A brief career as a boxer earned him the nickname "the left-hander", but at the
age of seventeen, after several defeats, he opted for music. Strongly influenced
by Jimmie Rodgers, he scored two huge hits in 1950, "If You've Got The Money"
and "I've Got The Time", covered in 1976 by Willie Nelson. He enjoyed further
success with "I Love You Thousand Ways", "I Want To Be With You Always",
"Travelin' Blues" and, in 1964, "Saginaw, Michigan", his last big hit.
A superb tenor voice, playing on notes and syllables, a ferocious honky tonker
whose statue adorns a park in his hometown, he...