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HOYT AXTON-WILD BULL RIDER

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THIS BIOGRAPHY WAS TAKEN FROM WIKIPEDIA: Hoyt was born in Duncan, Oklahoma and was raised in Comanche, Oklahoma. His mother, Mae Boren Axton, had her own spot in popular culture history and co-wrote the classic rock 'n' roll song "Heartbreak Hotel", which became the first major hit for Elvis Presley. Some of Hoyt's own songs were also later recorded by Elvis. Hoyt served in the US Navy aboard the USS Princeton (LPH-5), before pursuing a music career.
After his discharge from the Navy, he began singing folk songs in San Francisco nightclubs. In the early 1960s he released his first folk album titled The Balladeer (recorded at the legendary Troubadour), which included his song Greenback Dollar, a 1963 hit for The Kingston Trio. Axton released numerous albums well into the 1980s, changing somewhat with the times but always retaining an honest, down-home and fairly "country" approach to his music.
Hoyt Axton on the TV show HootenannyAxton had many minor singing hits of his own, such as "Boney Fingers" ("Work your fingers to the bone, what do you get? Boney fingers, boney fingers"), "When the Morning Comes", and 1979's "Della and the Dealer" (which he sang in a guest appearance on WKRP in Cincinnati). His vocal style was notable for its distinctive baritone and for its use of characterization: at times gritty and defiant, other times exceptionally mellow, occasionally deliberately cartoonish. One song, "Officer Ray," is styled in self-parody, as Hoyt softly croons curses at a sadistic police officer that would seem more likely to come from the narrator of "The Pusher": "Officer Ray / .... / May you have a bad day / May your wife run away/ With a hippie."
But his most lasting contributions were songs made famous by others: "Never Been to Spain" (Three Dog Night), the previously mentioned "Greenback Dollar" (Kingston Trio), "The Pusher" (Steppenwolf), and "No-No Song" (Ringo Starr) and for an array of others, including Joan Baez, John Denver, and Waylon Jennings. Axton also sang a couple of notable duets with Linda Ronstadt, including Lion in Winter and When the Morning Comes (a top 40 country hit). His most popular and signature song, "Joy to the World" (Three Dog Night), was No. 1 on the charts for six straight weeks in 1971, making it the top hit of the year.
Axton first appeared on television in a David L. Wolper ABC production of The Story of a Folksinger in 1963. In 1965, he appeared in an episode of Bonanza, then followed with other TV roles over the years. As he matured, Axton as an actor specialized in playing good ol' boys on television and in films. His face became well-known in the 1970s and 1980s through many TV and film appearances to the movies Gremlins and The Black Stallion. He sang the jingle "Head For the Mountains" in the Busch beer commercials in the 1980s (He also sang The Ballad of Big Mac touting the recently released McDonalds hamburger the Big Mac on screen in a 1969 commercial he filmed for the hamburger franchise).
Hoyt Axton on Austin City Limits in 1978Axton spent some time struggling with alcohol and cocaine addiction and several of his songs, including "The Pusher," "Snowblind Friend," and "No-No Song," partly reflect his negative drug experiences. He had been known as an opponent of drug use for many years when, in February 1997, he and his wife were arrested at their Montana home for possession of approximately 500 grams of marijuana, about a pound. His wife explained later that she offered Hoyt marijuana to relieve pain and stress following a 1995 stroke; both were fined and given deferred sentences.
Hoyt never fully recovered from his stroke, and still had to use a wheelchair much of the time. He died of a heart attack in Victor, Montana, on October 26, 1999, at the age of 61. Axton had suffered a severe heart attack two weeks earlier and experienced another one while undergoing surgery in Montana.
November 1, 2007 proved to be another credit to the influence he had on country music. He was inducted, posthumously, along with his mother, to the Oklahoma Country Music Hall of Fame in Muskogee, Oklahoma. [1][2]

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