by William RuhlmannRex Allen, Jr. is the son of Rex Allen, the country music singer who scored seven country hits between 1949 and 1968, the biggest of which was 1953's "Crying in the Chapel," which crossed over to number eight in the pop chart. Allen Jr. was born in Chicago and traveled with his father from the age of six. He took up the guitar and later worked as a rodeo clown. Moving to Nashville in the late '60s, he broke into the country charts himself with "The Great Mail Robbery" in 1973 and first reached the country Top Ten with "Two Less Lonely People" in 1977.