He was born James Corbit Morris in 1907 in West Richwoods, a settlement near Mountain View steeped in Ozark Mountain music tradition. As a boy, his father taught him folk songs and his grandfather made him an unusual-looking guitar using wood from a fence post, an old ox yoke and the headboard of his grandmother's bed.
At 16 and having attended school for only eight years, he passed the Arkansas Teachers Exam. While still in high school in Mountain View, he taught elementary students in nearby one-room schoolhouses and supplemented his teacher's salary by playing fiddle at local dances and various community events. After attending John Brown College in Siloam Springs, he received a degree in education from Arkansas State Teachers College (now University of Central Arkansas) in Conway. He spent a few years in Arizona, where he hosted an early morning radio show, but returned to Arkansas for a teaching job in Timbo (Stone County).
He used his creative talents to teach history by writing songs about the subject matter. In 1959, a musician named Johnny Horton recorded "The Battle of New Orleans," a song he had written to teach about the War of 1812. The song won a Grammy Award. Also, in the same year, Eddy Arnold, one of the most popular country artists of the time, recorded "Tennessee Stud." During 1959, a half-dozen of his songs made it to the American song charts and he, to demonstrate traditional American music, was invited to sing before Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev during the first visit of any Soviet leader to the United Nations.
After performing around the country, he returned to Timbo, where he promoted and helped found the Rackensack Folklore Society, an organization for the purpose of perpetuating the traditional folk music of the people of Arkansas, especially in the mountainous areas. He also was a formidable force in the effort to gain National Wild and Scenic River status for the Buffalo River.
Who was this colorful character who, throughout his career wrote thousands of songs, almost all having to do with some aspect of American history?
Style on 05/24/2020