Career
Mize was raised in the San Joaquin Valley of California, an area steeped in country music thanks to relocated Okies. He originally learned to play guitar as a child, but fell in love with the steel guitar he received for his 18th birthday. Mize moved to Bakersfield, California and formed his own band playing local gigs and also working as a disc jockey on KPMC. In 1953, he, Bill Woods and Herb Henson put together a local television show called The Cousin Herb Trading Post Show on KERO-television Bakersfield, where he became affectionately known as Billy The Kid.
The signal from that show was so strong the show could be seen as far as Fresno, all the way over to the central coast and Los Los Angeles
The show was wildly popular because it not only featured fledgling acts such as Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Tommy Collins, Jean Shepard, Bonnie Owens, Ferlin Husky, but many national acts such as Hank Williams and Patsy Cline. He stayed with the show for thirteen years.
In 1955, Billy Mize began to appear on a loca Los Angeles television show hosted by Hank Penny. By 1957 he was working on seven different weekly shows in the Los Angeles area, including the Hank Penny Show, Cal Worthington Show, Country Music Time and the legendary Town Hall Party.
He recorded for Decca (Solid Sender/lieutenant Could happen - 1957), Challenge and Liberty, finally hitting the country charts in 1966 with You Can"t Stop Maine for Columbia.
That year he began hosting and performing on Gene Autry"s Melody Ranch network show on KTLA as well as starting his own syndicated Billy Mize Show from Bakersfield. During the next decade he managed eleven chart hits as well as writing hits for others such as Who Will Buy The Wine (Charlie Walker), My Baby Walks All Over Maine (Johnny Sea) and Don"t Let The Blues Make You Bad (Dean Martin). Dean Martin cut three of his songs in one day in June 1966, including "Terrible Tangled Web."
In 1972 he taped two pilots of the "Billy Mize Music Hall," which he hoped to sell into national syndication.
With Merle Haggard on the one show and Marty Robbins on the other it seemed a sure fire bet, but it wasn"t picked up.
In recent times he"s been heading Billy Mize Productions, making television spectaculars with Merle Haggard. He suffered a stroke during the mid-90"s and although he now speaks a little slowly, he has recovered well enough to again play guitar.
A critically acclaimed documentary chronicling the life of Billy Mize and his impact on the country music industry will be released in 2015. Titled "Billy Mize and the Bakersfield Sound," it screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival in June 2014.
Foreign more information see www.billymizemovie.com.