Stonewall Jackson born 6 November 1932

Stonewall Jackson (born November 6, 1932) is an American country singer, guitarist and musician who achieved his greatest fame during country's "golden" honky tonk era in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Jackson, born in Tabor City, North Carolina, is the youngest of three children. Stonewall is not a nickname; he was named after the Confederate Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. Some publicity for the singer claimed he was a descendant of the general..

Stonewall's father died when he was two and his mother moved the family to South Georgia. Jackson grew up there working on his uncle's farm. When he was ten he traded his bike for a guitar and began making up songs. Some of his later hits, such as "Don't Be Angry," were written very early in his creative life.

Jackson enlisted in the Navy in 1950 and was discharged in 1954. He moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1956. Within a few days of his arrival he delivered an unsolicited demonstration recording to the offices of the Acuff-Rose publishing house, and executive Wesley Rose heard his recorded singing and set up an audition for Jackson at the Grand Ole Opry. He became the first entertainer to join the Opry without a recording contract, performing first on the Opry's Friday Night Frolics before his official debut. Backed by Ernest Tubb's Texas Troubadours, he 

proved so popular that the audience demanded four encores.

Eventually Jackson hit the road with Tubb, who became a mentor to the young singer and songwriter. By early 1957, Jackson had signed a recording contract with Columbia Records and cut his first record, "Don't Be Angry." Jackson followed up with a cover of George Jones' "Life to Go," which peaked at number two in early 1959.

                              

The upbeat "Waterloo," with its mixture of novelty and melancholy, did even better, spending five weeks at the top of the country charts, hitting number four on the pop charts, and garnering Jackson some national television exposure. Through the early '60s 

Jackson was a consistent hitmaker with such country standards as "Why I'm Walkin'" (number six, 1960), "A Wound Time Can't Erase" (number three, 1962), and "I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water" (number eight, 1965).

In 1963, Jackson was the first artist to record a live album from the Grand Ole Opry with Old Showboat.

His next No. 1 hits came in 1964 with "Don't Be Angry" and "B.J. the D.J." (Jackson's foray into the teenage tragedy song trope, about an over-worked country music radio station disc jockey, who crashes his car in a rainstorm). During the second half of the '60s, he reached Top 40 less often, scoring only one Top Ten hit: 1967's "Stamp Out Loneliness". His Columbia albums of this period 

contained ornate wordplay from the pens of well-established Nashville writers like Vic McAlpin; songs such as "Ship in a Bottle" and "Nevermore Quote the Raven" applied literary virtuosity to traditional country themes

From 1958 to 1971, Jackson had 35 Top 40 country hits. Along with Ray Price, Webb Pierce, Carl Smith, Faron Young, Carl Butler, George Jones and Charlie Walker, Jackson is considered a cornerstone, after Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell, of the hard-driving honky tonk sound in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

By 1970, however, Jackson wasn't even hitting the Top 40. He bounced back briefly in 1971 with a cover of Lobo's "Me and You and a Dog Named Boo." In 1973, he had his last hit with "Herman Schwartz," which reached number 41. After that, Jackson continued to appear regularly on the Opry and to record occasionally, releasing albums like the inspirational Make Me Like a Child Again. He also re-recorded versions of his old hits, and he privately published his autobiography, From the Bottom Up, in 1991.

In 2006, Jackson sued the Grand Ole Opry for $10 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damage, claiming age discrimination. As a member of the Opry for over fifty years, Jackson believed that management was sidelining him in favor of younger artists. In his court filing, Jackson claimed that Opry general manager Pete Fisher stated that he did not "want any gray hairs on that stage or in the audience, and before I'm done there won't be any." Fisher is also alleged to have told Jackson that he was "too old and too country." The lawsuit was settled on October 3, 2008 for an undisclosed amount and Jackson returned to performing on the show. He has been a member of the Opry since 1956.

Jackson lives on a farm in Brentwood, Tennessee with his wife Juanita, who is also his personal manager and operates his song publishing company, Turp Tunes. He has a son, Stonewall Jackson, Jr.

Jackson was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame on October 11, 2012

(Compiled and edited from Wikipedia & AllMusic)