North Florida Music Hall of Fame

Famed alto saxophonist, originally from Tampa, graduate of Florida A&M in Tallahassee. Worked with Oscar Pettiford, Miles Davis (alongside tenor man John Coltrane) and Nancy Wilson. Recorded own albums for Savoy, Riverside, EmArcy, and Capitol. Had a top 40 instrumental hit, “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” in 1966, written by pianist/sideman Joe Zawinul. Also see Adderly, Nat.

Renowned jazz trumpeter, younger sibling of Cannonball Adderly, also grad of FAMU. Worked with Lionel Hampton, Woody Herman Orchestra and Cannonball Adderly’s sextet; formed own group after Cannonball’s death in 1975. Recorded for Savoy, Riverside, EmArcy, Jazzland, Atlantic, Milestone, A&M, Prestige, Steeplechase and Galaxy Records. Also see Adderly, Julian.

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 in Bardwell, Tex., 1914, raised mostly in Oklahoma, Axton came to Jacksonville with her naval-officer husband in 1949, where she became an English teacher at DuPont and Paxon high schools. She also freelanced as a music journalist for Country Song Roundup and served as a regional publicist for Nashville-based concert promoter “Colonel” Tom Parker. [...]

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 Jacksonville Beach Fletcher High School cheerleader, Campbell moved to NYC in the 1950s, signed to El Dorado, Gone and ABC-Paramount labels. Also appeared in the film “Go, Johnny, Go.” She had a minor hit in 1962 with the country- flavored “Girl from Wolverton Mountain” (an “answer song” to Claude King’s “Wolverton Mountain”). Campbell later [...]

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.

Bo Diddley was born Ellas McDaniel in McComb, Miss., Diddley joined the exodus to Chicago in the 1950s, where he recorded several novelty-type R&B hits for Chess Records. Although by the late 1960s, he had been relegated to the nostalgia circuit in the U.S., he retained monumental status in England, where he had become a [...]

Miami vocal duo of Wade Buff and Eugene Adkinson; expanded to a quartet with the addition of Jacksonville musicians Lee Turner (piano) and Eddie Newsom (bass) while all four were students at University of Florida in Gainesville. Landing their own radio show on college station WRUF in 1955, they began using the Adkinson-Buff composition “It’s [...]