Johnny Dollar born 8 March 1933

Johnny Dollar (March 8, 1933 – April 13, 1986) was an American country and rockabilly musician. 

Country and rockabilly vocalist Johnny Dollar was born John Washington Dollar Jr.in Kilgore, Texas. He was the son of Nellie Mai “Millie” (Morgan) Dollar and John Dollar and one of six children. His parents, Creek Indians, had relocated from Oklahoma to East Texas with the onslaught of that region’s oil boom. Apparently, the family moved often, as Johnny attended schools in Kilgore, Fredericksburg, Crab Apple Creek, and Junction. About 1948 he lived with an older brother in Sheridan, Texas, and attended Schreiner’s Military Academy. At odds with his father, at age seventeen Johnny Dollar joined the Marines and left home permanently. After the service, he worked in the oilfields of West Texas and as a truck driver and lumberyard hand while performing occasional singing jobs. 

At his own expense, Dollar recorded a single (“Walking Away”) for Shelby Singleton's D Records around 1952, but it went nowhere fast then he worked as a deejay in Louisiana and New Mexico. He started a band called the Texas Sons and for awhile performed regularly on Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport which was broadcast on KWKH. 

He then left the Sons to join Martin McCullough's Light Crust Doughboys, but by the late '50s was back in Dallas, feeling out the new rockabilly sounds made famous by Elvis Presley. Dollar fell in with promoter Ed McLemore and songwriter Jack Rhodes. The combination yielded some fiery rockabilly gems like "Action Packed," later popularized by Ronnie Dawson and an eventual standard of the rockabilly genre. However, despite his fiery performances, darkly handsome looks, and powerful voice, Dollar's rockabilly sides for some reason, were never released. 

                             

Disenfranchised once again, a disgusted Dollar left the music industry and sold insurance in Oklahoma. There, a chance run-in with country star Ray Price led Dollar to a contract with Columbia, who signed him in 1964. Dollar -- now occasionally billed as Johnny $ Dollar or "Mr. Personality" -- scored a Top 50 hit with 1966's "Tear-Talk," and cracked the Top 15 with "Stop the Start (Of Tears in My Heart)" a year later. 

He moved from Dot Records to Date Records, and finally to Chart Records, where he landed in 1968. There he scored again with the truck driving country hits "Big Big Rollin' Man" and "Big Wheels Sing for Me." In 1970, he returned to the Johnny Dollar moniker and scored his final hit for Chart with "Truck Driver's Lament." 

This was the apex of Dollar's chart success, and for the rest of the decade he focused on producing. Based in Nashville, Dollar worked with the New Coon Creek Girls, Jimmy Dickens, and Teddy Nelson. But Dollar's personal life was a shambles. 

After the divorce of his fourth wife, Dollar battled alcoholism and depression. He was diagnosed with throat cancer, and a subsequent operation caused him to lose his voice. This plunged the singer into further depths of depression, and on April 13th, 1986, he took his own life in Nashville Tennessee. He is buried in the Nashville National Cemetery. 

In 1997 the reels of audio tape—Johnny Dollar’s unreleased rockabilly recordings from the late 1950s—resurfaced in a north Dallas home. Subsequently, David Dennard of Dragon Street Records released them on CD in 1998 as Johnny Dollar: Mr. Action Packed. The collection also included two live performances from Big D Jamboree in 1958. Thus Johnny Dollar’s talent reached new rockabilly fans after forty years. He was also recognized for his early contributions in the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

(Edited from AllMusic & the Handbook Of Texas)