North Florida Music Hall of Fame

Crossover country didn’t start with Shania Twain.
In the Fabulous Fifties, pop crooners like Tony Bennett and Patti Paige discovered that spruced-up versions of “hillbilly” songs could be a gold mine.
That vein ran both ways: country singers and their labels suddenly discovered thousands of pop-music fans who had developed a taste for country. A few [...]

Northeast Florida musicians broke out the champagne and blasted the amplifiers in October 2002: Modern rock band 3AE became the 100th area act to snag a record deal.
The RCA Records signing is one of eight contracts garnered by Northeast Florida acts in the past two years. They include mainstream rockers Shinedown (signed with Atlantic), singer-songwriter [...]

Act

Debut

Genre

Labels

Blake, “Blind”

1926

Blues

Paramount

Canova, Judy

1939

Cabaret

Okeh, Mercury, Varsity

Haines, Connie

1939

Swing

RCA, Coral, Capitol, Mercury, Columbia, Dot

Waterford, Charles “Crown Prince”

1945

R&B, Gospel

King, Capitol

Masters Family

1946

Gospel

Rich-R-Tone, Mercury,Columbia, Decca

Shay, Dorothy

1947

Cabaret

Columbia

Charles, Ray

1949

Blues/Pop

Atlantic, ABC-Paramount, Warner Bros., Columbia

Whitman, Slim

1949

Country

RCA, Imperial, United Artists, Liberty, Cleveland Intl.

Masters, Owen

1950

Pop

Daniels, Billy

1952

Cabaret

Mercury

Sheldon, Jack

1954

Jazz

GNP, Reprise, Capitol, Dot, Atlas, Concord Jazz, Butterfly

Boone, Pat

1956

Pop

Dot, Motown, MCA, Lion & Lamb, Benson, Bear [...]

This Detroit singer and guitarist was spotted by Molly Hatchet keyboardist and fellow Detroit native John Galvin and recruited to replace Hatchet’s departing singer, Jimmy Farrar, in 1987. Ron Perry wrote one song for Hatchet, “Take Miss Lucy Home,” which appeared on the band’s Capitol album, Lightning Strikes Twice.” However, Perry was displaced by the [...]

Dru led Grinderswitch and Dr. Hector and the Groove Injectors.  He began his music career while still a student at Fletcher High School in Neptune Beach.  One of these early bands was The Soul Searchers (photo courtesy the linked site.)

Born in 1930, in Albany, Ga.; moved to Greenville, Fla. (near Tallahassee) with his family while still an infant. Attended the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind in St. Augustine; lived and performed in Jacksonville in 1945, where he lived at 732 Church Street. After leaving Florida for Seattle, he was signed to Los [...]

Jacksonville-based folk-rock band with own area TV show in mid-1960s; released one single under the name Tiffany System on SSS Intl., a cover of Dino Valenti’s “Get Together.” Included drummer Butch Trucks (Allman Brothers Band), guitarist Scott Boyer (Cowboy, Gregg Allman Band), and bassist David Brown.
(poster courtesy Southern Garage Bands)

Outgrowth of Jacksonville folk-rock trio The Bitter Ind, briefly expanded to a quintet with the addition of Duane and Gregg Allman. Debut album on Vanguard, produced in Miami by Steve Alaimo. Second album, declined by Vanguard, was later issued on Henry Stone’s Bold label as “Duane & Gregg Allman.” Also see Allman Brothers Band; Brown, [...]

This teenage drummer from Jacksonville’s Northside helped form Jacksonville’s Classics. The group was spotted in Daytona Beach by booking agent Alan Diggs, who worked for Atlanta entrepreneur Bill Lowery. Diggs brought the band to Atlanta, and Lowery, who already managed Tommy Roe, scored a deal with Capitol. The band’s first two Capitol singles, including “Pollyanna,” [...]

Charles Eugene “Pat” Boone is descended from Daniel Boone. His father, Archie Boone, studied architecture at the University of Florida in Gainesville, where he met Jacksonville native Margaret Pritchard. The couple settled in Jacksonville, where Pat Boone was born in 1934. The Boones had been hoping for a girl, whom they intended to name Patricia; [...]

A native of Dekalb County, Ala., Pierce Pettis started off as a staff songwriter at Muscle Shoals Sound in Sheffield, Ala, and later became a staff writer for Polygram in Nashville. His big break came in 1979 when Joan Baez recorded his “Song at the End of the Movie.” After releasing an album independently [...]

In 1997, these Douglas Anderson high-school students recorded their first album, Midget Tossing, at Michael Fitzgerald’s Music Factory in Jacksonville Beach. After replacing original singer Ben Dobson with Ryan Key from Modern Amusement, they relocated to California in 2000, where they signed a one-off deal with Santa Barbara-based Lobster Records. After a second signing, an [...]