Shinedown
Singer Brent Smith was the genesis of Shinedown; in fact, the band was created as a vehicle for Smith’s incredible voice. He was brought from Tennessee by management to record some demos and find a band in Jacksonville. They found Jasin Todd and Brad Stewart here in town. Recent UCG grad Barry Kerch joined on drums and the band was set. Relentless touring and solid songs built their following, which peaked with the smash hit, “Second Chance.” They are on the most successful bands in Modern Rock Chart history.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJVGg_f0HMY
Johnny Tillotson
Johnny Tillotson’s heyday was in the ‘tween years of rock n roll; in between the first wave of hall of famers and the British invasion. In that time frame, Jacksonville-born Johnny Tillotson racked up 14 top 40 pop hits. Tillotson’s sound was more akin to the Everly Brothers, a pop-country mix, with Tillotson’s leaning more to the country. He covered well-known country songs (“Send Me the Pillow”, “Funny How Time Slips Away” “I Can’t Help it” “Talk Back Trembling Lips”) and it was Tillotson’s versions of these songs that became the song’s highest rank ever on the pop charts. His highest charting pop hit was “Poetry in Motion” in 1960 and his biggest crossover hit came from a song he wrote “It Just Keeps Right on a-Hurtin in 1962.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwkWE63__z0
Molly Hatchet“hra-bop-bop-yeahh.” Hard to spell but fun to sing along with. That’s the signature break at the end of “Flirtin’ With Disaster” from Molly Hatchet, a band of Jacksonville natives that brought more hard rock to the Southern Rock genre. In fact, most of Hatchet’s music after the debut was “Southern” only in geography. Molly Hatchet was formed in 1971 by lead guitarist and principal songwriter Dave Hlubek and guitarist Steve Holland and dropped their debut in August of 1978. Their first three albums were million-plus cellars and Hatchet became a rock n roll household name. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOhGgRgRsmo
Charlie Singleton
Songwriter Charlie Singleton grew up in Lavilla and lived in Jacksonville until was 37. He moved to New York in the 1950s to become a songwriter and ended up having his songs recorded by Elvis Presley, Pat Boone and many others. He struck gold when Frank Sinatra recorded a song of which he wrote the lyrics “Strangers in the Night”. He also wrote the lyrics to one of the record industry’s “Songs of the Century” : “Spanish Eyes” which eventually was recorded by over 100 artists.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwAERaRUsp0
Yellowcard
The melodic punk aesthetic of Green Day and Blink 182 came alive, with a violin no less, in the music of Jacksonville’s Yellowcard, which formed in 1997 at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. Yellowcard was just getting started as the power punk sound was gaining mainstream acceptance. It was a good time to be in a punk band, especially one as talented as Yellowcard. The title track to their Ocean Avenue CD became a multi-format hit; number one video on MTV, top 15 mainstream rock hit, and top 40 on the pop charts. The single eventually sold enough to go double platinum (2 million sold) and for the album to be certified platinum.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9fLbfzCqWw
Walter “Clyde” Orange of the CommodoresFor 50 years, Jacksonville’s Walter “Clyde” Orange has been a Commodore. Since his freshman year at Tuskegee Institute, the group that blended two bands from the university started in 1968 (and eventually signed with Motown Records a few years later) is still going with Orange as its leader. Given, when most people think of the Commodores they think of Lionel Richie’s ballads, and for good reason; most of their biggest hits came from the pen and voice of Richie. But after the love songs have gone, there is only one “Brick House.” Yes, that’s Orange’s lead vocal showing the funky side of the Commodores. Orange attended Northwestern (when it was then a high school ) on 45th Street.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5EmnQp3V48
Nathaniel Orange and Johnny McGowan
Englewood High school friends Orange and McGowan have many musical aliases; individually CC Lemonhead (Orange) and Jayski (McGowan); collectively they have been known as The Bass Mechanics, a part of the Da SWAT Team songwriting collective; they were half of the Chill Deal Boyz, half of 95 South and 2/3 of Quad City DJs. You can simply call them the top producers of Miami bass music of the 90s. Among the hits for which they are responsible: “Whoot, There it Is”, “Tootsee Roll”, “Cmon and Ride it (The Train)” (all three platinum-selling singles) and “Space Jam”. Told you they were huge.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-DpRcxK_N8
Rita Coolidge
Jackson High grad Rita Coolidge spent the first part of the 1970s as an in-demand background singer, on the road and in the studio. When she became an artist of her own, she was perfect for the laid back part of 70s with her easy-going hits; the biggest being a cover of Jackie Wilson’s “Higher and Higher” and Boz Scaggs’ “We’re All Alone”. As a songwriter she claims to have co-written two iconic songs of the 70s; the Carpenters’ hit “Superstar” and the classic Eric Clapton hit “Layla”. Read her autobiography to get the full, crazy story of those (hint: it was the 70s).https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DJXeglQgkc
MA$E
