JERRY WALLACE

Like most entertainers, "Show Me State" singer Jerry Wallace undertook a rung-by-rung climb in show business, enduring several years of failed recordings while making adjustments to his image, such that it was considering his personality seldom shone through in the early going. At some point, a nickname came seemingly from nowhere: "Mr. Smooth" was a reasonable description of his vocal sound, not overly dramatic or dull, but he sang on key and tackled a variety of song choices (patterning his style after Nat "King" Cole, he sometimes sounded uncannily similar to the superstar singer). In 1957, Wallace caught the eyes and ears of Gene Autry who, in addition to his lucrative "Singing Cowboy" image on film, had just launched Challenge Records, though he sold his share of the label to business partners in under two years; Autry's end with the company coincided with Jerry's beginning as a hitmaking act.

Jerry was born in 1938 in Guilford, Missouri, a very small town (around 200 residents) in northern Missouri about a hundred miles north of Kansas City. His father, a grocery store owner, encouraged his young son's interest in music. Despite making a modest income, his dad made a deal with a client, trading 15 dozen eggs in exchange for a guitar that he gave Jerry for his 14th birthday, which he practiced on daily throughout high school. Fast-forwarding a few years, Jerry's service with the U.S. Navy ended in 1951 during the early stages of the Korean War, after which he moved to Hollywood, California and, within a year, made his first record for the Vogue label: "Mis'rable Blues." In 1953 he recorded a remake of "P.S. I Love You," a Johnny Mercer-Gordon Jenkins song penned 20 years earlier that had been a hit for one of that era's top stars, Rudy Vallee. Jerry's remake, with backing vocals by studio group The Tune-Toppers, was recorded for the budget Tops label in the style of The Hilltoppers, who had a hot-selling version at the time.

Late in the year he was signed to a limited contract with Allied Records. "Little Miss One," a big-bandish production featuring Eddie Oliver and the Oliver Twisters, received airplay on several large market stations, leading to two more Allied singles in '54, "That's What a Woman Can Do" and "Runnin' After Love," both composed by Wayne Shanklin with new-to-the-music-biz brothers Robert and Richard Sherman. Neither disc delivered on the possibilites of the first. After a year of auditioning for labels and coming up empty in his pursuit of acting roles, Jerry was signed to Mercury Records of Chicago, where all his recording sessions were held over the next year. His first release was "Taj Mahal," a Cole-style performance of an exotically-arranged tune in keeping with a popular mid-'50s trend.

In 1955, Wallace starred (and sang) in Corn's-A-Poppin', an independently-produced short film that lived up to its title; future directing legend Robert Altman was one of the writers (gotta pay your dues, right?). Two Mercury singles and one for the company's Wing Records subsidiary fell on deaf ears and Jerry found himself playing another one-year waiting game. A contract with Autry's Challenge label came in the spring of 1957; the first three releases (starting with "Fool's Hall of Fame") were more rocking than previous efforts, yet kept the "no-hit" streak going. "How the Time Flies," his summer 1958 breakthrough hit, baffled some listeners, as he claimed to have delivered all vocals: the lead, the higher-pitched, double-tracked 'dinky-doo' intro and lower-pitched bridge. The song achieved a number eleven peak in October.

Romantic teen-appeal tunes "Diamond Ring" and "A Touch of Pink" skirted the lower end of the charts in late '58 and early '59, prior to the durable hit he would be most known for. "Primrose Lane" (that place where 'life's a holiday...') featured backing by studio group The Jewels (a name used by several acts over the course of the '50s and 60s). The catchy, easygoing song written by Shanklin with jazz bassist Red Callender was a top ten pop hit in October and November 1959 during a five-month run on the national charts. Shanklin composed the follow-up, "Little Coco Palm," a whimsical ode to south sea coconut trees, and it reached the top 40 in February 1960.

Other singles included "Swingin' Down the Lane" and "Life's a Holiday," both attempting to regain the million-tier magic of "Primrose Lane" yet settling for brief chart runs. "There She Goes," a lonely, lost-love lament, returned him to the top 30 in early 1961. He kicked off 1963 with his biggest hit since '59, "Shutters and Boards," a post-breakup predicament co-written by war hero-turned-movie star Audie Murphy (who'd also penned "A Touch of Pink") and Scott Turner, who'd played guitar and/or keyboards in the late '50s with Tommy Sands' group The Raiders and Gene Vincent's Blue Caps; while not considered a country song, Jerry's recording wasn't far from the country-pop "Nashville Sound" of the time, hinting at his future career direction.

Jerry Wallace

One final Challenge hit, "In the Misty Moonlight" (a happy love song, unlike his previous two hits, composed by prolific singer-songwriter Cindy Walker), landed Jerry back in the pop top 20 in September 1964, just as he had re-signed with Mercury Records. "It's a Cotton Candy World," a minor pop hit, was succeeded by a string of mildly popular country efforts highlighted by "Life's Gone and Slipped Away" in 1965, "This One's on the House" in '67 and "Sweet Child of Sunshine" in '68. He appeared in a few films and television shows in the mid-'60s (Flipper's New Adventure, Goodbye Charlie and an episode of Fess Parker's NBC series Daniel Boone). One of his most enduring successes came in the unlikeliest of places: in 1970, actor/action hero Charles Bronson filmed a now-cringeworthy series of Japanese TV commercials for Mandom, a line of men's colognes, which featured Wallace's recording of "Lovers of the World" ("Otoko no Sekai," which translates as "man's world"); sales of his records were strong in that country for years to come.

The January 1971 debut of ABC-TV's The Smith Family, starring screen legend Henry Fonda and a post-Andy Griffith Show, pre-Happy Days, still-teenaged Ronny Howard, used a soundalike version of "Primrose Lane" (with slightly-altered lyrics) as its theme song. Despite lack of any involvement from Wallace, it neverthesless furthered the pop culture standing of his best-selling record. After signing with Decca in 1971, his country career took off with hits like "After You," "The Morning After" and "To Get to You," the latter making him a double nominee at the 1972 Country Music Awards (CMAs) in the categories Single of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year.

Then Jerry's career reached a new peak with the Gerald Sanford-Hal Mooney song "If You Leave Me Tonight I'll Cry," which had him at his Nat Cole-inspired best. It was featured in a January 1972 episode of Rod Serling's anthology series Night Gallery titled The Tune in Dan's Cafe with former Bonanza actor Pernell Roberts. The record on the jukebox kept skipping and Jerry's line ''til death do us part' ignited the episode's maddening finish: ''til death'-til death...' Positive fan reaction to the episode resulted in a country chart-topper in August 1972 and a pop top 40 placement the following month.

Country music was Jerry Wallace's bread and butter for the remainder of his career. A string of more than 20 singles including three additional country top tens ("Do You Know What It's Like to Be Lonesome" and "Don't Give Up on Me" in '73 and "My Wife's House" in '74) made his voice a regular presence on country radio as he consistently toured and issued studio recordings on Decca, MGM and other labels through 1980. He retired from performing at a relatively young age (his mid-50s) and settled in Victorville, California with his wife and children, spending more than two decades, prior to his death in 2008, enjoying a simpler life.

- Michael Jack Kirby

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