Babineaux Blanco. A professor emeritus of mass communication at Louisiana State University, Mann held the Manship Endowed Chair in Journalism at the Manship School of Mass Communication at LSU for 18 years.
He applied the “Page 99 Test” to his latest book, You Are My Sunshine: Jimmie Davis and the Biography of a Song, and reported the following:
Page 99 of You Are My Sunshine: Jimmie Davis and the Biography of a Song does not give the reader much insight into the history of the iconic song in my book’s subtitle. This page is devoted to Davis’s transformation from country singer to gospel music entertainer in the early 1950s, four years after the conclusion of his first term as Louisiana governor.Visit Robert Mann's website.[Davis] surely noticed that other country artists were releasing more gospel songs. Popular acts like the Bailes Brothers and Molly O’Day had made gospel records since the late 1940s. Davis’s label, Decca, had inaugurated a “Faith Series” in March 1950 featuring gospel recordings by its top stars, including the Andrews Sisters, Ernest Tubb, and Red Foley. Foley’s 1950 recording of the gospel standard “Just A Closer Walk With Thee” was a top-ten country hit in July 1950. In February 1951, Eddy Arnold’s “May The Good Lord Bless and Keep You” for RCA Victor reached number five on the country chart. And that summer, Foley released another gospel single, Thomas A. Dorsey’s “Peace In The Valley.” It became the first million-selling gospel record. It’s unclear how much these hits influenced Davis, but by 1951, he had gone all in. He would record almost nothing but gospel music for the next two decades. It was a brilliant decision that kept his career alive. Within a few years, as rock and roll exploded in popularity, most of the top country stars of the 1940s and early 1950s saw their careers decline. But, because he had already migrated into a new genre, Davis’s career survived and thrived.When I began working on this book, I set out to explore the background of Louisiana’s state song, a simple lullaby that I thought Jimmie Davis wrote. At the time, I had no idea I would chronicle four decades of Louisiana political history and as many years of country music history, all through the lens of this iconic song.
Not only were his audiences ready for this new, dignified, upright Jimmie Davis, but his voice was well-suited for gospel. On the first recordings with the Anita Kerr Singers, Davis’s voice was pure and smooth, with a revitalized, heartfelt quality. Perhaps it was the new sparer instrumentation. Or maybe it was the support of masterful backup singers. Whatever the case, it was a fresh and appealing sound.
In re-launching his career as a singer of sacred songs, Davis was also a trailblazer. There were few major solo artists in Southern gospel. When Davis entered the field, singing groups— mostly quartets—dominated the genre. They roamed the South, performing in churches and other venues. Among the most prominent were The Chuck Wagon Gang, The Speer Family, The Blackwoods, The Statesmen, and The Sunshine Boys Quartet. For Davis, the new emphasis on gospel music boosted his waning career. The decision came with a ready audience that had followed him for years and loved gospel music as much or more than they loved country music. Those already toiling in the southern gospel field regarded his advent not as threatening competition but as an enormous compliment. “The gospel music industry profited during the 1950s from a genuine celebrity in its midst,” James R. Goff Jr. wrote of Davis in Close Harmony: A History of Southern Gospel.
Here's the book’s bottom line: Davis didn’t write “Sunshine,” but the song was the foundation of his remarkable political career as well as vital to the growth and respectability of hillbilly music, what we now know as country music. “Sunshine” and other seminal hillbilly songs helped give the nascent musical genre respectability by crossing over into popular music when stars like Bing Crosby and other non-hillbilly artists recorded them in the early and mid-1940s. It was one of the main reasons for Davis's induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1972.
“Sunshine” was also vital to Davis’s political success in the 1940s and 1960s. It helped him become Louisiana’s governor twice. That’s because “Sunshine” and other hit songs like it allowed him to overcome and obscure the fact that he had made a series of bawdy Blues records in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Those songs -- with names like “Bed Bug Blues,” “High Behind Blues,” “Tom Cat and Pussy Blues,” and “She’s a Hum Dum Dinger from Dingersville” -- threatened to derail his embryonic political career. But the wholesomeness of his popular, trademark song overwhelmed all that and blunted his opponents’ attacks.
Although he didn’t write “Sunshine,” it’s impossible to appreciate the song’s cultural and political significance unless you understand Davis, his personality, artistry, and long and colorful political career.
The Page 99 Test: Kingfish U: Huey Long and LSU.
--Marshal Zeringue
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