, but fell in love with the

steel guitar A steel guitar ( haw, kīkākila) is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conve ...

he received for his 18th birthday. Mize moved to Bakersfield, California and formed his own band playing local gigs and also working as a disc jockey on KPMC. In 1953, he, Bill Woods and Herb Henson put together a local TV show called The Cousin Herb Trading Post Show on KERO-TV Bakersfield (then channel 10), where he became affectionately known as Billy The Kid. The signal from that show was so strong the show could be seen as far as

Fresno Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, maki ...

, all the way over to the central coast and Los Angeles. The show was popular because it not only featured fledgling acts such as

Buck Owens Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. (August 12, 1929 – March 25, 2006), known professionally as Buck Owens, was an American musician, singer, songwriter, and band leader. He was the lead singer for Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, which had 21 No. 1 hits on t ...

Merle Haggard Merle Ronald Haggard (April 6, 1937 – April 6, 2016) was an American country music singer, songwriter, guitarist, and fiddler. Haggard was born in Oildale, California, toward the end of the Great Depression. His childhood was troubled ...

Tommy Collins Tommy Collins may refer to: * Tommy Collins (filmmaker) (died 2022), Irish filmmaker * Tommy Collins (singer) (1930–2000), American country music singer and songwriter See also * Thomas Collins (disambiguation) * Tom Collins (disambiguation) A ...

, Jean Shepard, Bonnie Owens,

Ferlin Husky Ferlin Eugene Husky (December 3, 1925 – March 17, 2011) was an early American country music singer who was equally adept at the genres of traditional honky-tonk, ballads, spoken recitations, and rockabilly pop tunes. He had two dozen top-20 hi ...

, but many national acts such as

Hank Williams Hank Williams (born Hiram Williams; September 17, 1923 – January 1, 1953) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician. Regarded as one of the most significant and influential American singers and songwriters of the 20th century, he reco ...

and

Patsy Cline Patsy is a given name often used as a diminutive of the feminine given name Patricia or sometimes the masculine name Patrick, or occasionally other names containing the syllable "Pat" (such as Cleopatra, Patience, Patrice, or Patricia). Amon ...

. He stayed with the show for thirteen years. In 1955, Mize began to appear on a local Los Angeles television show hosted by Hank Penny. By 1957, he was working on seven different weekly shows in the LA area, including ''The Hank Penny Show'', ''The Cal Worthington Show'', '' Country Music Time'' and '' Town Hall Party''. He recorded for Decca (Solid Sender/It Could happen - 1957), Challenge and Liberty, finally hitting the country charts in 1966 with "You Can't Stop Me" for Columbia. That same year he began hosting and performing on '' Gene Autry's Melody Ranch'' network show on

KTLA KTLA (channel 5) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of The CW. It is the largest directly owned property of the network's majority owner, Nexstar Media Group, and is the seco ...

as well as starting his own syndicated ''Billy Mize Show'' from Bakersfield. During the next decade he managed eleven chart hits as well as writing hits for others, such as "Who Will Buy The Wine" ( Charlie Walker), "My Baby Walks All Over Me" ( Johnny Sea) and "Don't Let The Blues Make You Bad" (

Dean Martin Dean Martin (born Dino Paul Crocetti; June 7, 1917 – December 25, 1995) was an American singer, actor and comedian. One of the most popular and enduring American entertainers of the mid-20th century, Martin was nicknamed "The King of Cool". M ...

). Martin cut three of his songs in one day in June 1966, including "Terrible Tangled Web". He won the

Academy of Country Music The Academy of Country Music (ACM) was founded in 1964 in Los Angeles, California as the Country & Western Music Academy. Among the founders were Eddie Miller, Tommy Wiggins, and Mickey and Chris Christensen. They wanted to promote country musi ...

's "TV Personality of the Year" award three years in a row between 1965 and 1967. In 1972, he taped two pilots of the "Billy Mize Music Hall", which he hoped to sell into national syndication but it was not picked up. A critically acclaimed documentary chronicling the life of Mize and his impact on the country music industry was released in 2015. Titled ''Billy Mize and the Bakersfield Sound'', it screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival in June 2014. Mize died on October 29, 2017, at the age of 88."Bakersfield Sound legend Billy Mize dies at age 88"
Bakersfieldnow.com, November 2, 2017.

Discography

*''Solid Sender/It Could Happen'' ( Decca, 1957) *''Please Don't Let The Blues Make You Bad'' (

Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region in ...

, 1965) *''You Can't Stop Me'' (

, 1966) *''It's Gonna Get Lonely'' (

, 1966) *''Lights Of Albuquerque'' (

, 1967) *''This Time and Place'' (

Imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * Imperial, Texas ...

, 1969) *''You're All Right With Me'' (

United Artists United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the stu ...

, 1971) *''Love'N'Stuff'' (

Zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north or south (as measured in celestial latitude) of the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. The p ...

, 1976) *''Billy Mize's Tribute To Swing'' (G&M, 1986) *''A Salute to Swing'' (

Hag Records HAG is a Swiss maker of model trains. The company was founded by Hugo and Alwin Gahler on 1 April 1944 in St. Gallen, Switzerland. The Gahler brothers originally manufactured model trains in O scale but due to competition, particularly by M ...

, 2006) *''Make it Rain'' ( Sharecropper Records, 2006)

Singles

References

External links

Billy Mize official website
Official Billy Mize website with biography and documentary information.

Cousin Herb's TV Cousins. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mize, Billy 1929 births 2017 deaths American country singer-songwriters Musicians from Bakersfield, California Bakersfield sound Singer-songwriters from California Country musicians from California