North Florida Music Hall of Fame

Jazz bassist from Indianapolis, moved to NYC in late 1930s. Worked with Glenn Miller Band until drafted in early 1940s. Rejoined Miller in Army Air Force Band during the war. Also worked with Tex Beneke and Benny Goodman. Later became prominent NYC session player, working with Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, and many others. [...]

Born Juliette Canova in Jacksonville in 1916 (several accounts give her birthplace as Starke and her birthdate as 1913), Canova was a graduate of Northside’s Andrew Jackson High School. She started out with a family musical comedy act, the Three Georgia Crackers, which had its own radio show in Jacksonville. This led to nightclub engagements [...]

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 [...]

This Jacksonville native (b. 1915) ran away from home at age 17, supposedly stowing away on a freighter to Manhattan, where he landed a job as a singing waiter. In 1933, bandleader Erskine Hawkins spotted Daniels, and added him as the featured vocalist for his orchestra. Daniels soon became a popular cabaret singer, and began [...]

Jazz organist, b. Jacksonville 1920, graduate of Florida A&M University (FAMU); sideman with Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Nat “King” Cole, Louie Bellson and others. Also led own bands, recorded for Capitol. A big influence on Jimmy Smith. Died in Jacksonville in 1999.

Nashville-based guitar virtuoso and session player. Recorded million-selling “Sugar Foot Rag” in 1949, later performed on sessions with Elvis Presley (1958-1961), Patsy Cline, Brenda Lee, Mel Tillis, Marty Robbins, Everly Brothers, Boots Randolph, Roy Orbison, Conway Twitty, and Hank Williams. Garland had been a jazz player and had brought a serious jazz sensibility to country [...]

Connie Haines was born Yvonne Jasme in Savannah, Ga., in 1921, Haines moved with her family to Jacksonville as a child. At age 9, known as Yvonne Marie, she became a regular on local NBC radio affiliate WJAX in the 1930s. At 17, she moved to New York, where she worked alongside Frank Sinatra in [...]

Jacksonville-born jazz bassist, worked with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Johnny Hodges, Billie Holiday, Helen Merrill, Jack Teagarden, Teddy Wilson and others.

Country-gospel act, started out in Jacksonville as the Dixie Sweethearts, a husband-and-wife duo, featuring Johnnie and Lucille Masters. Appearing regularly on local radio in 1946, their show was picked up by the Mutual Radio Network and broadcast nationwide. Recorded for Rich-R-Tone, Mercury, Columbia and Decca.

Born in Jacksonville in 1913, Masters was the leader and patriarch of the Masters Family gospel group. Masters wrote several gospel standards, including “Cry From the Cross,” popularized by the Stanley Brothers, “Gloryland March,” and “That Little Old Country Church House.” He also wrote hit tunes for country artists like Hank Snow (“Honeymoon on a [...]

Owen Masters was born in Jacksonville, 1935, the singing son of Johnnie and Lucille Masters, he joined the Masters Family revue in 1947 at age 12. Later spun off as countrified teen idol — basically the model from which Ricky Nelson was patterned a few years later. Died in 1997.

Originally from Miami, Ervin Rouse worked in Jacksonville in mid 1930s as a musician and cabdriver, where he met fiddler and fellow cabbie Chubby Wise, from Lake City. Rouse and Wise co-wrote the bluegrass standard “Orange Blossom Special,” reportedly in the parking lot of Jacksonville’s Union Terminal, while waiting for
that very train. Also see Wise, [...]