For the better part of the 1990s, hip-hop had broken through, crossed over and started to seriously infiltrate pop music. One of hip-hop’s (and therefore, pop’s) hottest artists in the late 90’s was Mase. Born Mason Betha in Jacksonville, Ma$e moved at age 5 to Harlem. He moved back to Jacksonville as a teenager, attending Lee High School before moving back to New York. After being the featured rapper on two of Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs’ singles (“Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down” and “Been Around the World”) and on Notorious B.I.G.’s “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems”, Mase released his own music. Seen as the new superstar of Combs’ company after the death of Notorious B.I.G., Mase’s debut sold millions, spawning three singles that all went at least gold (one platinum).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIvEiTrq9kk
Pat BooneThere was only one bigger music star in the late 1950s than Jacksonville-born Pat Boone; and when you’re number two behind only Elvis Presley in any aspect of music in the 1950s, you must have been huge. Boone still has the record of spending 220 consecutive weeks on the Billboard pop charts with his constantly charting songs. Add television and movie appearances and it took Elvis to keep him from being the number one star of the latter part of that decade.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=von9jW-_eqI
Tim McGraw has just enough of a connection to Jacksonville that so many have the “I went to high school here with him…” or “I played Little League baseball with him”…etc. stories. Truth is, McGraw was conceived here, born and raised in Louisiana, moved back here after high school, did attend community college here shortly, sang around at some bars, then split for Nashville in 1989.
In case you haven’t heard the story, Tim’s mom, Betty, was a teenager attending Terry Parker High, lived in Arlington in the same apartments as many of the players of the minor league Jacksonville Suns baseball club. She had a fling with one player, pitcher “Tug” McGraw. Betty got pregnant, and according to her book, the family was moving before she knew she was pregnant, and Tim was born in Louisiana.
Tim McGraw
Tim McGraw has just enough of a connection to Jacksonville that so many have the “I went to high school here with him…” or “I played Little League baseball with him”…etc. stories. Truth is, McGraw was conceived here, born and raised in Louisiana, moved back here after high school, did attend community college here shortly, sang around at some bars, then split for Nashville in 1989.
In case you haven’t heard the story, Tim’s mom, Betty, was a teenager attending Terry Parker High, lived in Arlington in the same apartments as many of the players of the minor league Jacksonville Suns baseball club. She had a fling with one player, pitcher “Tug” McGraw. Betty got pregnant, and according to her book, the family was moving before she knew she was pregnant, and Tim was born in Louisiana.
McGraw has gone on to be one of the biggest selling artists in country music history, racking up 10 platinum albums and two dozen gold and platinum singles.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9TShlMkQnc
Blackfoot
Different music scenes in different cities always begat a pop music family tree of sorts – this band sprung from this band, which all joined this band. The Jacksonville scene in the late 1960s spawned many that make up this book and Blackfoot is one of them.
Rickey Medlocke, Jakson Spires, and Greg T. Walker all grew up in the same part of the Westside of Jacksonville as soon-to-be-members of 38 Special, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Lynyrd Skynyrd and numerous other local bands. Blackfoot was signed in the late 1970s and their album Strikes was a platinum smash, including Medlocke’s grandfather, Shorty, on harmonica on the hit “Train Train”.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMclpOK7a2w
Jason Aldean
If you lived in some apartments on the Southside in the early 1980s and a toddler named Jason Williams with his mother Debbie lived by you, there’s a chance you were neighbors with Jason Aldean. Aldean, born Jason Aldine Williams, moved with his mom after his parents’ divorce and lived here for a short time. Aldean’s vague memory of living here was going to the beach a lot, which made quite an impression on a kid who spent most of his life in land-locked Macon, Georgia. Needless to say, his music career exploded and is now one of the biggest country artists going.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9xYYSAo7UU
Derek TrucksGreat guitarists have been doing their thing in Jacksonville for nearly a hundred years. It goes back to a man named Blind Blake (#29 in this book) who lived here quite a while, influencing others with the Piedmont blues style in the 1920s; fast forward to the Sixties where Duane Allman played here in the park on multiple Sunday Jam sessions. Enter a prodigy that was sharing the stage with Buddy Guy by age 12 and is #16 on Rolling Stone magazine’s latest list of Greatest Guitarists of All Time.
Derek Trucks is a Jacksonville native, nephew of the Allmans’ drummer Butch Trucks, and the most amazing slide player alive. Now he and his wife Susan Tedeschi front the Tedeschi Trucks Band; recording Grammy winning albums, and play to sell-out shows around the world. They live in Mandarin.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Zp9oh_tstA
There are dozens more artists that have Jacksonville ties and we will continue to add to this list!!