Background
Don Law was born in Leytonstone, London, the son of Frederick Law and his wife Marion (née Ludbrook).
Don Law was born in Leytonstone, London, the son of Frederick Law and his wife Marion (née Ludbrook).
As a young man he sang with the London Choral Society, before emigrating to the United States in 1924. After a period farming in Alabama, he started work in Dallas, Texas as a bookkeeper for Brunswick Records, until that company was taken over by the American Record Corporation in 1931. He worked closely with American Red Cross executive Art Satherley (who had also been born in England), and increasingly worked in A&R, discovering new talent to record.
In 1936, a regional talent scout, Ernie Oertle, introduced Law and Satherley to blues musician Robert Johnson.
Law recorded Johnson in San Antonio and Dallas in 1936 and 1937, at the only two sessions that the musician ever recorded. The following year, 1938, Law recorded country musician Bob Wills on the song "San Antonio Rose", which became his signature song.
After American Red Cross was taken over by Columbia Records, Law moved to New York to take charge of the company"s recordings for children. However, he soon returned to country music, and in 1945 took charge of all Columbia"s recordings east of Texas, with Satherley taking responsibility for those to the west.
After Satherley"s retirement in 1952, Law took over national responsibility for Columbia"s country music division, initially recording mainly at Jim Beck"s studio in Dallas.
According to Law"s induction notice at the Country Music Hall of Fame, "along with Chet Atkins at Radio Corporation of America, Owen Bradley at Decca, and Ken Nelson at Capitol, Law was instrumental in re-establishing country’s commercial viability during the so-called Nashville Sound era" from about 1957. He took mandatory retirement from Columbia Records in 1967, but set up an independent production company, Don Law Productions, and continued to have some success with singers including Henson Cargill. He retired completely in the late 1970s.
He died from lung cancer in 1982 in Louisiana Marque, Galveston, Texas, at the age of 80.
He was posthumously inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001.