Jimmie Davis

James Houston Davis (September 11, 1899 – November 5, 2000) was an American singer, songwriter, and Democratic Party politician. After achieving fame for releasing both sacred and country songs, Davis served as the 47th governor of Louisiana from 1944 to 1948 and again from 1960 to 1964.

Davis was a nationally popular country music and gospel singer from the 1930s into the 1960s, helping country music gain appeal beyond the rural southern U.S. and occasionally recording and performing as late as the early 1990s. His most popular song, a cover of "You Are My Sunshine", was released in 1940 and would become Louisiana's official state song. He appeared as himself in a number of Hollywood movies. He was inducted into six halls of fame, including the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Southern Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame, and the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.

First elected in 1944, Davis served two non-consecutive terms as governor of Louisiana, during which he implemented the first driver's licensing, public employee pension, and civil service systems in Louisiana and opposed desegregation. At the time of his death in 2000, he was the oldest living former governor as well as the last living governor to have been born in the 19th century. He is also the only U.S. governor to have lived in the 1800s, the 1900s, and the 2000s.

Early life and career

Childhood and birth date confusion Davis was born in Quitman, Louisiana, as one of 11 children to sharecropper parents. The birth date listed on his Country Music Hall of Fame plaque is September 11, 1904.

Education Davis graduated from Beech Springs High School and Soule Business College, before completing a bachelor's degree at Louisiana College (now Louisiana Christian University) in 1924. He graduated from Louisiana State University in 1927 with a Master of Arts in psychology; his thesis, which examines the intelligence levels of different races, is titled Comparative Intelligence of Whites, Blacks and Mulattoes.

Career beginnings During the late 1920s, Davis taught history and social studies for a year at the former Dodd College for Girls in Shreveport. The college president, Monroe E. Dodd, who was also the pastor of First Baptist Church of Shreveport and a radio preacher, invited Davis to serve on the faculty. During his teaching career, Davis also performed music on Friday nights for Shreveport radio station KWKH. His early work was in the style of country music singer Jimmie Rodgers.

In 1934, Davis signed with Decca Records and achieved his first major hit, "Nobody's Darlin' But Mine". In 1999, the song was honored with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award, and the Recording Industry Association of America named it one of the Songs of the Century. "You Are My Sunshine" was ranked in 2003 as No. 73 on CMT's 100 Greatest Songs in Country Music.

Davis often performed during his campaign stops when running for governor of Louisiana. After being elected in 1944, he became known as the "singing governor." While governor, he had a No. 1 hit single in 1945 with "There's a New Moon Over My Shoulder". "(I Heard That) Lonesome Whistle" in 1951, supposedly on a fishing day they spent together. They also performed together on KWKH's Louisiana Hayride.

"Two More Years (and I’ll Be Free)"

"It Makes No Difference Now"

"The Last Trip of the Old Ship"

"Memories"

"I’d Love to Call You My Sweetheart"

"Baby Your Mother"

"You're as Welcome as the Flowers in May"

"You Are My Sunshine"

1941 "I'm Sorry Now"

"I've Got My Heart on My Sleeve"

"You'll Be Sorry"

"Sweethearts or Strangers"

"I Loved You Once"

"Don't You Cry Over Me"

"The End of the World"

"What More Can I Say"

"I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes"

"Columbus Stockade Blues"

"Where Is My Boy Tonight"

"I'm Knocking at Your Door Again"

"I Dreamed of an Old Love Affair"

"A Sinner's Prayer"

"Is It Too Late Now"

"There's a Chill on the Hill Tonight"

1945 "There's a New Moon Over My Shoulder"

1946 "Grievin' My Heart Out for You"

1947 "Bang Bang"

1951 "(I Heard That) Lonesome Whistle"

1962 "Where the Old Red River Flows"

Political career

In 1938, Davis became public safety commissioner for Shreveport's city commission government and was promoted to the Louisiana Public Service Commission in 1942.

Earl Long was seeking the lieutenant governorship on the Lewis Morgan "ticket" and led in the first primary in 1944, but he lost the runoff to J. Emile Verret of New Iberia, then the president of the Iberia Parish School Board.

Davis kept his hand in show business, and set a record for absenteeism during his first term. He made numerous trips to Hollywood to make Western "horse operas."

