1940s Christmas Playlist Housekeeping - Part 3!

The biggest leftover from my 1940s Christmas Playlist is getting to listen to Jimmy Atkins's recording of Vaughn Horton's "An Old Christmas Card."

I'm still waiting, but as I continue to search for it, I do come across the occasional interesting thing.

For example, here he is as Jim Atkins with the Pinetoppers on Coral Records in 1953:

I'm partial to songs with "Johnny" in the title and that's a very snappy version of the song!

The writer of "Juke Joint Johnny," Lattie Moore, had first recorded the song on the small Speed label in 1953:

That's really cool!

I see that record described as Rockabilly fairly often, sometimes even said to be the first Rockabilly record ever!

I don't think it's really Rockabilly, though. I'd say it's more Hillbilly Boogie, but it's certainly close to Rockabilly and shows how one branch of Country music was heading that way.

I was first familiar with "Juke Joint Johnny" from Red Sovine's 1957 recording on Decca:

That record is also often categorized as Rockabilly, but I don't think it quite is, despite the hot guitar from ace session player Grady Martin.

I mostly remember Red Sovine from a tacky late-1970s TV commercial for a compilation of his hits - which seemed to be mostly maudlin truck-driving songs - in the wake of the infamous Slim Whitman commercial!

Good to know Red had some pep 20-ish years before!

The song finally crossed over into more solid Rockabilly territory (although the label says it's country and western) when Lattie Moore changed the title (but not the rest of the lyrics) to "Juke Box Johnnie" and recorded it in 1956 for ARC, another small label:

Juke box definitely sounds more 1950s than juke joint, but I've never liked the "ie" spelling of Johnny!

Getting back to juke joints, interestingly enough, Vaughn Horton co-wrote a song called "Juke Joint Mama with singer Denver Darling who recorded the song for Decca in 1945:

Sounds good!

Then Jimmy Swan recorded a version in 1952 for the small Trumpet label:

Solid honky tonk that no one should say is Rockabilly!

So, all of this is based on the premise that Jimmy Atkins is also Jim Atkins. And he might be the older half-brother of guitar great Chet Atkins after all - but I have no solid evidence.

That's another rabbit hole for another day!