Tex Dean

Tex Dean, the Carefree Cowboy

A Rodeo Rider in Miami

Tex Dean was a rodeo performer and country music artist that roamed the United States extensively. He made appearances on many radio stations and for some time, was a featured performer on Miami radio. He even managed rock'n'roll singer Wally Deane for some time.

Tex Dean was born in either Bivins or Midland, Texas, depending on which source you believe, and left the parental farm at age 13 to join a wild west rodeo show. Eventually, he led his own traveling show but sold the venture and became a professional trick and rodeo rider. Besides all this wild west entertainment, Dean was also musically inclined and would play guitar or sing a song once in a while.

Escanaba Press August 9, 1948
(Escanaba, Michigan)

Dean closed down his rodeo show around 1947, gave up riding and and went into the music business. He started his own music traveling show and his own band, the Carefree Cowboys, which included also "Texas Cowgirl" Ginger Rody (stage name for Dean's wife Ruth), Cousin "Take-It-Away-Leon" (who might have been Leon McAuliffe), and others. Dean and the Carefree Cowboys appeared on many stations throughout the years. He made stops at WWVA in Wheeling, West Virginia, KRLK in Little Rock, Arkansas, and by 1953 at KWKH in Shreveport, Louisiana. In between, he could be heard on WWPB in Miami as well as WKAT in Miami Beach. He was on the latter station as early as March 1948 and Dean would return to the Miami area frequently throughout the 1950s.

In 1953, Dean began recording for Lillian McMurry's Trumpet record label from Jackson, Mississippi. Dean and his band recorded a session at ACA Studio in Houston, Texas, on February 23, 1953, which produced four tracks. "Dreamy Georgiana Moon" b/w "Naponee" was his debut release on Trumpet #202 in August that year but seems to have gone nowhere sales-wise. The two remaining tracks, "Moonshine in the North Carolina Hills" and "S.P. Blues" were paired for Trumpet #203 but in the end remained unissued. The band on these cuts included Dean on vocals and guitar, his wife Ruth on guitar, Herb Remington on steel guitar, Tommy Curter on fiddle, and George Clark on bass.

Probably in early 1955, Dean and his wife Ruth became acquainted with a young singer from Washington, DC, named Wallace Van Riper "Wally" Deane (the similar surname was a coincide). They discovered him when he was playing the Shoremeade Hotel in Miami and took a liking at him. Wally Deane was an aspiring rock'n'roll singer, trying to break into the music business, and Dean began managing him, probably hoping to get a bit of the cake as well.

Billboard June 20, 1953

A few months afterwards, Dean contacted Lilian McMurry, who liked what she heard and saw Wally Deane as a potential answer to Elvis Presley. Sessions for both artists followed in spring of 1955 at McMurry's Diamond Studio in Jackson, Mississippi, and a second single appeared under Tex Dean's name for Trumpet's follow-up label Globe, "I'm Sleepy (Show Me the Way to Go Home No.2)" b/w "Jealous Teardrops" on Globe #235 (a third song, "I'm Glad for Your Sake", remained in the vaults). Wally Deane would play music sticks on this record as well. Other group members included Ruth Dean on vocals, Billy Dear on guitar, Red Thomas on fiddle, David Campbell on piano, Johnny Porter on bass, and Johnny Laughlin on drums. Wally Deane in turn cut "Wabash Cannonball" and "I'm Losing You", which remained unissued, but a second session produced a rock'n'roll release out on Globe under his own name, "Cool, Cool Daddy" b/w "It Ain't Fair, Baby" (the B side being a duet with Ginger Rody, #238).

Apparently, none of the discs sold especially well and their stint with Trumpet/Globe ended. Dean's association with Wally Deane broke up and Wally went on to record in Miami for the Arctic label in the late 1950s and early 1960s as well as recording some unreleased demos. Tex Dean also made some more records with a vocalist named Buddy Main, recording at Harold Doane's ART studio but the songs "Is It Wrong?" and "It's Those Memories of You" disappeared in Doane's vaults.

Tex and his wife went to Virginia, where they continued to perform but dropped out of sight at some point. I found no info when or where Tex Dean passed away.

Discography

Trumpet 202: Tex Dean & the Carefree Cowboys - Dreamy Georgiana Moon / Naponee (1953)
Trumpet 203: Tex Dean & the Carefree Cowboys - Moonshine in the North Carolina Hills / S.P. Blues (unrel.)
Globe 235: Tex Dean & his Texans - I'm Sleepy (Show Me the Way to Go Home No.2) / Jealous Teardrops (1956)
ART No.#: Buddy Main with Tex Dean & his Band - Is It Wrong? / It's Those Memories of You (acetate, unrel.)

Sources

• Hillbilly-Music.com entry

• 45cat entry and 45worlds/78rpm entry

• Wally Deane website

• Praguefrank's Country Music Discographies entry