Under the term limit provision of the state constitution then in effect, Davis was limited to a single non-consecutive term in office.

During Davis’s first term as governor, a number of progressive measures were carried out including additional money for school lunches, increased welfare benefits, new tuberculosis hospitals, and a near-doubling of a per-pupil appropriation for education. This latter measure gave education “the biggest boost in the state’s history,” according to one observer. Additionally, Davis signed legislation creating a driver's licensing system, even going as far as to be the first licensed driver under this system. Other legislation signed by Davis funded the construction of new hospitals and roads, raised teachers' salaries, and created the state employee pension fund, the Louisiana State Employees’ Retirement System (LASERS).

Pledging to fight for continued segregation in public education in the wake of such court decisions as Brown v. Board of Education, Davis won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination over William M. Rainach and deLesseps Morrison.

Second term (1960–1964) As part of his support of segregation, Davis initiated passage of state legislation to create the Louisiana State Sovereignty Commission, which operated from 1960 to 1967. It "espoused states rights, anti-communist and segregationist ideas, with a particular focus on maintaining the status quo in race relations. It was closely allied with the Louisiana Joint Legislative Committee on Un-American Activities." It was modeled after Mississippi's commission, established in 1956 to resist integration. Davis tapped Frank Voelker Jr., City Attorney of Lake Providence, to chair the newly established Commission. It was given unusual powers to investigate state citizens, and used its authority to exert economic pressure to suppress civil rights activists. Voelker left the commission in 1963 to run for governor; he withdrew and supported other candidates.

Political legacy Davis established a State Retirement System and funding of more than $100 million in public improvements, while leaving the state with a $38 million surplus after his first term. During his time as governor, Davis raised expenditure on health, education and highways while extending several social welfare programs. New charity hospitals and trade schools were also built, while educational programs for developmentally disabled children were launched. Furthermore, taxes did not increase during his administrations.

Public relations specialist Gus Weill, who worked in the Davis campaign in 1959, wrote a biography of the former governor in 1977, entitled You Are My Sunshine, based on Davis' best-known song.

Personal life Davis married the former Alvern Adams in this historic Shreveport house in the Highlands neighborhood. It was formerly owned by the Eglins, the maternal grandparents of John J. McKeithen.

Davis's first wife, the former Alvern Adams, the daughter of a physician in Shreveport, was the first lady while he was governor during both terms. A little over a year after Alvern's death in 1967, Davis married the widowed Anna Gordon (February 15, 1917 – March 5, 2004) in a small ceremony in Ringgold, Georgia on December 9, 1968 (The Tennessean). Anna was born Effie Juanita Carter and had been a founding member of the gospel quartet The Chuck Wagon Gang along with her father, a sister and a brother. She had been given the stage name "Anna" during the mid-1930s. Davis was a longtime fan of the group, who were gospel music pioneers with more than 36 million records sold in forty years of affiliation with Columbia Records.

In January 2000, Davis was hospitalized in Baton Rouge after a fall. He had suffered a fall in his home some ten months earlier and may have had a stroke in his last days. He is interred alongside his first wife at the Jimmie Davis Tabernacle Cemetery in his native Beech Springs community near Quitman.

Davis was aged 101 years and 55 days, which made him the longest-lived of all U.S. state governors at the time of his death. Davis held this record until March 18, 2011, when Albert Rosellini of Washington achieved a greater lifespan of 101 years, 262 days.

Honors

The Jimmie Davis Tabernacle is located near Weston in Jackson Parish. The tabernacle hosts occasional gospel singing. At the site is a replica of the Davis homestead (c. 1900) and of the Peckerwood Hill Store, an old general store that served the community.

Davis was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1971, the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1972, the Southern Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame in 1997 and The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame in 2008. In 1993, Davis was among the first thirteen inductees of the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield.

The Davis archives of papers and photographs is housed in the "You Are My Sunshine" Collection of the Linus A. Sims Memorial Library at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond.

Filmography Davis had several appearances in movies (usually or always as himself), including: 1942: Strictly in the Groove 1942: Riding Through Nevada 1943: Frontier Fury 1944: Cyclone Prairie Rangers 1947: Louisiana 1949: Mississippi Rhythm 1950: Square Dance Katy