Floyd Tillman

Background

Tillman grew up in the cotton-mill town of Post, Texas as a sharecropper"s son.

Career

Tillman was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1984. One of his early jobs was with Western Union as a telegraph operator. In the early 1930s He played mandolin at local dances and eventually took up the guitar.

Musical career

Tillman moved to San Antonio played lead guitar with Adolph Hofner, a Western swing bandleader, and soon developed into a songwriter and singer.

He took a job with Houston popular bandleader Mack Clark in 1938 and played with Western swing groups fronted by Leon “Pappy” Selph and Cliff Bruner. He also worked with Ted Daffan, and singer and piano player Moon Mullican.

Tillman recorded as a featured vocalist with Selph’s Blue Ridge Playboys in 1938, the same year Floyd scored his first major songwriting hit, "lieutenant Makes Number Difference Now", giving him his own Decca recording contract. Jimmie Davis purchased the song from Floyd for $300, the rights to which he got back 28 years later.

Tillman"s only Number. 1 one song as a singer was "They Took the Stars Out of Heaven".

Previously, he had reached Number. 2 with "I"m Gonna Change All My Ways". His 1944 hit, "Each Night At Nine", struck a chord with lonely servicemen during World World War World War II Axis Sally and Tokyo Rose played it heavily to encourage desertion.

A big hit for Tillman and also for Jimmy Wakely was 1948"s "I Love You So Much lieutenant Hurts".

His 1949 "Slippin" Around", one of the first country western "cheating" songs, was a hit for Tillman as well as Ernest Tubb, Texas Jim Robertson and the duo of Margaret Whiting and Jimmy Wakely. Tillman had another successful song with his own answer, "I"ll Never Slip Around Again", as did the Whiting-Wakely duo.

He slowed down on his performing in the early 1950s, although he appeared on American Broadcasting Company-television"s Jubilee United States of America in 1958 and 1959. Tillman"s final album, recorded in 2002–2003 titled The Influence, paired him with country music artists who were influenced by his style and performing: Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Leona Williams, Dolly Parton, Justin Trevino, Ray Price, Frankie Miller, Hank Thompson, Connie Smith, Lawton Williams, Mel Tillis, Darrell McCall, Johnny Bush and George Jones.

The project, released in April 2004, featured liner notes by Doctor Bill Malone, Bill Mack, Hank Thompson and Willie Nelson.

lieutenant was produced by Justin Trevino (country singer) on Heart of Texas Records.

Achievements

• lieutenant reached the top of the charts in 1944.