Jimmy Hartley

The Orange State Playboy

The Story of Jimmy Hartley

Miami offered an astonishingly high number of local country music singers during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. One of them was Jimmy Hartley, who managed to break into the circle of Miami's top country musicians of the 1950s.

James "Jimmy" Hartley was active in Miami as a musician as early as the early 1950s. Unfortunately, I was not able to come up with substantial information about his earlier life. In 1954, Hartley held two sessions in Miami for the DeLuxe label. DeLuxe belonged to Syd Nathan's King Records company in Cincinnati but had an office in Miami, which was headed by Henry Stone. During 1953 and 1954, Stone spotted several local Miami country singers and set up sessions for them. Hartley's first session took place on July 16 and produced a cover of Terry Fell's "Don't Drop It" and "Cold Moods", which appeared the following month on DeLuxe #2023.

A second session followed on August 10 and "Cinnamon Sinner" b/w "Jennie from Jamaica" (DeLuxe #2026, September 1954) was the result. None of the two discs seem to have sold in attractive quantities so Hartley was not called back into the studio.

Billboard November 23, 1956

In the mid 1950s, Hartley appeared regularly on stage, radio, and TV shows around Miami. He was a cast member of the Gold Coast Jamboree in 1956 and late that same year, local C&W DJ Cracker Jim Brooker started a new Saturday evening TV show on KITV entitled "Big Orange Jubilee" with Hartley being a featured performer on the show. He was also the leader of the house band, aptly named the Orange State Playboys. Both the show's and the band's name were references to the countless orange plantations in Florida. By 1958, there was a live show and dance called the Orange State Jamboree in Miami, also featuring Hartley and the Orange State Playboys.

Even after the show came to an end, Hartley kept the band name. I did not find any mention of him in the late 1950s and early to mid 1960s. In 1968, he had another record released on the Orange label, which was likely his own imprint. The disc featured "Telling It Straight in '68" part 1 and 2, a political comment about Lyndon B. Johnson, presidential candidates Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey, the Vietnam War, and finally supporting ultra-conservative Alabama governor George Wallace.

What happened to Jimmy Hartley is not known to me. If anyone has more info on him, feel free to leave a comment or contact me via e-mail.

Discography

DeLuxe 2023: Don't Drop It / Cold Moods (1954)
DeLuxe 2026: Cinnamon Sinner / Jennie from Jamaica (1954)
Orange W-1968: Telling It Straight in '68, Part 1 / Telling It Straight in '68, Part 2 (1968)

Sources

• 45cat entry and 45worlds/78rpm entry

• A King Records Discography