John Gale "Johnny" Horton (April 30, 1925 – November 5, 1960) was an American country music and rockabilly singer. Rising to fame slowly over the course of the 1950s, Horton earned great fame in 1959 performing historical ballads, beginning with the song "The Battle of New Orleans" (written by Jimmy Driftwood), which was awarded the 1960 Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording. The song was awarded the Grammy Hall of Fame Award and in 2001 ranked No. 333 of the Recording Industry Association of America's "Songs of the Century". His first hit, a number 1 song in 1959, was "When It's Springtime in Alaska (It's Forty Below)". 　　During 1960, Horton had two other successes with "North to Alaska" for John Wayne's movie, North to Alaska and "Sink the Bismarck." Horton died in November 1960 at the peak of his fame in an automobile accident, less than two years after his breakthrough. Horton is a member of the Rockabilly Hall of Fame and the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. 　　Horton was born in Los Angeles, to John Loly Horton (1889–1959) and the former Ella Claudia Robinson (1892–1966), the youngest of five siblings, and reared in Rusk in Cherokee County in east Texas. His family often traveled to California to work as migrant fruit pickers. After graduation from high school in Gallatin, Texas, in 1944, Horton attended the Methodist-affiliated Lon Morris Junior College in Jacksonville, Texas, with a basketball scholarship. He later attended Seattle University and briefly Baylor University in Waco, although he did not graduate from any of these institutions. 　　Horton soon returned to California and found work in the mail room of Hollywood's Selznick Studio. It was here that he met his future first wife, secretary Donna Cook. 　　Horton and his older brother, Frank, briefly pursued the study of geology at Seattle, Washington, in 1948 but both ended after a few weeks. He went to Florida, then back to California before leaving for Alaska to look for gold. It was during this period that he began writing songs. He joined Frank in Seattle, went south to Los Angeles, then after Frank married, left for Texas. After much prodding from his sister Marie, he entered a talent contest at the Reo Palm Isle club in Longview, Texas, sponsored by radio station KGRI in Henderson and hosted by station radio announcer and future country music star Jim Reeves. Horton won first prize—an ashtray on a pedestal. Encouraged by the contest, he returned to California, bought some Western-style clothes and entered talent contests. 　　Horton came to the attention of entrepreneur Fabor Robison, whose first job as manager was to give him a job with Cliffie Stone's Hometown Jamboree on KXLA-TV in Pasadena, California. During his early guest performances he worked with musicians such as Merle Travis and Tennessee Ernie Ford. The station then gave him a regular half-hour Saturday night program billed as The Singing Fisherman, during which he sang and displayed his casting skills with a fishing rod. Around this time he also hosted the radio program Hacienda Party Time for KLAC-TV in Los Angeles. 　　A mixture of Horton's television performances and Robison's acquaintances earned him a couple of singles with the minor Cormac recording company. The first single coupled "Plaid And Calico" with "Done Rovin'" and the second "Coal Smoke, Valve Oil and Steam" with "Birds and Butterflies". After the Cormac label ceased operation, Robinson acquired the masters and started his own company named Abbott Records. By mid-1952, ten Horton singles had been issued but none was successful. They were, for the most part, ordinary western-style songs. 　　After marriage to Donna and a honeymoon in Palm Springs, he relocated to Shreveport to be near the Louisiana Hayride, on which he appeared on a regular basis. Robison persuaded Mercury Records A&R man Walter Kilpatrick to hire Horton, who began with his songs "First Train Headin' South" b/w "(I Wished for an Angel) The Devil Sent Me You" (Mercury 6412), with good reviews by the trade newspapers. 　　Horton was married twice. His first marriage, to Donna Cook, ended with a divorce granted in Rusk, Texas. In September 1953, he married Billie Jean Jones, the widow of country music singer Hank Williams. (She was Williams' second wife.) With Billie Jean, Horton had two daughters, Yanina (Nina) and Melody. Billie Jean's daughter, Jeri Lynn, was also legally adopted by Johnny.