Jones returned to Beaumont a few years later, and in 1950 he married Dorothy Bonvillion. By his early teens he found himself playing in the dive bars of Beaumont, Texas, as well, and at age 16 he left home for Jasper, Texas, where he worked as a singer at local radio station KTXJ and nurtured his admiration for the music of Hank Williams. I had to stick to it because I’ve never done anything else.When Jones was nine his father bought him his first guitar, and when he began to display an early talent, he was sent out to the streets to perform and help earn money for the family. “The old voice has stood up, you know.” He added: “The other thing is, this is all I’ve ever done. “I say this with all humility,” he said on his website. Royal toured regularly in recent years, often with B. He is survived by a daughter, Savannah Royal two stepsons, Trey and Joe Rivenbark his mother, Mary Royal and a brother, Jack. Royal’s three marriages ended in divorce. In the 1970s he performed regularly at resorts in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe, Calif. Royal was invited to join the Dick Clark Caravan of Stars, a package tour that included the Turtles, the Shirelles, Peter and Gordon, and Tom Jones. Royal to a contract.Īfter the success of “Down in the Boondocks,” Mr. Bill Lowery, a well-connected music producer and publisher in Atlanta, heard the record and brought it to Columbia, which signed Mr. South asked him to make a demonstration record of “Down in the Boondocks,” which he hoped to sell to Gene Pitney. He was singing at a Cincinnati nightclub, Guys and Dolls, when Mr. Royal formed a rock band, the Corvettes, in high school and was later hired to perform at the Bamboo Ranch in Savannah, Ga., an enormous dance hall that booked top country and soul acts. “When he made it so big, all us Southern boys thought maybe we had a shot, too,” he said in an interview posted on his website.Īt 14, he became a regular on the radio program “Georgia Jubilee,” where other performers included Jerry Reed, Ray Stevens and Mr. The success of Elvis Presley galvanized him. He began singing in grade school, learned to play steel guitar and was soon performing with his uncle’s country-and-western band on local radio. He followed up with “ I’ll Pin a Note to Your Pillow,” a cover version of the Aaron Neville hit “ Tell It Like It Is” and others.īilly Joe Royal was born on April 3, 1942, in Valdosta, Ga., and grew up in Marietta, near Atlanta. As a gesture of respect, D.J.s stopped playing the song. Royal turned out a steady stream of country hits, beginning with “ Burned Like a Rocket,” which reached the country Top 10 in 1985 and was climbing when the space shuttle Challenger exploded. In the 1980s, after signing with Atlantic Records in Nashville, Mr. South, “ Hush” and “ I Knew You When,” and ended the decade in the Top 20 with “ Cherry Hill Park” (1969). He hit the charts with two other songs by Mr.
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