Jerry Jericho (October 11,1918 – October 2, 1998) also known as “Smilin” Jerry Jericho was one of the most enduring regional stars of the 1940’s and 1950’s, working out of the country music hotbed of Houston, Texas, he was one of the biggest stars along the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast. His fame reached up into North Central Texas and to the stage of the Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport, though not really beyond that. Within that geographical area, however, he was a widely loved, substantial star.
He was born Richard Clayton Jericho in Millican, Texas. Like so many of his generation, his initial inspiration was Jimmie Rodgers. He learned to play harmonica, then guitar and though he loved to sing, never seriously considered a career in music until he successfully auditioned for a spot with Ben Christian’s Texas Cowboys in 1941. Christian was one of the big names in hillbilly music in Houston, who racked up a local hit with a rowdy tune called “I’m Ragged But I’m Right.” Cleaned up a bit lyrically, it was also recorded by George Jones in 1957, but Jericho’s version is about as down and dirty as a honky-tonk song has ever been. Beginning in 1948, Christian and Jericho headlined shows three nights per week at Jerry Irby’s Texas Corral, another 1,000-seat club in south Houston. The other nights were taken up by Floyd Tillman and Leon Payne.
Jericho’s career wasn’t big enough to get him listed in The Handbook of Texas Music. However, historian and prolific liner-notes writer Andrew Brown notes in his blog that Jericho was “a star in Texas.” He was also a well known musician to Country and Western stars such as Hank Williams Sr., Hank Snow, Johnny Bush, Willie nelson, Ernest Tubb, Hank Thompson, Freddy fender, Johnny Horton and many others.
Unlike George Jones, Claude Gray, Sleepy LaBeef, and Moon Mullican, among others, Jericho was never able to make a national breakout in spite of many regional recordings and a handful of local hits.
As for why, in spite of 20-plus years of regional popularity, Jericho never became a national star like Gray, Jones, or LaBeef, Bush ( who drummed in Jericho’s band in the late 1950s) surmises his uncle “didn’t keep up with the times.” “Another factor was he didn’t really want to leave Houston,” adds Bush. “He had a bunch of offers to be part of the Louisiana Hayride, but he didn’t want to do it because they didn’t pay you anything.
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| (l-r) Jerry Jericho, Ernest Tubb and Johnny Bush. |
The people that ran the Hayride thought the exposure you got being on the show and on the weekly radio program was enough compensation because you could then go play shows and advertise yourself that way, just like the Grand Ole Opry worked. That’s how Elvis and Hank and others got jump-started, but Jerry had a nice house here and a family and he just wouldn’t do it for no pay. He had plenty of work.”
A distinctive vocalist, with an instantly recognizable and almost old-fashioned quality to his voice, Jericho was a prolific recording artist who enjoyed some regional success on record but no major hits. He was a stylist, generally an interpreter rather than a tackler of original material. He wrote or co-wrote an occasional tune, but his forte was taking the current hits of others and somehow making them his own. Some of his recordings arguably rank as the best version of that particular song, if not necessarily the best known.
Jericho died from lung disease at College Station, Texas, on 2 October 1993 (aged 74). He was buried at the Wheat Cemetery, Millican, Brazos County, Texas.
(Scarce information edited from LP liner notes & Houston Press)