Cindy Walker

*On April 19, 2024 Cindy Walker was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame at a ceremony at the historic Columbia Studio A on Music Row. A site where Cindy’s music was recorded by some of the biggest artists in country music.

 

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Cindy Walker, known as the dean of Texas songwriters, was a female trailblazing songwriter, dancer and singer who had top 10 hits in five consecutive decades from the 1940s - 1980s. She had no greater love than songwriting.

“Songwriting is all I ever did, love,” she told the New York Times. That love affair began at an early age. She accidentally broke a neighbor's guitar while riding in the back of a truck near the Mart, Texas farm where she was born. Her grandfather took her to nearby Mexia to buy her first guitar. With her Martin guitar and a full imagination, she penned her first song “Dusty Skies” at the age of 12. It became one of 50 songs the King of Western Swing Bob Wills would eventually record.

After a childhood of dancing and singing on stages across Texas, her big break came during a trip to Hollywood with her family. As Cindy tells it, “An absolute unknown, I walked into the office of Larry Crosby and announced I had written a song for Bing. Brother Larry agreed to listen, liked the song and made an appointment for me to sing it for Bing the next day at Paramount Studios where Bing was working at the time. Bing heard it, liked it and my first recorded song was “Lone Star Trail” recorded by Bing Crosby.”

When Cindy went to Decca Records to make a demo of the song for Bing, it was her good fortune that Dave Kapp, head of Decca at the time, heard her singing and offered a recording contract which resulted later in a hit for Cindy, “Don’t Talk To Me About Men,” a song she wrote for her first session. Cindy continued to write and record for Decca and was soon making
personal appearances across the country on top network radio shows including the National Barn Dance. At the same time she was writing “tailor made” songs for Gene Autry, Sons of the Pioneers, Tex Ritter, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Ernest Tubb, Eddy Arnold, Hank Snow, Red Foley and Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. Cindy wrote all the words and music to 39 songs for the 8 Columbia Motion Pictures, starring Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. She also wrote the theme songs and music for the Billy Graham motion pictures, “Mr. Texas” and “Oil Town, USA.” Some of her chart-topping songs during this era include:
“Blue Canadian Rockies”
“Bubbles in my Beer”
“Cherokee Maiden”
“Don’t Be Ashamed of your Age”
“Dusty Skies”
“Take Me in your Arms and Hold Me”
“Sugar Moon”
and many more. All of which made the #1 and top ten on the Country charts and many of which are still “standards” today.

In 1954, Cindy and her mother Oree, who was a talented pianist, moved back to Texas to be closer to family. Oree’s father was the famed sacred music composer F.L. Eiland and although Cindy was proud of her grandfather’s legacy, she never got to meet him as he passed away eight years before she was born. The Walkers moved into a modest three bedroom home on Brooks Street in Mexia and she purchased a pink Royal typewriter from the local stationers to write her songs. Cindy was an avid painter and hand painted flowers on the typewriter which is now on display in the Country Music Hall of Fame.

It is in her Mexia, Texas writing studio that she wrote her biggest hits including “Dream Baby” record by Roy Orbison, “Distant Drums” by Jim Reeves and “You Don’t Know Me,” originally a hit for Eddy Arnold in 1956 and then again for Ray Charles in 1962 and Mickey Gilley in 1981. Cindy once said “Picasso doesn’t have a co-painter.” She wrote all of her songs on her own. But if an artist gave her the idea or title for a song, she would include them in the song credits, like Eddy Arnold who gave her the idea for “You Don’t Know Me.” According to BMI, the song has surpassed 6 million terrestrial airplays. Her songs crossed over to the pop charts often with the likes of Cher, Bette Midler, Michael Bolton, Kenny Loggins, The Byrds, Michael Buble and more. Her songs were also recorded in jazz and sacred music genres and that speaks to the versatility of Cindy’s songwriting. Both Bob Wills and Johnny Cash named one of their daughters after Cindy. She was a proud BMI songwriter and for many decades she would spend half the year in Nashville in an apartment to pitch her songs directly to artists and they also loved Mama Oree’s home cooking. They could get supper and a song. Back in Texas, she wrote every day, rising at 5 AM with a cup of black coffee to start the day in her writing studio. Cindy once said she knew a song was finished “...once I was ready to fight a room full of tigers not to change a single word.”

Cindy is a charter member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. In 1990 and 1991, Cindy was inducted into The Western Swing Hall of Fame in three states: Arizona, California and Texas. She’s the recipient of The Golden Guitar Award from the Texas Music Association. She’s in the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame, National Cowgirl Hall of Fame, Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame and was inducted in 1997 as the first female songwriter in the Country Music Hall of Fame. On April 19, 2024 Cindy Walker was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame at a ceremony at the historic Columbia Studio A on Music Row. A site where Cindy’s music was recorded by some of the biggest artists in country music.

Despite the accolades, Cindy never displayed her multiple awards instead she stuffed them under her mattress. To Cindy it was never about her, it was always about the words and music. In 2022, the Cindy Walker Foundation was formed to promote and preserve the legacy of the iconic songwriter including turning her historic Mexia, Texas home into a community arts and music center, a museum and a place for songwriter retreats and a songwriter residency program. Cindy Walker is also honored in her hometown each year on her birthday with the annual “Cindy Walker Days,” and the CWF also works to support the greater songwriting community in honor of the pioneering Cindy Walker.