Texas Ruby

Texas Ruby (born June 4, 1908 near Decatur in Wise County , Texas , as Ruby Agnes Owens , † March 29, 1963 ) was an American country musician . Together with her husband Curly Fox , Texas Ruby was one of the country's most successful radio personalities between 1941 and 1948.

Life

Childhood and youth

Texas grew up in a very musical family; two of her siblings would later also start a career as a musician. Sister Laura Lee worked with Bob Wills and brother Tex Owens wrote the later hit, Cattle Call .

Career

Ruby's professional career began in 1930 when she was discovered by the owner of a Kansas City radio station while she was in town with her two brothers and father. She quickly worked at KMBC and in 1933 she joined the band Zeke Clements . She made a few appearances with Clements in the Grand Ole Opry before the two auditioned for WHO's popular Iowa Barn Dance Frolic in the mid-1930s , where they stayed for the next two years. During Ruby's time at WHO, she also met a young radio host named Ronald Reagan , who would later become President of the United States . Texas Ruby was known in her private life as a hard-drinking woman. Her masculine appearance was supported by her deep, masculine voice and the fact that she was a heavy smoker.

In 1937, Texas Ruby also played her first records for Decca Records , including a cover of the Jimmie Rodgers hit Blue Yodel No.1 . All of their singles were only selling moderately.

The collaboration with Clements ended in 1937 after Ruby appeared drunk on several dates. In the same year she met the fiddler Curly Fox, whom she married two years later. The couple quickly developed their own show and toured the United States. On the radio, they rose to become extremely popular artists and were part of the famous Grand Ole Opry in Nashville , Tennessee , from 1944 to 1948 .

In 1948 Ruby and her husband left Nashville to move to Texas, where they joined the Louisiana Hayrides ensemble at KWKH. However, shortly after leaving Nashville, their popularity declined and the development of the music scene in the 1950s also contributed to it. Their records for Columbia Records and King Records had never sold well in their careers, so Ruby and Fox moved to California in 1960 , where they made a few appearances at the Town Hall Party .

Shortly thereafter, Ruby and her husband moved back to Nashville to put themselves back in the spotlight. They became members of the Opry again, but Texas Ruby's career came to a quick end in March 1963 when she fell asleep in her RV with a cigarette after an appearance on the Opry. She lost her life in the fire that followed. Texas Ruby was 55 years old.

Texas Ruby is often seen as the link between old-time music , the traditional music of the mountain people, and the then much more modern honky tonk . But despite her determined and emancipated appearance in a conservative country era, she never achieved star status like other musicians of her time. Their records weren't even in the charts either.

Discography

year	title	Remarks
Decca Records
1937	Blue Yodel No. 1 / Pride of the Prairie	B-side with Zeke Parker
Columbia Records
1948	Don't You Lie To Me / Don't Let That Man get You Down
1948	Blue Lover / The Old Home
1948	Even Tho I'll Shed A Million Tears / Have You Got Someone Else On Your String
1948	Traveling blues
1948	Ain't You Sorry That You Lied / Nobody Else But You
1948	I'll Take You Back / Have I Waited Too Long
1948	Have I Waited Too Long / I'll Take You Back	Republication
Coral Records
1949	T for Texas / Pride of the Prairie	Re-release of Decca 5364
King Records
1963	On The Banks of the Lonely River / Hold Fast To The Right

Albums

• 1963: Favorite Songs of Texas Ruby
• 1963: Curly Fox & Texas Ruby
• 1999: A Memorial Tribute To Curly Fox and Texas Ruby (D)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ according to other sources 1910.

Web links

• Entry in the All Music Guide
• Texas Ruby on Hillbilly-Music.com (English)