Biography
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Born
21 January 1902
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Born In
Palestine, Anderson County, Texas, United States
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Died
2 May 1984 (aged 82)
Smith Ballew (real name Sykes Ballew) (January 21, 1902 – May 2, 1984) was an American actor, singer, and orchestra leader.
He was born in Palestine, Texas. He attended high school in Sherman and college at Austin College and the University of Texas. He began his singing career on the radio, and in the 1930s became one of the earliest of the singing cowboys in films. He did a series of musical Westerns for Paramount Pictures and one for 20th Century Fox, continuing in supporting roles until the 1950s.
Starting in the late 1920s he became one of the most recognizable vocalists on hundreds of dance band and jazz records (during this time, Ballew along with Scrappy Lambert, Dick Robertson, and Chick Bullock were the most prolific vocalists), and in the early 1930s had his own band. Between 1929 and 1935, he made scores of records that were issued under his own name for OKeh, Columbia, Crown, and for the dime store labels (Banner, Domino, Jewel, Regal, Perfect, and Oriole) as Buddy Blue & His Texans, or Jack Blue's Texans. Few of these popular records gave any indication of his future Cowboy style.
He died at the age of 82 in Longview, Texas.
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