Floyd Tillman was born on December 8, 1914, in Ryan, Oklahoma. He was raised in Post, TX in a sharecropper family and began playing music as a child. He was drawn to music because his brothers would earn $5 a night from playing together. He started out as a backing musician with local fiddlers and when he was 19, he joined a house band in San Antonio. He later became the leader of the Blue Ridge Playboys and he also played with the Mack Clark Orchestra, both from Houston. Tillman was signed to the Decca label sometime in the ‘30s and stayed in Texas during this time. He would compose his own songs, as well as songs for others. He would travel around and perform his music. According to allmusic.com “…sometimes described as a cross between Ernest Tubb and Frank Sinatra, began to emerge; he combined the low-volume vocal inflections of the crooner with tight country voice production.”
As you can hear from the 3 examples (They Took the Stars Out of Heaven, I Love You So Much It Hurts and Slippin’ Around), Tillman’s vocal style sounds just a hybrid of Ernest Tubb and Frank Sinatra. The opening 30 seconds of each song is the same rhythmic pattern. That pattern is going up in pitch, down in pitch and then returning to where it started. Each song is also a personal story rather than songs dedicated to Texas. In some articles I read, people would describe Tillman as a jazz-country hybrid. I feel like that is very prominent in these songs.
Tillman is someone that really captured the attention of many listeners. He became popular thanks to the jukebox. This is because when he started, it was right after the Great Depression and many people wanted to smile again. And he for sure, brought happiness and joy to all who listened.
Works Cited
“Floyd Tillman Biography, Songs, & Albums.” AllMusic, www.allmusic.com/artist/floyd-tillman-mn0000194277/biography.
“Floyd Tillman.” Country Music Hall of Fame, 30 Oct. 2013, countrymusichalloffame.org/artist/floyd-tillman/.
Official Floyd Tillman Website, www.floydtillman.com/.
