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Sleeve Notes
Johnny Horton, one of America's greatest Country and Western composers and performers, was born in Los Angeles. When he was a boy, his family moved to Texas, where Johnny worked his way through Gallatin High School. A star basketball player, he was offered twenty-six different scholarships for his prowess. Johnny attended Lon Morris Junior College in Jacksonville, Texas, where he was voted "most handsome boy," he later attended Kilgore Junior College, Baylor University and Seattle University, majoring in geology and petroleum engineering, with a minor in psychology. Johnny sang very little in those days, except to his mother, "who taught me to play three chords in two keys on the guitar." During his college days, however, he became interested in composing, and began to write songs he would sing for his friends. One day in Los Angeles, after completing a fishing job in Alaska, Johnny was challenged by a friend to enter a singing contest. Johnny went to Harmony Park Corral in Anaheim, sang each of the thirteen songs he knew at the time, and won. A recording company executive heard him, and helped him win a spot on "Home Town Jamboree," a program originating in El Monte, with Cliffie Stone and Tennessee Ernie as masters of ceremonies. Johnny's talents won him a wide following, and he was soon signed to appear on Station KWKH in Shreveport, where many important country music stars have been featured. For three years Johnny was famous throughout the South, and then burst into nation-wide popularity with his recording of The Battle of New Orleans, which sold more than two million copies. Other Horton records in the historical vein to achieve notable success were Sink the Bismarck, North to Alaska and Johnny’s exciting album, Johnny Horton Makes History.