Womens History Month Oh! Did you know? Born on September 14, 1914, in Bardwell, TX; died on April 9, 1997, in Nashville, TN; married John T. Axton (a high school teacher and coach); children: son, Hoyt (singer, songwriter, and actor; died 1999); grandson, Mark Axton (singer, songwriter). Education: Attended Oklahoma University, studied Journalism. In 20 minutes in 1955, songwriter Mae Axton assured her position in the pantheon of rock n roll royalty. Taking the solitary line from an unidentified mans suicide note, I walk a lonely street, Axton imagined the destination for the protagonist: Heartbreak Hotel. Working with songwriter and partner Tommy Durden, Axton crafted the song that became an international sensation. Axton and Durdens Heartbreak Hotel became Elvis Presleys first number-one hit for RCA Victor, and perhaps the best-recognized song of his career. While she wrote more than 200 songs for such artists as Perry Como, Wanda Jackson, Faron Young, Conway Twitty, Hank Snow, Patsy Cline, and Glenn Reeves, it is for Heartbreak Hotel that she will be remembered. Axton became a force to be reckoned with on the Jacksonville music scene, writing her own songs or collaborating with Durden, and placing songs with several influential artists. In Nashville, Axton was introduced by comedienne Minnie Pearl to legendary music publisher Fred Rose, who, with partner Roy Acuff, started Acuff-Rose, one of the largest music publishing companies in the United States. The Acuff-Rose catalog counted such luminaries as Hank Williams on its roster. Axton impressed Rose with a song she had written for a Dub Dickerson recording session. By the time she and Durden sat down to write Heartbreak Hotel, Axton had penned or co-authored 14 rock n roll songs that made some headway on the hit singles charts. But nothing so big as the splash she would achieve with the Presley hit. The first song Presley recorded for RCA in its Nashville studio on January 10, 1956, was a cover of Ray Charless I Got a Woman. The second song he recorded that day was Heartbreak Hotel. The song was recorded in seven takes and sent to RCA executives in New York. Donald Clarke, quoted on the Rockabilly website, recalled that the sound quality of that first session was not good, and Heartbreak Hotel is the worst of them all. Chet Atkins played rhythm guitar and Floyd Cramer was added on piano, together with an unnecessary vocal trio led by Gordon Stoker, lead singer of the Jordanaires. Scotty Moores guitar sounds exceptionally, irritatingly tinny, Cramer is too prominent and the whole track sounds like it was made underwater in a breadbox. It was a disgraceful song for 1956 but a good song for Presley. RCA executives were not pleased with the finished product. Their initial desire was to return Presley to the studio to re-record the song to sound more like the Sun Records recordings. But the seventh take won out, and was released less than six weeks later. It jumped to number one on the Billboard pop chart for eight weeks, number one for 17 weeks on the magazines country chart, and became a number three hit on the magazines rhythm-and-blues chart. When approached by publishing company Hill and Range for the rights, Axton held firm to a promise to publish the song with the small publishing company Tree Publishing, which held onto the song rights until 1989. Heartbreak Hotel made the firm millions of dollars.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 18:19:33 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015