Jimmie Widener born 15 February 1924

Jimmie Widener (February 15, 1924 - 8th September 2001) was a Western Swing musician, singer and songwriter. 

“Oklahoma” Jimmie Widener was born James Leon Widener just northwest of Tulsa, either in Cleveland or 10 miles north across the Arkansas River in Hominy, Osage County. His father Carl was a fiddler and Jimmie took up tenor banjo and was playing around town and on radio by the time he was 6. When the new Tulsa sensations Bob Wills & his Texas Playboys came to Hominy when Jimmie was 10 0r 11, Widener’s father took him to Bob and told him Jimmie was a banjo player, so Bob allowed little Jimmie to play Johnnie Lee’s banjo.” After the gig, Wills told him, “You go ahead and finish your education and when you finish high school, you come wherever I am, and when you do you have a job.”

The Wideners were living 90 miles south in Seminole, Oklahoma by 1940. Although Jimmie was apparently in Illinois in July 1941 when he applied for his social security card, he was back in Seminole when he registered for the draft in June 1942. Soon after that, the Wideners headed to California. Bob Wills was in town filming the last of eight Russell Hayden westerns made for Columbia that year, using a cut down version of the Texas Playboys made up mostly of members of Johnnie Lee Wills’ band. 

Widener decided to take Bob up on the promise made at Hominy seven or eight years earlier. Wills was true to his word and Jimmie played with him over the next few weeks before Wills disbanded his orchestra soon after returning to Tulsa in December and entered the Army. Widener was himself inducted into the Army in late April 1943. He spent the next two and half years in the service, discharged in October 1945 in California. Even before he was fully mustered out, he was sitting in with Spade Cooley’s band. 

Widener was soon rooming with rising star Merle Travis, already an in-demand session man and soon to sign to Capitol Records. Travis had helped inaugurate Syd Nathan’s King label two years before and Nathan enlisted Travis as a West Coast talent scout and A & R man for the label. Among those Nathan signed at Travis’ urging was Jimmie Widener. His sessions for King in March and May and September, 1946 at Universal Recorders in Hollywood had an all-star studio line-up. Although many of the 1946 tracks would not be issued for several years, these would be Widener’s last recordings under his own name until 1952-3. 

                                   

Widener worked for a time with T. Texas Tyler, then re-joined Wills when Eldon Shamblin took a leave of absence following the death of his son in early 1947. Following Shamblin’s return, Jimmie went back to Tyler’s band for until rejoining Spade Cooley in 1948. He worked briefly for Wills in late ’48, then joined the Texas Playboys once again when Wills relocated to Oklahoma City for a while in late summer 1949, playing tenor banjo, singing solos and in trios. 

Widener opted to remain in California when Wills returned to Oklahoma after the April recording session. He joined Tex Williams’ Western Caravan, and sang on one of Smokey Rogers Coral releases (“Trouble Then Satisfaction”). He remained with Williams when Rogers took most of the Caravan to San Diego a few months later. He cut some covers of current hits for the Ace-Hi label in 1952, and then cut a fantastic lone session for Imperial in March 1953, featuring Speedy West, Jimmy Bryant, and others. His top-notch cover of the jazzy blues “Red Top” comes from this session. 

During the early 1950's he MC'ed the Tex Williams television show, live from Knotts Berry Farm. He also recorded western gospel sides for the Biblical label in the mid-50s.He later cut a series of transcriptions with a group called the Country Gentlemen, a western act that boasted Sons of The Pioneers legend Hugh Farr on fiddle.  He retired in the 1970's to care for his ailing wife, but later returned to Oklahoma and was active in a number of Texas Playboys-related events through the 1980s-90s, until his health no longer permitted. He died in Seminole in 2001, aged 77. 

Widener’s unique voice was so sincere, fresh and swingin' at the same time. It is hard to understand why his career ended nowhere, especially after the recording sessions at the KING studio and what sessions! The cream of the cream of the Hillbilly Jazz was there! What happened and why the KING recording label, only put out these 1946 recordings in the early 1950's defies explanation. Part of the problem in dealing with Jimmie Widener’s legacy is that there was more than one performer using the name. There was reportedly a Jimmy Widener in the Pacific Northwest and there was unquestionably another musician active in the Southern California western swing scene at the same time named Jimmie Philliip Widener who was often known as “Alabama” Jimmy Widener, to differentiate him from the artist featured here. 

(Edited mainly from articles @ doghouseandbonerecords)